LoL Patch 25.S1.2 Preview: Atakhan, Feats of Strength, new runes buff and other adjustments

The second patch note of the year is out, while Riot Games aims to adjust several new aspect of the game, buff new runes and nerf a few champions like Viktor. Swiftplay is also being balanced on some of its aspects.

Voracious Atakhan will appear more, and Feat of Strength now rewards first to three kills instead of First Blood

The League of Legends 15 S1.2 Patch Notes is out. According to the official schedule the game's developers provided, Patch 15 S1.2 is set to be released on Thursday, January 23, 2025. This update highlights adjustments to key items, champions, and gameplay mechanics. Lord Dominik’s Regards and Mortal Reminder receive changes to enhance the Armor Penetration stat, while Yun Tal and Collector are fine-tuned to emphasize their roles in sustained versus burst damage builds.

Notable tweaks include further nerfs and modification to Atakhan’s mechanics as we see too much of his Ruinous form, and Feats of Strengths is being modified as we no longer have to rely so much on the first blood which has evolved into "First to 3 Kills," adding a new strategic layer to early-game engagements. Meanwhile, Viktor's consistent performance has led to a reduction in his damage output. We mostly feel Riot Games is waiting for pro games to kick in to get more information on how these major changes from last patch will affect their games.

The Full Patch 25 S1.2 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhroxzon on X.

Buffs:

Evelynn, Master Yi, Malzahar, Kayn Shadow Assassin, Smolder, Yuumi, Grisly mementos (rune), Deep Ward (rune), Sixth Sense (rune), Yun-Tal Wildarrows (item)

Nerfs:

Cassiopeia, Irelia, Tahm Kench, Viktor, Bloody Roses, Voracious Atakhan (epic monster)

Adjustments:

Feats of strength, Voracious Atakhan (epic monster), Lord Dominik's Regards (item), Mortal Reminder (item)

Swiftplay Buffs:

Qiyana, Rengar, Sivir

Swiftplay Nerfs:

Kayle, Malzahar, Nilah, Singed, Teemo, Trundle, Urgot, Yorick, Zyra

Swiftplay Adjustments:

Atakhan side select, Ruinous Atakhan, Homeguard

Riot's Reasoning behind these changes

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

Item Changes

Looking to increase the relative power budget of the Armor Pen stat on both Lord Doms and Mortal Reminder
At the same time, we're sharping the differences between Yun Tal and Collector, by making Yun Tal more about sustained damage and Collector more about burst damage
The intention is that if a champ opts into YunTal -> IE -> LDR build it would feel notably different against tanks than 3 item builds without LDR

Feats of Strength

Yesterday, I forgot to mention that the First Blood is changing to be First to 3 kills! (Thanks to the folks who worked over the weekend to get this out)
We tried going first to 5, but that led to visualization and mindshare concerns with players tracking 2 Feats at once, etc. Atakhan
We're further nerfing Roses as we're trying to reduce as much invisible power, as well as nerf both Atakhan's forms slightly
For Voracious Atakhan he is showing up a lot in Pro Play and looking quite strong there, but not as much in normal play
We're looking to narrow the difference in appearance between the two, so having him show up more in normal play and a bit less in Pro Play
At the same time, we're looking to make him weaker; by increasing the tradeoff for using his buff reward
If the enemy is expending resources to force you to withdraw, we think they should be rewarded a bit more than currently for it (we still think this clearly nets out positive for the Atakhan team), so we're increasing the reward from 100 >>> 200g
We don't want to go so far that players feel like it's hurting them to use the buff though - Atakhan bot vs top rate is looking pretty good at ~55% bot and 45% top, so we're not looking to chance it at this time

Minion Changes

It's still early to tell the effects of the minion changes and there are a lot of players in high levels of play trying to discover optimal wave stack patterns
It doesn't seem like there is much discernable difference in gold compared to the previous patch, at 5, 10, 15 min, it's the same and at 20 minutes players on average have ~3 less CS, which is not much

Viktor

Adding a Viktor nerf into the patch as well - He's been sporting pretty strong performance for a while, despite the influx of new players on him
Looking to take a bit of damage out