Welcome to the 2016 Preseason spotlight.
Our big focus this year is making each individual
game of League feel unique and awesome.
From which masteries you choose,
the items you buy,
and what marksman you pick,
we want your decisions to meaningfully impact
how each game plays out.
Let's kick things off with the changes to marksmen.
We're adjusting marksmen in preseason
to take advantage of their shiny new items,
but six champions are getting considerable
changes aimed at making them distinct.
Quinn's all about map mobility.
On practically no cooldown,
Quinn can call on her Valor valet for
quick trips around the map.
We like to think of her as League's firefighter,
able to speedily counter an annoying
split-pusher or whiz across the rift to
help a fleeing ally.
It's all in a day's work for Demacia's wings.
Graves demolishes squishy targets,
trading range for explosive close combat.
His shotgun now acts like one, replacing his
basic attack with a blockable spread of buckshot.
He's also sporting a new Q, End of the Line,
which deals heavy damage to enemies trapped
near walls or in tight corridors.
Corki's damage is the most magical
of the marksmen; his basic attacks
now split their damage between magical
and physical, and he's got a new passive.
Every few minutes, Corki's pit crew will
drop off a payload at his base, granting him
a huge movespeed boost and transforming his
Valkyrie into an audacious bombing run for
some daring team-fight maneuvers.
Kog'Maw was always your late game hypercarry,
now he's your late game GIGACARRY.
Bio-Arcane Barrage doubles his attack speed
as well as the attack speed cap, making him
the only champion to be able to
attack up to 5 times a second.
That does mean the void puppy has to
stand still to take full advantage
of his terrifying attack speed though,
so, y'know, counterplay.
Miss Fortune's retaking her throne as the
markswoman to call when you
want to win a teamfight.
Each level in Bullet Time adds additional
waves of bullets which now scale with crit.
We've also loaded her up with
a new passive - Love Tap - which
gives the bounty hunter bonus damage
the first time she attacks a new target.
Last but not least,
Caitlyn is the sharpshooting siege master.
Yordle Snap Trap now has ammo charges,
letting her pack up and move her zone to towers,
objectives, or anywhere that might need law
enforcement on the fly.
If an enemy steps on one - or you hit them with
90 Caliber Net - your next basic attack against
your victim becomes a super long range headshot.
Following up on all these marksmen changes,
we've tweaked their existing toys
and given them some new ones.
Similar to our AP item changes earlier this year,
we wanted to give marksmen a bunch of itemization
options outside of just "deal more damage".
If you rely on spamming abilities,
check out the new Essence Reaver.
It doesn't just improve your mana regen,
it also grants you additional cooldown reduction
based on your crit chance, leading to some
ridiculously explosive fights.
Meanwhile, Phantom Dancer has some
new bonuses that improve its dueling capabilities,
and the AoE bolts from Runaan's Hurricane can crit,
so everyone gets to be Jinx.
We're boosting Statikk Shiv's waveclear
and introducing Rapid Firecannon,
which charges up to unload a long-ranged,
high-damage shot onto a single target.
And yes, that also works on structures.
There are a ton of items we don't have time to
cover, but before we move on let's talk a little
about starting items.
Along with Doran's classic collection, we've got a
few more added to the mix.
Cull provides bonus gold for each minion killed,
The Dark Seal provides an aggressive
option for those looking to snowball,
while new refillable potions give multiple avenues
of sustain to fit your particular playstyle.
We're making some changes to Vision
that make buying and placing wards more of
a team-oriented objective and less like upkeep.
Supports now have two possible paths
to take their gold income items.
They can either upgrade into their final form,
powerful active and all, or they can combine with
sightstone to free up an extra item slot.
And since you always forgot to do it,
trinkets now upgrade automatically
for everyone throughout the game.
We're also removing stealth wards from the
shop so teams will have to lean more heavily
on their trinkets and pink wards to get vision control.
When wards die, they now leave behind
debris for a few minutes.
Try and find patterns in your enemies' wards
and use that knowledge to crush their spirits.
They'll never see it coming.
Historically, early game objectives have been
focused around the bottom half of the rift,
leaving top lane a lonely slugfest.
We're mixing things up a bit this year.
Meet the Rift Herald!
Herald is a neutral monster who squats inside
the Baron pit for the first 20 minutes.
It gives top laners something to miss when
they teleport away, and a reason to try and
dominate the top side of the map.
The champion who strikes the killing blow on
it will gain a buff focused on early game power
and pushing down the lane.
Taking down the Rift Herald is usually a two
person affair, so team up with your jungler and
serve Herald their eviction notice.
We're entirely reworking the masteries system.
We're giving you fewer overall choices, but
making every choice really matter.
In each mastery tree, you'll start by putting points
into some simple stat increases, followed
by a few unique effects to choose between.
This pattern continues until the final "Keystone Tier",
which seriously impacts your gameplay.
One keystone could see you choosing between
a burst of speed whenever chunking out enemies,
or an AoE nova every few attacks - offering
assassins or bursty mages either
the extra reach they need to close a kill,
or the mobility to escape after the job's done.
The keystones are a big choice, but you'll only get one!
This is just the beginning of our season-long changes
to League of Legends, so your feedback is important
to make sure we're on the right track.
Check out the microsite for the full list of changes,
and get out there and choose your own adventure!