Two weeks have passed, and we have yet another League of Legends patch on our hands — patch 8.24b. Riot isn’t shipping a full-fledged patch this time, but rather a simple set of changes.

As Riot explained, these are “simple nerfs” and “simple buffs.” There’s not a ton of context to be found, and that’s okay. They want a certain champion to be stronger or weaker, and they’re shipping changes accordingly. Riot’s balancing team is mostly focused on patch 9.1 — the first patch of 2019.

The entire marksmen (ADC) category will undergo a serious overhaul in a matter of weeks, but until then, let’s focus on the changes that are shipping with patch 8.24b.

Buffs

There are no monumental buffs shipping this time around. Instead, these are smaller, nuanced changes and most of them are geared towards AD carries that haven’t been present in the meta for quite a while.

Caitlyn

The Sheriff of Piltover is getting two significant buffs with patch 8.24b. First of all, Caitlyn’s Q, “Piltover Peacemaker” now deals more damage (from 30/70/110/150/190 to 50/90/130/170/210), with the passthrough damage getting slightly reduced (from 67% to 60%). This should give her a serious boost in laning prowess.

Her ultimate, “Ace in the Hole,” is getting an increase in maximum range (from 2000/2500/3000 to 3500 at all ranks).

Corki

Corki is getting a pretty simple buff, and it’s regarding his ultimate, “Missile Barrage.” Riot wants to buff his poke, so they’re increasing the base damage of his smaller rockets (from 75/100/125 to 90/115/140) as well as big ones (from 150/200/250 to 180/230/280).

Corki isn’t in a bad spot per se, but giving him a little bit of extra oomph in the poke department should push him more towards the limelight.

Singed

Seeing Singed on this list was pretty surprising. Riot wants to improve his early game, so they’re increasing his base health (from 580 to 610), as well as E, “Fling,” damage — now it’ll deal 6/6.5/7/7.5/8% of target’s max health rather than 4/5/6/7/8%.

These aren’t earth-shattering changes, but if you’re a Singed main, you’re probably screaming with joy. Singed was always a niche pick, and in the right hands, he can become unbearable to deal with.

Fortunately, he doesn’t have a huge player base so these changes shouldn’t make him overpowered.

Tristana

Tristana is getting a pretty solid buff to her E, “Explosive Charge.” Its base damage will go up (from 60/70/80/90/100 to 70/80/90/100/110), along with its damage ratio (from 0.5/0.65/0.8/0.95/1.1 bonus AD to 0.5/0.7/0.9/1.1/1.3 bonus AD), and maximum damage (from 132/154/176/198/220 (+1.1/1.43/1.76/2.09/2.42 bonus AD) to 154/176/198/220/242 (+1.1/1.54/1.98/2.42/2.86 bonus AD).

This should seriously improve her pushing (as well as sieging) potential. She’ll also be a bigger threat to turrets early on which could net her a sizeable gold advantage if she’s winning lane.

Varus

Varus is also getting a buff to his early and mid game spike, this time in the form of a couple of W, “Blighted Quiver” changes. When uncharged, the ability will now deal 6/8/10/12/14% target’s missing health instead of 6/7/8/9/10%, and 9/12/15/18/21% target’s missing health instead of 9/10.5/12/13.5/15% when fully charged.

Furthermore, his ultimate “Chain of Corruption” will now deal more base damage (from 100/175/250 + 1.0 AP to 150/200/250 + 1.0 AP).

Warwick

Lastly, Warwick is getting a very symbolic buff to his base attack damage — from 63 to 65. Chances are, you’re not going to notice a difference with this one. Ever.

Nerfs

There are a couple of nerfs within this patch that are highly welcomed — mainly the ones regarding Alistar, Pyke, and Akali. These champions have been overpowered in one way or another. Seeing them brought down to earth should make your solo queue exhibitions a tad more enjoyable.

Alistar

Alistar has been running rampant over the last couple of weeks. Riot is shipping a nerf to his early lane pressure so that one or two good trades won’t determine the outcome of the laning phase.

His E, “Trample,” now deals less base damage (from 100/125/150/175/200 over 5 seconds to 80/110/140/170/200 over 5 seconds), and its empowered state is also getting a damage reduction (from 55-310 to 35-290).

Akali

Riot is reverting the nerf they shipped two weeks ago to Akali’s shroud duration. Instead, they’re making a couple key changes. Opponents will now be able to see Akali’s outline (but not target her) before entering stealth (or re-stealthing) even if they don’t have true sight. Furthermore, targeted abilities and uncancellable attacks are no longer canceled when Akali enters stealth.

Finally, the timing for her re-stealth is getting nerfed early-on. From patch 8.24b onward, Akali will require 1/0.9/0.825/0.725/0.625 seconds at 1/8/11/20/30 minutes in order to re-enter stealth. The duration is unchanged at the later stages of the game, but this should give her opponents a bigger window to counter-attack.

Pyke

Pyke is currently way too strong, even as a mid lane pick. Riot is in a tricky situation because they want to retain support Pyke’s strengths, while also phasing him out of the mid lane.

So they’re reducing his base magic resist growth (from 2 to 1.5). The damage his Q, “Bone Skewer,” does to minions and monsters is getting nerfed (from 50% to 30%). Finally, Riot has reduced the execute threshold on his ultimate, “Death from Below.” The threshold will remain the same throughout the early game, but once you get to level ten (and onward) it’ll get decreased for up to 50HP.

In short, they’re decreasing his MR and thus making him more vulnerable to opposing enemy mages, while also lowering his wave clear.

While these changes might not completely nuke mid Pyke, he should be far less effective going forward.

Cassiopeia

Riot is decreasing the base damage of Cassiopeia’s Q, “Noxious Blast,” (from 75/125/175/225/275 to 75/120/165/210/255) as well as increasing its base mana cost (from 50/55/60/65/70 to 50/60/70/80/90).

These changes will impact her late game prowess, although she’ll still be fairly strong in the early and mid-game.

Kassadin

Kassadin received a nerf to his base health regen (from 8 to 6), and while it might not seem like much, you will notice it while laning. After all, it’s a 25% reduction.

Neeko

Riot is reducing the initial base damage (from 80/126/170/215/260 to 70/115/160/205/250) as well as base bounce damage (from 40/60/80/100/120 to 35/55/75/95/115) of Neeko’s Q “Blooming Burst,” thus nerfing her early game push potential as well as lane control.

She’s still somewhat overpowered though, so expect a couple of additional changes with patch 9.1.

Item Changes

Tiamat

Starting with patch 8.24b, Tiamat will cost 1325 gold, instead of 1200. That said, Ravenous Hydra and Titanic Hydra will cost 125 less gold to upgrade.

This is a good change (nerf, rather) to Tiamat. Because of its relatively low cost, many players built it for faster wave/jungle clear and basically gained far too much for a rather negligible gold investment.

Zeke’s Convergence

Zeke’s is currently a bit too strong of an item, so Riot is reducing the ally burn damage from 50% to 30% bonus magic damage over a two second period (the duration remains unchanged).

Forbidden Idol Line of Items

A good chunk of the support champion spectrum (enchanters) was phased out of the meta over the last couple of months, so Riot decided to step in with a couple of changes.

Forbidden Idol will now offer 10% CDR (instead of 5%), and the healing and shielding power on Ardent Censer (from 8% to 10%), Mikael’s Crucible (from 15% to 20%), and Redemption (from 8% to10%) will be stronger.

These are huge buffs overall, but we probably won’t see a shift in the meta as a result.

Other Changes

Turrets

Going forward, turrets will retain the 40 armor and magic resist bonus after turret plating falls off at the fourteen-minute mark.