League Of Legends will be receiving a major update affecting its Summoner's Rift map, jungle monsters, and item system at the start of the next season. Read on to learn more about these changes and what else you can look forward to in Season 2024.
The Void Encroaches on Summoner’s Rift
The churning tide of the Void spills over Summoner's Rift for the League of Legends Season 2024 Update, infusing many of the map's jungle monsters with its corrupting influence and adding new ones to its devouring swarm. We'll be going through a quick rundown of the major changes coming to Summoner's Rift in the preseason for 2024. For a more detailed gameplay overview, Riot released an official update article on their website.
Major Map Changes To Limit Junglers and Ganking
Major map changes are coming to Summoner's Rift, with new walls and brush placements across all three lanes and even the jungle. The main focus of the new layout is to limit the power of junglers and the viability of jungle ganking as a strategy. This allows champions with less mobility to have more survivability, and possibly shake up the champion meta.
The biggest and most noticeable addition comes to the top lane, where a new retaining wall and brush will be added to make top lane jungle ganks harder to pull off. The wall was designed to be thick and hard to flash through so top lane champions wouldn't be ambushed as often. A new square of brush was added to the center of the top lane river entrance to give both the top laner and the jungler more options while in combat.
Mid lane saw two major changes with its brush positioning and ganking paths. The two lines of brush that used to flank mid lane will be moved further into the jungle to give mid lane champions a wider berth to work with. This is especially useful for low-mobility mage champions like Ryz and Xerath, or for a more meta example, Orianna and Syndra. To that end, the side jungle paths going into mid lane were also moved back.
Despite being corralled by the new walls and brush placements, junglers will also get a boon with this update. A new wall will be added opposite the Drake and Baron pits to provide junglers and roaming mid laners with more protection and relative safety on their half of the map.
Lastly, bottom lane will be receiving a new ganking path for the red-side turret, as well as similar wall and brush placement to the top lane. These changes were made mostly to add to the map's symmetry and prevent side-based advantages.
The Jungle is Now Overrun With Void Creatures
The ever-corrupting void spared no monster in its steady march through Summoner's Rift. New void creatures are now in the jungle, alongside their newly-redesigned brethren. Expect your jungle camps to start spawning eyes too, as the Void's influence doesn't end at the Baron Pit anymore.
New Early Game Objective: Void Grubs
Void Grubs offer a new early-game objective for junglers to prioritize. Three of these worm-like creatures spawn at the Baron Pit at the 5-minute mark of every game and despawn at 14 minutes to make way for the Rift Herald. Killing one will grant the jungler and their team a stacking buff that deals true damage over time to structures like turrets. Killing just one Void Grub will grant you this effect, but killing more will amplify it up to a maximum of 6 times.
Each Void Grub has a respawn timer of 4 minutes and only 6 can ever spawn per game. Gaining the maximum number of buffs will also cause you to periodically spawn Void Mites to help you attack structures.
The Rift Herald's New Look and Functionality
The Rift Herald will receive a visual update to its Void aesthetics and new ways to interact with champions and structures. As before, the Rift Herald could be summoned in lane after you defeat it, but you can now also ride it to deal more damage with its charge and steer it onto structures.
Hitting a structure, player-made or otherwise, will eject you from the Rift Herald, but you can ride it again after a short cooldown. Champions caught it the Rift Herald's path will now also be damaged and knocked up for a short period.
Baron Nashor Gets An Overhaul
Baron Nashor, the greatest of the Void creatures populating the jungle, will receive a major overhaul in addition to a visual update. Chosen randomly at the start of every game, Baron Nashor now manifests itself in one of three possible forms, each with its own pit layout and unique attack, as pictured in order above: Hunting Baron, Territorial Baron, and All-Seeing Baron.
This adds a layer of randomness and strategy similar to the Elemental Drake spawns at the other side of the jungle. This kind of variety is sure to keep the game fresh and fun for old and new players alike.
Void-Infused Jungle Monsters
Last of the void-infused creatures are the Blue Sentinel, Red Brambleback, and Scuttlecrab camps, all of which will now change when a game reaches the 20-minute mark. Concurrent to the spawning of Baron Nashor, these jungle camps will become infused with Void energy, making each buff harder to get and much more worth the effort.
Killing either red or blue buff in this state will grant the corresponding buff to all living allies instead of just the one that killed it. Killing the infused Scuttlecrab will reveal a very large area around it, outing hidden and invisible champions.
The aim here is to increase the usefulness of each buff in the late game and give junglers something to do other than gank.
Item System Changes To Remove Mythic Items and Simplify Support Items
Major changes are also coming to League of Legends' item system, chief among them being the removal of all mythic items to encourage more diverse item paths. As the Summoner's Rift Team saw it, the current item system only allowed a handful of build paths to be viable, shoehorning players to certain builds and not much else.
Many of the previously mythic items will be downgraded to legendary items, creating an item shop similar to the one before the 2021 overhaul that introduced them. New items like the Stormsurge will be added to fill in the niche left behind.
Support items will also be receiving a major overhaul. All support items and quests will be joined together to form one starting support item. This starting item can then be upgraded to one of five different paths once you finish your support quests. This is to demystify the usage of support items and make them more versatile for more champions in the long run.
Quality-of-Life Improvements on The Rift
Apart from the new content, quality-of-life changes will also be added to Summoner's Rift to make the game more accessible to all. The greatest of these changes is the general simplification of tooltips and item descriptions. This is to lessen the difficulty of understanding how the game works and what bonuses each item provides.
Riot will also be implementing something called "Dynamic Music", which changes the game's music depending on what you're currently doing. To name a few examples, there will be special boss music for the Baron Nashor fight as well as the Elemental Drakes.
Lastly, Riot will be implementing a new interactive emote for Fist Bumps. This universally understood gesture lets teammates celebrate a kill interactively by pressing the same emote, causing them to bump fists. There really is nothing like a well-earned fist bump after a successful gank.
