The long awaited League of Legends patch 8.15 is finally here, and it’s bringing a ton of changes to some key elements of play. Perhaps the most important and highly controversial topic – getting crit-based AD carries back into play – is getting resolved.

How will this impact the game overall? Well, for starters, you’re going to be seeing fewer mages and bruisers in the bottom lane (instead of AD carries), and a lot more of Caitlyn, Tristana, and other cookie cutters ADCs.

It probably won’t be a huge shift from the current meta, especially seeing how Riot wants to retain the current flexibility in the bottom lane, but it’s going to be noticeable.

It will also heavily impact professional play. Even though playing traditional marksmen in the bottom lane is perfectly viable, it wasn’t always the best and most optimal way to play the game. Because of this, we’ve seen numerous teams struggle, and even though certain teams managed to stay afloat, it was a really tough couple of weeks for almost everyone involved.

Patch 8.15 focuses mainly on AD carry itemization, but there are some other interesting bits as well.

So, without any further ado, let’s dive in and break down patch 8.15!

Marksman Itemization Changes

Perhaps the biggest problem that came as a result of certain mid-season changes is the fact that AD carries needed more time to reach a certain power spike. They required far more gold than, say, a bruiser or a mage would result in the exact same role.

With these changes, Riot wants to shorten the time frame between starting the game and actually having some effective damage as an AD carry. By decreasing item prices, you’re going to be able to reach your power spike a bit earlier, but most items are getting their damage reduced a bit, so that even when you do spike it’s not too much.

So, what’s changing?

Infinity Edge is 200G cheaper, it’s getting a different build path (a bit easier to build now), -5% true damage conversion and 10 less AD.

Stormrazor is 400G cheaper (quite a lot), has a different build path, 10 less AD and -5% attack speed.

Essence Reaver is getting its damage nerf reverted, so you’re going to be getting 75AD from patch 8.15 onwards. Not an earth-shattering change, but if you’re playing the likes of Lucian or Sivir, you’re probably not complaining about getting a free AD.

Zeal items (Rapidfire Cannon, Phantom Dancer, Statikk Shiv, Runaan’s Hurricane) are also getting cheaper, however, by just 100G.

And finally, Mercurial Scimitar is getting nerfed, as it’s giving a bit too much without any direct tradeoffs. It’ll be 200G cheaper, but you will be losing 15AD.

Support Item Changes

Supports currently get to have a pretty solid laning phase-out of the gates, and cheap starting items are a part of the problem.

All three starting items (Ancient Coin, Relic Shield, Spellthief’s Edge) will be more expensive (50G), but their upgrades will cost 50G less.

Jungle Item / Funneling Nerfs

Riot decided to gut funneling comps almost completely with patch 8.14; however, their approach wasn’t exactly perfect. This time around, they’re tweaking their nerfs so that its a bit more clear and direct. Now if you have the highest minion score on your team (something a jungler should never have if your laners are performing even remotely well), killing lane minions will give you 10 less gold.

Perhaps the most interesting change is the fact that this applies to Twisted Treeline (3 vs. 3) as well. Now, not a lot of people play Twisted Treeline these days, but the funneling strategy was a staple part of ranked 3 vs. 3 games, and it was getting a bit out of hand. With this change, we should be seeing a lot more standard meta on Twisted Treeline, that being a bruiser/fighter in the top lane, jungler, and AP mage in the bottom lane.

Rune Changes

The only rune change this time around is regarding “Perfect Timing,” or more frequently just called “Stopwatch.” They’re prolonging the time that has to pass before you’re able to activate your stopwatch, and that’s perhaps a bit unfair seeing how this is a nerf that’s coming to negate its effectiveness in professional play.

The stopwatch is pretty balanced in solo queue where team cohesion is often non-existent, and the fact that you’re going to have to wait two more minutes before being able to use it is a pretty big blow.

Champion Changes

The reworked Akali will be making a grand entrance on the Summoner’s Rift in 8.15! You can check her latest champion spotlight here or our own ability breakdown here.

There are also some minor buffs and nerfs, and while a good portion of them are targeted at professional play, you should be seeing some impact in your solo queue games as well.

Nerfs

Fiddlesticks currently has way too much poke and damage in lane even as support and has been taking over the competitive realm of League of Legends for weeks now. Riot is upping the cost to Fiddle’s E “Dark Wind” by 20 mana at early levels, and they’re decreasing its base damage per hit by -5, which isn’t that much, but it’s going to be a noticeable difference overall.

Kindred also saw a lot of play in competitive League over the last couple of weeks, and recent bug fixes really propelled Kindred back into the S tier jungler category. They’re decreasing the bonus attack speed for his W “Wolf’s Frenzy” by half (so from 50% to 25%), and they’re upping the cooldown on his ultimate by 20 seconds, which is quite a big nerf. That said, it is a pretty big ultimate and it can heavily impact the outcome of a fight so it should be on a longer cooldown anyways.

Morgana is also getting nerfed – her base mana regen was way too big (15 mana per 5 seconds ⇒ 11 mana per 5 seconds) and more importantly the mana cost for her E “Black Shield” is going up by 30 mana, so she won’t be able to spam it non-stop in the early stages of the laning phase. She’s offering a bit too much at the moment and these nerfs should bring her down to earth a bit.

Quinn has emerged as a really strong, somewhat niche pick in the AD carry role. They’re decreasing her base armor (32 ⇒ 28) as well as her passive base damage from 15-100 (level 1 through 18) ⇒ 10-95 (levels 1 through 18).

Buffs

Fizz is getting a lot of buffs in the patch 8.15, and it’s starting to look a bit scary at this point. The recent changes to his W made him a far weaker champion which wasn’t Riot’s intention, so they’re upping his stats all-around. His W “Seastone Trident” is getting a higher base, active as well as on-hit damage ratios, whereas his ultimate “Chum the Waters” is also getting a huge bump in AP ratios.

These changes should propel him into the spotlight almost overnight.

Irelia is getting both buffs and nerfs this time around. They’re increasing her base attack damage (60 ⇒ 63) as well as health (550 ⇒ 580), her passive is getting buffed (more damage per stack both early and late), her Q “Bladesurge” is getting nerfed quite a bit especially in the early game as well as her W “Defiant Dance” (now 50% damage reduction at all levels), and her E “Flawless Duet” is getting decreased range (by 50) as well as base damage – but not by much.

Overall, these aren’t huge changes, they’re just trying to make Irelia more auto-attack based.

Lee Sin is getting buffed after quite a long time. Small damage buff to his Q “Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike” as well as a new passive – it deals up to 100% increased damage based on the opponent’s missing health – should allow him to snowball a bit faster in the right hands.

Olaf is getting a serious boost to his W bonus attack speed, +15% at all levels.

Syndra‘s Q “Dark Sphere” is getting a nice buff to its base damage (+20).

Lastly, Thresh is getting some serious buffs to his lantern “Dark Passage” (4s lower cooldown when maxed out), and his E “Flay” is getting a serious buff (+20% maximum attack damage contribution) on level 1.

Upcoming Skins

There will be three new skins coming out in a week or two after patch 8.15 hits the live servers. The skins are ‘Pool Party Gangplank’, ‘Pool Party Zoe’, and ‘Pool Party Caitlyn’.