Feats of Strength have landed a little too strongly with Riot nerfing the new mechanic’s rewards.
After early criticism from the League of Legends community, Riot Games developers issued a fresh mid-season patch, micropatch 15.1b, just days into the new season to address concerns that the Feats of Strength rewards are too powerful.
Also included in LoL patch 15.1b are changes to the map's Bloody Roses spawn rate, as well as Swiftplay champion adjustments. We've got everything covered for you below.
First Blood requirement under microscope as Feats of Strength boots cop early nerfs in patch 15.1b
LoL devs are hastily nerfing several boot upgrade bonuses provided by Feats of Strength today after widespread backlash just days after season 15 kicked off. The nerfs come with LoL micropatch 15.1b, which went live earlier on Jan. 10.
Almost all of the nerfs are coming to the new high-tier boot upgrades. Armored Advance and Chainlaced Crushers have had their bonus shield reduced and duration dropped. Mage-based boot upgrades won't give as much magic penetration, while Swiftmarch's total movement speed has been reduced.
The changes come as the LoL community struggles to adapt to the Feats of Strength bonus, which sees a team gain access to the boot upgrades by completing a series of objectives in the early game. In most circumstances, a team with Feats of Strength easily overwhelmed the opposition — meaning some matches concluded far too quickly.
LoL lead gameplay designer Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison reiterated on X/Twitter that Feats of Strength objectives, specifically the First Blood requirement, were being investigated.
"As mentioned previously, we are actively developing some changes to replace First Blood as a Feat, but will not be Live until 15.2 or 15.3," he said, meaning we're still at least a fortnight or so away from changes on that front.
Also included in today's micropatch are slight nerfs to the spawn rates of the new Bloody Roses and various champion adjustments in Swiftplay. For the full patch notes check here, but we've listed them below for you!
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All LoL patch 15.1b patch notes
Feats of Strength - Boot Upgrades
- Armored Advance
- Shield Amount reduced from 10-140 (based on level) + 4% max health to 10-120 (based on level) + 4% max health.
- Shield Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds.
- Chainlaced Crushers
- Shield Amount reduced from 10-140 (based on level) + 4% max health to 10-120 (based on level) + 4% max health.
- Shield Cooldown increased from 12 to 15 seconds.
- Spellslinger's Shoes
- Magic Penetration bonus reduced from 19 to 18.
- Percentage Magic Penetration reduced from 10% to 8%.
- Swiftmarch
- Movement Speed reduced from 75 to 70.
- Triumphant Sorcerer's Shoes
- Bonus Magic Penetration reduced from 4 to 2.
- Total Magic Penetration bonus reduced from 16 to 14.
Bloody Roses
- Bloody Rose Spawn Rate from Gloom (champion deaths) slightly reduced.
- Bloody Rose spawn rate in Atakhan's Pit slightly reduced.
Swiftplay champion balance changes
- Atakhan
- Adjusted the thresholds required for Atakhan's Ruinous form to spawn in Swiftplay so that he should now appear more often.
- Jarvan IV
- Armor Growth reduced from 5.2 to 4.7.
- Q Damage reduced from 80/120/160/200/240 (+140% bonus AD) to 70/110/150/190/230 (+ 140% bonus AD).
- Kayle
- Attack Speed Growth reduced from 1.5% to 1% per level.
- Attack Damage Growth reduced from 2.5 to 2 per level.
- W Movement Speed reduced late-game from 24-40% (+8% AP) to 24-32% (+8% AP).
- Seraphine
- Health Growth increased from 90 to 95.
- E Damage increased from 70-190 (+50% AP) to 70-210 (+60% AP).
- Vex
- Passive Damage massively increased from 40-150 (+25% AP) to 40-150 (+40% AP).
- W Damage massively increased from 80-240 (+30% AP) to 80-240 (+50% AP).
- Viktor
- Health Growth reduced from 100 to 92 per level.
- R Damage per tick reduced from 65/105/145 (+45% AP) to 60/100/140 (+40% AP).
- Ziggs
- Q Damage increased from 85/135/185/235/285 (+65% AP) to 85/135/185/235/285 (+75% AP).
- W Cooldown reduced from 20/18/16/14/12 to 18/16/14/12/10 seconds.
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