Patch 10.18 of League of Legends – What Did It Bring?

League of Legends new patches are always amazing, and players of the game are always waiting for them. This is because they can bring new things, such as updates, bug fixes, of buffs to various heroes. The game just got its 10.18 patch, and with it, many things have been added to League of Legends.

So, what can you expect from this patch? What happens with the existing heroes? Moreover, are there any new heroes added? Read all about it here.

Ahri – Updates to the Poster Girl of LoL

Probably one of the most important things that come with the new patch is the update of Ahri. Ahri is one of the poster stars of League of Legends, so it would only make sense if she received some special treatment now and then.

However, the recent patches didn’t benefit Ahri too much. Despite her being one of the favorite heroes in the entire game, she was left behind in recent updates. The mid lane mage had it coming for a while not, and this is what makes the 10.18 patch so great – it finally gave Ahri some more shine.

The plan was to improve her gameplay, according to Mark Yetter. The character does deserve better gameplay considering the popularity it has. New buffs have been considered for her improvement, so her kit would be less heavy and much easier to use. Moreover, the developers are also planning to give her the ability to punish her enemies.

What was changed with this new patch is that her vastayan’s passive, known as “Essence Theft” previously, has been changed to “Vastayan Grace” this patch. Her base health regen also went down to 5.5, while it used to be 6.5 before the update.

A new passive effect has been given to her too. Not to mention, a decaying movement buff has been added to her W. Ahri will definitely be more fun to play as a result and will cause more damages to whoever is in her way.

Samira’s Introduction

With patch 10.18, Riot Games also planned to add Samira, the Desert Rose to the game. She was scheduled to join the champion roster, but unlike the other changes, Samira will not be added at the very start of the patch. It will be exciting to see what she can do, but people willing to try her as soon as she’s released will have to wait a little more.

When released, Samira is going to be the 151^st champion of League of Legends. Riot released a cinematic trailer back on August 30, where they spoke about Samira. “Samira is a gifted, ruthless marksman who charges up her style meter as she hunts for the flashiest kill. Because it’s not about the win — it’s about the thrill,” they said about the new champion.

Some people managed to datamine the game and find out the skills Samira is going to have. According to some of the leaks, the hero has abilities similar to other LoL champions. For instance, some people were saying that her skills are inspired by Urgot’s W, Irelia’s W, Nunu & Willump’s ult, and Katarina’s ultimate.

But for a better look at what she can do, here are some of the abilities she is going to have:

• Q – Flair

With this skill, Samira is going to fire a shot and cause physical damage to whichever enemy is the first one to be hit. When an enemy is in melee range, then casting the ability will cause Samira to slash with her sword and cause physical damage as a result. If used during Wild Rush, all enemies of the champion will get Samira’s strike. Her hits will usually cause 25% bonus damage.

• Passive – Daredevil Impulse

When unleashing this attack, Samira is going to land multiple attacks that are different compared to the previous hit and build a combo as a result. Any combination will boost her Style meter, and the ability will work against both ranged or melee enemies. For those further away from her, she will dash into range against them, whereas for melee enemies, Samira is going to deal with magic damage too. The attacks can also increase depending on the missing health of the opponent she’s fighting.

• R – Inferno Trigger

If Samira’s Style rating is S, then she has the option to use this ability. She cannot do it otherwise. When using it, she will send multiple shots from her weapons, which are going to wildly shoot all enemies around her 10 times for two seconds. The coolest thing about the ability is that it can apply lifesteal, and also do a lot of physical damage. Critical strike is possible with each shot as well.

• E – Wild Rush

Wild Rush will let Samira dash through allies or enemies, slashes every enemy she can pass through. Attack Speed will increase too. And if you manage to kill an enemy champion, then the cool-down of this ability will refresh – isn’t that great?

• Blade Whirl

Blade Whirl is a pretty simple, but powerful skill, one that can slash around the champion for one second. This will cause damage twice for each physical damage. If there are any missiles from enemies in the area, they will get destroyed.

PsyOps Skin Line Addition

Aside from Samira, there’s another new thing that will be seen with the new parch. A new skin line will be added, named “PsyOps”. [email protected] made the reveal about the addition of the skins not long ago. The heroes known to get skins are Vi, Shen, Sona, Ezreal, and Master Yi. Aside from this skin, Ezreal will get a special Prestige version as well.

And since she’s just getting released and the hype is real, Samira will be getting her own PsyOps skin too, making everything even more awaited.

Updates for VFX

• Nocturne
• W: A new attack speed buff effect has been added, as well as a more thematic spell shield.
• Passive: Nocturne’s blades are going to glow as soon as the passive is ready, and the new effect will show the area of effect more properly.
• R: When Nocturne is casting the ability, there will be a new dash effect, while the impact and trail effects have been updated. When an enemy is affected by the spell, a shadowy screen space effect will occur.
• Q: Missile effects have been updated, while the darkness trail has been rebalanced too.
• E: The shadow effects and beam have been updated in order to clearly show the timing.
• Basic attack: New target effects and swipes have been added
• Haunting Nocturne: A spooky thematic has been added for all VFX
• Frozen Terror Nocturne: Winter thematic added for all VFX
• Eternum Nocturne: A sci-fi thematic has been added for all VFX

• Malzahar
• Q: New hit and missile effects have been implemented, and there’s also a quickcast indicator added which has a better hitbox representation
• R: New effects for hit, beam, and AoE have been added
• Basic attack: New hit and missile effects
• Passive: Some shield noise has been reduced, while the shield itself is a little brighter
• E: When debuff spreads to other enemies, there’s a new beam and debuff effect
• W: New basic attack and spawn effects added
• Hextech Malzahar: Hitbox shows more clearly due to updated Q
• Battle Boss Malzahar: Better match to hitbox due to a spaceship rotation update for the Q
• Worldbreaker Malzahar: Hitbox shows more clearly after Q update
• Snow Day Malzahar: Q has a new snowball VFX

• Ignite
• Timing and clarity increased, whereas noise has been decreased

• Tryndamere
• R: At the end of the ultimate, his body is going to flash white for a bit, which shows when the buff expires

• Viktor
• Creator Viktor: In Battlecast thematic, all VFX has been updated
• Basic Attack: New hit and missile effects added
• Deathsworn Viktor: The E size has been adjusted to match the base
• R: There’s a new first cast effect
• W: Gravity zone effect updated
• Q: Shield effect rebalanced while the beam effect has been updated
• E: Hit area can be shown now due to effect updates

Champion Updates

As expected, updates have been made to the existing League of Legends champions. Here are the updates mentioned in the patch notes:

• Ashe

Ashe had Q updates, where there are more Runaan’s Hurricane bolts from the Q of Amethyst Ashe. The skin’s VFX can now be used properly by the Ranger’s Focus Runaan. Besides, the damage of the Runaan Hurricane Wind Fury will not consider the Ranger’s Focus future levels.

As for base stats, the attack damage went from 61 to 59.

• Kayle

For Q: Radiant Blast, 50% of the mana cost for the enemy champion’s hit will not be restored anymore. For E: Starfire Spellblade, there will be no more mana cost, and the missile speed has been boosted from 2000 to 5000. Meanwhile, W: Celestial Blessing got mana cost updates, going from 70/80/90/100/110 to 90/100/110/120/130.

• Ahri

Ahri has multiple updates, The Essence theft of Orb of Deception is her passive now. The health regen decreased to 5.5 from 6.5.

Her Fox-Fire can now offer a 40% movement speed burst, which decays more than 1.5 seconds after being cast. It has a longer cooldown now too, increasing with one second. There will be a 55 mana cost now, compared to the previous 40, and there will be a 200% damage to minions with less than 20% health. After champions, targeting will now be able to have low health minions as a priority.

As for the Vastayan Grace, there will be no more 20% bonus movement speed for 3 seconds when Ahri can make 2 ability hits against another champion in a 1.5-second amount of time. More than that, Essence Theft will be gained by Ahri, specifically one stack for each enemy she can hit. 9 at once can be stored. When the 9 stacks are reached, the stacks will be consumed in order to heal the champion.

• Galio

Galio’s base damage for Winds of War has been decreased, to 70/105/140/175/210.

• Kog’Maw

His armor growth went to 3.25 from 3.5, and the health growth decreased to 85 from 90.

• Jarvan IV

The base damage for his Dragon Strike increased, from 80/120/160/200/240 to 90/130/170/210/250.

• Miss Fortune

For Miss Fortune, there was an increase in the maximum bonus movement speed for Strut, to 55/65/75/85/95 from 50/60/70/80/90.

• Xin Zhao

Wind Becomes Lightning gained a thrust damage increase, and he now has +0.80 attack damage. Due to that, his damage is now 40/75/110/145/180.

• Shyvana

Flame Breath got some changes too. There’s increased response for the dragon form ground some, and the Flame Breath doesn’t cast at maximum range anymore when the player is trying to cast near maximum range. Besides, the ground zone tick rate decreased to 0.5 seconds from 1 second. The dragon form visuals and a cast indicator can now also show the radius of the ability.

Not to mention, the dragon form explosion radius foes to 345 (center check).

• Twitch

Twitch’s Spray and Pray had a change in the reduction of the bolt damage per enemy hit from -20% of the hit before, to -5% per unit hit, and Contaminate for a bonus damage per stack ratio increase to 0.333 from 0.2 ability power.

• Shen

The Ki Barrier shield went from 70-121 to 60-111.

• Sett

Knuckle Down’s bonus damage was updated from 0/20/30/40/50 (+1/2/3/4/5% of target’s maximum health) (+0.01 per 100 total attack damage) to 10/20/30/40/50 (+0.01 of target’s maximum health) (+1/1.5/2/2.5/3% per 100 total attack damage).

• Rumble

Rumble’s Flamespitter increased to 180/220/260/300/340 from 175/210/245/280/315.

Other Updates from the New Patch

Other updates such as QOL changes and bugfixes have been made too. Here are some of the updates to keep in mind:

• Anivia’s W Crystallize is not able to apply the Aspect of the Dragon debuff on opponents anymore.
• The Clash hub has some new tooltips where instructions are given on how to create a team and offer suggestions as to what a player should do during the first-page visit.
• Tryndamere’s E Spinning Dash isn’t able to hit the same target more than once.
• Garen’s W Courage is unable to increase his magic resist and base armor anymore.
• The Teemo Bouncing Noxious Traps can’t put a stop to his basic attacks anymore
• For BETA, it is now possible for other teams to add you to their rosters instead of making your own team when you visit the Clash Hub and become a Free Agent.
• There’s no large area revealed by Evolved Void Spike around Kha’Zix when hitting enemies.
• During invulnerability, champions who have the Aspect of the Dragon will not be burned anymore.
• Now, the armor material of Papercraft Anivia is the correct type as it’s been changed. Moreover, when opponents are hitting her, wood sounds will be heard.
• Various Black Frost Anivia sounds have been restored.
• The armor material of Hextech Anivia has been changed as well, and players will hear metal sounds when she gets hit.
• For all tooltips, colors across the board have been updated.
• You can now find a “Show More Info” level-up grid view for all champions.
• If in colorblind mode, the Poison Trail VFX from Beekeeper’s Singed’s Q will be easy to distinguish.
• When it comes to champions, their magic damage/physical damage/true damage is highlighted to the particular color of the champion, although not all heroes have this yet.
• A bug that caused Rift Herald to cause turret damage has been fixed.
• After Zed’s death, while he’s in the middle of the Dance animation, you will not see the clone on the map anymore.
• Caitlyn cannot trigger Summon Aery more than one time at once.
• When Kled’s bonus health grows, the Cinder passive damage of Bami will get a proper increase.
• A bug that caused the sound/unique hit SFX for Lissandra’s Q to not work properly has been fixed.

These are only some of the changes made, so check out the patch notes for the rest, as you will find more interesting and amazing changes.

Final Thoughts

It seems that a lot of things have been changed, updated, or fixed with the patch 10.18 release. Seeing this can only make players more excited about the next patch release.