Home Gaming Patch 6.9 for League of Legends marks Midseason, comes packed with big tweaks

Patch 6.9 for League of Legends marks Midseason, comes packed with big tweaks

3 min read
4

Patch 6.9 for League of Legends header

A couple of weeks ago, Riot dropped patch 6.8 for League of Legends. It wasn’t anything spectacular truth be told, just a few standard tweaks here and there. It’s true purpose really was to prepare the MOBA for the much larger, midseason update, which has just arrived now thanks to patch 6.9.

You may remember that Riot did give some indication as to what was to come midseason a little while ago. As promised, mages have received some good, proper loving.

Like marksmen and juggernauts before them, mages are getting a class-wide update, drawing out their individual strengths and cranking them up to 11. If your favourite spellslinger didn’t get directly changed, never fear – mage items have also been recalibrated to enable more diverse playstyles. Time will tell how impactful the changes are, but one thing’s for sure: it’s a good patch for folks that love ability power.

Vladimir, Malzahar, Cassiopeia, Zyra, Brand, and Vel’Koz are the recipients of major mage updates. Anivia, Annie, Fiddlesticks, Kennen, Swain, Syndra, Veigar, Viktor, Xerath, and Ziggs meanwhile, have received some minor tweaks. As Riot have said though, if your favourite mage didn’t get any loving, worry not, for there are a truckload of changes to various mage items too, which should please all those players who love casting a spell or ten.

Along with all those changes, Riot have also tinkered with map objectives. They want players to really sit and think about what’s worth fighting for.

Current balance between mapwide objectives is pretty off-kilter, with turrets taking the lion’s share of strategic value. Our goal with Midseason isn’t just to spiffy up the jungle bosses and buffs, but to make contesting them a viable option when weighed against sieging or defending a turret. By diversifying the rewards on the map, we create an environment where teams constantly re-evaluate the importance of objectives as the game progresses. Between controlling, contesting, and trading, there’s a lot to take (and a lot to take in), but adaptation is key to coming out on top.

There are new elemental dragons to take note of for example. Here’s what rewards await those that best the winged beasts:

  • Earthen Arms: Slaying the Mountain Drake permanently grants 10/20/30% bonus true damage to Epic Monsters and Turrets.
  • Infernal Tribute: Slaying the Infernal Drake permanently grants 8/16/24% increased Attack Damage and Ability Power.
  • Cloud Drake: Slaying the Cloud Drake permanently grants 15/30/45 bonus movement speed while out of combat.
  • Ocean Drake: Slaying the Ocean Drake permanently provides a regeneration effect that restores 10% of your missing health and mana every 18/12/6 seconds.

Hot damn, those are some nice buffs! At the 35 minute mark though, all the above dragons will be replaced with a much stronger, Elder Dragon. Here’s what killing it grants:

  • Cruel Ultimatum: For the next 120 seconds, basic attacks and spells burn the target for 45 (+45 per stack of Elemental Drake buff) damage over 3 seconds
  • Elder Mastery: For the next 120 seconds, increases the strength of Elemental Dragon buffs by 50%

Dragons aren’t the only objective that have been tweaked. Baron Nasher, Rift Herald, and red and blue buffs have received changes too.

I would love to go into detail regarding all of the above, and more, but truth is, patch 6.9 is just too freaking big, and best read in proper detail. If you dont have the time to do so, you can watch this one minute recap instead.

Heck, even that video claims that one minute isn’t enough to cover the entirety of patch 6.9. It really is a huge patch, packed with big changes!

Are you happy with all of them? Does the mage loving and all the objective tweaks make you happy?

Last Updated: May 4, 2016

4 Comments

  1. [looks at Hammersteyn]

    Reply

    • Pariah

      May 4, 2016 at 13:32

      This.

      Reply

  2. Pariah

    May 4, 2016 at 13:33

    What’s Poison Ivy doing in a LoL article?

    Also. 6.9. *jouvenile snicker*

    Reply

  3. Jaden Wilson

    May 4, 2016 at 23:36

    Hello Matthew, awesome article once again. I completely agree with you 100%, there’s some awesome updates on this and no doubt at least one mage is going to be heavily over powered just like most updates. We will see how this goes!

    You can’t have fun when you’re losing all the time though, like me 🙁 I found this LoL guide and was going to grab it, any advice on whether I should get it or not? Thanks in advance http://gamesinfun.com/league-of-legends. Please help me on this I want to rank up ASAP.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

Valorant’s next character is KAY/O, a silencing robot

Usually one suppresses the enemy with a gun rather than a blade but clearly Valorant knows…