League of Legends v12.1: Release date, buffs and nerfs, ranked season updates, new skins, and more

After a short holiday break, the League of Legends patch cycle is about to begin again, this time welcoming all players to Season 2022.

While we already know some of the content that will come to the MOBA during the course of the year, in addition to the big changes that debuted during the preseason such as the new Hextech and Quimtech dragons, Riot today revealed everything related to League’s patch 12.1.

So without further ado, the time has come to jump back into Summoner's Rift, and discover together with us all the balance changes and new content available in the first League of Legends patch, for 2022.

LoL patch 12.1 release date

The first patch of the Season 2022 is expected to hit the main servers tomorrow, January 4th, however, this will serve to prepare all the players and different game modes, for the start of the new competitive season.

Likewise, Riot has also revealed the times of the start of the season, in which the ranked queues will be reset and the new rewards for Split 1 will be added.

LoL patch 12.1 buffs and nerfs

Champions changes

Following with the changes to champions and items, Riot concentrated this time on making adjustments for a specific group, with the main affected being Sona and Rek'Sai, who will have a bigger cooldown in their Es as well as less damage in the case of the beast from the Void, and less armour scaling for the muse.

On the other hand, Diana will see a substantial increase in her damage thanks to a buff to her passive, both in AP and damage to monsters ratio. Finally, Gangplank will have a lower mana cost to his Q, and a reduction in cooldown.

Diana

• Passive – Moonsilver Blade: AP ratio goes from 40% to 50%, monster damage from 250% to 300%

Gangplank

• Q – Parrrley: Mana cost from 60/55/50/45/40 to 55/50/45/40/35, cooldown from 5 to 4.5 seconds

Rek'Sai

• E - Furious Bite: Physical Damage from 50/60/70/80/90 (+85% bonus AD) to 55/60/65/70/75 (+85% bonus AD)
• E - Tunnel: Cooldown from 26/23/20/17/14 to 26/24/22/20/18 seconds

Sona

• Base Armor Growth from 3.5 to 3
• E - Song of Celerity: Cooldown from 12 to 14 seconds

Item changes

During the preseason, different offensive items managed to stay within the top tier for any comp, so their presence in the game became more than crucial for the victory and to secure kills and objectives.

That said, there are four main targets that are now getting some pretty meaty nerfs, that will completely change their dominance in the Rift.

Eclipse

• Ever Rising Moon Cooldown (Melee) from 6 to 8 seconds

Force of Nature

• Absorb Stack Duration from 5 to 7 seconds
• Dissipate Magic Damage Reduction from 20% to 25%

Immortal Shieldbow

• Attack Damage from 55 to 50
• Lifeline Shield from 300-800 (based on level) to 275-650 (based on level)

Wit's End

• Build Path from Hearthbound Axe + Negatron Cloak + Long Sword + 750 gold to Hearthbound Axe + Null-Magic Mantle + Pickaxe + 675 gold (total cost unchanged)
• Magic Resist from 50 to 40

Summoner Spells changes

As rumoured for a few weeks now, the Teleport, one of the most important tools for any single laner in League, will receive a major adjustment that will change its impact during the mid and late game, by adding a new evolutionary phase and new cooldowns.

At first, Teleport will only be enabled for use on allied towers, but once tower plating falls at 14 minutes, Teleport will transform into Unleashed Teleport, which can target allied towers, minions, wards, and certain allied constructs (same as Season 2021 Teleport).

Teleport’s cooldown will be fixed at 360 seconds at all levels, while it will be reduced to 240 seconds once it evolves into its Unleashed state.

LoL patch 12.1 ranked season updates

After the preview released several months ago by Riot, the first visual changes to the LoL client will arrive shortly with patch 12.1.

To begin, players will be able to observe the transformation of Ranked Armor into Ranked Crests both in their profiles, as well as in the ranked pages, game lobbies, and friends lists.

Also, all loading screen borders have been updated to match the new Ranked Crests, while several parts of the game lobby UI have been rearranged for clarity.

Another important change that will come in this patch is for the decay rules for the Apex tiers (aka Master, Grandmaster, and Challenger), since now the players of these tiers will have an extension of 10 to 14 days to prevent automatic relegation, and the decay rate will go from 250 LP per day to 75 LP per day.

However, the decay floor will now be up to Diamond II, rather than Diamond I. Additionally, Riot has confirmed the diamond decay rules won't change this season.

LoL patch 12.1 new skins

Finally, we will have a couple of new skins based on the Elderwood theme starting tomorrow, for both Gnar and Rek'Sai.

Each of these will come with eight different chromas to choose from, so you'll have a great arsenal on hand to best suit your style.

Both skins will be available for 1,350 RP, while the chromas will be priced at 290 RP each.

• Read more: League of Legends patch schedule 2022: Release date of all the major updates

Don’t forget to check out our League of Legends dedicated section for more news, guides, updates, and everything esports.

Featured image courtesy of Riot Games.