Now with Patch 8.17 live on League of Legends, there’s a host of new changes to welcome you to the latest and greatest in the game. While the main highlight of this patch is really Nunu and Willump, there’s been a truckload of alterations to LoL‘s new most popular game mode: Nexus Blitz. If you’re totally new to this mode, maybe take on our introductory guide for starters. However, if you’re an experienced Blitzer, then check out our LoL Nexus Blitz Patch Notes Guide where we’ll run through the changes that Patch 8.17 brought with it.
LoL Nexus Blitz Patch Notes Guide: New Events & Rewards
Patch 8.17 has added the new Paranoia Royale and Loot Veigar events. It’s also added a new reward called Blessing of Caitlyn, which is ridiculously OP. For the uninitiated, Blessing of Caitlyn grants cannon minions and towers Ace in the Hole, which makes things hurt a whole lot more than they already do.
LoL Nexus Blitz Patch Notes Guide: Changes to Snowball Fight
The adorable Snowball Fight mode has had a couple tweaks to it. In keeping with Nunu and Willump’s wintery influence, you now get additional penguins with your snowballs. When the event starts in Nexus Blitz, you’ll get a cute penguin to tag along with you. If you land snowballs, then your penguin gets bigger and gets even more adorable. On top of that, you get given a movement speed boost, and these buffs will last until the event is lost, or until you die.
If you hit enemies with your snowballs they will now be revealed for 3 seconds, and it’ll be a little more satisfying to hit snowballs from the half-court line. The cooldown on snowballs has gone up, and they now slow enemies for longer once they make contact. On top of that, they also have a cast time and a casting animation, as well as a longer range and a faster speed.
LoL Nexus Blitz Patch Notes Guide: Changes to Existing Events
On top of the new events and rewards, there have also been changes to the ones that already exist in the mode. The following events have changed:
- Sudden Death -Minions now have more AD, and they ignore unit collision. On top of that, they’re a lot more resistant to displacement.
- Push the Cart – Carts that spawn now move faster, and if you’re doing your job and pushing the cart then you’ll be rewarded with gold.
- King of the Hill, Bardle Royale, Juggernaut – Circle spawn positions have been changed in order to make things just that little bit harder for whichever team is lagging behind.
- On-Fire – Apart from the perks of being on fire, you will now have to contend with taking more damage from turrets, and Guardian Angel won’t protect you from this.
LoL Nexus Blitz Patch Notes Guide: Changes to the Map
There have been a few cosmetic alterations to the map and some mechanical additions, including:
- A new scuttle crab now lives in the bot lane;
- The lanes are now more narrow the closer you get to inhibitor towers;
- Jungle paths are easier to traverse between raptors and the blue buff;
- The red buff’s home has been subject to an interior (and exterior) decoration in terms of new foliage and other assorted, uh, pebbles;
- Jungle turrets are a little better at spotting intruders, so watch your step; and
- There have been some changes to the fountain turrets so you know exactly when you’re dead meat.
There have also been other changes to the turret stats, which mainly encompass turrets getting more armor and MR. Outer turrets and inhibitor turrets have had their health pools nominally increased, but nexus turrets have had their health pools decreased. Overall, death timers have also been reduced to 18 minutes at maximum down from 20 minutes.
LoL Nexus Blitz Patch Notes Guide: Changes to Items & Runes
Sword of the Divine has now been added to Nexus Blitz, and Force of Nature’s base health regeneration is now classified as Unique. If you’re going to pick up items particular to junglers, then you’ll benefit from mana regeneration when you’re hanging out around the river.
On the rune front, there have been some changes to the following:
- Grasp of the Undying: you now receive more HP per proc (from 10 up to 15)
- Demolish: The cooldown has been reduced by 15 seconds to 30 seconds
- Kleptomancy: The activation rate of this has increased during the late game to every 4 minutes, and you now get more gold on failed loot.
- Presence of Mind: The cooldown on your ult that you get refunded is now 6%.
LoL Nexus Blitz Patch Notes Guide: General Bugfixes
Aside from the specific changes mentioned above, there have also been some cleaning up of bugs. If you’ve noticed circles disappearing in events, those have been fixed now. Furthermore, the issues with Mirrored Scoreboards have been also dealt with in instances where text wasn’t showing up properly. While this may not be good news for anyone else, Yasuo players will be happy to know that they can now ult enemies who have been knocked up by Catapult of Champions.
Now that we’ve given you the lowdown on the latest Nexus Blitz changes, you should be positioned to carry your team to victory, penguins and all. As Riot has said before, they’ll constantly be updating Nexus Blitz in its current alpha mode and ensuring that new events and fun buffs get added so that the player experience will constantly evolve. What are you waiting for? It’s time to gun for your Ace in the Hole.
