Yesterday, League Of Legends released their latest patch notes for patch v1.0.0.122, which was released today. New skings, bug fixes, and a lot of buffs were handed out in this patch. Below is the full release along with a video on the changes.

New Skins in the Store

• Volcanic Wukong
• General Wukong
• Darkforge Jarvan IV
• Bloodfury Renekton

PVP.net Store

• UI redesign of the store home page
  • Bouncing red text animation replaced with a shimmer
  • Replaced the bright blue and bright red header graphics with dark blue
  • Removed padding to create 20% more space on the home page
  • Fixed several issues with text alignments (featured items for example)
  • Fixed an issue with the promo image scroller where it would pause when you moused over an image
• Filtering items by IP/RP now works properly
• Added a filter that allows a user to sort alphabetically
• Search functionality updated to narrow results as you type each character
• All store pages now have a textured background instead of a solid black background
• Replaced pagination with a vertical scroll bar
• Updated the topside tabs graphic and added a rollover state
• Fixed a bug with sorting that caused certain items to show up in incorrect places once filtered

PVP.net v1.40.17

• Players will now receive more IP in very long ranked games
• Number of leaves is no longer visible in game lobbies
• Added a mouseover tooltip for the notifications tab
• LeaverBuster emails are now localized per language
• Fixed the text color of Masteries to make them easier to read
• Fixed a bug that allowed banned Champions to be selected when using the Random option
• Fixed a bug with displayed wins in the Custom Game lobby
• Fixed several bugs with the Mastery Page UI
• Fixed several bugs that occurred while viewing another Summoner’s profile
• Fixed several bugs with the word filter

League of Legends v1.0.0.122
Wukong, the Monkey King

• Crushing Blow: Wukong swings his mighty staff with incredible speed, crushing his opponent. This attack deals additional physical damage and reduces the enemy’s armor for a short duration.
• Decoy: Wukong utilizes his cleverness to trick his foes. He becomes stealthed for 1.5 seconds and leaves an uncontrollable decoy behind that will deal Magic Damage to enemies near it after 1.5 seconds.
• Nimbus Strike: Wukong dashes on a cloud toward a target enemy and sends out images to attack up to 2 additional enemies near his target, dealing physical damage to each enemy struck.
• Cyclone (Ultimate): Wukong’s staff grows outward and he spins it around, dealing damage and knocking up enemies. Wukong gains movement speed over the duration of the spell.
• Stone Skin (Passive): Wukong’s armor and magic resistance are increased for each nearby enemy champion.

Annie

• Disintegrate
  • Damage reduced to 85/125/165/205/245 from 90/130/170/210/250
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .7 from .75
• Incinerate
  • Damage reduced to 80/130/180/230/280 from 85/135/185/235/285
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .75 from .8

Cassiopeia

• Miasma now gives persistent vision in the area where cast

Corki

• Phosphorus Bomb
  • No longer blinds
  • Damage reduced to 70/120/170/220/270 from 80/130/180/230/280
• Gatling Gun attack damage ratio reduced to 20% from 25%
• Missile Barrage: Big One bonus damage reduced to 50% from 60%

Ezreal

• Fixed a bug where Mystic Shot did not interact with spell shields

Galio

• General
  • Base health increased to 520 from 495
  • Base armor increased to 20.5 from 16
  • Armor per level reduced to 3.5 from 4
• Resolute Smite
  • Projectile speed increased to 1300 from 1200
  • Mana cost reduced to 60/65/70/75/80 from 70/75/80/85/90
  • Ability power reduced to .7 from .8
• Bulwark
  • Duration increased to 4 seconds from 3.5 seconds
  • Heal increased to 25/40/55/70/85 from 20/32/44/56/68
• Idol of Durand damage reduction while channeling increased to 50% from 30%

Gangplank

• Parrrley gold bonus reduced to 4/5/6/7/8 from 4/6/8/10/12
• Raise Morale
  • Active attack damage bonus reduced to 14/22/30/38/46 from 20/28/36/44/52
  • Active movement speed bonus reduced to 10/14/18/22/26% from 14/18/22/26/30%

Janna

• New models and textures for Janna and Tempest Janna
• All new animations for her and her skins!

Jax

• Leap Strike
  • Attack damage ratio increased to 1.0 from 0.7
  • Base damage reduced to 35/60/85/110/135 from 50/75/100/125/150

Kayle

• General
  • New model and animations!
    • Community contest “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” /dance animation
  • Attack damage per level reduced to 2.5 from 3
  • Attack speed per level reduced to 2 from 2.3
  • Recommended items updated
• Holy Fervor
  • New Passive: Kayle’s basic attacks against enemy champions now reduce their armor and magic resistance by 2% for 5 seconds (stacks up to 5 times)
• Reckoning
  • Missile speed increased to 1300 from 1000
  • Ability power ratio increased to 1.0 from 0.8
  • Mana cost reduced to 70/75/80/85/90 from 80/85/90/95/100
  • Slow increased to 35% from 25%
  • Damage amplification reduced to 5% from 8/10/12/14/16%
• Righteous Fury
  • Cooldown reduced to 16 seconds from 22/21/20/19/18 seconds
  • Bonus damage increased to 20/30/40/50/60 from 4/10/16/22/28
  • Increased splash range to 300 from 200
  • Ability power ratio decreased to .2 to .3
  • Mana cost reduced to 45 from 65
• Divine Blessing
  • Base heal adjusted to 45/85/125/165/205 from 65/100/135/170/205
  • Movement speed duration reduced to 2.5 seconds from 10 seconds
  • Movement speed boost increased to 15/17/19/21/23% from 12%
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .35 from .5
  • Cooldown increased to 15 seconds from 10 seconds

Maokai

• Sap Magic can now be cast while silenced

Orianna

• Command: Dissonance
  • Ability power ratio reduced to .5 from .6
  • Movement speed slow and boost reduced to 20/25/30/35/40% from 25/30/35/40/45%

Pantheon

• Grand Skyfall now has a range of 5500

Swain

• Ravenous Flock now prioritizes champions

Teemo

• Fixed a bug where Move Quick did not proc on-spell cast effects such as Sheen

Tryndamere

• General
  • New model and animations!
    • Tryndamere has been working out and is now approximately 20% bigger
  • Tryndamere now uses Fury, gaining 5 per hit, 10 per crit, and 10 extra per kill.
  • Fury decays at 5 Fury per second after being out of combat for 10 seconds.
• Bloodlust
  • Passively adds 5-20/10-30/15-40/20-50/25-60 Attack Damage depending on how wounded Tryndamere is
  • Consumes all Fury to heal Tryndamere for 30-80/40-135/50-190/60-245/70-300 depending on how much Fury was consumed
  • Cooldown adjusted to 12 seconds from 12/11/10/9/8 seconds
• Mocking Shout is now free to cast
• Spinning Slash
  • Spinning Slash is now free to cast
  • Cooldown increased to 13/12/11/10/9 seconds from 9 seconds
  • Base damage adjusted to 60/90/120/150/180 from 40/90/140/190/240
  • Scaling adjusted to 1.0 bonus Attack Damage from 0.5 total Attack Damage (still scales with AP)
  • Now deals physical damage instead of magic damage
• Battle Fury now grants up to 35% Critical Chance, depending on how full his Fury bar is

Twisted Fate

• Gate now has a range of 5500

Udyr

• Tiger Stance Attack Damage ratio reduced to 1.5 from 1.7
• Fixed a bug where turtle stance was healing off of the damage dealt by Madred’s Razor.

Vayne

• Fixed a bug where Silver Bolts would go through Blind effects.

Yorick

• General
  • Base armor of ghouls reduced to 10 from 20
• Omen of Death damage percent reduced to 45/60/75% from 50/75/100%
• Omen of Pestilence now scales off of ability power at a 1.0 ratio instead of a .8 bonus attack damage ratio
• Omen of Famine
  • Heals for 40% of the damage dealt, down from 50%
  • Range reduced to 550 from 650

Items

• Zhonya’s Hourglass combine cost reduced to 800 from 1000
• Randuin’s Omen and Shurelya’s Reverie will now grant assists

General

• Significantly reduced sound related mid-game framerate stalls and hitches which were strongly affecting gameplay on certain machines
• Fixed a bug where certain spells would deal damage twice
• Fixed a bug where minions were not properly displaying stat growth over time
  
  

Source

S2 Games have been, as always, hard at work with a new patch, due to hit Friday 29th of July. The latest patch will showcase a new spectator UI. HoN was a trendsetter for spectating interfaces, vastly improving upon any previous MOBA games interface when it came up. The new SpecUI, however, will be far more intuitive and feature less clutter and more charts. They will also feature two new heroes

Monkey King

Drunken Master

The preview of these new exciting feautures will be in a showmatch format, where they will pit Fnatic.MSI against Online Kingdom on Thursday. Together with BreakyCPK and HoNCast, S2 Games are putting on quite a show for the fans in preparation for what should be a great patch. So don’t forget to tune in!

Source

This morning, after several days of waiting, the StarCraft II ladders have unlocked and Season 3 has begun. With the start of Season 3 players can expect several changes. First of which is that you’ll need to play one placement match before you can start laddering. The other major change is that the map pool has been modified.

The new map pool includes:

• Xel’Naga Caverns (2)
• Backwater Gulch (4)
• Shakuras Plateau (4)
• Tal’Darim Altar LE (4)
• The Shattered Temple (4)
• Typhon Peaks (4)
• Nerazim Crypt (4)
• Searing Crater (4)
• Antiga Shipyard (4)
• Abyssal Caverns (4)

The maps that were removed are:

• Scrap Station (2)
• Slag Pits (4)
• Delta Quadrant (4)
• Metalopolis (4)

One thing that is sure to upset a lot of SC2 players is the removal of Metalopolis, one of the oldest, most popular and highly regarded maps. It’s also kind of strange that Xel’Naga Caverns is the only remaining 2 player map in the pool.

What do you guys think about these changes? Are you going to miss Metalopolis? What do you think about the new maps? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Today GOMtv revealed some numbers on how many “foreign” viewers are tuning into the GSL. While the GSL is very popular, the actual figures are quite surprising.

According to ThisIsGame.com, “During the first half of the 2011 Global Starcraft 2 season, the number of foreign viewers are told to be over 50 million.” The first half of the Global Starcraft 2 season includes 5 regular seasons (3 GSL Seasons, World Championship, and SuperTournament). 40 million of the views came from GOMtv’s foreign website www.gomtv.net. The other 12 million came from China’s NeoTV.

Gom explains the growth saying:

Since the first broadcasting by GomTV Classic in 2009, GomTV.net has experienced the number of viewers doubling each year. Furthermore in China, the two seasons that were broadcasted through NeoTV beginning in May have experienced an explosive increase in popularity amongst the Chinese viewers and critics.

Therefore when summing up the number of viewers of the live broadcast and VODs, the number of foreign GSL viewers through GomTV is said to be 40,922,366 viewers and 12,516,491 viewers through the NeoTV; totaling up to 53,438,857 viewers. This number is calculated only up to the SuperTournament Finals that was held on June 18th of this year. Therefore it is predicted that the number of viewers including the new GSTL season and GSL Regular season for the rest of the year will easily add up to more than 100 million viewers.

GOMtv even released the rankings of countries that watch the GSL.

1.        United States
2.        Canada
3.        Sweden
4.        Australia
5.        England
6.        Germany
7.        Norway
8.        Denmark
9.        France
10.     Netherland
11.     Finland
12.     Singapore
13.     New Zealand
14.     Austria
15.     Brazil
16.     Switzerland
17.     Belgium
18.     Poland
19.     Ireland
20.     Japan

This is fantastic news. GOMtv’s GSL is one of the best produced StarCraft II leagues/shows. It features some of the best commentary from two of the most charismatic people in eSports, as well as the highest level of competition. With numbers like this nobody can deny that eSports is growing. Hopefully this trend will continue and StarCraft II will take over the entertainment world.

Source

The Devil Plays Protoss: TL Lounge

by Jacqueline Geller

Any opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of compLexity Gaming or its parent company.

On July 15, TeamLiquid announced that it would be hosting a Pro Player Lounge at MLG Anaheim. The concept is simple: “a special Player’s Lounge located next to the venue. Professional Starcraft 2 players will be able to relax, meet with sponsors, conduct media interviews, and communicate with their fans that are watching from all over the world.” Although I will be producing content for compLexity Gaming while I’m at the event, I am attending MLG as a SC2 fan. As much as I do like the theory behind the TL Pro Player Lounge, I have mixed feelings about it, and there is a good chance it will be either a smashing success or an epic fail.

Who is eligible to use the Pro Player Lounge? According to the TL post, pro players, team management, members of the media, notable community members and sponsors were able to apply to take advantage of the lounge. The specifics were a bit ambiguous. The post states “all pro players participating in the tournament are encouraged to apply” but does not give specifics of who is eligible. Are all players signed on a professional SC2 team eligible? Is there a minimum APM requirement for those pro players wishing to be accepted? As for non-players wanting lounge access, there are no guidelines as to who would qualify. Would someone qualify if they have a weekly SC2 podcast listened to by a handful of people each week? Do sponsors have to be supporting with a certain monetary amount to have lounge access? Although the Pro Player Lounge post encourages those wanting to apply or those wanting more information to contact TL, the post could have been more informative in regards to eligibility, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a number of people did not apply because the information needed was missing. Those attending the lounge who want to bring guests may also cause issues as the subject was not discussed in the TL post. Are those on the access list allowed to bring a guest? Will a pro player wishing to bring his girlfriend or wife to the lounge be told no? Will a pro player wishing to bring his friends to lounge be told no? I’m sure you can imagine what kinds of chaos and problems guests could cause.

The biggest selling feature of the TL Lounge is that it will be a great place for producing community content. The lounge will give media a place to conduct professional interviews and produce real time content for fans watching from home. Being able to have a quiet, secluded places for interviews to be conducted is a solid plan, but this seems like something that MLG itself could easily provide itself if it were a necessity. Content will be produced and uploaded from the lounge like clockwork in order to provide fresh content for the fans back home. The Pro Player Lounge will be a great tool to interact with fans and to ensure there is consistently fresh content available throughout the weekend. As someone who has watched every MLG from home, I love the idea of having new content to consume throughout the weekend. There can be considerable downtime between games, and what better way to keep the excitement up than to have new MLG-related content to absorb between streamed games?

As much as I do think that it’s a phenomenal idea to conduct player Ask Me Anything’s on Reddit’s r/starcraft and to produce content for those fans at home, what about those fans who are actually attending the event? I am traveling a long way to attend, and the trip is expensive. Despite the relatively short travel distance, flights from my city to LA have a decent price tag attached to them. Add the costs for hotel, shuttles, food and various other travel-related expenses, it is costing me nearly a thousand dollars to attend the event. As a SC2 fan, I will be heartbroken player interaction with fans. I love the fact that I’ve heard players hang out at MLG with fans, signing autographs and chatting. Will players continue to spend time on the convention floor if they have this exclusive lounge to spend their time in? I can imagine it being quite exhausting posing for picture after picture and signing dozens of autographs, and if players want to avoid fans, the TL Pro Lounge gives them the perfect hide out spot.

When I was on the executive of my university’s ski club back in the day, there was a real issue with exclusivity. The executive, along with its best friends and alumni, kept a close group that was often closed to outsiders. Every New Year’s, the club took 350 members on an epic trip, and the clique was always an issue. On my last year on the club, we even hosted two parties for New Year’s Eve: one for everyone and one for the exclusive clique. The locations were two doors down from one another, and the executive could make appearances at the general party but hide out together at the executive party. The TL lounge reminds me much of that. I have heard about the evening invite only parties at eSports events, but invite hanging out areas? It suddenly turns MLG into a rockstar-esque event with the passes only backstage area where a select few can meet the band. Will TL gift lucky and unsuspecting SC2 fans passes so they can go back stage, take pictures with their favorite players and have epic stories to share with their friends? Will the lounge help to foster an exclusive clique of elite players that few have the privilege of joining?

The NASL had a Pro Lounge at their Grand Finals which gave the pros an opportunity to hang out without hassle if needed, but they were encouraged to spend time on the convention floor, interacting with fans as often as possible. From what I heard, the pros loved the lounge and it worked out well for everyone. I can’t figure out why MLG wouldn’t host a similar lounge if it was seemed as necessary. Of course there’s additional planning, budget, logistics, things to worry about, etc. if MLG hosts a Pro Lounge of its own, but it seems a bit odd that TL would take the initiative to host this lounge itself.

Blizzcon 2010

I attended the TL party at BlizzCon 2010, which was totally different concept all together but a total blast. From my past experience, TL knows how to throw a party, and I have no doubts this lounge can be everything they’d like it to be if executed properly. To be honest, I’m actually quite surprised at the lack of response from the community regarding the Pro Player Lounge. Although the TL post has been updated with new information since its post date, the thread has a mere ten pages of replies, and I haven’t heard much about it at all. I would have assumed that TL would have tweeted about it more or given it a bit more attention over the past ten days. I have not seem much hype about it whatsoever which is a bit surprising.

I am curious to see the content produced by the TL Pro Player Lounge throughout the MLG weekend. This may be an incredible opportunity to produce some of the best interviews and interactive content we’ve seen from a SC2 event yet. As a fan attending MLG, I’d like the players to spend time on the convention center floor and am worried about players using the lounge to avoid in person community interaction. As much as the lounge does seem like a good concept, the execution and the results may be lacklustre. I am truly looking forward to seeing how the TL Pro Lounge pans out, what it will bring to the community and what it will encourage from future events.

TeamLiquid: GL HF.

Jacq

About the Author – Jacqueline Geller

After years of playing World of Warcraft, a friend introduced Jacqueline to Starcraft early last year. Jacqueline’s relationship with Starcraft started out slowly: a handful of casual dates, a little bit of flirting but nothing serious. She took her relationship with the game to the next level after BlizzCon 2010 where she experienced eSports magic first-hand and realized that Starcraft was the one. Despite being a mediocre player, she has been clambering the ladder at a glacial pace and has spent more time watching Starcraft online than she’d like to admit. In March, Jacqueline made the leap from eSports fan to eSports professional when she was hired by the Handsome Nerd as their Art Director, combining her design skills with her love of Starcraft. Since its start in April, Jacqueline has been a contributing writer for the North American Star League, writing coverage for Division 1. Offline, Jacqueline is a bookworm, a runner, a freeride snowboarder and has a Human Ecology degree with a Clothing and Textiles major.

View Jacqueline’s profile here.
Visit @jacquelinesg on Twitter

In the 13th episode of “Mind of the Gamer,” the show that has professional gamers explain their replay and describe what they were thinking during the match, Abdulaziz “CrunCher” Abed, a highly skilled Protoss player recaps one of this matches to give insight to this gameplay.