LoL overhauls with Darius, TSM and Athene!

This is a very anticipated upcoming patch in LoL, Riot have completely redesigned Summoners Rift and are making it look gorgeous, I have seen it on the test realms and all the new details make it look so much more pretty, from the new animations to the color of the water and a new shopkeeper that looks like Teemo's father :D

So here are the stats for the new hero.

Darius The Hand of Noxus

• Damage:53.5(+3.5 per level)
• Health:519(+93 per level)
• Mana:237.5(+37.5 per level)
• Movement Speed:315
• Armor:23.5(+3.5 per level)
• Magic Resist:31.25(+1.25 per level)
• Health Per 5 Sec:8.25
• Mana Per 5 Sec:6
• Range:125

Hemorrhage 

• Darius aims his attacks strategically, causing his target bleed. This effect stacks up to five times.

Pretty straight forward passive, nice extra damage similar to gangplank and every stack on an enemy increases your ultimate damage.

Decimate

 

• Deals 70/105/140/175/210 (+0.7) physical damage to all nearby enemies in a circle. Champions in the outer half of the ability are struck by the blade, taking 50% additional damage.
• Cost: 40 mana
• Range: 425
• Cooldown: 9 Seconds

Nuke with a nice little twist, praises good positioning which i like and encourages you to get up close in team fights to hit multiple targets.

Crippling Strike

• The next basic attack deals 120/140/160/180/200% damage and slows the target's movement and attack speed by 20/25/30/35/40% for 2 seconds. Crippling Strike's cooldown is reduced by 1 second for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target.
• Cost: 30/35/40/45/50 mana
• Range: 300
• Cooldown: 8 Seconds

Darius' slow, hopefully it will reset swing timer so you can do some burst and slow at the same time, with some Cooldown Reduction and 5 hemorrhage stacks on target, this skill will instantly refresh.

Apprehend

• Passive: Grants 5/10/15/20/25% armor penetration.
• Active: Pulls in all enemies in front of Darius.
• Cost: 45
• Range: 550
• Cooldown: 24/21/18/15/12 Seconds

I do like the look of this skill, the passive armor penetration will let him scale into late game and another mini cc for him to keep time on target.

Noxian Guillotine

• Leaps to target enemy champion and strikes a lethal blow, dealing 160/250/340 (+1.2) true damage. For each stack of Hemorrhage on the target, Noxian Guillotine deals an additional 20% damage. The cooldown is refreshed if Noxian Guillotine kills the target.
• Cost: 100
• Range: 475
• Cooldown: 60 Seconds

A similar ultimate to Garen, he can charge a hero for a huge nuke on the target, if Hemorrhage is stacked this can easily take a hero with 20% hp to dead. I cant wait to see a Play of the week where Darius does 5 ultimate's on a almost dead team after a team fight and get a pentakill :p

So Darius will be a very strong Jungler and equally as viable as a top lane, I hope see him in competitive play soon! There are some slight changes to a couple of other champions in the upcoming patch as well.

Dr. Mundo

• Sadism - Maximum Health regenerated reduced to 40/50/60%, from 40/55/70%.

Sad to see as I love Mundo but I think it was needed, not a huge nerf as you will still go from almost dead to full hp with a spirit visage. 

Hecarim

• Rampage - Damage to minions increased to 66%, from 50%.

Nice damage buff but I doubt it will be enough to see him more in ranked play.

Lulu

• Glitterlance - Damage and ability power ratio reduced to 80/125/170/215/260 (+0.5), from  80/130/180/230/280 (+0.6).

This was defiantly needed, Lulu's damage was insane if she went AP carry mid way too much damage and utility from one hero

Malphite

• Health increased to 513 (+90 per level), from 505 (+82 per level).

Nice little buff but like Hecarim I doubt it will be enough to see him being played in the Jungle or Top in ranked play.
Fiddlesticks

• Darkwind - Damage to minions is increased by 50%.

This change will help Jungle Fiddle's clear time so I like this buff, plus a friend of mine loves playing Jungle Fiddle so he is happy about it :)

Gangplank

• Parrrley - Total Gold Plundered added to tooltip

Nice update, like Veigar it will show you how much extra gold you have accumulate from Parrrley.
Ashe

• Hawkshot - Total Gold Retrieved added to tooltip.

Like Gangplank this change will be good to show you how much extra gold you have gained. Also in the upcoming patch the Ashe Classic skin will get a big change and hero, Volley and Enchanted Crystal Arrow's color will change for each skin. I have seen pink, purple and light green animations and does look really nice.

So with this huge LoL make-over of course Riot have added a new item to the game and Athene managed to get enough referrals to get an item designed for the game.

Athene's Unholy Grail 

• Item Cost - 2950
• Recipe Cost - 500
• Components - Fiendish Codex, Amplifying Tome, Chalice of Harmony
• Stats - +80 Ability Power, +40 Magic Resist, +15 MP5, +15% Cooldown Reduction, Passive: Restores 12% of your max Mana on Kill or Assist, UNIQUE Passive: Increases your Mana Regen by 1% per 1% Mana you are missing. Does not stack with Chalice of Harmony.

This will add some variety for the mana hungry AP heroes, I can definatly see this being a core item for Galio in the future.

Speaking of Athene, he managed to get the World first level 60 on Diablo 3 even though he was 6 hours behind the Asian servers. He was also going for World First Inferno Clear but had to stop as Blizzard hot fixed a skill in which their Monk characters could go invulnerable for 2 seconds down to half a second. He decided to go for it with a new setup with a Barbarian Tank and 3 Demon Hunters but Method finished Inferno difficulty it earlier today.

Finally in the National ESL Pro Series, the match was TSM vs CLG.NA, I enjoyed the two matches between them, the first game was very close for the first 20 minutes, it looked like CLG had the advantage with a lot of successful Blitzcrank hooks onto Reginald who was playing Karthus. I don't know if TSM planned to eat these hooks but it worked in favor for TSM every time, Karthus would get some huge AoE damage on CLG's team and just before death, Dyrus playing Kayle would use his ultimate and save Reginald from certain death. This won TSM the team fights and led them to win the game. In the next game TSM really steamrolled CLG going up 17-0 within 20 minutes and going on to effortlessly win the game 24 mins in. This was a slaughter not often seen between two professional teams.