We’ve known for a long time that the Shyvana Rework was the next major League of Legends character to get a rework. Now, Riot Games has finally given us the first details with a reveal trailer.

Shyvana Rework Release

Shyvana’s Rework is set to drop on March 18th in the second Act of the Demacia story. The rework to Shyvana the Half Dragon, is a VGU/rework that aims to bring the character more in line with modern characters. The new rework is expected to drastically change both the human and dragon form. At the end of the trailer above, we get a pretty good look at what she’ll end up like in-game.

Gameplay details have not been made public; however, some leaks suggest the majority of her kit will be reworked. Her human form Q is rumoured to be an empowered auto-attack. The Dragon Form is likely to offer a similar ultimate, seeing Shyvana fly across a large area and do massive AoE damage.

The other note from Riot Games was a look at fixing the “visual clarity” of Shyvana, specifically on her Flame Breath (E). Shyvana’s rework is a very long time coming. In fact, it was announced nearly 10 years ago alongside Volibear, Udyr, Fiddlesticks and more. Those three have had theirs for a long time, which has made Shyvana’s wait even harder for fans of the half dragon.

As for why she needs a rework, Shyvana has been at the lower end of the scale when it comes to Jungle performance for some time.

Sitting at B in our Jungle tier list currently, with a fairly poor Pick Rate, it looks like only diehard Shyvana mains are sticking with her for now. Which is most likely inflating the poor win rate to a somewhat respectable level. Regardless, the rework will be sure to increase her pick rate. So be prepared to see a lot of Shyvana when she releases on March 18th.

The 26.5 full patch preview for League of Legends is out, with another handful of champion buffs and nerfs. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source

Ranked EUW Test delayed for another day, we’re playing it safe to land the changes without breaking anything

Volibear

• Voli changes are targeted at balancing out his AD builds vs his currently strong AP builds; needs a bit more time to land

Lillia

• We’re looking to pull back on some of the previous changes and bring Lillia’s power level most of the way back to where she was before

Orianna

• Changes are targeted at reducing the power level of her early laning phase, especially when sitting on Rank 1 Q for several levels

Neeko

• Neeko has been strong in Pro Play for a while while not being overly strong in regular play
• We’re taking some power out of her vision outputs which are better used in Pro Play without overly impacting her regular play

Varus

• Varus was overbuffed a while ago and so we’re practically reverting the buff to his Q damage
• Lethality Varus has been the strongest ADC in Pro and so we’re tapping him down to not overrun the Pro meta

Ranked EUW Test

• We ended up getting delayed and the new plan is to deploy around 6pm PST tomorrow (roughly 2-3AM EUW)
• There will be about 5-10m of Ranked downtime, so we’re doing this in off peak and monitoring that things are working correctly

First Stand on 26.5

• We made a significant number of changes on 26.4 and so 26.5 is a more conservative set of changes to ensure a good Pro meta for First Stand
• Ori, Azir, Neeko, Lethality Varus are some of the strongest outliers in Pro Play currently, and so we’re tapping them down

Items

• Hubris is looking just generally underpowered
• It doesn’t really have an audience and also doesn’t exhibit the same properties that other snowball items like Mejais have (higher winrates because being purchased when snowballing)
• Bandlepipes is looking pretty strong, especially on second item. Locket is one of its primary competitors so we’re giving it a buff on second item by flatting some of the shield value

Patch Followups

• Lillia is looking a bit worse for wear after her buffs in a previous patch were over magnitude, so we’re giving her a bump back up (it may end up getting delayed to a future patch if we need more time to land on a higher quality changelist, but haven’t decided)
• We’re looking to see what Mel looks like at a higher power level after making some of the frustration lowering changes in 26.3

Patch 26.4 notes for League of Legends are here, for the full notes please see Riot’s official release. (Source).

Patch Highlights

Champions

Ambessa

See Highest Win Rate Ambessa Builds

We had always anticipated that Ambessa would have a jungle audience and we’re happy to see that she’s taken root there, but she also needs to be equally balanced across her two primary roles, so we’re lightly nerfing her monster damage.

Q – Cunning Sweep

• Bonus Damage to Monsters: 150 ⇒ 125

Annie

See Highest Win Rate Annie Builds

Annie has all but disappeared from the current game so we’d like to bring her back up to viability. While her primary player base is likely to be in mid lane, she’s often enjoyed success at support as well, so we’re also fanning the flames of her more supportive outputs.

Q – Disintegrate

• Base Damage: 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 ⇒ 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260

E – Molten Shield

• Cooldown: 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10 seconds ⇒ 10 seconds

Aphelios

See Highest Win Rate Aphelios Builds

Even after our hotfix nerfs in 26.1, Aphelios remains as one of the most dominant marksmen in the game. We’re lowering his damage to make him a little less powerful at all stages of the game.

Passive – The Hitman and the Seer

• Bonus AD: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 ⇒ 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 / 24

Brand

See Highest Win Rate Brand Builds

Brand jungle has been smothered as of late, so we’re giving his clear speed some additional firepower to see if he can find his place again.

Passive – Blaze

• Ablaze Monster Damage: 265% ⇒ 270%
• Non-Epic Monster Damage Cap: 40 ⇒ 50

Braum

See Highest Win Rate Braum Builds

We undershot our Braum nerfs last patch so we’re delivering another similarly-sized nerf to get him to the right spot. We’re happy that he can reliably remain his team’s front line, but that doesn’t mean he needs to be as good as he is at starting late game teamfights.

R – Glacial Fissure

• Base Damage: 150 / 300 / 450 ⇒ 150 / 250 / 350
• Cooldown: 120 / 100 / 80 ⇒ 130 / 115 / 100 seconds

Camille

See Highest Win Rate Camille Builds

Though Camille is statistically balanced, she’s so feast or famine that she doesn’t feel like it. We’re giving her some extra reliability this patch by granting her Hookshot’s attack speed any time she successfully dashes off of the wall, regardless of whether or not she hits her enemies. This should help her more generally so she can succeed in a wider variety of situations.

E – Hookshot

• Always On Point: Attack speed is now gained when Camille dashes off a wall, regardless of whether or not she hits an enemy champion.

Darius

See Highest Win Rate Darius Builds

Last year Darius was tearing up the jungle so we nerfed his monster mod to keep him from taking over. This year, after the changes, Darius is very weak in the jungle, so we’re going to split the difference so that he can be in a stable, fair power level there.

Passive – Hemorrhage

• Monster Damage: 2x ⇒ 2.5x

Fizz

See Highest Win Rate Fizz Builds

Fizz jungle made a splash in our big jungle patch last season, but his pick rate quickly dwindled. We know he’ll need more than just clear speed to stay afloat, though this change will help us test the waters before making any changes that affect him in both mid and jungle, and hopefully helps some of his new builds with W max and/or Dusk & Dawn thrive.

W – Seastone Trident

• Bonus Monster Damage: 60 ⇒ 90

Graves

See Highest Win Rate Graves Builds

Graves has a moderately successful lethality burst build right now, but it means he doesn’t have much of a fallback pattern if he doesn’t high roll a crit. We’d like to reintroduce his more durable builds of old by rewarding Graves more for maintaining Quickdraw stacks.

E – Quickdraw

• Armor per Stack: 4 / 7 / 10 / 13 / 16 ⇒ 7 / 10 / 13 / 16 / 19
• MR per Stack: 2 / 3.5 / 5 / 6.5 / 8 ⇒ 3.5 / 5 / 6.5 / 8 / 9.5

Gwen

See Highest Win Rate Gwen Builds

With all the extra experience and/or gold scaling in Gwen’s primary roles, she’s become a total monster in the new season. While her recent jungle nerfs brought her two roles to similar power levels, they’re both equally overpowered. We’re not looking to significantly change her power curve, just make her fairer to play against and since we want to maintain her as a premier AP fighter, this means reducing her burst damage.

Q – Snip Snip!

• Base Damage per Snip: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 ⇒ 10 / 13.5 / 17 / 20.5 / 24
• Minion Damage Modifier: 0.75x ⇒ 0.8x

R – Needlework

• Base Damage per Needle: 35 / 65 / 95 ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70

Hwei

See Highest Win Rate Hwei Builds

After Hwei’s adjustments late last year, he’s a little weaker than he ought to be. We don’t want to buff his wave clear back up as that was the original problem he had, so instead we want to reward him for using his whole toolkit and coordinating with his team.

WW – Pool of Reflection

• Maximum Shield Value: 100 / 125 / 150 / 175 / 200 ⇒ 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 / 260
• Ally Shield Mod: 75% ⇒ 85%

R – Spiraling Despair

• Cooldown: 140 / 115 / 80 ⇒ 120 / 100 / 80

Illaoi

See Highest Win Rate Illaoi Builds

Illaoi is having trouble staying above water in the new season so we’re here to throw her a lifeline. Considering level scaling is all the rage in top lane right now we’re giving her more strength in the role she calls home.

Passive – Prophet of an Elder God

• Tentacle Base Damage: 9-180 (based on level) ⇒ 9-200 (based on level)

Jinx

See Highest Win Rate Jinx Builds

Jinx is currently one of the big winners of the new season. It turns out when your primary output is crits, and they get stronger, you do, too! Considering explosive basic attacks are core to her identity, we’re leaving them just as they are. But we’re going to make sure that she’s squishy enough that if she’s directly next to an explosion while falling dozens of stories, she’s not somehow tanky enough to survive all of that. This isn’t canon, but c’mon, we all know how this works.

Base Stats

• Armor Growth: 4.7 ⇒ 4.2

Kassadin

See Highest Win Rate Kassadin Builds

Kassadin’s been having a great time now that he’s able to stack multiple Tear of the Goddess items. Seriously, get on the Seraph’s + Muramana train! But because this newfound power has taken him over the edge, we need to appropriately balance him. We want to preserve his high late game damage and mobile scaling fantasy, but we want to balance those strengths with appropriate weaknesses once he gets there.

Base Stats

• Health Growth: 119 ⇒ 113

E – Force Pulse

• Slow: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90% ⇒ 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70%

Kayle

See Highest Win Rate Kayle Builds

Just about everyone had Kayle on their “winners of the new season” Bingo card due to her reliably reaching level 16 more often. As those assumptions have proved true, it’s time to tune her more appropriately. Players have increasingly come to understand that maxing Q is optimal on her, and we’d like if the choice between Q and E were closer.

Q – Radiant Blast

• Base Damage: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180

Kennen

See Highest Win Rate Kennen Builds

Kennen’s so sneaky that he snuck under players’ radars for a while, but as the new season has dawned, many of you have come to understand that small shurikens can pack a big punch. We want to create windows of opportunity to succeed against him, which means preserving his power when everything’s available, but creating larger gaps between those moments.

R – Slicing Maelstrom

• Cooldown: 120 / 100 / 80 ⇒ 120

Lee Sin

See Highest Win Rate Lee Sin Builds

Right now Lee Sin’s W2 is the only ability in the game that grants both Life Steal and Spell Vamp. We’re looking to combine those into Omnivamp along with a couple other systemic changes to maintain similar gameplay with clearer wording.

W – Iron Will

• Spell Vamp No More: Lee Sin W2 grants Life Steal and Spell Vamp. Lee Sin is unable to heal with W2 and Smite on either minions, jungle monsters or Champions ⇒ Lee Sin W2 grants Omnivamp which will apply on minions, monsters, and Champions

Lux

See Highest Win Rate Lux Builds

Lux is straightforward to play, which means she should look quite strong in the hands of most players. Unfortunately, she isn’t doing particularly well, especially as a support. Our changes this patch are a mix of skewing her base stats to be more synergistic with the World Atlas and a direct injection of power aimed at making both her primary roles better.

Base Stats

• Base Mana: 480 ⇒ 440
• Starting Mana Regen: 7 ⇒ 9

Q – Light Binding

• Cooldown: 11 / 10.5 / 10 / 9.5 / 9 ⇒ 10

W – Prismatic Barrier

• Cooldown: 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 ⇒ 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10

Maokai

See Highest Win Rate Maokai Builds

Maokai was able to find much more comfortable roots in the Top and Support roles, but his ability to Jungle is still lagging behind other tanks. With this clear speed buff, we’re looking to keep him in line with the other tree champions in the jungle.

Q – Bramble Smash

• Bonus Monster Damage: 120 / 130 / 140 / 150 / 160 ⇒ 140 / 150 / 160 / 170 / 180

Naafiri

See Highest Win Rate Naafiri Builds

Naafiri is pretty evenly split between mid and jungle now, but is too powerful in mid lane at the moment. We’d like her to still hit as hard when she lands her bread and butter Q and uses her mobility to effectively trade, though right now she can spam a bit too effectively, threatening all-ins and pushing at the same time.

Base Stats

• Base Health Regen: 7.5 ⇒ 6
• Health Regen Growth: 0.7 ⇒ 0.6

Q – Darkin Daggers

• Mana Cost: 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 ⇒ 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90

E – Eviscerate

• Mana Cost: 35 ⇒ 40

Qiyana

See Highest Win Rate Qiyana Builds

Qiyana’s mid lane performance among experts is one of the strongest in the game and is due for a nerf. We’re happy that she’s a lethal assassin, we just want to make her less generically strong.

Base Stats

• Health Growth: 121 ⇒ 115

Rengar

See Highest Win Rate Rengar Builds

As the dust has settled around Rengar’s bug fixes and affinity for new items (hi Umbral Glaive!), we’re now certain that Rengar is simply too strong when piloted by players who know what they’re doing. Overall he gained a lot more damage in the new season, so we’re going to bring some of that damage down now.

Q – Savagery

• Damage: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 100 / 103.75 / 107.5 / 111.25 / 115% total AD) ⇒ 20 / 55 / 90 / 125 / 160 (+ 105% total AD)
• Ferocity Damage: 30 – 235 (based on level) (+130% total AD) ⇒ 35 – 240 (based on level) (+120% total AD)

Rumble

See Highest Win Rate Rumble Builds

Rumble is not in pro jail. I repeat, Rumble is not in pro jail! After fixing a long-standing bug that substantially reduced his damage when played on the red team and associated follow-up, he’s just a very strong champion at almost all levels of play once players get over his steep learning curve. As a result, we’re looking to bring him to a more appropriate power level so we’re making him more susceptible to aggressive laners and worse at simply equalizing away poor wave states.

Base Stats

• Base Health: 655 ⇒ 640

R – The Equalizer

• Maximum Damage: 700 / 1050 / 1400 ⇒ 600 / 1000 / 1400

Ryze

See Highest Win Rate Ryze Builds

You’ve seen it, we’ve seen it. We’ve revisited Ryze’s ult and an unintuitive interaction causing champions to not warp when they’d otherwise expect to. This was an intentional mechanic that aimed to anticipate players’ needs but as time has gone on, this predictive help has caused more confusion than it’s worth.

R – Realm Warp

• All Aboard: No longer refuses to grab a champion if they’re currently pathing out of the circle while near the edge.

Samira

See Highest Win Rate Samira Builds

Samira is already a solid performer every way we can measure it, so this change isn’t meant to be a significant buff. Instead, this change is more an acknowledgement that Bloodthirster should be competitive with Endless Hunger and shouldn’t heal her for less just due to some rules text.

Q – Flair

• Life Steal Effectiveness: 80% ⇒ 100%

R – Inferno Trigger

• Life Steal Effectiveness: 80% ⇒ 100%

Senna

See Highest Win Rate Senna Builds

Senna has found herself in a weird state where she can be quite powerful, but not when playing her more popular offense-focused builds. So we’re shifting some power around with the goal of maintaining her viable supportive playstyles but making damage-focused builds much better.

Q – Piercing Darkness

• Damage: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 40% bonus AD) ⇒ 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+ 60% bonus AD)

W – Last Embrace

• Damage: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+ 70% bonus AD) ⇒ 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 90% bonus AD)

Swain

See Highest Win Rate Swain Builds

Swain is running rampant through bot lane right now and doing quite well in mid, too. His bot lane playstyle is more strongly tied to Malignance and his role as a bot laner is more about his damage output. Meanwhile in the support role, where the majority of his players are, they mostly rush Rylai’s and perform as more of a pseudo-frontliner. So with all of that in mind, we’re nerfing his AP-scaling ultimate damage and inherent crowd control power in hopes to nerf bot lane while leaving support as unscathed as possible.

W – Vision of Empire

• Slow: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70% ⇒ 50% at all ranks

R – Demonic Ascension

• Damage per Second Scaling: 5% AP ⇒ 4% AP
• Demonflare Damage Scaling: 50% AP ⇒ 40% AP
• Demonflare Slow: 75% ⇒ 50%

Syndra

See Highest Win Rate Syndra Builds

Syndra has been rising through the ranks recently, with high CDR builds performing especially well. We don’t want to hit how she feels with her Q poke and main defensive tool in Scatter the Weak, so instead we’re going to take at some of her more guaranteed damage.

W – Force of Will

• Base Damage: 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 ⇒ 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190

R – Unleashed Power

• Base Damage: 90 / 130 / 170 ⇒ 80 / 120 / 160

Teemo

See Highest Win Rate Teemo Builds

Teemo has been struggling in the jungle ever since season start, even for the most dedicated scouts. Though we can’t make him sneakier in a world of Faelights, we’re giving him some more clear speed to help him do his job as the Swift Scout.

E – Toxic Shot

• Monster Damage: 145% ⇒ 160%

Twitch

See Highest Win Rate Twitch Builds

Twitch really benefitted from the new items introduced this season, and players are really gravitating towards his glass cannon playstyle. With that in mind, he’s a bit too resilient to be considered glass, so we’re making sure his damage comes with appropriate tradeoffs.

Base Stats

• Health Growth: 104 ⇒ 98
• Armor Growth: 4.2 ⇒ 4

Udyr

See Highest Win Rate Udyr Builds

We want both Q-max and R-max Udyr to be viable builds, but right now they’re quite far apart in power. Similarly, maxing W or E second should also be comparable but regardless of build, W is weaker. We’d like to rectify both of these issues by improving the rank-up incentives of both Q and W without giving too much burst damage to AD Udyr and without giving him too much sustain to ignore his lane opponents.

Q – Wilding Claw

• Base Bonus Damage On-Hit: 5 / 11 / 17 / 23 / 29 / 35 ⇒ 5 / 13 / 21 /29 / 37 / 45

W – Iron Mantle

• Base Shield Strength: 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120 ⇒ 45 / 65 / 85 / 105 / 125 / 145

Xayah

See Highest Win Rate Xayah Builds

Xayah appears statistically balanced, but players feel like she lacks agency. We’re looking to make her base spells more available, giving more access to her spellweaving fantasy and more juicy W-auto uptime. These changes will also help her spread her wings and not be as reliant on Essence Reaver.

Q – Double Daggers

• Mana Cost: 50 ⇒ 35

W – Deadly Plumage

• Cooldown: 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 / 16 ⇒ 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 seconds

E – Bladecaller

• Mana Cost: 30 ⇒ 20

Zac

See Highest Win Rate Zac Builds

Zac has been truly explosive in the new season, and while his ability to tank and engage are meant to be core strengths, he’s also too lethal for a tank with deep backline target access. So to give everyone a fair shot against him, we’re reducing his burst damage when it’s slime time, especially against squishies.

Q – Stretching Strikes

• Damage per Hit: 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 (+ 30% AP) (+ 3% of Zac’s maximum health) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 30% AP) (+ 3% of Zac’s bonus health)

R – Let’s Bounce!

• Initial Base Damage: 140 / 210 / 280 ⇒ 120 / 190 / 260
• Maximum Base Damage: 350 / 525 / 700 ⇒ 300 / 475 / 650

Items & Summoner Spells

Hexoptics C44

AD carries now have several first slot options, whether they’re spellcasters, basic attackers, or somewhere in between. We’ve wanted to give them a greedy late-game option for stacking as much basic attack damage as possible, and Hexoptics is here to fill that niche. While we don’t think it’ll be in everyone’s build, we want it to be attractive, so we’re further amplifying its unique strengths in hopes that it’ll find a home.

• Range for Maximum Bonus Damage: 600 ⇒ 500
• Bonus Range on Takedown Duration: 6 ⇒ 8 seconds

Additional Miscellaneous Info