League of Legends 13.20 patch preview – Huge jungle changes and K’Sante rework

League of Legends 13.20 is a huge patch, and the developers have written up a novel’s worth of patch notes for players to digest ahead of Season 14. A huge amount of changes are on the horizon as the balance team shakes up the game, balancing eleven different champions, massively reworking K’Sante (his changelist is impossibly long), and making some major changes to the jungle to reduce some of its strength in the current meta. (Ivern mains, rejoice, our stocks are rising… again!)

Matt Leung-Harrison has stated many of these changes were made to reduce the amount of snowballing players experience. Major changes are coming to system mechanics like death timers, objectives (such as Dragons, Baron Nashor, etc.), as well as gold income. These changes are definitely ambitious, and I can’t remember the last time we’ve had patch notes this long in a while, but let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of Patch 13.20.

Note: Patch 13.20 is set to release on October 11 on Wednesday.

Patch 13.20 breakdown

Massive jungle changes

Image: Riot Games

It wouldn’t be the dawn of a new League of Legends season if the Jungle role didn’t get another major shakeup. It feels like just yesterday when League devs introduced “jungle pets” into the role, and now, they’re scaling back much of the power that junglers have to reduce their dominance in the meta, as they are “quite overpowered” according to the devs. To this extent, the devs will be increasing monster durability, making them harder to kill, while also increasing jungle item damage to monsters. This should slow down jungle clears a bit, but also, make it harder for anyone else to steal your precious camps.

Interestingly, the developers will also buff “non-jungler starter items” such as Doran’s Blade, Doran’s Shield, etc., with the intention of making it easier to defend against early ganks. (And to avoid abuse of these buffs, you can now only build one of these items. Gone are the days of quintuple Doran’s Blades, sad!)

Melting out those snowballs

Snowballing in League of Legends is pretty oppressive. Lanes can make a couple of misplays, and sometimes, this can lead to the game feeling almost over. The dev team has stated they wish to “[reduce] the punishment of early deaths by some amount,” hopefully making comebacks feel a little more attainable. With this in mind, the dev teams are nerfing turret plating gold, adjusting certain runes, and reducing the power of dragons (while also increasing the power of dragon souls to compensate).

Hero adjustments

Image: Riot Games

TL;DR, there are eleven champions set to receive changes in this match. Five champions (Galio, Milio, Jinx, Ziggs, and Morgana) are receiving buffs, while five champions (Akshan, Bel’Veth, Kai’Sa, Quinn, and Zed) are receiving nerfs. K’Sante is receiving a huge (again, emphasis on huge) rework, and I can’t even begin to parse what the heck they’re doing to him, since it already feels like he takes me for a ride to hell and back already.

New skins and cosmetics

A new patch means new skins, and we’re getting five new Coven skins for Akali, Elise, Syndra, Nami, and Nilah. Akali will get a new Prestige Skin for the next Worlds pass, while Renekton, Mordekaiser, and Jax are getting some more miscellaneous skins. Also, we’re finally getting the Redeemed Star Guardian skins for Rakan and Xayah.

Related: Best League of Legends champions in 2023

Full League of Legends 13.20 patch notes

Here’s a compiled list of the patch notes below. Note: these are currently projected changes and can change before the actual patch hits live. This post will be updated with the full patch notes later:

Champion Buffs

Galio:

• W cooldown: 18 – 16 seconds > 18-14 seconds
• W Passive Shield Timer: 12 seconds > 12 – 8 seconds

Jinx:

• HP per level increased to 105.
• 25% bonus Attack Speed on kill now stacks.
• R cooldown: 75 – 55 seconds > 70 – 50 seconds.
• R mininum damage: 30 – 60 (+15% AD) > 32.5 – 62.5 (+16.5% AD)
• R max damage: 300 – 600 (+150% AD) > 325 – 625 (+165% AD)

Milio:

• Passive: Burn is now always considered Milio’s damage, will not steal kill credit. Can enable Chemtech Putrifier through allies.
• E cooldown: 18 – 14 seconds > 17 – 13 seconds.
• E shield: 60 – 160 + 30% AP > 60 – 180 + 30% AP.
• R healing: 150 – 350 + 30% AP > 150 – 350 + 50% AP.

Morgana:

• W AP ratio: 14% > 17%
• W monster damage: 155% > 165%
• E cooldown: 24 – 16 seconds > 26 – 16 seconds
• R movement speed: 5 – 55% towards enemies > 10 – 60% all directions
• R stun: 1.5 seconds > 1.5 – 2 seconds
• R damage (hits twice): 150 – 300 (.7 AP) > 175 – 325 (.8 AP)

Ziggs:

• Q radius: 150 > 180

Champion Nerfs

Akshan:

• Q bonus movement speed: 40% > 20 – 40%

Bel’Veth:

• Passive: Bonus AS after spell cast (for 2 attacks): 25 – 50% > 20 – 40%
• E damage reduction: 70% > 42 – 70%
• E damage can now crit
• E damage: 8 – 16 (+6% AD) > 6 – 10 (+8% AD)
• On hit damage: 6% > 8%
• R true form out of combat movement speed: 25 – 75 > 10 – 80
• Remora health: 40% – 60% > 20% – 70%

Kai’sa:

• Armor: 28 > 25

Quinn:

• Health: 603 > 565
• Move speed: 335 > 330
• Attack damage growth: 2.4 > 2.7

Zed:

• W cooldown: 20 – 14 seconds > 20 – 17 seconds

K’Sante rework

Stats:

• Base HP: 610 > 570
• HP Growth per Level: 108 > 115
• Armor Growth per Level: 4.7 > 5.2

Passive:

• Mark no longer scales with Armor and MR during Ultimate

Q:

• Damage: 50 – 150 > 30 – 150
• Flash disabled during third Q

W:

• Mana cost: 75 – 95 > 60 – 80
• Stun duration: 1.25
• W minimum channel 0.65 seconds. Always behaves as “max channel.”
• W damage reduction: 40% – 65% by level.
• W damage: 20 – 100 + 50% total AD + 30% bonus armor / MR + 6 – 10% target max HP

R:

• Damage: 70 – 150 +65% AP
• Knockback: 300
• Wall damage: 70 – 150 + 65% AP
• Bonus AD: 5 + 32.5% bonus Armor / MR
• Healing: 10 /15 / 20% damage vs. champions
• HP cap: 65%
• R+P bonus damage: 35%
• R now resets Q cooldown and stacks
• R + Q now slows
• R + W min. channel now 0.5 seconds. Always behaves as max channel.
• R + W damage reduction: 50 – 75% by level.
• R + W damage: 20 – 100 + 50% total AD + 30% bonus Armor / MR + 6-10% target max HP.
• R + W cooldown: 18 – 12 seconds.

Item changes

• Blighting Jewel Price: 1250 gold to 1100 gold (Void Staff price unchanged).
• Youmuu’s Ghostblade: Haunt Lethality from 3 – 12 to 7 – 18.
• Duskblade: Ability Haste from 20 to 15, max damage from 18% to 16%
• Lord Dominik’s Regards: Bugfix now properly amplifies damage to shield, maximum damage amp nerf to compensate from 25% to 22%.

Jungle changes

Smite:

• Champion/Pet Damage: 20-160 >>> 40
• Tier 3 Monster AoE: 50% >>> 100%
• 350 unit target forgiveness vs. Epic Monsters if your cursor is not on another valid target
• Damage Type: Spell >>> Proc (won’t trigger Liandry’s)

Pets:

• -10% bonus AD
• -2% AP
• +10% bonus Armor
• +10% bonus MR

Gustwalker Hatchling (Blue):

• Move Speed upon entering a bush: 45% >>> 30%
• Move Speed on Monster Kill: 60% >>> 45%

Mossstomper Seedling (Green):

• No longer grants Tenacity and Slow-Resistance
• Shield: 60-281 (1-18) >>> 180-300 (10-18) (2-7% more shield)

Scorchclaw (Red):

• Burn applied by: Any Damage: Attack or Spell (not triggered by Smite)
• Effect removed: 20% less damage from epic monsters with 2+ nearby allies

Jungle Camp Health:

• Normal Camp Health: 100-200% (level 1-11) >>> 100-235% (level 1-18)
• Buff Camp Health: 100-200% (level 1-11) >>> 100-270% (level 1-18)

Raptor:

• Level 1 large Raptor Health: 1100 >>> 12000
• 100-235% (level 1-11) >>> 100-235% (level 1-18)

Krug:

• Small/Medium Krug XP: 100-135% (level 1-9) >>> 100-145% (level 1-9)

Scuttle Crab:

• Health: 100-231% >>> 100-360%
• Gold/XP Reward: 100-180% (level 1-9) >>> 100-230% (level 1-18)

Jungler Heals:

• Heal on Kill: 30-166, up to 225% based on missing HP >>> 12% missing HP
• Mana on Kill: 19-87, up to 225% based on missing mana >>> 20% missing mana
• Pet healing is 70% of pet DPS (unchanged)

“Anti-Poaching:”

• Large Monster Armor/MR: 20 >>> 42
• Small Monster Armor/MR: 0 >>> 20
• Jungle item bonus damage to non-Epic Monsters: 20% >>> 42%

Doran’s Changes:

• Doran’s items now unique
• Doran’s Blade:
  • HP: 80 > 100
  • AD: 8 > 10
• Doran’s Ring:
  • HP: 70 > 90
  • AP: 15 > 18
• Doran’s Shield:
  • HP: 80 > 110
  • Regen: 0 – 40 > 0 – 45
• Dark Seal:
  • HP: 40 > 50
• Support Item AP + 2, AD +1
• Support Item HP:
  • Spellthiefs + Sicke: +15
  • Relic + Shoulderguards: +20
• Waterwalking:
  • MS: 25 > 10
  • Adaptive Force: 5 – 30 > 13 – 30

Anti-Snowball

Dragons

• Cloud Dragon: Now 5% slow resist and OOC MS
  • Soul now grants 20% bonus MS
• Hextech Dragon: Now 5 Ability Haste and 5% Bonus AS
  • Soul now grants 45% slow, 35% for ranged
• Infernal: Now 3% AD + AP
  • Soul now deals 100 base damage
• Mountain Dragon: Now 5% bonus AR + MR
  • Soul now gives 220 shield
• Ocean: Now 2% missing HP per 5 seconds
  • Soul now heals 150 HP, 100 mana

Rift Herald Gold

• Now only gives 100 gold

Death Timers:

• Level 2-3: reduced by 2 seconds
• Level 4-6: reduced by 4 seconds
• Level 7: reduced by 5 seconds
• Level 8: reduced by 6.5 seconds
• Level 9: reduced by 4 seconds

Turret Plate Gold:

• Now gives 125 gold per plate

Baron HP:

• Now 15,000 HP.