What Riot has in store for us this time?

As we all know, Riot is always working on new content for League of Legends. Would it be trough releasing new champions for us to please our blood thirst with, tweaking the game so it's more enjoyable for us or even designing new skins for eyes to feast on. Last week they announced their new champion; Hecarim, the Shadow of War. Who by the looks of things is going to be a very viable Jungler. I could go into detail and talk about his Lore and how awesome he looks, but you guys probably already know that. So let's get down to business and see what the so called "Shadow of War" actually does. Passive: Warpath: Hecarim Ignores unit collision and gains attack damage equal to a percentage of his bonus movement speed. Q: Rampage: Hecarim cleaves nearby enemies dealing physical damage. W: Spirit of Dead: Hecarim deals magic damage to nearby enemies for a short duration. Hecarim gains health equal to a percentage of any damage those enemies suffer. E: Devastating Charge: Hecarim gains increasing movement speed for a short duration. His next attack knocks the target back and deals additional physical damage based on the distance he has travelled since activating the ability. R: Onslaught of Shadows: Hecarim summons spectral riders and charges forward, dealing magic damage in a line. Hecarim creates a shockwave when he finishes his charge dealing additional magic damage to nearby enemies causing them to flee in terror. He sounds very interesting, a very versatile and fast champion by the looks of things. Also a very good engager and ganker. Not long after Hecarim was revealed, Riot announced another champion. To follow up after the Hecarim patch. He goes by the name of Varus, the Arrow of Retribution. There isn't a lot of info officially released regarding Varus however I got my hands on some information on him from PAX East 2012. According to PAX, Varus is going to be another AD Carry with Doran's Blade, Berserker Greaves, Bloodthirster, Phantom Dancer, Last Whisper as recommended items. He wields a powerful bow consumed by "dark magic" and his abilities are the following. Passive: Living Vengeance: On champion kill or assist, Varus gains 40% Attack Speed for 6 seconds. On minion kill, Varus gains 20% attack speed for 3 seconds. Q: Piercing Arrow: First Cast: Varus starts drawing back his next shot, gradually increasing his range and damage. Second Cast: Varus fires, dealing 77 to 115 physical damage, reduced by 15% per enemy hit (minimum 33%). While preparing to shoot, Varus' Movement speed is slowed by 20%. After 4 seconds. Piercing Arrow fails but refunds half its mana cost. < This was with 3 points in it.

W: Blighted Quiver: Passive, Varus' basic attacks deal 10 bonus magic damage and apply blight for 6 seconds (stacks 3 times). Varus' other abilities detonate Blight, dealing magic damage equal to 2% of the targets maximum Health per stack (Max 360 total damage vs. Monsters). < This was with 1 point in it. E: Hail of Arrows: Varus fires a hail of arrows that deals 60 physical damage and desecrates the ground for 4 seconds. Desecrated Ground slows enemy Movement Speed by 20% and reduces healing effects by 50%. < This was with 1 point in it. R: Chain of Corruption: Varus flings out a tendril of corruption that deals 150 magic damage and immobilizes the first enemy champion for 2 seconds. The corruption then spreads towards nearby uninfected champions, applying the same damage and immobilize if it reaches them. < This was with 1 point in it. A very interesting AD Carry, with a very nice passive. He looks like a very fast and a very hard hitter, with a decent amount of skill required to play properly. Being in a lane against him is probably going to turn out to be very tedious, with his passive giving him that hefty attack speed buff, which then leads on to faster stacking of his W and then finish of with a Q. Any who, enough about the new champions. Let's see what Riot have in store for us other than Hecarim within the following patch. Improved Floating Combat Text - Colour-coded text for damage, healing, crowd control effects, and gold income. Red will be the indicator for Physical damage, purple for magic damage, white for true damage and green for healing effects. Also included the option of changing it back to the default version from pre-patch.

Also for the rare few out there, that enjoy playing against Bots, Riot have put in some more additions in for them. Bots will now continue to power up after they've finished their build, via elixirs, yes, bots will now buy elixirs after they have finished their main build. Also Sion Bot has been added to the AI roster. You would also be able to add bots to Dominion custom games as well.

For the people who change computers a lot, Riot have put in Mastery Pages Stored Server- Side, meaning that now your mastery pages will be stored online. And finally, gameplay changes, and champion changes. As we all know, before, when you killed a champion, you got half the experience of his/her level, by this I mean, if you killed a level 7 champion, you would get half the experience needed to get to level 8. So now, they've made it so if you kill a champion higher level than you, you would get double the experience and if you kill a champion that is lower level than you the experience received will be lower. This will prevent teams from snowballing too hard if they've taken an early level advantage. This will also allow support characters to catch up with lost experience in team fights, due to them having to leave lane and ward. Rune wise, offensive runes are being buffed, so they are more viable and if you wanted to have a competitive offensive rune page, you can now build a viable one instead of doing what most people do now-a-days and build a defensive rune page that will more or less render any offensive pages invalid. Also they are nerfing a few of the defensive runes, but not by a significant amount, just enough so there is a proper balance between offensive and defensive runes. Kayle will be getting a tweak on her Divine Blessing. Its haste, haste duration, heal and mana cost will all be going up. This buff is mainly aimed for defensive support Kayle. The heal from Divine Blessing is now on a par with other burst heals spells in the game and allows Kayle to save team mates a lot more effectively, and the haste allows a better chase, an easier engage or getting away from ganks. Teemo is getting a few buffs and bug fixes. Toxic Shot currently has a bug where if you attack too quickly, you're delaying or actually preventing Toxic Shot's damage over time effect from doing anything. Once your attack speed got above one attack per second, you started having Toxic Shot not tick at all for the damage over time component and this was costing Teemo a lot of damage, this will change within the next patch so Toxic Shot will tick once per second as expected, regardless of how fast Teemo's attacking. Last but not least, three updates for the UI are expected with the following patch. The font, for the bottom left panel ( attack damage, ability power, attack speed, movement speed etc. ) has been changed so it's now clearer to read. A new feature now displays your champion's experience above his head, making it easier for you to monitor your progression through the game. Finally, your health and mana/energy regen rates will be now displayed within the respective bar when it is not full, it will also include effects such as Health Potions and mana Potions or ultimate's that increase any of your regens eg. Dr. Mundo's ultimate.