When Shaco crits during a Backstab or a Deceive, everything crits along with it for his full crit damage, so his top end can be very, very high. We like that he builds for crit sometimes and want to let as many of these tools inherit the new higher base crit damage, but also want to modernize his other scalings to respect crit damage mods more consistently and generally preserve the total power level of Shaco builds that don't buy any critical strike chance.

Shaco's ban rate has been creeping up, so we're going to tap him down in a few areas that should hopefully reduce the frustration of playing against him, like his repeated invisibility on Q. Right now his AP build is better than the AD alternative, but AD is still his primary build, so we’re going to adjust both.

AP Shaco is already pretty strong but AD Shaco has been lagging behind. Buffing up some of those short ranged higher commitment AD ratios to amplify that backstabbing assassin fantasy.

Shaco’s striking fear into the hearts of bot laners everywhere, but, for better or worse, we think that everyone on the map should be equally terrified, so we’re making some adjustments to reduce his support power while helping his jungle power. The Jack in the Box buffs should help him clear the jungle faster and healthier, especially for AP builds which are struggling more, while the mana nerfs should specifically bring down his ability to poke enemies down in lane quite so much while also allowing jungle Shaco to forgo mana items entirely.

AP support Shaco has been more of a menace than usual in some skill brackets due to his painfully magical Jack in the Boxes. It’s currently too easy for Shaco to counter multiple champions that want to engage by creating a minefield of boxes in lane (and eventually the enemy jungle), so we want to increase the mana restrictions that prevent him from going on a box planting spree.

Full AD assassin Shaco builds have been struggling to finish off kills after the adjustments we made to Duskblade and Infinity Edge a few patches back. We’re looking to give back a little of his lost power with these changes, ensuring that his primary AD assassin build remains well supported.

Famously (or infamously), Shaco has quite a few builds he can kill you with, his AD build has fallen pretty low in terms of effectiveness. In this patch, we’re increasing its burst a little to keep it a viable build option. On top of that, we’re also bringing Q’s mana cost down which should help since AD Shaco doesn’t build any mana items. Really, we just want to see more of the clown in the game. All right, now you can go check out the changes.

Shaco's been struggling in a world with more durable playthings, especially with his traditional burstier builds. He already has quite a bit of survivability with his tricks, so we're trading some of his durability for more burst. This should open up those high-risk, high-reward builds once again, adding to his diverse itemization options. (As a reminder, his Q and E can deal additional damage with his Passive - Backstab bonus.)

Okay, so last patch (11.15), we fixed a longstanding bug where Shaco’s smoke poof wasn’t showing up through the Fog of War. And by longstanding, we mean like, 2 years. This change also sparked a conversation around proper counterplay in League. Constantly panning around to look for orange smoke isn’t the type of gameplay we want to enforce, so we’re reverting the poof and fixing some of his goofs.

Whether AD or AP, Jungle Shaco is simply very strong. We’re targeting both builds by making him a little more squishy and a little less slippery, given his many tools of elusion and mayhem.

AD Shaco’s in a good spot, but his AP jungle and support builds are significantly stronger and need to be cranked back a bit.

Shaco has been spooking the bejeezus out of bot lane but he’s been clowning around in the jungle, so we’re adjusting accordingly.

Leaning just a little bit closer! into Shaco's exciting and unique points of play for stronger jungle clearing and assassination buffs.