Patch 6.1 Gameplay Updates

Sparkly stars aren’t the only thing we’re adding to the Rift! Learn more about some of the new items and other updates we’re bringing to the Rift in Patch 6.1!
Game Updates
Alice Labrecque

Hi everyone! Our Patch Preview just came out today, and in addition to our surprise guest, FAKER (we’re still freaking out that Faker came to hang out and film a Patch Preview with us), we also talked about all the new content coming in Patch 6.1. If you missed it, you can check out the Patch Preview here. The major update for this patch is our Dual Nova system, which we did a deep dive on here. But we also have a few gameplay updates that we wanted to talk about with you a little bit more in-depth. 

NEW CHAMPIONS 

After Faker announces that Ryze is coming to Wild Rift, is there really any other pun or way that we can share that’s even a quarter as cool? Definitely not. But as our special guest shared, Ryze is coming to Wild Rift, along with Zilean and Nocturne. Which by the way, we hope David is okay, can’t believe someone would turn the lights off on him like that, so rude! Which champion are you most excited to join the Rift? 

MAGE UPDATES 

Last patch we focused a lot of our gameplay updates on Supports, but this time we wanted the shining star of the patch to be Mages. When the team started working on this patch, we knew we were adding Ryze and Zilean, and we took a look at Mages overall and realized that they didn’t have that many item choices, especially in the earlier stages of the game. The first adjustment we’re making is some adjustments to Boots of Mana and Ionian Boots of Lucidity. 

Ionian Boots of Lucidity and Boots of Mana will have a new passive. When your Auto-attacks and active skills deal damage to minions, they will deal an additional amount of damage to the minions, based on your level. This will give a little extra help to Mages, so that they can clear lanes faster and look for opportunities to roam around the map. 

We additionally added a few new items: Hextech GLP8000, Bandle’s Fantasy, and Malignance. The goal of these items is to bring more variety to Mage builds and help you do a little extra damage in your fights and combos.

Hextech GLP8000 will launch frost bombs that explode when hitting the first enemy and cause magic damage to all enemies hit. Additionally, the foe that is hit by this will be slowed by 65%, and the slow will decay in 2 seconds. This can be used to help you push out your lanes even faster or slow down that pesky other champ you’re trying to hunt down and kill. 

The next item was, of course, inspired by our Bandle themed Rift. Bandle Fantasy will turn your mages into damage-dealing powerhouses! When you use abilities that cause damage to enemies, a warning area will appear under your foe’s feet, causing a small-scale explosion of damage after a short delay. If your ability hits multiple champions at the same time, there will be multiple area explosions that will be generated at the feet of each of your foes. You can cause some bomb-tastic damage with this item in your arsenal. Imagine picking Ziggs and buying this…explosions with a side of explosions, please!

And lastly, we’ll also be adding Malignance. Whenever you use your ultimate and it does damage to an enemy, it will ignite the ground under your foe's feet for 3 seconds, causing 60 (+5% Ability Power) magic damage per second and 10 magic resistance reduction to any enemies within the burning range. 

In addition to these item additions, we also feel there is some room for us to make some adjustments to Mages as a whole. So at the start of Patch 6.1, we’ll be adjusting the movement speed for the following Mages: 

  • Ahri 

  • Lux 

  • Karma

  • Morgana

  • Seraphine 

  • Annie

  • Zyra

  • Veigar

  • Kayle 

  • Teemo 

  • Kennen 

  • Swain 

  • Orianna 

  • Zoe 

  • Aurelion Sol 

  • Syndra

  • Twisted Fate

  • Ziggs 

  • Brand 

  • Heimerdringer 

  • Vex

  • Viktor 

  • Galio 

We feel this adjustment will improve their overall ability to kite and roam during the game without having to be so dependent on their items. 

GAMEPLAY UPDATES 

At the launch of 6.1, we’ll also have a few more updates to gameplay, which we will discuss more in the Patch Notes. The three main ones are the Fantasy Buff, Fantasy Portals, and Ixtal Sand Scorpion.

For the Fantasy Buff, we wanted to make Red and Blue Buffs more intuitive. So the Buffs will now evolve immediately when the evolution timer is reached, rather than only evolving after being killed and respawning.

Similarly, we wanted to make a slight adjustment to Fantasy Portals this patch. We noticed in the last patch that the landing locations of the portals could sometimes make you more prone to enemy ambushes, which would discourage you from using them. So we’ll be adjusting their positions to make them safer while also ensuring that your allied jungle portals better assist your team without being exploitable by foes. 

Last but not least, we have updates to the Ixtali Sand Scorpion. We will be adjusting its mechanics so that it is a more contested objective, rather than a one-sided advantage, as well as slightly reducing its overall impact on tower taking. 

CHAMPION REWORKS

As John mentioned, within this patch there will be two main reworks that we will launch, Garen’s and Ambessa’s. If you’re an OG Wild Rift player, you’ll know that Garen has been with us since the very beginning, and we’ve loved watching all your crazy plays with him and seeing what builds and strategies you’ve come up with over the years. However, we felt like he could use some love, so we’re going to be sharpening his broadsword. His second ability, Courage, will grant him growing stats of damage reduction and look a little bit different when you cast it. Additionally, his third ability, Judgment, will deal even more damage and reduce his enemies’ armor. We’ll have more additional details and context from the dev team in the Patch Notes when Garen’s rework is live, so stay tuned! 

We know that Ambessa hasn’t been here quite as long as Garen and know that a lot of you are still experimenting with her on the Rift. However, we’ve noticed a few things about commanding Noxian that we want to adjust. During the 6.1 patch cycles, we will be shifting some of the strength she’s been showing as a jungler to the Baron lane. So, you’ll see us tweak some of her stats, cut how much damage she can do to monsters, and increase the life steal and displacement immunity in some of her abilities. Similarly to Garen’s rework, you’ll be able to read more about her changes in the upcoming Patch Notes, but we hope this update will help you all become strong commanders up in the Baron Lane.

You’ll also notice some smaller quality of life updates like always, this time for Diana, Fiora, Jax, Sona, and Kalista. You can expect to see these in Patch 6.1, and we hope they make playing these champions even more fun and satisfying! 

ASCEND TO THE STARS 

That’s all from us for now, but be sure to stay tuned for the Patch Notes for the full list of changes and numbers! Once Patch 6.1 launches, please send us your feedback and hype clips, we’ll see ya on the Rift!