Today, the long awaited big Freljord patch for League of Legends has arrived, and not only does it include a champion rebalance and the new champion Lissandra, it also includes a new ARAM map called Howling Abyss that will have its own queue and two champion reworks (Sejuani & Trundle).

Everything is included patch, but it’s unknown when Lissandra, the Ice Witch, will be released (the most probable day for this is Saturday). Another important change worth noting is the new 5-potion limit and the price increase of the Elixir of Fortitude, since these changes will make a huge impact in how players will start their games, as well as a chance to bring new strategies.

Check out the full patch notes below:

Lissandra

Lissandra the Ice Witch is in the 3.6 build and will be released at a later date.

Sejuani

Sejuani has been relaunched with a new model, updates to her story and a revised kit. For more information on the Winter’s Wrath, click here.

• Frost Armor (Passive)
  • Damaging an enemy with an ability or basic attack grants Sejuani bonus armor and reduces movement-slowing effects on her for a short duration
• Arctic Assault (Q)
  • Sejuani charges forward, knocking enemies into the air and dealing magic damage to them based on their maximum health. The charge stops after knocking an enemy champion into the air
• Flail of the Northern Winds (W)
  • Sejuani’s next basic attack deals bonus magic damage to her target and all nearby enemies. She then spins her flail, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies for a few seconds
• Permafrost (E)
  • Passive: Sejuani’s abilities and basic attacks apply Frost to enemies
  • Active: Sejuani damages and slows all nearby enemies afflicted with Frost
• Glacial Prison (Ultimate)
  • Sejuani throws a frost-forged bola in a line. If the bola hits an enemy champion, it shatters, stunning the target and all nearby enemies. If the bola reaches its maximum range without striking an enemy champion, it shatters and slows nearby enemies

Trundle

Trundle has been relaunched with a new model, updates to his story, and changes to his kit. For a full rundown of the Troll King’s changes, click here.

• King’s Tribute (previously Decompose)
  • No gameplay changes
• Chomp (previously Rabid Bite)
  • Damage adjusted to 20/40/60/80/100 (+1.0/1.05/1.1/1.15/1.2 attack damage) from 30/45/60/75/90 (+0.8/0.9/1/1.1/1.2 attack damage)
  • Now slows target by 75% for 0.1 seconds on hit
  • Animation speed scales with Trundle’s attack speed
• Frozen Kingdom (previously Contaminate)
  • Attack speed bonus increased to 20/35/50/65/80% from 20/30/40/50/60%
  • Now grants 8/11/14/17/20% increased healing to Trundle
  • No longer grants tenacity
• Pillar of Ice (previously Pillar of Filth)
  • Now interrupts channels
  • Duration reduced to 6 seconds from 6.5
• Subjugate (previously Agony)
  • Now deals 20/22/24 (+2 per 100 AP)% max health damage instead of 200/350/500
  • Armor and magic resist drain adjusted to 20% from 15/20/25%
  • Second drain effect now applies over 4 seconds and keeps the stats for another 4 seconds afterwards instead of draining over 6 seconds

Brand

• Pyroclasm
  • Now properly bounces to other targets after hitting an enemy affected by Blaze

Corki

• Missile Barrage
  • Fixed a bug where using Missile Barrage restarted the cooldown for gaining another missile

Dr. Mundo

• Infected Cleaver
  • Can be cast at any health value, but will not reduce health below 1
• Masochism
  • Can be cast at any health value, but will not reduce health below 1

Draven

In Patch 3.5, we changed Draven’s Spinning Axe to lead Draven more accurately when he was benefiting from movement speed increases. Unfortunately, these changes were very disruptive for dedicated Draven players and didn’t offer enough potential for skilled players to showcase their skill through covering long distances between throwing and catching. We decided to revert the change.

• Spinning Axe
  • Reverted a recent change affecting how Draven was led by Spinning Axe, restoring prior functionality
  • Axe drop location will no longer be placed on the far side of impassable terrain from Draven

Ezreal

• Pulsefire Ezreal
  • Fixed a bug where Pulsefire Ezreal would occasionally not see gold popups for some of his last hits on targets in plain view
  • Fixed a bug where Pulsefire Ezreal would play his death animation a second time if Trueshot Barrage was leveled up while dead

Fiddlesticks

• Drain Life
  • Fixed a bug where Fiddlesticks would not immediately attack his target after successfully channeling Drain Life

Karma

With our previous patch changes, we increased Karma’s overall usability and Mantra generation. These changes are more focused on smoothing out Karma’s early game presence by giving a damage increase to Inner Flame’s lower levels and buffing Inspire to make it far more effective at level one.

Additionally, by lowering the cooldowns of three of Karma’s abilities – including her Mantra – Karma will synergize better with Gathering Fire, allowing her to scale into late game.

• Inner Flame
  • Damage increased to 80/125/170/215/260 from 60/110/160/210/260
• Focused Resolve
  • Cooldown reduced to 16/15/14/13/12 seconds from 16/15.5/15/14.5/14
• Inspire
  • Cooldown reduced to 10 seconds from 12
  • Movement speed bonus increased to 40/45/50/55/60% from 20/30/40/50/60%
• Mantra
  • Cooldown reduced to 45/42/39/36 seconds from 45

Lulu

• Mana per level increased to 55 from 50
• Glitterlance
  • Mana cost increased to 60/65/70/75/80 from 40/50/60/70/80

Malzahar

• Call of the Void
  • Mana cost reduced to 80/85/90/95/100 from 80/90/100/110/120
• Null Zone
  • Mana cost reduced to 90/95/100/105/110 from 90/100/110/120/130

Nasus

With a 95% movement speed and attack speed reduction at max levels, Wither was completely shutting down champions reliant on auto-attacks with no opportunity for counterplay. By reducing the attack speed slow, Nasus is still effective at suppressing champions, but his victims will now have the option to turn and fight.

• Wither
  • Attack speed slow amount has been halved

Nunu

• Consume
  • No longer expends Visionary if the target dies before Consume resolves

Olaf

• Reckless Swing
  • Can be cast at any health value, but will not reduce health below 1

Quinn

We wanted to highlight Quinn’s great strengths as an unconventional AD carry with high cross-map mobility. As such, Quinn can now use Tag Team more reliably in and out of fights, and the additional movement speed on Heightened Senses should allow her to remain more elusive in skirmishes.

For the other two changes, we gave Blinding Assault an ability power ratio so that players can gain some additional power when building items like Trinity Force or when receiving the Baron Nashor buff. For Vault, we added a mini stun on Quinn’s target as she dashes toward them, making it more reliable as an escape.

• Blinding Assault
  • Now has a 0.5 ability power ratio
• Heightened Senses
  • Passive as Quinn now grants 20/30/40/50/60 movement speed in addition to the attack speed bonus
• Vault
  • Now briefly interrupts the target
• Tag Team
  • Maximum movement speed bonus increased to 80/90/100% from 80% at all ranks
  • Base movement speed bonus increased to 20/30/40% from 20% at all ranks
  • Cooldown reduced to 140/110/80 seconds from 140/120/100
  • Skystrike can now be cast 1 second after activating Tag Team, down from 2.5

Rumble

• Flamespitter
  • No longer prevents Rumble from automatically acquiring basic attack targets

Shen

• Ki Strike
  • Fixed a bug that caused Ki Strike to be consumed when attacking wards

Sivir

• Fleet of Foot
  • Now also grants its effect when Boomerang Blade and Ricochet hit enemy champions

Thresh

Death Sentence and its passive were providing too many benefits at early levels with their high poke, burst damage, and lowered cooldowns. By moving the passive damage bonus from Death Sentence to Flay, Thresh players will now need to think strategically about how they level their skills.

• Death Sentence
  • Damage increased to 80/120/160/200/240 from 80/110/140/170/200
  • Passive moved to Flay
• Flay
  • Damage reduced to 65/95/125/155/185 from 65/105/145/185/225
  • Now has Death Sentence’s previous passive (bonus damage on basic attacks)
  • Fixed a bug that caused the passive’s damage to be consumed when attacking wards
  • Fixed a bug where Flay sometimes dealt more damage than intended

Udyr

With these changes, we wanted to accomplish a few separate things. First, we wanted to tone down Udyr’s overpowering early game Tiger Stance damage, but we also wanted to let him scale better into late game. These changes were implemented by scaling the attack damage ratios on Tiger Stance’s active damage.

Second, by changing the active damage of Tiger Stance from magical to physical, it should be more intuitive to itemize against Udyr. Additionally, it will also be easier for Udyr to itemize properly, as he will gain further benefits from attack damage focused items like Black Cleaver or Last Whisper.

• Tiger Stance
  • Active damage changed to physical instead of magic
  • Active damage changed to 30/80/130/180/230 (+1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5/1.6 attack damage) from 30/80/130/180/230 (+1.5 total attack damage)
  • Active attack speed increased to 30/40/50/60/70% from 15/20/25/30/35%
  • No longer grants attack speed as a persistent effect
    • New persistent effect: Basic attacks deal 15% of his total attack damage as bonus physical damage on hit
• Bear Stance
  • Udyr now only dashes when stunning champions

Vayne

• Condemn
  • Range now accurately matches her attack range

Vi

• Vault Breaker
  • Fixed a bug that caused Vault Breaker to become uncastable after activation
• Excessive Force
  • Can no longer be cast while charging Vault Breaker

Zac

• Increased transparency when in brush

Zed

Previously, Zed could safely farm large minion waves with Shadow Slash by consistently resetting the cooldown of Living Shadow. These changes were intended to promote aggressive play with Zed while also creating a window for players to engage on him in lane.

• Living Shadow
  • Cooldown reduced to 18/17/16/15/14 seconds from 22/20.5/19/17.5/16
• Shadow Slash
  • Hitting minions and monsters no longer reduces Living Shadow’s cooldown
  • Hitting enemy champions reduces Living Shadow’s cooldown by 2 seconds, up from 1

Items

Elixir of Fortitude is meant to be an “all-in” burst of power for players looking to take control of a situation. With its low cost, however, players were simply defaulting to it as a general starting item with no significant repercussion. Increasing the gold cost of Elixir of Fortitude aligns it better with the risky strategy it was intended for.

• Elixir of Fortitude
  • Cost increased to 350 gold from 250

Alongside our Elixir of Fortitude change, we wanted to tackle ultra-high sustain starts where players were beginning the game with as many health potions as possible in order to safely sustain in lane for long periods of time. However, these high sustain starts also destroy any incentive players have to interact. Manaless champions in particular benefited from these starts, resulting in some mana-based opponents being unable to burn through the high levels of sustained HP. We will monitor starting item builds and champions that relied heavily on high potion starts, but wanted to focus on addressing passive high-sustain builds first.

• Health Potion
  • Limited to 5 Health Potions at a time
• Mana Potion
  • Limited to 5 Mana Potions at a time
• Ionian Boots of Lucidity
  • Upgrade cost reduced to 650 gold from 700 (total cost is now 1000 from 1050)
• Tiamat
  • Combine cost reduced to 265 from 665 (total cost is now 1900 from 2300)
  • Attack damage reduced to 40 from 50
• Ravenous Hydra
  • Combine cost increased to 600 from 200 (total cost unchanged)

The Howling Abyss

• The Howling Abyss has replaced The Proving Grounds in custom games and the basic tutorial
• A 5v5 All-Random queue has been enabled for matches played on the Howling Abyss
  • Restricted to players of level 5 or above
  • Players may reroll for a different champion in Champion Select for 200 reroll points
    • All players have been credited with 200 reroll points
    • Additional reroll points are gained by completing matchmade Howling Abyss games
    • Reroll point gains increase based on the number of champions the player owns
    • Reroll point count can be checked in the player profile.

Game Interface

• Smart Ping
  • Updated the ping icons to better match other game visuals
• Item shop
  • Can now be resized by dragging from the bottom right-hand corner
  • Default size now determined by screen resolution

Leagues

• Fixed an issue where the end of game screen would incorrectly show “League info processing” instead of updating immediately
• Champion headers designed for each specific league have been added to the Leagues tab in player profiles
• LP ‘clamping’ has been smoothed.  Players will experience more predictable LP gains and losses as they approach 100 LP
• Dodging a match in a promotional series now counts as 1 loss.  This will still end your series if you were one loss away from losing it

General

• Baron Nashor/Dragon
  • Baron Nashor, Dragon, and Vilemaw kill messages are now bolded in chat
  • Now immune to effects that would reduce their damage
• Twisted Treeline altar capture messages are now bolded in chat
• Items with charges now display the charge counter in the inventory rather than displaying as a buff
• Players will no longer see reconnect messages from the enemy team
• Trundle has replaced Master Yi in the basic tutorial
• Spell shields now only block one spell even if multiple spells hit the target in rapid succession
• Blind Random has been added as a pick type in custom games.  This mode works the same as All Random, but the enemy team’s champions will not be displayed in champion select
• Players with video cards that use software vertex shaders (primarily integrated cards like those in laptops) should see a 10-40% FPS performance improvement across all maps

Are you excited for the long awaited ARAM queue? Are you going to buy Lissandra when she comes out, or will you wait to try her two weeks after she releases? Post your comments below!