LoL 9.17 Patch Notes: Aurelion Sol, Kayle & Co.

The Worlds Championship is on its way, and everything needs to be perfect in order to deliver the spectacular games we are now used to see every year at such an important event. Because of this, releasing a patch in order to solve all the bugs in the game and balance every champion is a key factor. Riot did exactly that: we present to you the complete review of all the changes introduced by patch 9.17.

Since it’s mostly a “fixing” patch, no new features are implemented, and no champions received some big changes. Well, no champions except two: Aurelion Sol and Kayle have gone through some major reworks, as well as buffs and nerfs. Given these important innovations, we will dedicate the first two paragraphs of our review to them. We will then move on to the smaller changes the other champions receive and end with a breakdown of the other Quality of Life improvements.

Champions Changes

• Aurelion Sol

Aurelion Sol gets a necessary change, which means that all of his abilities, except R, have been reworked. Not everything is buffs, even though the champion was not picked often before the patch, signaling that he was perhaps too weak. We’ll see after 10.7.

We’ll start with the passive, Center of the Universe, in which the percentage of damage dealt got reduced by 20% at the early stages of the game. Another nerf regards ability power that now is 0.25 instead of ranging from 0.18 to 0.35. To balance these changes, crowd control can’t interrupt Center of the Universe any more, so that percentage of damage will be more consistent.

The cooldown from Starsurge (Q) is not flat anymore, as it now scales 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 / 7. Movement speed from the ability got buffed and is now 20% instead of 10%. Regarding the Q, 10.7 also brings about Catch Me Catch You, a new effect that will make Aurelion’s star catch up on the dragon if it travels faster.

Speaking of effects, Celestial Expansion (W) also gets one, Let it Rip: whenever the stars are pushed outside the Limit, these will deal increased damage as well as move faster. The cooldown has been increased early and reduced late compared to how it previously was. Mana changed too, as is currently 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110.

We finally get to Comet of Legend (E), which gets a higher range and cooldown while granting increased speed. At the same time, you don’t get extra movement speed when you move in the same direction.

• Kayle

Kayle is the second champion that undergo great innovations. Since she was known for being an incredibly strong late game, while quite useless during the earlier stages of the game, Riot tried to revert such unbalance of strength with patch 10.7. The new changes are implemented as to make her a bit more interesting to play early and not so op late.

First of all, Divine Ascent (passive) has been reversed. Before the new patch, she could ascend to her two forms, Aflame and Arisen, the first at level 6 and the latter at level 11. Now things are exactly the opposite: the first form which Kayle can reach is Arisen at 6, and only then, at 11, Aflame. The ability also has a new effect named Transcendent Attack Damage, and it grants and additional 50 units of range when in one of the forms. Both movement speed and general cast range, though, have been lowered.

Her first ability, Radiant Blast, received Mana Effect, a new effect that replenishes Kyle’s mana by a 50% of the ability’s cost every time she lands it on an opponent. Missile speed range is nerfed from 2000 to 1600, as well as general range, which went from 950 to now 900. Resistance reduction is also lowered from 15% to 10%.

Starfire Spellblade (E) also received nerfs, as the bonus magic damage is reduced: it was 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16% (+ 0.01 per 100 ability power) of the target’s missing health, now it’s 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12% (+ 0.01 per 50 ability power). On-hit ratios changed too: now total attack damage becomes bonus attack damage, and the ability power is 0.25 instead of 0.2.

To conclude, the mana cost from Divine Judgement (R) has been lowered down to 0, while its Area of Effect has been buffed from 475 to 500.

• Galio. The patch tries to bring Galio back into the meta through some buffs. Winds of War (Q) cooldown decreased, Shield of Durand (W) minimum and maximum damage increased. If Riot keeps implementing these small buffs in future patches, perhaps Gallio could end up challenging the top picks in mid, although right now, it seems quite difficult.
• Kalista. She sees some improvements to her base stats: attack damage, mana, and mana growth are all buffed; meanwhile, her abilities don’t get any changes at all.
• Leona. The cooldown of her Shield of Daybreak (Q) is now lower, going from 6 to 5 seconds.
• Lucian. The champion received a base stat buff, as his attack damage is now 64 instead of 61. Quite important since the champion heavily relies on auto-attacks.
• Neeko. A new interesting feature has been added to her passive, Inherent Glamour, thanks to which she can now deactivate the ability without worrying about taking damage, as well as to deactivate her disguise, putting Inherent Glamour on a two seconds cooldown.
• Pantheon. Following the major changes received in Patch 9.16, as it was expected, Pantheon will be receiving some fixes and small tweaks to make him a balanced enough champion. His Comet Spear (Q) now has a new effect, Thrusts, which can increase the physical damage dealt to opponents below 25% of max health. As a nerf, it is no longer useful to apply Aegis Assault (E) to non-epic monsters anymore since the damage reduction no longer works with them.
• Qiyana. It has been pointed out for a while how she is quite OP, so in this patch, both Quiyana’s E and R received some nerfs. Audacity’s base damage went down from 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 to 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200. Supreme Display of Talent does not scale anymore but stays at a flat amount, from 120 / 100 / 80 to 120 at every rank.
• Ryze. The champion undergoes just a small buff, as his base magic resistance is now 34 instead of 30.
• Zyra. In LoL patch 9.17, Zyra is finally receiving a quite good buff. Her ulti Stranglethorns (R) now stays at 100 mana cost instead of scaling up 100 / 120 / 140 as before, and its cooldown decreased to 110/100/90 seconds from 130/120/110 seconds.

Other Changes

We devote, in the last section of our review, some time to explain some general improvements brought by the 9.17 LoL patch. To begin with, the pool of weekly-free champions has now been expanded, going from a number of 10 to 14. Hopefully, more champions will get added in the future.

With patch 9.17, you also get new cosmetics for Ahri, Veigar, Nocturne, Varus, Shen, and Galio, as well as skins for several champions available in your game client. Finally, Riot has fixed several bugs so that now interactions between champions and items are working normally.