Review of LoL Patch 14.1

Champions of Runeterra are in for a treat with the League of Legends (LoL) Patch 14.1, which includes tons of changes and additions. We’re talking massive itemization system iterations, Summoner’s Rift map design changes, Ranked adjustments, and even some new jungle monsters straight from the void.

Grab your reading glasses and join us to discuss the most critical Patch 14.1 content and changes! Then head over to Thunderpick and check out the latest League of Legends betting odds.

Full patch notes: This guide provides a detailed overview of all the biggest changes and additions in LoL Patch 14.1. You can find the complete patch notes here.

League of Legends Patch 14.1 Highlights

Before we get down to the nitty-gritty details, let’s take a quick look at the highlights of the massive LoL update:

• 2024 Ranked season kicks off on Jan. 10, 2024, now divided into three splits.
• New Champion skins
• Mythic item system is removed
• Dozens of new items in the shop for all LoL roles
• Rift Herald and Baron Nashor update
• Summoner’s Rift map changes and terrain
• New Jungle monsters, including Voidgrubs
• Infernal terrain changes

Let’s use our Flash spell and blink into a wealth of knowledge as we discuss all the Patch 14.1 changes and additions.

LoL 2024 Ranked Season Changes

The 2024 Ranked season sees a huge change, as it is now divided into three splits. The first split will run from January to May 2024. Following each split, you must compete in placement matches for your initial standing on the ladder.

Under the hood, there are dozens of smaller LoL Ranked changes, including increased League Point (LP) gains and adjustments to the Emerald tier range. You’ll find a complete list of the Ranked changes for the 2024 LoL season below as outlined directly by lead gameplay designer Matt Leung-Harrison via X.

LoL Emerald Tier Changes

• We’re happy with the addition of Emerald as a rank and spreading out the ladder a little more.
• However, the range of skill in Emerald in 2023 was too wide. We’ve made some adjustments to Emerald to make it a bit smaller.
• Some of the additional adjustments we’ve made here also should help to resolve the “negative LP” (losing more on a loss than you gain on a win) for tiers from Emerald to Apex.

Wide Visible Rank Differences

• Last season had wider visible rank differences in matches than we’d like.
• We made promoting easier in 2023, but made no adjustments to demotions, so players could have a Plat 4 in a game with Silvers, when they actually have Silver or Gold MMR.
• As a result, we’ve made demoting from tier boundaries a little easier (Plat players will no longer be able to have a Silver MMR without demoting).
• With the changes to 3 splits a year, we’re also starting players’ climbs a little closer to their end of season rank than previous seasons.
• Finally, we’ve made some adjustments to how players are matchmade that favor tighter visible rank matches without the consequences of legitimate players stuck in “smurf queue.”
• These adjustments combined should lead to fewer disparities in visible ranks in games.

Increased LP Gains

• We’ve been pretty happy with increased LP gains (+-25) in most tiers – You can go up or down a division in a session which is what we’re generally aiming for.
• In tiers like Emerald to Apex where breadth of skill is slightly higher than other tiers, we’ve found we’re unable to give this much LP gain sustainably, so we’re scaling it back slightly.
• We still want to have players be able to move up and down a division in a session, but gains will be closer to +-20 in Emerald+, compared to +-25 like in tiers below Emerald.

New Player Placement

• We’ve made some changes to how new players are placed in ranked to put them more appropriately around their skill level.

Seasonal Challenges

With each new Ranked split in 2024, there are new Seasonal Challenges for players to overcome. If you reach Master rank in Split 1, you’ll earn the Voidborn title. The new Seasonal Challenges for Split 1 are:

• Legendary Arms: 2024 Split 1 – Win Games with Legendary Items
• Support Subsidy: 2024 Split 1 – Fully complete your support quest in 14 minutes
• Crab Wrangler: 2024 Split 1 – Take both of the first Scuttle Crab spawns
• The Brush Has Eyes: 2024 Split 1 – End the game with 20% more vision score than your role opponent
• All Random All Champs: 2024 Split 1 – Earn an S- grade on different champions
• Wurm Fishing: 2024 Split 1 – Take down Barons
• Right Under Their Noses: 2024 Split 1 – Recall while unseen by an enemy champion
• Always On Time: 2024 Split 1 – Kill Epic Monsters within 30 seconds of spawn

How will the community react to these Ranked changes for the 2024 season? We can’t wait to find out!

New LoL Champion Skins

There are five new LoL Champion skins arriving with this patch, four of which you can buy:

• Dragonmancer Kassadin: Buy for 1,350 RP
• Dragonmancer Fiora: Buy for 1,350 RP
• Dragonmancer Vayne: Buy for 1,350 RP
• Dragonmancer Rakan: Buy for 1,350 RP

In addition to the above, you can also earn a Prestige Dragonmancer Rakan skin.

Item System Revamp

Undoubtedly, the most significant change in Patch 14.1 is removing Mythic items from the game and adding several new items across all tiers of the item shop and price points for all roles. The item system revamp is massive, and the meta will shift significantly.

Not only do we see new items entering Summoner’s Rift, but the patch also changes nearly every item most players have used in the past. You’ll find a list of new items and removed items below.

New LoL Items in Patch 14.1

• Brutalizer
• Opportunity
• Caster’s Companion
• Dawncore
• Kaenic Rookern
• Nitro Hexageis
• Voltaic Cyclosword
• Unending Despair
• Trailblazer
• Cryptbloom
• Steel Sigil
• Stormsurge
• Malignance
• Haunting Guise
• Hollow Radiance
• Hubris
• Profane Hydra
• Sundered Sky
• Rectrix
• Glowing Mote
• World Atlas

Removed LoL Items in Patch 14.1

• Evenshroud
• Chalice of Harmony
• Turbo Chemtank
• Radiant Virtue
• Gargoyle’s Stoneplate
• Aegis of the Legion
• Lifewell Pendant
• Luden’s Tempest
• Chemtech Putrifier
• Duskblade of Draktharr
• Prowler’s Claw
• Crown of the Shattered Queen
• Everfrost
• Leeching Leer
• Rageknife
• Demonic Embrace
• Night Harvester
• Stopwatch
• Goredrinker
• Divine Sunderer
• Silvermere Dawn
• Ironspike Whip
• Galeforce

These new items and removals should add a hint of freshness for pro and casual players alike. In addition to the list above, Riot removed all previous Support items. They’re replaced by the World Atlas item, which you can upgrade to different variants such as Runic Compass.

LoL World Atlas Support Item Details

• Item Cost: 40 gold
• Stats: 30 health, 25 percent mana regeneration, 25 percent health regeneration, and three gold per 10 seconds.
• Support Quest: Earn 500 gold from this item to transform it into Runic Compass. You’ll also be able to hold wards.
• Gold Generation: You’ll gain a charge every 18 seconds; the maximum stacks are three. You can also use a charge to earn gold in two ways:
  • Damaging abilities and attacks against champions or structures grant 30 gold for melee and 28 for ranged.
  • Killing a minion grants you 20 gold. Your nearest teammate gets the same amount of gold they would have if they had killed the minion. This could mean support will be more active in pushing the lanes and taking out minions.

Please note: The World Atlas item details are from the BPE servers.

Summoner’s Rift Map Changes

Players must get used to the new Void-infested Summoner’s Rift map, with multiple changes affecting each of the three lanes. While some will want to explore Summoner’s Rift and all its changes on their own, we’ve shared the significant terrain changes for your convenience.

• New Brush and Wall in the middle of River entrance
• Top lane terrain mirrors each other for blue and red sides
• Bottom lane terrain mirrors each other for blue and red sides
• Same Jungle pathways for red and blue sides in the top and bottom lanes
• A new Wall across from Drake Pits and Baron Nashor
• Brushes moved back slightly more into the river on both sides

The main takeaway is that lanes are now more balanced for both sides, with the terrain mirroring each other. Plus, slower Champions in the middle lane have a better chance of safely farming, because they can spot ganks earlier.

Riot Games explains the goal of these map changes as follows:

“We’ve got a few different goals with the map changes this season. At the highest level, our goal is to make lanes more fair across sides. Red and blue sides have very different advantages in a lane with respect to how to gank them, how fights play out, how you can posture against the brush or river, etc. These differences will still exist, but in lesser ways. For example, top lane red side won’t feel nearly so exposed when pushing up, so you don’t need to be a safer laner to exist when the champ select gods put you red side.

The second goal of the map changes was specifically around making solo lanes a bit more protected from junglers, or roamers generally. Ganking as a primary early game output was just too strong in most cases. Each lane had a slightly different reason for their changes however. Let’s take a quick dive into those now!”

While the terrain changes are significant, there are more new additions to Summoner’s Rift to unpack!

New Jungle Monsters: Voidgrubs

A brand-new camp of monsters is spawning in Summoner’s Rift’s Jungle, replacing the first Rift Herald at the five-minute mark. Players must slay the Voidgrubs to gain the Hunger of the Void buff, which provides your team with bonus damage to enemy structures.

The Hunger of the Void buff stacks, so your damage output to structures increases the more you slay, but only six Voidgrubs can spawn during a match.

Check out the official details and mechanics of Voidgrubs below.

• Three Voidgrubs spawn at 5 minutes into the game.
• Each Voidgrub will spawn 4 Voidmites every 12 seconds in combat.
• Voidgrubs can respawn once per game as each one has their own individual respawn timer of 4 minutes, so feel free to just take one and walk away.
• On death, Voidgrubs will give other nearby Voidgrubs a 25% Maximum Health + 25% Missing Health shield that decays over 10 seconds.
• Killing one Voidgrub grants the player and allied teammates one stack of the Hunger of the Void Buff, which causes your non-proc attacks to deal bonus true damage to structures over 4 seconds. This damage will scale with the number of Voidgrubs slain at a rate of 4 (melee) / 3 (ranged) true damage every 0.5 seconds per stack.
• Once your team hits 5 stacks of the buff, you will spawn 1 Voidmite to help when attacking towers (15 second cooldown). At 6 stacks the amount of Voidmites is increased to 2. Voidmites summoned by players have the same stats as a melee minion, but with 40% less health and 50% more movespeed.
• Voidgrubs despawn at 13:45 in-game time (or 13:55 if Voidgrubs are in combat) to make way for Rift Herald.
• The first Voidgrub taken per spawn group* will count as an epic takedown reward for the first one you participate in killing. For example, Cho’Gath can get one epic monster stack from the first Voidgrub he kills in the first spawn group, and then one more if he kills a Voidgrub that spawned in the second group. (*The Voidgrubs that spawn at 5 minutes are the first spawn group, and once slain the Voidgrubs that replace them are the second spawn group.)

Baron Nashor: Three New Forms

With the 14.1 update, Baron Nashor is getting a major makeover and three new forms. Plus, each new form will feature new abilities. Two forms (Territorial and All-Seeing) will also boast new pit terrains. 

Here’s an overview of the Baron Nashor forms in Patch 14.1:

• Hunting Baron: Baron calls a pillar of lightning over every nearby enemy. After 0.7 seconds they begin to strike, delayed by 0.1 second per strike. These deal 15% of the target’s current health.
• All-Seeing Baron: Baron summons rifts toward the two furthest enemies he can see within 2200 units. These last for 3 seconds and deal 150 magic damage on the first hit, and 50 damage for every subsequent hit.
• Territorial Baron: Baron reaches out, after 1.5 seconds he grabs all enemies in a cone, pulling them 300 units and dealing 75 magic damage to them.

The different Baron Nashor forms in this patch will undoubtedly provide new challenges for even the most battle-hardened of teams.

Please note: Baron Nashor evolves each game, which means the form you get is random!

Rift Herald Update

You can now ride the Rift Herald with its Void-inspired look! Yes, that’s right—after a team defeats the Rift Herald and activates the Eye of the Herald, the Rift Herald appears again. From here, players can right-click to jump onto the Rift Herald’s back and ride it through Summoner’s Rift.

You’ll knock around enemies caught in your path, and you can ride the Rift Herald straight into a tower. You’ll deal more damage if it is player-controlled at the moment of impact. The caveat is that you’ll get knocked off once the Rift Herald rides into the terrain.

Riot Games explained other changes to the Rift Herald and its gameplay functions below:

• The Rift Herald receives 1 use of Charge when summoned which is consumed as soon as a player hops onto Herald (or when Herald automatically Charges a tower unpiloted). In the event a nearby enemy tower or inhibitor is destroyed, Herald will receive an additional Charge. This Charge (and cooldown) is displayed on Rift Herald’s health bar.
• The Charge lasts for up to 14 seconds, starting at 150 movement speed and ramping up to 600 movement speed over 5 seconds (this is increased by 75% when charging towards an enemy tower). The charge will end upon collision with a structure or terrain, reducing the Herald’s health by 66% and ejecting the player 200 (+75% of player’s attack range) units in the opposite direction of the charge. In the event Herald’s Charge hits a live tower the ejection distance is increased to 700 (+75% of player’s attack range) units.
• If a player steers the Rift Herald through enemies (including champions), the enemy will receive 250 true damage and be knocked airborne.
• If a player steers the Rift Herald into an enemy structure, a bonus 2000 (+0-750 based on average champion level) damage will be dealt to the structure, 5 (+ the number of Hunger of the Void stacks of the user) Voidmites will be spawned to attack the tower, and the player will gain a temporary shield.
• Rift Herald now has Baron’s Gaze. This reduces damage taken from the last enemy attacked by 50%.
• Empowered Recall: The holder gains Empowered Recall until the Eye is used/expires ⇒ All allied champions who assisted in killing Herald gain a single completed use of Empowered Recall
• Rift Herald grants any gold it gains from turrets/turret plates to the player who summoned them (if they weren’t around). Rift Herald grants any gold it gains from turrets/turret plates to all champions who assisted in killing the Herald.
• Auto Cast: Upon expiration, the Eye of the Herald will auto-cast with no channel time and summon Rift Herald. In the event your champion is dead at that moment, the Herald will spawn in your team’s fountain.

Note: Voidgrubs replace the first Rift Herald spawn in LoL Patch 14.1 at the five-minute mark. The Rift Herald will still spawn at the 14-minute mark.

Infernal Terrain Changes

With many changes to Summoner’s Rift, Riot took a step back and looked at what Infernal Terrain changes they could add and decided that Infernal Rift would no longer destroy any walls on the map.

Additional Infernal Terrain changes include:

• Infernal Cinders spawn randomly on the map in small groups, with a higher likelihood of spawning towards the losing team. Picking up a naturally spawned Infernal Cinder grants a small burst of movement speed and grants an Infernal Cinder stack.
• Infernal Cinder stacks grant 0.3 Ability Haste per stack. On death, up to 5 Cinders can be maintained, with some of the remainder being dropped on the ground and the rest being destroyed. Cinders dropped from player deaths do not grant the burst of movement speed upon pickup.

Riot Games explains these changes:

“We wanted to experiment with these changes after considering player feedback about the Infernal Rift being the least interesting in terms of gameplay. Our goal is that this will help us create more interesting map states beyond just terrain changes like the current Hextech and Chemtech. That said, we’ll keep a close eye on how these changes land and how players like them.”

LoL Patch 14.1 Bug Fixes & Quality Of Life Changes

Thanks to the official patch notes for LoL 14.1, we can share all the quality of life (QoL) changes, bug fixes, and cosmetic fixes.

QoL Changes

• Trinket wards now display the same visual effects as control wards when placing them. This should further clarify the range that wards cover, especially with the terrain changes releasing this patch.
• Qiyana R knockback duration was increased slightly to reduce chances of R knockback not overlapping with wall stun.
• Neeko R knockup no longer moves enemies outside of the stun range.
• Shaco’s R clone now mirrors spell animations and recall visuals.
• The amount of time required for Jarvan IV to reactivate his ultimate to lower the walls was reduced from 1 to 0.75 seconds.
• Sylas’ passive attacks are now single target for primary targets for the purposes of other systems. For example, this will let him proc Press the Attack or kill Yorick Ghouls while his passive is available.

Bug Fixes

• Mordekaiser R will no longer bring Akali Shroud with her through dimensions.
• Qiyana’s W > Q fast buffer no longer sends her Q towards the 0,0,0 map coordinate.
• Shaco’s R Clone will spawn with the same mana as Shaco and copy jungle mana regeneration (if he is a jungler)
• Kog’Maw’s W no longer cancels his auto attacks when the W buff ends.
• Fixed a bug that caused Fizz’s R water VFX to not show for the Fizz player.
• Fixed a bug that caused Hwei’s EW to expire before reaching a moving target.
• Fixed a bug that caused Neeko’s W to scale with ultimate ability haste.
• Fixed a bug that caused Hwei to cast a different ability from the same subject if his previous cast was interrupted by an item usage.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Hecarim’s E to critically strike with 0% critical strike chance.
• Fixed a bug that caused Hwei’s subjects to go on cooldown after certain rapid button-press combinations.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Hwei to cast a different spell than the one he input while move casting.
• Fixed a bug that caused Viego’s R to be replaced with Hwei’s R upon possessing him.
• Fixed a bug that caused Janna’s allies to be able to receive bonus movement speed from her passive while Janna is dead.
• Fixed a bug that caused Spear of Shojin’s passive to apply to Ultimate abilities.
• Fixed a bug that caused Dark Harvest and Heartsteel to reveal Neeko when she’s disguised.

Cosmetic Bugfixes

• Bewitching Fiora’s Duelist Dance (P) indicator visibility has been updated and aligns with her Base indicator visibility.
• Faerie Court Fiora’s Duelist Dance (P) indicator visibility has been updated and aligns with her Base indicator visibility.
• Lunar Beast Fiora’s Duelist Dance (P) indicator visibility has been updated and aligns with her Base indicator visibility.
• Prestige Lunar Beast Fiora’s Duelist Dance (P) indicator visibility has been updated and aligns with her Base indicator visibility.

Rune Changes

Patch 14.1 removes the Perfect Timing Rune and replaces it with the Triple Tonic Rune, which has the following official stats and effects:

• At level 3, gain an Elixir of Avarice.
• Elixir of Avarice: On use, gain 5 true damage on-hit against minions for 60 seconds. At the end of this effect, gain 40 gold.
• At level 6, gain an Elixir of Force.
• Elixir of Force: On use, gain 20 Adaptive Force for 60 seconds.
• At level 9, gain an Elixir of Skill.
• Elixir of Skill: On use, gain a skill point. (Note: This does not grant a level or modify the rules around adding skill points into abilities)

Tower Adjustments

Riot Games is increasing Tower health to compensate for the additional damage coming from Voidgrubs. Check out the Tower adjustments below.

• Inner Tower Health: 3600 ⇒ 4000
• Inhibitor Tower Health: 3300 ⇒ 3500
• Nexus Tower Health: 2700 ⇒ 3000
• Backdoor Bonus: Now reduces True Damage to towers rather than nullifying it entirely
• Backdoor Damage Reduction Amount: 66.666% ⇒ 80%

LoL Patch 14.1 Champion Balance Changes

Due to the mammoth nature of LoL Patch 14.1, there’s only one direct Champion balance change so far:

• Hwei’s base armor rating increased from 18 to 21.

However, there are some Jungle damage adjustments:

• Champion Bonus Damage to Non-Epic Monsters: 42% ⇒ 25%
• Pet Damage per Second: 15.5 (+10% bonus AD) (+12% AP) (+20% bonus Armor) (+20% bonus Magic Resistance) (+ 3% bonus Health) true damage ⇒ 20-90 (based on level) (+10% bonus AD) (+12% AP) (+20% bonus Armor) (+20% bonus Magic Resistance) (+ 3% bonus Health) true damage
• Pet Damage per Second Cap vs Epic Monsters: 16-40 (based on level)

More champion balance changes are expected in a micro patch that should arrive roughly 36 hours after Patch 14.1’s release on Jan. 10, 2024. This is according to lead gameplay designer David “Phreak” Turley, who noted the following in a preview of the patch:

“We expect that there’s going to be balance outliers, and we are pre-planning that we’re going to put in some work. And we also all expect that there will be a ton of balance work to do when the patch comes out.”

Are You Ready For Patch 14.1?

With all these changes and plenty more on the way, Patch 14.1 promises to be one of the biggest updates to League we’ve seen in some time. Hopefully, you’re now feeling better prepared for what’s to come after reading our guide, whether you’re a longtime player or newcomer just getting their feet wet in the Rift.

For even more League action, check out our League of Legends betting guide and if you’re new you can also read through our League of Legends betting tips for beginners.