The League of Legends Patch 26.18 Preview is here, with a focus on champion buffs and nerfs this time around. Riot Phroxzon on X. 26.18 will also see the arrival of the Caps Hall of Legends skin line.
Champions
Cassiopeia
See Highest Win Rate Cassiopeia Builds– Cassio has been strong, especially at the higher levels of play every since Deathfire Touch was re-released.
– Since then, she’s been one of the most present picks and Pro Play due to her strong laning ability.
– We’re looking at some power neutral adjustments to Cassio, because her regular play power level is a little on the weaker side for average players.
– We’re taking some power out of her early game power and moving it into more scaling power, so that she doesn’t win lanes so reliably, even if she’s missing Q’s.
– We still want to maintain her strong laning ability though.
Seraphine
See Highest Win Rate Seraphine Builds– For several patches now, Seraphine has been in the Top 3 on our regular patch frustration surveys.
– She’s also one of strongest pairings in Pro Play with Ashe.
– Overall, we think a nerf here is reasonable.
– We acknowledge there are some Seraphine mains who won’t be happy about a nerf and that we can’t serve all of her audience simultaneously.
– Her Support playerbase has been the most popular, despite her power level and so that’s where we will continue to support her primarily.
– Where we can get Mid and Bot to be powerful and satisfying given ^, we will attempt to do so.
– That said, it’s very difficult to thread the needle here and we run the risk of failing to meet the needs of any of her audiences if there are too many compromises.
– I also wanted to address directly the nerf to her AP ratios on Q from several patches ago, as that’s been a pain point amongst some in the community.
– One of the ways we need to balance Seraphine in the farming roles vs her support is through her AP ratios and the Q ratio is one that drives her power and total damage output there, especially given the Q reliability adjustments made of late.
– When Seraphine is able to land her Q’s at max multiplier (which in lane is quite frequent), it can hit 1.4 AP ratio which we think is reasonable.
– The Q damage overall is higher than E and so for now, we feel comfortable with the change (this isn’t set in stone however, and there are always improvements to her to be made).
Items
Guinsoo’s Rageblade
– In 26.14, we re-scripted Rageblade and it changed the trigger for Phantom hit from 6 to 7
– We’re making a small adjustments to Rageblade itself to give a bit of power back and to some of the disproportionately affected champions (eg. Master Yi)