14 DAY TRIAL // League of Legends update 5.1, which rolled out yesterday, brings not just impressive gameplay changes to the popular online title but also a new model and ability for Tristana, not to mention better visuals for Alistar.
Riot Games treated League of Legends players to a variety of great things in recent weeks, starting with the Snowdown winter event, and continuing with special gifts to well-behaved members of the community.
Yesterday, the studio rolled out the first big patch of the new year, in the form of update 5.1, which made sweeping changes to quite a lot of heroes in terms of balance, while adding new mechanics, such as virtual gates to bases in order to make defending them a bit easier.
Tristana got a big overhaul
However, the update also includes a couple of champion overhauls, starting with Tristana, which has just been detailed on the official website.
According to Riot, Trist was introduced in the game as a megling champion before that whole race classification went away. Now, the team wants to turn her into a yordle character, and in order to do so, she needed a new model, better textures, improved voice work, not to mention ability effects and targeted kit changes.
The biggest modification refers to her E action that's been replaced with a new ability called Explosive Charge.
As a passive skill, it enables Tristana to unleash an explosion whenever she kills a unit to damage nearby enemies. As an active skill, Explosive Charge allows her to attach a charge to a nearby enemy unit or turret, which explodes a few seconds after. If the target receives extra damage before the charge detonates, the explosion will be much more powerful.
Alistar also received a refined model
Alistar also got a revamped character model but Riot didn't deem him worthy of a revised role or new abilities, so he'll just have a new model and better textures for all his skins. A few animations have also been refined and now Alistar will cycle through different run types as he speeds up and slows down before trampling foes.
Check out the revamped champions in League of Legends in the screenshots below.
