LoL Patch 14.24 Preview: Viktor's adjustments, Ambessa's nerfs, before season's end

Last patch of the year until the end of the season on January 7

The League of Legends 14.24 Patch Notes is out. According to the official schedule the game's developers provided, Patch 14.23 is set to be released on Wednesday, December 11, 2024. This is the last patch before the end of the year. It focuses on stabilizing the gameplay experience as the year wraps up, without introducing major changes. Instead, it brings some champion rebalancing. Viktor and Ambessa, both recently released or reworked, receive significant adjustments, while Warwick's kit continues to emphasize his role as a relentless predator.

Here’s a comprehensive look at what to expect until the end of the season on January 7.

The Full Patch 14.24 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhroxzon on X.

Buffs:

Master Yi, Rell, Rumble, Twitch, Yuumi

Nerfs:

MundAmbessa, Corki, Elise, Graves, LeBlanc, Dr. Mundo, Riven, Swain, Talon

Adjustments:

Viktor, Warwick, Poppy

Riot's Reasoning behind these changes

Read more about League of Legends changes on the X account of Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.

"Warwick

We've found a better way to return WW's attack speed functionality on acquiring targets and are re-implementing it this patch
This is being paired with a small nerf as he's performing very well for especially average play

Viktor

Thanks for all the feedback on Viktor's gameplay and have been talking to a variety of Viktor mains to ensure our gameplay iterations are hitting the mark

Like all of you, I also love Viktor, he is my 2nd most played champion and I've easily played over 1000 games and know him well; we want to make him the best he can be

W has been rescripted to consistently stun after 1.25 seconds, rather than variably between 1.1-2 seconds, but we aren't making further changes to it for now
We've heard the feedback about Viktor's W being an unsatisfying and not powerful ability
Wanted to give some rationale for why we are trying to make it more satisfying and consistent, but not more powerful; this means things like ensuring that visual cues line up with when it starts ticking up, slowing immediately on the zone forming, etc.
If Viktor's W is too strong, it will require too many tradeoffs to both his class profile (he will be more of a Catcher) and need to trade off some of the aspects of his kit that stand out relative to the roster (eg. his burst, repeatability and speed in particular)
We and many Viktor mains consider those aspects to be sacred and to facilitate his identity of being a closer range champion with this profile, it is important that W serves better as a reactive/zone control/punishing tool rather than a catch spell
There's still a little room for a buff as a catch tool, which is why we're also buffing it slightly, but not overly so

E & P

Viktor's early agency has been low for a while in high level play; in low level play he tends to observe decent performance
Especially after biscuit mana removal and reliance on early junglers to get Hexfragments, this leads him to feel overly reliant on the team in the early game; so we're bringing back some of his ability to trade and attrition with E mana and Q shield buffs
The P stacks will be more reliant on farming well, rather than flipping an early fight where he's weak
The W consistency will also help him more in early skirmishes

Overall

Overall, we hope these changes attempt to strike the right balance of his weaknesses being exploitable enough, but not too weak, which allow his strengths to shine

Ambessa

We're overall pretty happy with how Ambessa launched, not being too weak/strong for early mastery curves and got 2 solid patches of observation on how her matchups, builds and learning curve are playing out without interference from needed balance/micropatches
Now that players have started to learn her though, her top end power is starting to show and we're taking down her ability to have so much dominance across her matchups (in particular)
With Grasp, Second Wind and the shield size, even in her tougher matchups, she is coming out even/ahead too often through attrition and that's not giving enough agency back to her opponents
Overall, we're pretty happy with how she's landed though and will continue to make sure she still has counterplay even when using her kit well

Header Photo Credit: Riot Games