The 26.4 patch preview for League of Legends is out, with another handful of champion buffs and nerfs. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source
Overall
-Things are looking pretty stable; we’re seeing some pretty marked game time reductions (probably from) the turret plate bulwarking reductions
-We’re still waiting to see the impact of the faelights and early vision changes on Jungle, but need a full patch to draw some conclusions there (and on the early bounty changes)
-After this patch, things are likely to be in a pretty good spot overall, would love to hear from y’all what other things need changing
-We’ve gotten a few initial surveys back from players and Top and Bot have been reporting higher satisfaction and power, while JG, Mid, Supp have been either neutral or lower sentiment.
-This was pretty much our goal, but there’s still some fine tuning to do, expect some of that in some of the coming patches
Systems
-Hexoptics hasn’t really managed to pick up much of an audience, so we’re making some adjustments to make its damage amp passive more accessible to more champions along with some other tuning adjustments
Champion Changes
-First Stand is coming up on 26.5; we’re making a lot of changes for both general balance and hitting a few of the other outliers/forgotten champions
-There isn’t really a major theme here, other than trying to adjust some of the outliers that especially have benefited overly from some of the systems changes (items or otherwise)
-Some of our unconventional junglers are also a bit worse for wear, so we’re giving them a bit of a bump up
-Mel and Zed are in a decent spot after the hotfix buffs, so we’re letting them sit for a bit to stabilize
Challenger + Ranked
-We made some adjustments this patch to increase queue times in Challenger to get better match quality
-We’re going to walk this back a bit as even though match quality has factually improved a bit, players are still feeling like those matches aren’t higher quality, while having longer queue times
Mel, the elegant Piltover councilor from Arcane, was released onto Summoner’s Rift in January 2025 (Patch 25.S1.2). Just a year later, she’s become one of the most polarizing champions in the game, boasting consistently sky-high ban rates despite dismal win rates.
Her win rates tell a different story however. Which leads us to ask the question, why is she being banned?
The Root of the Frustration: Her Kit
She’s too frustrating to play against. Players ban her to avoid the headache.
Mel is an AP ranged mage who excels at safe poking and turning enemy aggression against them. Her W – Rebuttal is the culprit: it grants damage immunity while reflecting incoming abilities (including ultimates) back at foes as magic damage.
Add her Passive – Searing Brilliance (long-range execute procs), vision-granting brushes via abilities, and a spammable Q – Radiant Volley for poke, and she’s untouchable. Against a skilled Mel, your options in lane are either to Flash and use an ability only to have it reflected or play safe and slowly get whittled down.
Comparing other champions with the ability to block damage highlights the issue:
Yasuo and Braum: Both can block attacks with abilities, but only from a single direction, and there are several attacks that can bypass them. Both have a high ban rate (16.4% and 23.4%), but both have a significantly higher win rate than Mel.
Pantheon: His E – Aegis Assault can block all non-tower damage from a single direction, but he’s still vulnerable to CC. He’s also an A-tier champion with over a 50%-win rate, but he’s only banned in 1.1% of games.
Fiora: Riposte parries with complete damage immunity. S-tier duelist with over a 50%-win rate, yet only 6.4% ban rate.
Mel’s ranged safety and reflection create “no counterplay” frustrations, leading to her high ban rate even though she statistically isn’t that strong of a champion.
Past Course Corrections from Riot
Riot’s been tweaking Mel since launch: early hotfixes in Jan/Feb 2025 nerfed her passive/Q/ult, followed by more adjustments.
Mel has been very popular both to pick and to ban. We believe Mel experiences just a little too much safety for opponents to effectively punish her due to her range and ability durations. So to correct that we’re lowering her Q range and speed, W duration, and early E root duration to make her a more assailable target. At the same time, we’re returning some of her ability to scale into the mid and late game with some added damage to both E and R while lowering the damage value of W from rank up which results in some painful end game experiences.
We’re glad that Mel is a viable mid laner (shoutout League’s GOAT for raising awareness!). However, she’s also proven to be one of League’s most frustrating champions, which we’re looking to alleviate. Her passive buffs that required her to take on more risk were successful in our eyes, so we’re headed back to that. To continue to expose her to more risk, we’re weakening Solar Snare’s lockdown and self-peel potential. We know she’s still got such sharp interactions that she’ll still sport one of League’s highest ban rates, but we hope this adjustment will be roughly power-neutral and frustration-reducing.
Passive – Searing Brilliance
Damage per spell: 24-99 (based on level) (+9% AP) ⇒ 24-150 (based on level) (+ 15% AP)
This changelist is intended to help lower player frustration while playing against Mel through opening up additional counterplay opportunities for opponents beyond the ban button.
One big change we have is changing her reflect damage immunity to a shield which will ensure when Fizz successfully lands his ultimate she no longer completely negates the damage with a late W. We also want to make sure when you’re laning against her that you can see her Q coming and dodge out of the way at long ranges like many spammable projectile spells. Both her Q and E should now be more visually clear (thus easier to dodge) and we’ve reduced some of the power from her reflect in some situations where her reflections resulted in unexpectedly high damage.
While we believe that champion agency can yield frustrating interactions, we also believe there should be avenues for counterplay to balance that out. Frankly, we underestimated how frustrating the play-against experience for Mel would be and are aiming to improve that with this change list. And for players looking to play Mel we want her to be playable more consistently after the ban phase while making sure her core gameplay that her players have come to love isn’t lost.
Our goals with these changes are that more players feel they can outplay Mel in ways that match their expectations, and that Mel players can feel more skillful and that their success is a result of that skill. We expect that there will continue to be players whose main champions are highly impacted by Mel’s reflection that may continue to prioritize her as a ban, but we’re targeting to get her out of must-ban territory for many players.
Base Stats
Attack Speed Ratio: 0.4 ⇒ 0.625
Passive – Searing Brilliance
Projectile Damage: 8-50 (based on level) (+ 5% AP) ⇒ 8-25 (based on level) (+ 3% AP)
Total Projectile Damage: 24-150 (based on level) (+ 15% AP) ⇒ 24-75 (based on level) (+ 9% AP)
Reduced the visual clutter by no longer displaying the passive mark on non-champions for enemies.
Fixed certain champion spawned units dying to Overwhelm from an unempowered basic attack.
Q – Radiant Volley
Now deals additional damage the first time an explosion hits with reduced effectiveness from subsequent hits.
Damage type is now DoT AoE (reduced effectiveness in resetting Arcane Comet).
Stronger area telegraph visual.
W – Rebuttal
No longer provides Damage Immunity.
Shield: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+ 60% AP)
Physical damage reflected is reduced by 30% before magic damage conversion.
Now destroys projectiles that target each unit in an area instead of reflecting them when those projectiles aren’t targeting Mel. (ex. Ryze E, Brand E, Katarina R, Samira R, Yunara Q)
Decaying Move Speed: 30% over 0.75s⇒ 40% over 1.5s
Will this finally solve her insane ban rates? Without complete damage immunity, players will probably become less frustrated with Mel, and her ban rate will gradually decline over time. Shields aren’t anything new on mages, but Mel mains may be frustrated because it was a unique aspect that made the champion stand out amongst other mages.
26.3 Aftermath
After analyzing the 26.3 data, we’ve found that Mel’s new ban rate is now under 20% in Emerald+. Some players may still be instinctively banning her and might not know about the changes this patch.
Unfortunately, the changes seem to have brought down her win rate even further, as Mel players now need to adjust to a regular shield instead of the full damage immunity they had before. This could improve over time as players develop strategies that work with the new shield, and hopefully Riot will step in to buff Mel if necessary.
Patch 26.3 notes for League of Legends are here, with a large amount of buffs and nerfs to many champions, along with a big update to ARAM Mayhem (Source)
As the new season has shaken out, Ahri is performing worse than last year and worse than she ought to. Now that she’s back on high burst builds, we’re reverting a nerf from her “Rod of Ages every game” phase of her K-pop career. Some artists just fall off, you know?
Bel’Veth is one of several AD junglers who suffered in the new season and we’re here to buff her back up. We’re aiming to bring up her late game in ways that synergize with squishy high attack speed builds by giving her a better payout for that attack speed and enough health to not need to buy as much of it.
Braum has easily become a top tier support with the start of the new season. New items like Bandlepipes have been instrumental in helping him and his allies stick onto enemies and take them down. Given that Braum is still looking quite strong even after the nerf to Bandlepiepes, we’ll be looking to revert the health buffs we gave him at the end of last year and bring down some of his overall fighting power.
Briar lost some of her luster in the new season and as someone with ample counter-play, she deserves to win more games than she currently does. We want to make sure her lifesteal-focused durability can manifest by giving her enough health and resists to make that healing efficient and while we’re here, we’re also throwing top lane Briar a bone by letting her trade more efficiently as well.
Base Stats
Health Growth: 95 ⇒ 100
Armor Growth: 4.2 ⇒ 4.5
Q – Head Rush
Health Cost: 6% current health ⇒ 5% current health
W – Blood Frenzy
Health Cost: 6% current health ⇒ 5% current health
E – Chilling Scream
Health Cost: 6% current health ⇒ 5% current health
Draven’s Q was initially bugged to deal less damage at the start of the season, which was micropatched within the first week. Players are also trying Essence Reaver over Bloodthirster, which currently performs worse. After accounting for all of these factors, Draven’s still not doing as well as he was last year, so we’re coming to prop him back up by reverting one of our preemptive pre-season nerfs.
Time has been on Ekko’s side this year. We’re taking a swing at both his clear speed and burst after early game to prevent him from going haywire after getting a lead.
Ezreal’s been in a pretty weak spot for most players this season, especially after Essence Reaver got nerfed in the micropatch. While we think there’s some winrate to be gained through players optimizing their builds, we still want to bring Ezreal more in line.
Hecarim isn’t doing very well in the new season so he’s got a buff coming up. We’re doing this by giving him a strong mid game power spike that he can use to try to run the map and get his team a lead. And even if he fails to do so, at least he’s got slightly better base damage to fall back on. For those who don’t want to do the math, the net result of both Q changes is a strict buff until around 225 bonus AD.
Slaps roof We can fit so many Arcane champs in this patch. Heimerdinger’s been performing worse in the new season and he was balanced before then, so we’re here to return him to his former glory. We know top lane Heimer can feel suffocating when his turrets are all setup, so we’re looking to re-buff him in ways that allow him to be proactive instead of turtling.
Jayce’s build has bounced around a lot over time. He’s been a tank, he’s been (and currently is) a lethality burst mage, and he’s been a fighter. We’d like if Jayce were an AD fighter, caring about both his damage output and durability to stick it out in melee once in a while. He’s also still better in the jungle than in the top lane after last patch’s nerf, so we’re here to re-visit him. Ultimately our goals for Viktor’s better half are to give him a viable fighter build and a viable but not overbearing jungle role. To achieve these goals, we’re reducing his reliance on bonus AD and shifting power from his poke into his melee damage and follow-up.
Blue Kayn specifically became much weaker in the new season and we’d like to fix that with some direct buffs. There’s not much fancy here except that as an assassin, he should be lethal when fighting up close and personal with his targets. As a reminder, Slayer Kayn replaces his Q when transformed.
Maokai has been struggling to find his place both in the top lane and in the jungle. We want to give him a little bit of extra power to find relevance in our new season by boosting hist damage
This changelist is intended to help lower player frustration while playing against Mel through opening up additional counterplay opportunities for opponents beyond the ban button.
One big change we have is changing her reflect damage immunity to a shield which will ensure when Fizz successfully lands his ultimate she no longer completely negates the damage with a late W. We also want to make sure when you’re laning against her that you can see her Q coming and dodge out of the way at long ranges like many spammable projectile spells. Both her Q and E should now be more visually clear (thus easier to dodge) and we’ve reduced some of the power from her reflect in some situations where her reflections resulted in unexpectedly high damage.
While we believe that champion agency can yield frustrating interactions, we also believe there should be avenues for counterplay to balance that out. Frankly, we underestimated how frustrating the play-against experience for Mel would be and are aiming to improve that with this change list. And for players looking to play Mel we want her to be playable more consistently after the ban phase while making sure her core gameplay that her players have come to love isn’t lost.
Our goals with these changes are that more players feel they can outplay Mel in ways that match their expectations, and that Mel players can feel more skillful and that their success is a result of that skill. We expect that there will continue to be players whose main champions are highly impacted by Mel’s reflection that may continue to prioritize her as a ban, but we’re targeting to get her out of must-ban territory for many players.
Base Stats
Attack Speed Ratio: 0.4 ⇒ 0.625
Passive – Searing Brilliance
Projectile Damage: 8-50 (based on level) (+ 5% AP) ⇒ 8-25 (based on level) (+ 3% AP)
Total Projectile Damage: 24-150 (based on level) (+ 15% AP) ⇒ 24-75 (based on level) (+ 9% AP)
Reduced the visual clutter by no longer displaying the passive mark on non-champions for enemies.
Fixed certain champion spawned units dying to Overwhelm from an unempowered basic attack.
Q – Radiant Volley
Now deals additional damage the first time an explosion hits with reduced effectiveness from subsequent hits.
Damage type is now DoT AoE (reduced effectiveness in resetting Arcane Comet).
Stronger area telegraph visual.
W – Rebuttal
No longer provides Damage Immunity.
Shield: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+ 60% AP)
Physical damage reflected is reduced by 30% before magic damage conversion.
Now destroys projectiles that target each unit in an area instead of reflecting them when those projectiles aren’t targeting Mel. (ex. Ryze E, Brand E, Katarina R, Samira R, Yunara Q)
Decaying Move Speed: 30% over 0.75s⇒ 40% over 1.5s
Naafiri’s doing pretty well in the mid lane at the moment but her jungling hasn’t kept up so we’re giving our favorite pack of dogs more of a fighting chance with her current slow clear.
Even after her micropatch nerfs, Nilah is still sooo happy (overpowered) about the new season. We’re looking to bring her overall power down now that the dust has settled.
Riven’s been crushing it ever since she discovered Axiom Arc. We like that she’s swift and lethal in the early game but ultimately she’s bursting down her competition too quickly once mid game arrives. Additionally, with all the extra gold and experience in the game right now, players have cited that late game fights resolve too quickly. So, all that considered, we’re here to take out some of her late game burst power.
Passive – Runic Blade
Total AD Ratio: 30-50% (based on level) ⇒ 30-45% (based on level)
Ryze has risen up the ranks this season and is due for a reduction in power. While we’re nerfing Phase Rush, we’re also buffing Actualizer so we think he deserves a direct nerf in this patch. With his late game damage going up and the overall game being more lethal than we’d like, we’re reducing some late game damage in kind.
Trundle’s doing very poorly in both of his main roles and as a very straightforward champion should be much more successful than he is now. We want to make sure he’s good at playing the role of the front-line juggernaut who’s great at tank-busting, so we’re playing up his late game sustained damage output and resilience
After his micropatch buffs back in 26.1, Tryndamere’s power level is close but not quite back to its former glory so we’d like to bring him back up to where he was and continue pushing him toward strong sustained damage.
Last patch’s Varus buffs heavily overshot our target and has resulted in him becoming one of the game’s strongest top laners as well. We’re sorry for the inaccurate tuning and now that we’ve got more room to work with, we’re looking to weaken his top lane performance as much as possible by rendering him more susceptible to all-ins, reducing his affinity for the top lane role quest, and weakening his top-specific build of AP and maxing W first.
Vi certainly does not stand for victory anywhere but pro play. We’d like to make her much more successful for the average League player without indexing too hard into her strengths in tightly coordinated environments, which means we’re aiming to play up her self-sufficiency and long-term brawling.
We’re happy that Volibear is seeing action at all levels with a new build as our signature garage sale enjoyer, but we want to make sure he’s a little less overBearing, primarily in jungle. We’re targeting his main build path’s Q max burst without changing how it feels to get into combat, as well as his clear speed so that he has to work a little harder to show up to fights, and compensating with some AD ratio for anyone who’s gotten a good deal on a Triforce or Gunblade recently.
Xin Zhao just can’t catch a break. First he dies to Atakhan, now he’s underpowered in solo queue? When will these tragedies cease? Today. They cease today. Xin Zhao buff time! Much like Vi’s changes in this patch, we want to play up Xin Zhao’s ability to stick up for himself and scrap with enemy champions in long-term fights.
Passive – Determination
Heal every third hit: 3 / 3.5 / 4% max HP (Level 1/6/11) ⇒ 3/4/5% max HP
Yone’s on the weaker side of the roster right now so we think he could use a buff. We know it can feel unfair to simply lose to him right clicking you during his E but we don’t want him to be super bursty either, so we’re pushing power into his Q, which has more gameplay around predictions and dodging.
Zaahen was meant to have a secondary player base in the jungle and while he’s great in the top lane, he’s not performing well enough elsewhere. So we’re delivering some straightforward jungle-specific buffs to bring him back up where he was at the end of last year.
We regret having jungle Zed in three of the past four patches now but players keep getting better at playing and itemizing this shadow ninja to the point where he wins more frequently today than he did before we shipped that first nerf. We’re comfortable with how mid lane Zed is sitting but he’s still overshadowing too many champions in the jungle. While this nerf looks very large on paper, the net impact of nerfing his jungle mod from 2.0 to 1.2 was under 1% of win rate movement, and we’re looking for more than that here.
Passive – Contempt for the Weak
Damage to monsters: 1.2x ⇒ 0.5x
Maximum damage to epic monsters: 300 ⇒ 100
Items
Actualizer
Actualizer is not looking particularly powerful and has a very painful combine cost. While we know players haven’t had enough time to fully optimize the use cases yet, we’re looking to give it a bit of a boost because it’s not looking competitive on any champions besides a certain rune mage.
Total Gold Cost: 3100 Gold ⇒ 2800 Gold
Combine Cost: 1050 Gold ⇒ 750 Gold
Dusk and Dawn
We’ve landed Dusk and Dawn into a spot where it has a healthy number of good users, but it’s a bit too good at bursting and taking a little too much of Lich Bane’s space, so we’re hitting it with a slight nerf that should shift it towards more fighter-y builds.
Spellblade Damage: 100% Base AD + 10% AP ⇒ 75% Base AD +10% AP
Health: 300 ⇒ 350 Gold
Endless Hunger
This item is looking okay late in builds for the intended caster fighter audience but could be a bit better earlier in the game and can be awkward to build. A small change to the build path and a bit more AD should help this item really shine for the caster champions it was made for.
The current shape of this Lifeline effect ended up being a bit too sharp, where it’s extraordinarily powerful for the users that can leverage the resistance scaling and somewhat unexciting for most other potential users. We’re shifting some power around to make the item more consistently useful and less eye-popping in the outlier cases.
Lifeline max health gain: 200 ⇒ 200-300 (based on level)
When we updated the mid lane quest boots we wanted to make sure that champions had the option to pick items that strongly suited them. We did not want to let early defensive purchases trivialize their competition, as mid lane is a home of many assassins. So in this patch we’re adjusting the upgraded versions of Mercury’s Treads and Plated Steelcaps to make them weaker anti-burst options for champions who aren’t buying any other durability items. These changes represent a tuning close to the end of last season, but with numbers that are more readily apparent at first glance, as no one can acquire these boots at level 1, and the prior max HP ratio carried most of the shield’s value, even to squishies.
Noxian Endurance Shield: 10-120 (based on level 1-18) (+ 7% max HP) ⇒ 100-200 (based on level, scaling begins at level 9) (+ 8% Bonus HP)
Chainlaced Crushers
See Armored Advance.
Noxian Endurance Shield: 10-120 (based on level 1-18) (+ 7% max HP) ⇒ 100-200 (based on level, scaling begins at level 9) (+ 8% Bonus HP)
Runes
Cash Back
Cash Back was buffed late last year and finally has an audience of its own. However, that buff shot a little overboard. We’re happy that it’s turned some heads but now it’s time for the rune to be balanced across its rune competitors.
Gold Refund: 8% ⇒ 7.5%
Phase Rush
We think Phase Rush restricts the viable mid lane pool at the highest levels of play, as it’s very easy for any ranged champion to trigger Phase Rush and escape most ganks or would-be melee opponents. Among its most common ranged users, Orianna, Vladimir, and Taliyah all have viable alternatives, and for Ryze, we intend for a direct reduction of power due to his general strong performance and an Actualizer buff in this patch. Ultimately, we are nerfing this rune for ranged champions only and retaining its power for melee users to swiftly navigate fights and skirmishes.
Ranged Effectiveness: 75% (18.75 – 37.5% Movement Speed) ⇒ 50% (12.5% – 25% Movement Speed)
Triple Tonic
Like with Cash Back, we buffed Triple Tonic strongly late last year and it’s been enough to get people to switch over to their old favorites. Now that senpais everywhere have noticed me the rune, we’re bringing its power level to a more balanced state, namely by reducing the eye-popping level of burst the level 6 elixir provides.
Riot Games has revealed the 2026 Lunar Skin line for League of Legends. The 2026 lineup is split into two halves: Firecracker Ziggs, Caitlyn, Ashe, Poppy, Seraphine, & Yuumi, and Petals of Spring Yasuo, Katarina, Jayce, Camille, and Lilia.
The 2026 Lunar Skins will celebrate the 2026 Chinese Lunar New Year. Which is the year of the fire horse, hence the theming and overall fire aesthetic.
Lunar 2026 Skins Cost
Each of the skins will cost 1350 RP, meaning each skin costs around $10 each with some change.
Revenant Reign Viego is here, and it’s the next Exalted Skin to hit the Rift after Arcane Jinx. The new skin completely changes how Viego looks in-game, altering his appearance as the game goes on. It features unique visual effects on each ability alongside unique sound effects. The skin also has a new set of emotes, including a new recall animation so you can show off your flashy new skin.
Revenant Reign Viego Cost
The new skin is available via the Ancient Spark Currency, allowing you a chance to summon the skin or a number of other rewards. The skin has a 0.5% pull rate, which is guaranteed after 80 pulls. Each Ancient Spark costs 400 RP, meaning at worst this skin could end up costing you $250. Though that 80 pull guarantee does carry over from previous Exalted skin events. So if you tried and failed to get the Arcane Jinx skin, then those chances roll over to this event.
Revenant Reign Viego Closer Look
As you can see below, the skin evolves as you go through the swords, defeating enemy champions to finish the skin’s final form.
The second patch of 2026 is here, and includes a handful of buffs, nerfs and adjustments. Check out the full patch 26.2 notes for additional details from Riot (source).
Aatrox has struggled to find a place on the Rift in the new season with split pushing on the rise and fewer chances to flex his team fighting strengths. We’re giving him some additional power this patch, primarily in the jungle, where his growing audience has been kneecapped, as well as in the top lane where he could use more ways to benefit from experience. We hope this satiates Aatrox players, especially those with Endless Hunger.
Passive – Deathbringer Stance
Bonus Magic Damage based on Target Max Health: 4-8% (based on level) ⇒ 4-10% (based on level)
Ashe is underperforming in the new season so we’re here to bring her back up near her former power level. We like that she has a strong affinity for buying attack speed, so we’re just making those purchases multiply a little bit harder.
Gwen jungle has skyrocketed in both pickrate and winrate. While we’re excited to see her loving the new season and snipping from dusk til dawn, we need to make sure she’s not turning all opponents (especially jungle camps) into paper.
Jayce jungle (AKA Jungle Jayce) has become extremely popular and is also much too strong. One of those two things is awesome and the other isn’t. We’d like to retain JJ as a viable option in the jungle, but without him dominating the competition. So we’re delivering a light nerf that’s intended to bring him more in line with other junglers.
Lillia has been in a dream since the changes to Rift. Unfortunately we need to wake her up as it’s become a nightmare for her opponents. We want her to maintain her spot as our premier in-and-out skirmisher in the jungle, but without her prancing out of control. We are looking to nerf her ability to stay topped up as well as bring down some of her late game damage.
Passive – Dream-Laden Bough
Heal Against Large Monsters: 39 (+15% AP) ⇒ 39 (+9% AP)
Malphite’s been a frontrunner on the Rift for a while, both in top and in the jungle. We’re actually very happy that he’s found a real audience in the jungle! That said, he’s still overperforming, so we need to bring him down now while still leaving him with two roles to play. To do that, we’re reducing some of his trading and clearing damage while retaining his high durability to physical damage and strong engage power. We’re also hitting jungle a little more as it’s meant to be slightly weaker than his top lane, as opposed to slightly stronger, which is currently the case.
Master Yi has been struggling as a result of the changes in the new season. We’re looking to return some of his power so that he can keep up with other junglers and better live up to his full hyper carry potential.
Nunu & Willump are devouring the competition in the new season, so we’re here to bring them back to a fairer level of power. To do that, we’re reducing a mix of the PvP and PvE power out in their kits to give opponents a fighting chance.
Sivir has become an extremely dominant ADC pick, regardless of whether or not she buys Essence Reaver, so it’s time to bring her down a notch. Since she has very strong wave control and great damage scaling, we’re looking to bring down her top end a little.
As expected Smolder has become much more powerful with the new Essence Reaver and increased minion counts. Since we’ve tuned our systems to our liking for now, it’s time to take stock of individual champions, Smolder being one. We want to make sure Smolder’s strong late-game damage has durability tradeoffs, even when buying the occasional HP item.
Taliyah’s been missing from the jungle as of late and the gameplay changes for the new season didn’t help her, quite the opposite actually. To that end we want to get her rocking and rolling in the jungle again so we’re buffing up her mid game clear speed to help her out.
Q – Threaded Volley
Bonus Damage to Monsters : 20 ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (Note: Empowered Boulder damage is still increased by 80% to primary target.)
Viego is performing worse this season due to direct adjustments and overall game-wide changes. As a result he needs some power added back in, both compensating some crit scaling that he lost and generally just making him a better fighter.
Base Stats
Attack Speed Growth: 2.25% ⇒ 2.75%
Q – Blade of the Ruined King
Percent HP On-Hit Bonus Crit Damage Mod: 50% ⇒ 70%
Zed’s recent jungle changes didn’t affect him as strongly as we had anticipated, and players have noticed, resulting in a resurgence of pick and ban rate. We’d like to slow his clear and lower his potency, this time with more accuracy now that we have a better understanding of how to tune him in the jungle.
Passive – Contempt for the Weak
Monster Damage: 1.8x ⇒ 1.2x
Items
In 16.1, we added nine new items. We’re mostly happy with how they landed in terms of users and use cases, but there’s definitely some balance work to be done here. This patch, we’re adjusting Bandlepipes down and Fiendhunter Bolts plus Hexoptics C44 up as we think they’re the furthest off from where we wanted them to be. At the moment we’re also keeping our eyes on some of the other items/cases like the fast powerspike offered by Dusk and Dawn or the distribution of power on Endless Hunger between damage, haste, and omnivamp. The synergy between Diadem of Songs and Echoes of Helia is very cool, but it’s something we’ll be monitoring to make sure that it doesn’t become the only way to build a champion to exist between the mage and enchanter space.
Bandlepipes
The pipes are sounding good on the rift but they’re crowding out other support options due to their low price point. While we’re excited for their newfound popularity, we don’t want them to completely steal the spotlight.
Price: 2000 ⇒ 2300 gold
Combine Cost: 500 ⇒ 800 gold
Fiendhunter Bolts
Fiendhunter Bolts is doing what it’s supposed to do, but it’s not quite well enough to get picked over its competition. We’re buffing up a little bit all around on the Bolts to help it hold up better against the other Zeal items.
Attack Speed: 40% ⇒ 45%
Damage Multiplier for Guaranteed Critical Strikes: 75% ⇒ 80%
Bonus True Damage for Critical Strikes: 10% ⇒ 15%
Hexoptics C44
Hexoptics has found a place in some situational builds for longer range champions, but is a bit too niche and a little weaker than needed for it to function for most of the marksman roster, so we’re giving it a general appreciable AD buff and easing the range requirement.
It’s been a few days since 26.1b dropped and just under a week since 26.1, the first patch of the year. Now we’ve just gotten the full preview for 26.2, which is scheduled to release on January 22nd. Source
Official Patch 26.2 Preview
Patch 26.2 Full Preview!
Jungle
Some of the main changes this patch are re-distributing some of the jungle power
This includes buffs to some of the AD junglers like Aatrox, Master Yi, Viego, Trynd (micropatched last patch) and nerfs to some of the outliers like Zed, Jayce who has been strong for a while
Several of the AP or Tank junglers have really benefitted from being able to kill Epic monsters from increased pet damage, where they otherwise previously lacked DPS to do so and so they’re being tapped down a bit as well
We expect that this shift within the Jungle role itself is going to have ripple effects into Pro Play, but are waiting to see the outcomes of this before taking larger swings and having Junglers hold more dominion over Epic monsters is an intended directional adjustment
Game Strategy
One of our major goals with this season was bring into better balance the 3 major strategic decisions
Sieging, Grouping for Objectives & Split Pushing are all intended to play a part
In 2025 in particular, Grouping for Objectives was by far the dominant strategy, so the adjustments to tower plates, homeguards, minion spawn rate and nerfs to objective power were intended to change some of this balance
In particular, it was hard to justify hitting towers sometimes without rewards for doing so and in some situations, champions were ready to hit towers, but there just weren’t minions in the right place at the right time to facilitate that especially in the sidelanes
We’re curious to see how strategy for this evolves over the course of the Season
Gameplay Thoughts –
Game Time & Snowballing: For the most part, our metrics around snowballing have come in and they’re not looking any higher than last season (and for average play are lower). This is pretty much the same across every region.
Game time is also looking slightly longer in each region, and even moreso given that the game starts earlier.
But at the same time, players have reported that games feel a lot faster. We have a few hypotheses:
Certainly, downtime with more frequent minion spawns and homeguards makes it feel like there’s constant action happening.
Hitting towers and getting those chunks of damage from crystalline overgrowth both feels more rewarding (and more confronting on the receiving end), so it feels like progress is being made faster, even if it’s not actually that much faster.
Barons are being taken earlier, since they’re spawning again at 20 minutes, even though Baron takes are a bit weaker than they were before (gives +150G instead of +300G), so games don’t typically end after the first Baron push. Players have often associated the first Baron take with the game being over, but that is a bit less of the case this Season.
For now, we’re not going to make any changes to Snowballing and Game Length, but will continue to monitor how things play out.
Balancing the needs of the Summoner’s Rift audience is pretty tough. There is a section of the audience who really enjoys the slow, methodical form of “Classical Chess/League” and at the same time, there are some sections of the audience who love “Blitz Chess/League”.
While we don’t intend to go all the way down to Bullet chess speeds, we also need to be very responsive to the needs of our audience, especially global players and younger players who are often looking for a game with less downtime and faster pacing. At the same time, we don’t want to move so quickly that we’re alienating our long time core players who might be looking for a slower, more strategic game. We’ll continue to fine-tune this over the course of the season.
Vision: The amount of vision has also been a hot topic. We’ve heard a lot of your discussions on Faelights and the overall state of vision. We’ve opted not to do anything to do them for 16.2, but are in active discussion for 16.3, especially in terms of how they affect early jungle ganks. Otherwise, we’re not planning anything major until Pro Play starts.
Role Agency & Strategy: We’re going to hold a little bit on taking a definitive stance on which roles are most and least powerful, we don’t feel any are so out of line that we need to act now. It’s been fun to observe how some players are putting roles at the top of their tier list and different players are putting the same role at the bottom (cough ADC cough).
There are a lot of things for players to optimize here, but so far, we’ve been pretty happy with how the game, especially in the mid-game feels a bit more strategic; should I greed tempo to get an Overgrowth proc here, should I push next wave to try and get that turret chunk for gold.
Bugs & Features – [Fixed]Draven Q: Bug that was causing reduced damage has been micropatched onto Live
– [?] Dropped Inputs: We’ve been actively triaging some reports of dropped inputs on 16.1 when sequencing abilities. Things like Q -> Hydra -> W on Fiora working differently in 15.24 compared to 16.1.
If you have any more examples of these, please pass them over, so we can track them down. – [16.3]Support Quest + Control Ward Bindings: We’ve been testing 2 changes to address some of the bad feels around control wards. The first is to put the control ward in the role quest slot at the start of the game (this has some weirdness with how the UX of the slot is conveyed and can be confusing to players).
We’re also testing an option where control wards can be double bound to both the role slot and the item slot where you hold it in your inventory.
We’ve also been investigating whether we should be reverting V be defaulted back to caution ping and to re-bind the role quest slot to a different button.
– Cassio: Please remember to buy boots on Cassio, she has feet now
Ranked – [16.2] Champ Mastery: We’re actively resolving an issue where Champ Mastery grades are higher than normal in certain situations (S’s in situations where it’s not warranted)
– [16.2] Aegis of Valor: We’ve resolved an issue where in <1% of games Aegis of Valor was not proccing in situations where it should (eg. when autofilled)
– [16.2/3] Start of Season LP: For players in OCE & China who played games during the period where Ranked placements were compromised, we will be granting players bonus LP for games played during that period
– [16.2] KR and JP Ranked Climbers: For players in Korea and Japan who started their climbs during the compromised period, we’re also looking to remedy their situations sometime during Patch 16.2.
– We’re seeing reduced dodge rates across all MMR’s
– We’ve also been seeing some successful lobby terminations for disruptive behavior and are continuing on our journey to roll this out in more regions
– But overall the Ranked changes have rolled out pretty smoothly and we’re happy with how things have gone there
Following the release of the 26.1 update, League of Legend’s first micro-patch of 2026 has arrived, and it includes a handful of buffs, nerfs and adjustments. Check out the full patch updated 26.1 notes for additional details from Riot (source).
1/9/2026 Mid-Patch Updates
“Here’s a summary of the changes planned for the next update: “We have a few changes to 26.1 that we wanted to get out before the weekend. We have a few early balance changes, some quick fixes to ARAM Mayhem, and some bugfixes that we have ready to go. Appreciate all your reports and your early feedback on the new season!”
Clash Schedule Updates
“We’ve moved the first Clash of the year back one week.
Clash registration will now open on January 19th @ 11:00 AM (Local Time)
Tournament days will now be January 24th and 25th.”
ARAM/ARAM Mayhem Updates
We’ve disabled the Bastionbreaker item from ARAM and ARAM Mayhem.
We’ve temporarily disabled the Executioner augment from appearing for Gangplank due to an unintended interaction.
We’ve temporarily disabled the Flashy augment while we resolve some bugs that have popped up with it.
Fixed an issue that allowed the ability to roll multiples of the same augment and stack them.
We’ve identified an issue that caused two Stormrazors to appear in the shop.
Fixed an issue where Zeri could reach over the attack speed cap. (This was actually fixed in the original 16.1 patch but was missing from the notes)
Many of Aphelios’s abilities can crit, and while we compensated for this power increase, he’s still become one of the strongest champions in the game. We’re here to reduce some of that burst damage while preserving the power of his weaker AD-AS builds.
Graves is looking worse for wear in the new season and seems to not need some of the preemptive crit damage mitigations we put in place. So we’re here to help his crit attacks have more oomph. Graves’s critical strikes are pretty complicated but the short of it is that now a crit will deal twice as much damage as a non-crit if all pellets hit.
Kayle – Q max is looking very strong this patch due to the top lane XP buffs. Removing some AP scaling we added back when there were less AP items available that improved attack power.
Nilah has been the biggest winner of this patch’s systemic changes to bot lane and so is deserving of a meaningful adjustment. Because she gets plenty of attack speed from her Q, we’re taking a chunk out of her base stat growth.
Quinn has suffered more than most in the new season from systemic changes like the removal of Symbiotic Soles and role quests. Since she was hit hardest in top lane, we’re targeting her level scaling and giving a boost to her passive. This should further reward effective snowballing and buff the early trading she needs to get her quest online earlier, supporting Quinn players whether they want to continue playing a heavy roaming style or lean more into split pushing.
Rammus has had a lot of success with some of the new map changes. We still want him to maintain his identity as a particularly strong pick into an AD comp, but we look to curve a bit of that power against magic damage champs.
We overcompensated for how much Tryndamere would gain from the base crit damage increases, so we’re here to make things better for him. We’re leading with a big E buff to make him less reliant on lucky crits for successful trades and help him not need a Tiamat for wave clear. He’s also getting a W slow duration to make him better at taking extended fights.
Fixed several issues where Actualizer could incorrectly increase mana costs indefinitely.
Known Issues
Some settings are not available when in Ranked games.
When in spectator mode if you skip forward in time towers will remain standing after being destroyed.
Winter Rift Baron is still appearing. (sorry Baron just wants to be on the Winter Rift a little longer, we’ll get him to put the mittens away later)
Patch Notes Preview
26.01b Preview!
Our first Micropatch of the year is coming!
Expected to be on Live in a few hours.
Overall – Patch overall has landed about within bounds a few balance outliers as expected but nothing crazy – We're continuing to monitor things like Faelights, Homeguards,… pic.twitter.com/kdIpqPuhXa
Patch overall has landed within bounds and a few balance outliers are expected, but nothing major.
Riot continues to monitor things like Faelights, Homeguards, general game snowballing and will have more details to share on Monday, January 12, after they’ve observed more of how things are playing out.
More details on how the team currently feels about role power is coming on Monday.
Game times are slightly up by around 1.5% on average, but long and short games are mostly the same.
Only the most extreme outliers are being addressed in this pass, they’re saving the rest for patch 26.2.
Bot Lane
Essence Reaver is the biggest outlier right now, so it’s being nerfed to see what it does.
Miscellaneous
They’re monitoring weak/strong items, including Bandlepipes, Dusk & Dawn, etc.
Power levels within the jungle role are looking a bit off, but nothing micro-patch worthy outside of Graves and Rammus.
Overall, AD junglers have dropped some, Tank junglers are up.
Non-Gameplay Related
Riot continues to triage a few things with Demacia Rising and there will be updates from LoLDev when it’s back online.
They intend to rectify KR and JP accounts who landed in the wrong Ranked buckets as soon as possible.
Some players are not receiving Aegis when they are autofilled and Riot’s investigating the root cause of the bug.
Riot Games has uploaded a new skin trailer for Revenant Reign Viego, set to go live with the 26.0.2 update on January 22, 2026.
A mad king betrayed by his most trusted knights, Viego has returned from the Land of Death to slay those who turned against him and his beloved. And he’ll use their seven traitorous swords to do it.
Earlier today, Riot has posted a video of Pabro and Meddler talking about the upcoming changes in Season 1 of 2026. If you’ve missed the video, you can watch it here.
Highlights
Can’t tune in? Here’s a quick summary of the key takeaways:
The map will feature a Demacia-themed reskin with towers and gold winged acdents.
Demacia Rising is a new evolving meta-game going live tomorrow, where you’ll help grow the Kingdom of Demacia.
ARAM: Mayhem’s run is getting extended and it’s also getting a bigger update in the forthcoming 26.03 patch.
Riot is trialing a new lobby hostage intervention system in some regions to take immediate action on bad actors in your lobbies. The feature will be rolled out over the next few patches.
The 2026 esports season kicks off with First Stand in São Paulo, Brazil, taking place from March 16 through March 22.
To decouple side selection and draft order, Riot’s introducing “First Selection”, giving pro teams more flexibility.
Bigger features currently being worked on include a brand new integrated client, a revamped Summoner’s Rift, changes to pre-game choices such as runes, and a reworked New Player Experience.
