League of Legends patch 13.9 is coming out to live servers tomorrow with the newly changed Neeko.
As we are in the middle of the 2023 Mid-Season Invitational and getting ready for the biggest patch of the year with 13.10, LoL patch 13.9 is another small one without any major changes. Well, maybe with the exception of Neeko midsope update release.
Other than Neeko, not a lot of champions will see significant changes. Kayle, Bel’Veth and Swain are getting slight adjustments. Bel’Veth is losing a little bit of her Attack Damage scaling in favor of early clear power in her jungle, while Swain is getting some Death’s Hand (Q) buffs to help his early laning, especially in solo lanes.
There are some small buffs to struggling champions like Trundle, Volibear and Aatrox, who haven’t been meta in pro play or solo queue for a while. And some oppressive champions in both of these mediums like Jinx and Sion will see some small nerfs, but nothing to make them unplayable in your solo queue climb.
Last but not least, Lich Bane is getting 10 more AP after item completion. Once one of the more popular mage items, Lich Bane is one of the worst-performing AP items in the game right now, even AP assassins like Ekko and Fizz are ditching it for things like Nashor’s Tooth. While 10 AP is decent, it probably won’t make this item a must-buy for most champions, although it might be a decent option in games where you are ahead.
Kayle gets some well-deserved attention
Kayle has been struggling in Season 2023’s bot lane focused and snowbally meta as a very scaling-reliant top lane champion. And even in games she reaches her late game power spikes, the Righteous found trouble keeping uptime with her auto attacks. One of the more prominent complaints from players maining the champ was the inability to auto attack during the Ultimate.
With the changes in LoL patch 13.9, Kayle will have a much smaller window where she is out of the fight, a whole second less which is a lot during late game when she can fit two AAs in that time. There are also buffs to the damage radius to the Divine Judgement (R), which does a fair bit of damage. She got some compensation nerfs, but she will probably come out better for it in the end.
Kayle also saw some changes to her Starfire Spellblade (E). She lost a 5% AP ratio on the ability, but the base damages went up a decent amount. This change is a not-so-big nerf for AP Kayle, but a big buff for AD Kayle lovers.
Neeko midscope update is finally out
It’s been nearly a year since Riot first mentioned the rework for League’s favorite shapeshifter. After a very long wait, the midscope is hitting the live servers.
The update has been out on the PBE servers for a couple of weeks now for general testing, and the reception has been quite positive. Neeko’s kit is essentially the same after the midscope, all abilities do the same things and no there are no major number changes. But the most important change is the useability of her passive. Instead of allowing Neeko to transfer only to her teammates, and shift back after the smallest interaction with the Rift or enemy, the dev team now made it so that players can shapeshift into almost anything they come across.
- Neeko Get Sho’Ma!: When Neeko is near a non-epic monster, minion, trap, ward, or plant for two seconds she stores their Sho’Ma. Neeko can click on her bar to become that unit. Click on Neeko’s face to return to Neeko. Click on the little “X” to clear out Neeko’s current Sho’Ma. Only one unit can be stored at a time.
- Neeko Disguise is Durable!: Disguise no longer breaks on taking damage, only when the disguised self would have died or when you are crowd controlled.
Other significant changes are the increased AP ratios on her abilities and the bonus damage to monsters, which might make jungle Neeko more viable. Also, the Ultimate (Pop Blossom) now doesn’t give a shield, instead knocks up enemies to make the ability more consistent.
- Adjusted Ultimate: After channeling for 1.25 seconds, Neeko jumps into the air, knocking up all nearby enemies for 0.6 seconds. Neeko then crashes to the ground with all knocked-up enemies, dealing magic damage to them and stunning them for 0.75 seconds.
When does LoL patch 13.9 go live?
Patch 13.9 will go live on May 3.
The first region that the patch will drop is the Oceania servers at 10 AM AEDT. The rest of the servers will follow suit in the morning hours of their respective regions. Here are the timings for most servers:
- 3 AM PT (NA)
- 5 AM GMT (EUW)
- 3 AM CET (EUNE)
- 8 AM KST (Korea)
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