Riot shuffling League of Legends' Summoner Spells for Season Two

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Alas, poor Fortify, we knew him well

Riot Games is always looking for ways to improve League of Legends, especially as it becomes more and more prevalent on the e-Sports competitive gaming scene. With Season Two fast approaching, it's prepping a number of big changes to summoner spells - the abilities that players can use in any game, regardless of their current champion. There are some new ones being added, some changes to the ones that are staying, and a few that are being cut outright.

Rally and Fortify are getting removed outright. To replace them, Riot is bringing Promote back from the dead to allow players to upgrade a catapult minion. The spell had a good reaction when it was added to Dominion, and the developers have tweaked it to work in Summoner's Rift, too. Riot has also created a new spell called Surge, "that will imbue your champion with a powerful aura, boosting the combat effectiveness of both you and your allies." It's essentially the replacement for Rally, which relied on players standing still for longer than they typically do in the game.

A majority of the remaining summoner spells will remain unchanged, while others will be enhanced to make them more suitable for end-game play. Heal will scale better for late-game play, making is less of a joke for higher-level players, and Cleanse will remove all debuffs, including that of other summoner spells like Ignite and Exhaust.

But it's not all peaches and gravy. Flash and Clairvoyance, two of the most powerful summoner spells in League of Legends, will be getting hit with nerfs. Flash will teleport champions less frequently and less distance, a change that's sure to infuriate players (it's likely the most used summoner spell), and Clairvoyance will have an an increased cooldown and reduced duration. They hope that the change will make players rely less on Flash as the go-to spell, and that Clairvoyance will be used more tactically.

We're most excited about the possibility of Heal not sucking anymore. Before, it was the weakest of the Spells, but one that we desperately wished was more powerful. With the buffs there's a chance it will add some new strategy to the game, something we're more than a little happy to have.

Hollander Cooper
Hollander Cooper

Hollander Cooper was the Lead Features Editor of GamesRadar+ between 2011 and 2014. After that lengthy stint managing GR's editorial calendar he moved behind the curtain and into the video game industry itself, working as social media manager for EA and as a communications lead at Riot Games. Hollander is currently stationed at Apple as an organic social lead for the App Store and Apple Arcade.