The first new thing in this patch is a new god. The god they are adding is Ganesha the Hindu god of obstacles. Due to flak that Hirez previously caught from the Hindu community for their depictions of Hindu gods (such as Kali), Hirez made a conscious decision to make him more accurate to his lore. His kit is a unique one that makes me predict a meta-shift.

His passive ability gives kill credit he gets to the closest allies to him. His first ability is wave clear, his second is a channeled silence that buffs allies’ defence while in range. His third ability is a dash that stops on the first god hit stunning them and knocking them into the air. This dash can also go through player created obstacles (such as Ymir wall and Odin ring). His ultimate creates a square in the area around where it’s cast and it deals damage, shreds armor and slows when enemies move through it.

Ganesha’s kit has very strong synergy with many mid laners, adc’s and assassins that are just out of meta making me think that his release might mark their return. For instance, Xbalanque’s passive (gain 5 physical power for every kill) synergizes perfectly with Ganesha’s. In addition to that, Ganesha has strong waveclear to help supplement Xbalanque’s lack of waveclear. Ganesha’s ult forces enemies into a bad position if they leave the area it’s in making any mage who can cover an area with their ult very strong (such as Zeus and Vulcan.) He also synergizes well with Fenrir who can pick up opponents and run through the border of the Ganesha ult multiple times and Nemesis who can stack her armor shred with his in order to all but nullify any tank. (Also included in this patch are two emotes for Ganesha; the clap and wave.)

But this patch adds much more than a potentially meta changing god. Also coming this patch are several skins such as Vampiric Scylla, Modern Messenger Mercury, The Sparrow Nike, Secret Order Ullr and Worldwalker Janus.

There’s also so many bug fixes in this patch that there are too many to even list here.

Moving onto the item changes Belt of Frenzy has returned albeit nerfed a bit. Now all friendly players will gain +10% damage dealt and +15% attack speed and +10 damage toward objectives. When upgraded, it will also grant +10 penetration to all friendly players. This will likely be picked up by supports or junglers in the latter part of games to secure objectives and towers.

Blackthorn Hammer has had its base health stat increased by 100 in order to make it more appealing to solo laners as it has barely been used since it was released at the beginning of season 4. Although I still don’t think this item will see much play.

Another item released around the same time as Blackthorn Hammer that’s been used as much is Gladiator’s Shield. The devs feel this item is on the cusp of being overpowered so they gave it slight buffs increasing the physical protection it gives from 40 to 45 and the amount of health and mana it recovers when its passive procs from 2% to 2.5%.

Cursed Ankh and its upgraded version has had its cooldown reduced to 100 seconds (down from 150 seconds.) This will likely get it used more to counter healing comps.

Next is a new item called Lono’s Mask. It’s a starter item that stacks up to 75 times. Each stack grants +2 health and you can build stacks by getting minion assists. When you hit max stacks on it you get 400 gold. This is honestly pretty weak. It gives you a small amount of extra gold, but the item itself doesn’t have the stats to justify a purchase. So not even supports will likely use it.

They also nerfed Meditation Cloak so that it heals a flat amount instead of a percentage of health it’s less strong on supports, but i’ll still be a high tier relic.

The biggest item change they made this patch was to Rage’s passive. Now it builds stacks with 1% crit chance per stack. Stacks can be gained through kills or assists and at max stacks it grants an additional 10% crit chance (max stacks is 5.) This means that at max, rage can grant 35% crit chance on its own making the impending crit meta increasingly prevalent. To try to offset this, they also added 200 gold to its price, but that likely won’t offset its strength.

There are several more changes coming, but none as significant in these. Basically Ganesha is going to be very strong and the crit meta is upon us.