Riot provides more details on League preseason changes coming to the PBE

Kleptomancy will get some changes, on top of the elemental drakes and the top lane.

Image via Riot Games

The first League of Legends preseason changes for 2020 will hit the PBE servers today. And Riot has provided some additional information on the content that’s coming to League.

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In terms of the elemental drakes that will impact all of Summoner’s Rift, the first three dragons to spawn will all be unique. This means it won’t be possible for two dragons of the same element to spawn in that time frame.

Riot also intends to give more power to the top lane by buffing the Rift Herald. It’ll spawn after eight minutes instead of 10, respawn after six minutes, and will only need one second to be channeled instead of four.

Related: All League of Legends 2020 preseason changes

Minions will give two percent more XP in the mid and top lanes but 2.4 percent less in the bot lane. In the jungle, monsters will grant four percent less XP so that clearing both jungle sides will get you to level three.

Here are the other changes:

Cloud drake soul

  • Announced: Reduce your cooldowns when hitting enemies with attacks or abilities.
  • Updated: Gain a burst of Movement speed for three seconds after using your ultimate.

Kleptomancy rework

  • Previously announced: Power siphoned out of gold procs and into elixirs to weaken the “farm my opponent” pattern, especially ranged vs melee.
  • Updated: Klepto has been significantly reworked into a “mastery of all keystones” playstyle. You cycle between all of the keystones—the key is to use them effectively and quickly for max value.
  • Gain a random keystone—once it is used gain another after seven seconds.
  • Includes: Lethal Tempo, Fleet Footwork, Aery, Comet, Phase Rush, Predator (only if you have boots), Electrocute, Hail of Blades, Grasp of the Undying, Glacial Augment.
  • Keystones cycle pseudo randomly—you can’t repeat a keystone for five rolls after it has been used.
  • Entering the fountain will re-roll your current keystone.

Item removals

  • Zz’rot Portal
  • Ohmwrecker

Item adjustments

Shurelya’s Reverie Reworked

  • Shurelya’s has had a hard time finding users and overlaps considerably with Righteous Glory. Riot wants to try and shift it to enchanter stats to create a new option for supports and leave tanks with Righteous as an option.
  • Updated Shurelia’s:
    • Forbidden Idol + Crystalline Bracer + 850 gold
      • Total cost: 2,300 gold
    • 300 HP
    • 10 percent CDR
    • 100 percent health regen
    • 100 percent mana regen
    • 10 percent heal/shield power
    • Active: 40 percent movement speed for three seconds for you and nearby allies (90 second cooldown)

Kircheis Shard buff

  • This middle-tier item has been quite underpowered and a bit of a trap to build early.
  • Kircheis Shard damage increased from 50 to 60.
  • Damage from Energized procs now stacks, rather than using the strongest one.
  • Stormrazor proc buffed from 50 to 60 to 80 based on level.
  • Statikk Shiv and RFC Energized proc reduced from 60 to 140 to 60 to 80.

Other changes were announced but they won’t be directly implemented in this PBE patch.

Here they are:

Melee vs. ranged lanes

  • “Primarily we want to make sure that we have mechanics to safeguard from ranged champions taking over top lane, which is the primary place where we get melee 1v1 matchups,” Riot said.
  • “Current iterations have some additional melee only power added to Doran’s Shield,” Riot said.

Final icons for new items

  • “What you’re seeing are very early sketches, updates will be coming soon,” Riot said.

Stormrazor improvements

  • “We’re hoping to both improve the power of Stormrazor (as it’s only viable for 1 champ currently) and find ways to make it a more appealing item for more players,” Riot said. “Should be some updates in the next week on this.”

Tons of visual polish and performance improvements

  • “In the final weeks we will be cleaning up a lot of stuff under the hood to make sure that there are no FPS drops or hitches with all of the new art,” Riot said.

A few more things still might be coming.

  • “We’re testing out a few other item changes and making sure that we have mechanics in place so that we can tune every position after launch if we need to adjust,” Riot said.

The preseason changes will stay on the PBE for four weeks so Riot has time to adjust and correct any bugs before pushing the changes live.

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Eva Martinello
Eva is a Staff Writer from Paris. Her part-time job is charging into walls with Reinhardt. She has been covering League of Legends esports and other titles for six years. She still believes in a Moscow Five comeback. She also fell into the MMO pit and covers FFXIV and Genshin.