The feature-heavy pre-season for League of Legends is not quite done yet. The massive overhauling of core systems of the game has opened up a gateway for a ton of balancing concerns, most of which Riot Games has already addressed. Nonetheless, there is still more that needs to be done.
Posting on the official forums, associate development manager “Maple Nectar” confirmed that Patch 7.24 is already locked in for early December and will see no additional changes. This was supposed to be the last patch for the year but the developer has found it necessary to throw in one last batch of changes before heading out for the holidays.
“With how disruptive introducing a whole new system like Runes can be, we weren’t super comfortable with the gap between 7.24 and 8.1,” Riot Games explained, “so have added a new patch that’ll ship on a bit of a weird timeline compared to usual patches.”
Patch 7.24B is slated to arrive on December 14 and will focus solely on balance. The community should not expect any new skins, modes, or features. The patch notes will only deal with “tuning numbers” for runes, items, and champions. The latter will particularly be aimed at the top lane champions, most of which have spiked in power after the pre-season update was released. That being said, the secondary holiday patch could affect other roles as well to some degree.
Following that will be Patch 8.01 in early January, which is going to be fairly smaller because of how the holiday season overlaps with the development time. League of Legends will begin to receive its usual large patches by the end of the month as everyone starts grinding for better placements in the ranked ladders of the game.
Elsewhere, preparations are underway for Snowdown this year. The seasonal event will bring three new skins for League of Legends. The first is Ambitious Elf Jinx who is armed with a bazooka that fires gifts and a toy train that functions as a gatling gun. There is also Snow Fawn Poppy, dressed in an adorable outfit and wielding a mighty bell hammer. Santa Draven is the third and final skin, chucking icy axes with a festive beard.
