Preseason is usually the time of the year when League of Legends players face significant changes to the game, at least compared to the usual patches which arrive every other week. For example, last year’s Preseason brought the Item Overhaul which turned the game on its head for a couple of months.

The upcoming Preseason will also bring some additional League of Legends novelties:

  • Preseason 2022 adjustments featuring new items, dragons and runes New visual update for Caitlyn Free Arcade-inspired skins for four champions - Jayce, Vi, Caitlyn and Jinx New Arcane-related adjustments for the Summoner’s Rift Map

Caitlyn has always been one of the most popular League of Legends champions and her visual update has been one of the main topics on Reddit over the last couple of days. A League of Legends employee by the name Riot Rovient has revealed that Caitlyn’s visual update will target some of her micro-mechanics such as animation cancels. The update will remove the following mechanics:

  • Passive headshot auto-attack cancel with trap/net on a secondary target 90 Caliber Net (E) Headshot auto-attack cancel combos 90 Caliber Net (E) Headshot auto-attack cancel on the primary target when the ability is cast against a wall Yordle Snap Trap (W) extended range by attack-moving

Riovient’s reasoning behind these changes reveals that the Summoner’s Rift team already tried to patch-out the machine-gun Caitlyn mechanics a while back and they considered that they had successfully done so. This mechanic allowed Caitlyn to apply multiple successive Headshot auto-attacks which resulted in a mage-like burst of damage, making her one of the most obnoxious League of Legends champions to deal with. It did not take long for players to figure out that this fix was ineffective if they switched to a different target for each Headshot. The new visual update will bring a completely new Headshot code where her auto-attacks will be treated as enhanced auto-attacks rather than spells that work like basic attacks.

This visual update will be a part of the upcoming RiotX Arcane event which will bring the game’s first League of Legends animated series. However, when the pandemic hit last year, production on the Arcane series was halted and no update was provided for several months. Now, it looks like Arcane is back in business, and fans of League of Legends couldn’t be more excited.

League of Legends is available to play for free on PC.