League of Legends 4.13 update sports a long list of little things

The League of Legends 4.13 patch is a big one, but rather than making any big changes, it implements a whole lot of little ones instead. Riot's Chris "Pwyff" Tom said the latest tune-up is all about breadth instead of depth, as the studio seeks to "promote more diversity in competitive play."

Among the fighters, three early-aggro junglers—Elise, Evelynn and Lee Sin—have proven to be "very suffocating" in organized play, Riot noted in the changelog, so they're being toned down to encourage players to give others a chance. Mages and assassins are getting some "low-scope buffs," and Marksmen are also being given more "strategic diversity" in order to dilute the dominance of strong hypercarry characters. Rather like fighters, some support characters are having their abilities slightly reduced as well.

The biggest character-specific changes have been made to Sona, who's been specifically reworked to "give her more meaningful (and recognizable) gameplay without heavily changing her aura-focused playstyle."

Various items are also undergoing changes, as is the order that upgrades appear in the store. Some new, color-based search terms have been added, numerous bug fixes have been made and, as mentioned above, match loading speeds have been improved by 10 to 30 percent.

It really is a big list of small things—Graves now does 40 percent damage per additional bullet when he hits a target in the face with Buckshot instead of 35 percent, for instance—but Riot was good enough to break it down sections based on specific groups and themes. "Under each category you can see our overarching goals and philosophies as well as deeper context on each individual champion, item, or summoner spell," Tom wrote.

The full breakdown of what's what is up at leagueoflegends.com .

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.