Patch 26.21 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on by MaxLeveled

Patch 26.21 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)

Replay Download Limits

Starting during Patch 26.21, replay downloads will be limited to 10 per hour. You will still be able to download your own replays, as well as replays from your friends and other players.

This change is necessary to prevent large-scale abuse of downloaded replays by bad actors using vibecoded apps to scrape thousands upon thousands of replays. We opted for a time-based limit to still allow creators to make content, while preventing mass exploitative downloads. We’ll continue to monitor how many replays are downloaded to ensure players have access to this important feature while preventing clear misuse.

Champions

We’ve kept the Emperor of the Sands’ mana pool pretty dry to make sure he needs to use soldier attacks properly for lane control early instead of just spamming [Q] Conquering Sands, but this is overly restrictive now that there are strong rank up incentives on his [W] Arise! We’re buffing his Mana Growth so he can more freely use his abilities to contest lane.
Base Stats
Mana Growth: 40/Level ⇒ 50/Level
Caitlyn’s been at a very high pick and ban rate for most players for months now despite adjustments to other marksmen and the bot meta, so it’s time to nerf her. We have felt that her late-game scaling has been too strong for a while now, so we’re moving some of her power from her eyepopping full build headshots into her early game Q damage to rebalance her power curve.

Passive – Headshot

Damage: 60 – 100% AD (+1% AD per 1% per Crit Chance) (+1% AD per 1% Bonus Crit Damage) ⇒ 60 – 80% AD (+0.8% AD per 1% per Crit Chance) (+0.8% AD per 1% Bonus Crit Damage)

Q – Piltover Peacemaker

Base Damage: 50 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 ⇒ 50 / 95 / 140 / 185 / 230
Darius has moved a bit too far away from being a persistently durable damage threat that needs to be kited to more of a one shot combo playstyle. Since he has some room for power, we’re giving him a slight boost so he can swing that axe more often in sustained fights.

Q – Decimate

Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5s ⇒ 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 4s
Like her best friend Caitlyn, Jinx has been similarly dominant in the meta, even with the Hurricane nerf last patch. We’re slowing her roll to make it a tad harder to get her snowballing.
Base Stats
Attack Damage: 59 + 3.25/Level ⇒ 59 + 3/Level
Health: 630 + 105/Level ⇒ 610 + 105/Level
Lee Sin has continued to be extremely popular since his adjustments to how his [W] Safeguard cooldown works with allies. While we like the extra flexibility that has given him, it’s a bit too much power, so we’re nerfing the cooldown a bit along with a minor bug fix to how his E reveal works against invisible enemies and another small nerf to his [R] Dragon’s Rage damage.

W – Safeguard

Cooldown: 7s ⇒ 8s

E – Tempest

Bugfix: No longer reveals invisible enemies if they stealth after being hit by Tempest.

R – Dragon’s Rage

Kick Damage: 175 / 400 / 625 (+200% bonus AD) ⇒ 150 / 350 / 550 (+200% bonus AD)
Collision Damage: 175 / 400 / 625 (+200% bonus AD) (+12 / 15 / 18% Kicked Champion’s Health) ⇒ 150 / 350 / 550 (+200% bonus AD) (+12 / 15 / 18% Kicked Champion’s Health)

Locke

Locke’s been out for long enough now that we have a better picture of where he’s overly excelling and where he’s falling a bit short. Some of those areas are his extremely generous mana tuning and ability to shrug off harass, and we’re also refining his power curve by improving his scaling damage slightly, because he falls off a bit too fast if he’s not able to close out games early.
Base Stats
Mana Growth: 70 ⇒ 60

Q – Ritual Nails

Unused Charge Refund: 20 – 35% mana and cooldown refund ⇒ 10 – 40% mana and cooldown refund

W – Soul Ignition

Mana Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 ⇒ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Grey Health Store Based on Current Health: 40 – 200 (both level based) ⇒ 20 – 200
Current Health Store: 150 – 450 (both level based) ⇒ 100 – 500 (+60% AP)

E – Ashen Pursuit

Blink Damage: 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 (+40% AP) ⇒ 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 (+50% AP)
Miss Fortune has been in a relatively decent place throughout the year, but with the Hubris nerf this patch, we’re looking to compensate with a couple buffs to her damage output.

E – Make It Rain

Damage: 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+120% AP) ⇒ 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 / 210 (+120% AP)

R – Bullet Time

Critical Strike Damage: 130% (+0.3% per 1% Bonus Crit Damage) ⇒ 145% (+0.45% per 1% Bonus Crit Damage)
Our favorite huntress has been sitting at an extremely high winrate in high skill brackets, toeing the line into overpowered territory for some time now, even if she’s not currently meta. Now that we’re bringing down the power of some other powerful meta junglers like Lee Sin, we’re giving Nidalee a minor nerf to prevent her from getting out of paw.

W – Pounce

Damage: 55 / 88.75 / 122.5 / 156.25 / 190 (+50% bonus AD) (+30% AP) ⇒ 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+50% bonus AD) (+30% AP)

E – Primal Surge

Attack Speed: 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% ⇒ 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60%
The boy and his yeti lost some power when we nerfed Hextech Rocketbelt earlier this year so that ranged mages weren’t just buying it for a dash to safety, so we’re restoring some of that damage elsewhere.

R – Absolute Zero

Maximum Damage: 625 / 925 / 1275 (+300% AP) ⇒ 750 / 1100 / 1450 (+300% AP)
We’re tapping up Orianna’s scalings to help her chunk a bit harder with her bread-and-butter combo in the late game without giving too much additional power to her laning phase.

Q – Command: Attack

Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+55% AP) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+60% AP)

W – Command: Dissonance

Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+80% AP) ⇒ 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+85% AP)
Damage on Qiyana’s Q turned out to be a lot more impactful than we anticipated, so we’re partially reverting the buff we gave her back in 26.17.

Q – Elemental Wrath / Edge of Ixtal

Damage: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+90% bonus AD) ⇒ 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+90% bonus AD)
While Nidalee’s winrate has been borderline overpowered in the high skill levels, Rammus has been rolling over pretty much everyone else, so he’s getting a light nerf too, ok?

W – Defensive Ball Curl

Bonus Armor: 27 / 32 / 37 / 42 / 47 (+30 – 60% Armor) ⇒ 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 (+30 – 50% Armor)
Bonus Magic Resistance: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+30 – 60% Magic Resistance) ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+30 – 50% Magic Resistance)
After the significantly early game nerfs to Ryze in 26.19, he hasn’t been rewarded enough for succeeding when he does scale, so we’re buffing that.

Q – Overload

Flux Bonus Damage: 15% / 40% / 65% / 90% increased damage ⇒ 10% / 40% / 70% / 100% increased damage
Bonus Move Speed: 28% / 32% / 36% / 40% / 44% ⇒ 30% / 35% / 40% / 45% / 50%

W – Rune Prison

Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+60% AP) (+3% bonus mana) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+70% AP) (+3% bonus mana)
Our favorite unstoppable juggernaut is looking rather stoppable in recent patches. We’re giving him some buffs to his baseline durability and rewarding him when he succeeds at using his ult to GET IN THERE rather than run away.
Base Stats
Health: 655 + 87/Level ⇒ 655 + 95/Level

R – Unstoppable Onslaught

Damage Increase over the First 3s of Channeling: +0 – 166.67% Base Damage, 0 – 100% Ratio Damage ⇒ +0 – 200%
Bugfix: Tooltip now displays the correct minimum and maximum bonus AD ratios (40-120%). It displayed an incorrect Bonus AD Scaling (60%-120%). It was never actually changed in patch 25.16 beyond the tooltip.
Taliyah is one of a handful of mage junglers, and we think she can be better supported for meta diversity. We’re buffing her [E] Unraveled Earth damage to make it more satisfying to land her CC combo.

E – Unraveled Earth

Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240 (+60% AP) ⇒ 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+70% AP)
Detonation Damage: 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 (+30% AP) ⇒ 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 (+30% AP)
Monster Damage: Deals 225% damage to monsters.
We’re smoothing out some of the rough edges in Taric’s kit to allow him to shine a bit more. Way back in the day, Taric’s W was adjusted to combat the popular Master Yi + Taric funnel strats. A consequence of this was that his spells would fizzle if they were cast at the same time that his bound ally became untargetable. We believe this harsh restriction to how his abilities function is no longer necessary given the existence of Role Quests, so we’re partially reverting this change so that spells now work on untargetable allies, though we are still keeping an existing exemption on [E] Dazzle for champions that disappear on screen because the gameplay is too unclear (sorry, Master Yi).

Q – Starlight’s Touch

Cast Behavior: Q casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.

E – Dazzle

Cast Behavior: E casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
Tooltip: Updated to include “Dazzle will not cast from Vanished allies”.

R – Cosmic Radiance

Cast Behavior: R casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
Tristana’s early laning has devolved a bit into “Level 1 press [Q] and just auto attack to take complete control of the lane”, which is a pretty low gameplay and off flavor way for her to succeed. We’re hitting her early [Q] attack speed so she’ll have to work a bit harder before jumping on her foes.

Q – Rapid Fire

Attack Speed: 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120% ⇒ 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120%
Alongside the Taric QoL changes, we’re giving Twisted Fate’s R the same treatment so he can reveal champs even if they’re untargetable at the time of activation.

R – Destiny

Reveal: Now reveals untargetable units.
In this set of changes, we’re mainly looking to snipe top lane Varus, where he tends to max W, unlike the more common Q max in bot. This won’t bring his [Q] Piercing Arrow back up to prior Lethality Varus levels of power, but we believe it will help a lot with our ability to tune him for bot lane. As a maxed ability, it also offers more gameplay to Varus and his opponents to interact with than some more passive damage on W.

Q – Piercing Arrow

Damage Calculation: Max Damage scaling, 53.33 – 240 (+80% bonus AD) to 80 – 360 (+120% bonus AD) ⇒ Min Damage scaling, 50 – 230 (+80% bonus AD) to 85 – 391 (+136% bonus AD)
Damage Increase over Channel Time: Up to 50% ⇒ Up to 70%

W – Blighted Quiver

On-Hit Damage: 4 / 13 / 22 / 31 / 40 (+15% bonus AD) (+25% AP) ⇒ 4 / 10 / 16 / 22 / 28 (+20% bonus AD) (+30% AP)
Per Stack Damage: 3 – 5% (+1.3% per 100 AP) Target Maximum Health ⇒ 2.5 – 4.5% (+1.4% per 100 AP) Target Maximum Health
Active Missing Health Damage: 6 – 14%, increased by up to 50% based on Q Channel ⇒ 6 – 10%, increased by up to 70% based on Q Channel
Basic Ability Cooldown Refund: 13% per stack, increased by up to 50% based on Q Channel ⇒ 11%, increased by up to 70% based on Q Channel
Vel’Koz has been a fairly quiet pick this year, having little presence or meta impact in mid and support. We’re looking to give him a little bit of help by rewarding him for landing his combos.

Passive – Organic Deconstruction

Damage: 35 – 180 (+60% AP) ⇒ 35 – 205 (+65% AP)

Q – Plasma Fission

Cooldown: 7s ⇒ 6s
It’s time for the Glorious…Devolution. It seems Viktor has evolved past the point of exploitable weaknesses, so we’re opening that up a bit by making him slightly more vulnerable in early game skirmishes and across the board.
Base Stats
Move Speed: 335 ⇒ 330

Q – Siphon Power

Shield: 40 – 140 (based on level) (+25% AP) ⇒ 30 – 130 (+20% AP)
Shield Uptime: 2.5s ⇒ 2s
Like Lee and Qiyana, Wukong has been a meta staple whirlwind of a force in the jungle for a while now. We’re looking to tap down his strength in the jungle while compensating for lane Wukong.
Base Stats
Health Regeneration: 3.5 + 0.65/Level ⇒ 5.5 + 0.65/Level

Passive – Stone Skin

Armor per Stack: 6 – 10 (based on Champion Level) ⇒ 4.5 – 10 (based on Champion Level)
Following Sundered Sky’s nerfs, we feel like Xin Zhao has room for buffs to both his AD Bruiser and AS focused builds, so we’re helping out his scalings.

Q – Three Talon Strike

Damage per Strike: 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+40% bonus AD) ⇒ 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+45% bonus AD)

E – Audacious Charge

Attack Speed Scaling: 1% per 5% bonus Attack Speed from permanent sources ⇒ 1% per 4% bonus Attack Speed from permanent sources
The last changes to Yone successfully got him to start considering crit in his first item purchases, but also put him at a somewhat unsustainable power level. We are giving him a moderate nerf to bring him down a bit.

Q – Mortal Steel

Damage: 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+110% AD) ⇒ 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+105% AD)
Like Vel’koz, Zyra has had relatively little impact in the meta as tanks and enchanter supports have reigned supreme. We’re giving Zyra a greener thumb this patch to help her combat the forces trampling over her plants.

W – Rampant Growth

Seed Ammo Cooldown: 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10s ⇒ 16 / 14.5 / 13 / 11.5 / 10s

Items

Bastionbreaker

Bastion Breaker was buffed into being a bit of a generic stat stick in order to give it a proper swing in the meta. Now, we’re nerfing that generic power with a QoL improvement to keep it a satisfying item in its niche.

Lethality: 22 ⇒ 18
Shaped Charge Damage: 50 Melee + 1.5/Lethality / 25 Ranged + 0.75/Lethality ⇒ 40 Melee + 1.5/Lethality / 20 Ranged + 0.75/Lethality
Sabotage Duration: 90s ⇒ Infinite
Sabotage Duration Context: This is how long you have to use the bonus damage against objectives.

Dawncore

Dawncore is the enchanter capstone that isn’t, and currently only Soraka picks it up. Even when other supports get to full build, they often prefer other purchases. We’re buffing its AP value to make it less purely bound to Healing and Shielding.

Ability Power per 100% Base Mana Regeneration: 10 ⇒ 15

Gluttonous Greaves

The greaves are overperforming for marksmen, even when getting very few stacks, so we’re hitting it with a nerf to its cost to delay early acquisitions from getting too much value.

Total Cost: 1000g ⇒ 1100g

Hubris

While Hubris has been a bit weak for melee champions, it’s clearly been overperforming for ranged users. We’re delineating between the two now to encourage melees and disincentivize ranged users from building it.

Base Bonus Attack Damage: 12 ⇒ 15 Melee / 10 Ranged
Bonus Attack Damage per Stack: 3 ⇒ 3 Melee / 2 Ranged
League of Legends Classic

Classic Patch Notes

NEWMordekaiser

Mordekaiser is back with his kit from 2010-2015! Would you like to eat every single possible minion wave, plus both your and your enemy’s Wraith camps? Mordekaiser is the champion for you. All his abilities cost health, but damaging enemies generates a shield, so you can keep fighting no matter how low you go. And when it’s time to win a fight, your ultimate can turn it into a 6v4. Beat them with their own AD Carry!
Passive – Iron Man
Mordekaiser converts damage dealt by his abilities into a decaying shield.
Q – Mace of Spades
Mordekaiser’s next attack damages multiple nearby enemies. If his target is isolated, he deals extra damage to them.
W – Creeping Death
Mordekaiser buffs an ally with a swarm of shrapnel that grants bonus armor and MR and damages nearby enemies over time.
E – Siphon of Destruction
Mordekaiser deals magic damage to enemies in a cone. That’s it. That’s the tooltip.
R – Children of the Grave
Mordekaiser curses an enemy champion, dealing damage over time and stealing their stats. If the target dies while cursed, Mordekaiser raises their spirit as a controllable ghost.

NEWYorick

Ghostman yannik cannot compete to mojo style master yu, but he can do the babushka trick to make him double the champion and unleash omen of smell and omen of battle. If that didn’t make any sense to you, you missed out on an all-timer of a forum post. Yorick is back to his original version from 2011-2016, summoning ghouls with every ability he casts and cloning or temporarily reviving his teammates. If you want a quick jumpstart to playing Yorick to his frustratingly immovable best, consider maxing Omen of Famine and getting an early Chalice of Harmony so that you’ll never run out of mana as you constantly drain your opponents and heal while doing so.
Passive – Unholy Covenant
Yorick takes reduced damage and his attacks deal bonus damage for every summon he has active. This counts his Q, W, E, and R.
Q – Omen of War
Yorick’s next attack deals bonus damage and summons a Spectral Ghoul. Spectral Ghouls have bonus attack damage and movement speed, and give Yorick bonus movement speed while they live.
W – Omen of Pestilence
Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul in an explosion that damages and slows all nearby enemies. Decaying Ghouls continue to slow enemies around them.
E – Omen of Famine
Yorick summons a Ravenous Ghoul, damaging an enemy and healing himself in the process. Ravenous Ghouls heal Yorick every time they attack an enemy.
R – Omen of Death
Yorick conjured the revenant of an allied champion, who can attack for a portion of their total attack damage. If the ally dies while the revenant is active, they are temporarily revived to fight at full power.

NEWHecarim

Hecarim was released in 2012 and hasn’t changed that much over the years, only undergoing some minor mechanical updates to his Q and W. Overall, he goes fast, dives in, and has strong sustained damage while galloping alongside his foes.
Passive – Warpath
Hecarim is ghosted and gains Attack Damage based on his bonus Move Speed.
Q – Rampage
Hecarim cleaves nearby enemies. If he hits an enemy with it, the cooldown of the next cast will be reduced.
W – Spirit of Dread
Hecarim damages nearby enemies over time and heals based on damage dealt to enemies in the area.
E – Devastating Charge
Hecarim gains Move Speed and causes his next attack to deal bonus damage and knock the target back.
R – Onslaught of Shadows
Hecarim charges forward, summoning spectral riders that damage enemies they hit. Hecarim inflicts fear on all nearby enemies when ending his charge.

NEWLucian

Lucian is the newest champion to grace League Classic, as he was released in the back half of 2013, but we couldn’t release a bunch of Shadow Isles champions without having our old pal back to keep them in check. There are a few small differences to Lucian here compared to the one you may have played recently. Most notably, he has 550 attack range, which makes him an extremely potent laner.
Passive – Lightslinger
After casting an ability, Lucian’s next attack fires twice.
Q – Piercing Light
Lucian fires a piercing shot that damages enemies in a line.
W – Ardent Blaze
Lucian fires a cross-shaped missile that damages and marks enemies. Damaging marked enemies gives Lucian bonus move speed.
E – Relentless Pursuit
Lucian dashes and removes all slows affecting him. Unlike the modern version of this spell, it doesn’t reset his attack timer and its cooldown is only refreshed by champion kills during his R.
R – The Culling
Lucian rapidly fires shots in a straight line. He can move and cast Relentless Pursuit while firing.

Aatrox

Aatrox isn’t doing so well, especially in top lane, so we’re delivering some level-scaling buffs and overall tankiness buffs to help top lane more than jungle. These are buffs from 2014 and 2015, before his first minor rework in 2017.
Passive – Blood Well
Cooldown: 225s ⇒ 225 / 200 / 175 / 150s (Levels 1 / 6 / 11 / 16)

Irelia

Say it with me now, “Better nerf Irelia!” Indeed, she’s come out too powerful, so we’re here to bring her down to size. We’re making her weaker by reverting some buffs from back in 2012, making her less outright durable and forcing her to rely on her high mobility and clever target selection. We’re also adjusting her passive to stack with Mercury Treads like it used to, which is a nerf whenever she builds Tenacity items.
Base Stats
Base Health: 546 ⇒ 515
Health Regeneration: 8.15 ⇒ 6.5
Passive – Ionian Fervor
Stacking with Tenacity Items: Additive ⇒ Multiplicative

Karma

Karma is doing poorly, especially in support. As we want her to be viable in both of her primary roles in mid and support, we’re delivering buffs especially skewed toward her low-income role. We’re also delivering a large buff to Spirit Bond, as it can be rather hard to use on teammates.
Q – Heavenly Wave
Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 / 270 ⇒ 85 / 125 / 165 / 205 / 245 / 285
Base Mantra Heal: 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 / 135 ⇒ 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 / 130 / 150
W – Spirit Bond
Base Damage: 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 / 305 ⇒ 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 / 260 / 300
Move Speed: 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 / 20% ⇒ 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19 / 20%

Kassadin

Kassadin has continued to be one of the more-banned champions but at this point, it’s clear he just isn’t his old 90% ban rate self. So we’re reverting every nerf we gave him ahead of launch. Go forth and enjoy your full power self! Make your enemies regret leaving him up!
Q – Null Sphere
Base Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240 ⇒ 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280
Silence Duration: 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 2s ⇒ 1 / 1.4 / 1.8 / 2.2 / 2.6s
R – Riftwalk
Ability Power Ratio: 70% ⇒ 80%

Items

Atma’s Impaler

This patch we’re continuing to relive the glory days by returning peak Atma’s Impaler, as it hasn’t had the same impact it historically used to.

  • Critical Strike Chance: 15% ⇒ 18%
  • Maximum Health to Bonus Attack Damage Conversion: 1.5% ⇒ 2%