League of Legends patch 9.16 preview

Riot Games

On Aug 9, developer Riot Meddler posted a preview of planned changes for patch 9.16 on the official forums. In the forum post, he explains the upcoming nerfs and buffs to champions, the release of the chromas, and more.

Patch 9.16 champion changes

While there will be more changes in patch 9.16, here are the initial champions receiving buffs. Starting off with Jax, the developers intend to reduce the early level cooldown of his Q, Leap Strike, from 10 to 8 seconds at rank 1. This means a change in the cooldown reduction per rank of his Q from 1 second to 0.5 seconds per level.

Riot nerfed Lux a little too much in patch 9.14, so she will regain some strength in her shielding ability. The final buff announced for this patch is for Shen. The blog explains Shen will receive some strength to the % health damage of his Q, Twilight Assault. Furthermore, Shen’s E, Shadow Dash, will also increase, allowing him to become a better split pushing champion.

Next, it’s time for some good news for the fans of competitive League of Legends. The next patch will bring with it some nerfs to two of the most boring mid lane champions. Azir will see the cooldown of his Q, Conquering Sands, lengthened slightly. Corki, in contrast, will be hit much harder. Corki will see his base AD and AD per level reduced in the upcoming patch. That will likely hurt him for a long time to come.

Honor 5 Chromas

We talked about the Honor 5 Chromas in-depth just last week. However, they will finally become available for you to use with patch 9.16. The developers further stated that those who opened their Honor 5 capsules before this patch will receive their tokens to unlock the skin or chromas at a later time during patch 9.16.

Teamfight Tactics developer insights

Besides the announced changes for League of Legends, we will have many more updates to Teamfight Tactics during next week’s update. Riot Meddler didn’t go into specifics yet, but you can expect to see some improvements to the Ranked system soon.

To end his post, he mentioned the item drops in Teamfight Tactics and the way they impact the start. Here is what Riot Meddler has to say about the topic:

I’m aiming to cover this topic in detail in a post within the next couple of weeks. Was hoping to do so this week but would like to give the TFT team a bit more time to map out their upcoming item work first. Short version for now though:

• We think (the) high game to game variation is very important for TFT given adaptability is one of the most important skills TFT tests
• We don’t think solutions like exact same number of items per player every game are the way to go
• We don’t think the current drop system gives sufficient options/alternatives to players who aren’t getting many items either though, so are looking to make some changes. Details, or at least planned direction, to come once we’ve got something solid enough to share

Be sure to stay tuned for more updates surrounding League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics. To find out more about what champions will be changed for Teamfight Tactics, and the introduction of the Hextech Trait, be sure to check out the Teamfight Tactics patch 9.16 preview.

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I’m Arend Zijdenbos, from the Netherlands. Gamer for as long as I can remember. My current focus is further improving at esports journalism. Currently, I write for Daily Esports and PCInvasion. For more of me, find me on twitter @Azijdenbos.