Patch 26.9 Notes – League of Legends

Patch 26.9 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)


Patch Highlights


Systems


Quest Progression

To kick things off for Season 2, we have a set of changes to Role Quests that are aimed at making them generally more understandable and less punishing.

With this update, we’re lessening penalties when you just need to get out of your lane towards the end of laning phase.
Quest Point Penalty applied to CS / Turrets / Plates: -50% ⇒ -75% , decreasing down to -0% based on Quest Progress

We’ve also adjusted the bounds in which you earn Role Quest progress. Previously, it was heavily tied to being around your lane’s outer most turret, but now it’ll be more broad to allow for responding to proxying and roaming. Gone are the days of having to stick to your wave so you don’t fall behind, rejoice assassin mains!

Passive Point Progression: 0.333 per second, increased to 1.6 per second while they are “in the quest lane” ⇒ 0.333/s, increased to 1.5/s while you are “in the quest lane”
“In the quest lane”: Defined as near or past the lane’s outermost turret ⇒ Defined as anywhere in the lane, outside of your base
Recall Penalty to Passive Point Earn: Functionally exists because passive point gain was reduced until at outermost turret, creating a minor bias towards mid lane (shorter) ⇒ Disables passive point earn entirely for 12s after recalling

Passive point progression now also allows for a moderate degree of roaming. After level 3, you’ll now start banking roaming time while "in the quest lane,"getting up to 60 seconds after spending 120 seconds in lane. For every second banked, you’ll earn the increased Passive Point Progression as though you’re still "in the quest lane" even if you’re not.

Functionally, every 2 minutes you spend in lane, you can spend 1 minute roaming without penalizing your quest progress

Quest Rewards

Finally, we have some adjustments to quest rewards. For top, we’re doing a minor nerf to overall experience gain and adjusting the experience bonus to distinguish between champion and non-champion sources. Effectively, this will help out top laners who prefer scrappy teamfights over split pushing. We’re also ensuring that we avoid top lane experience creep situations where top laners who end up repeatedly killing each other scale their own level and experience rewards.
XP Increase: +12.5% from all sources ⇒ +80 flat XP on champion takedown; +11% from all other sources

For mid, we’re replacing the empowered recall effect with a percent-based increase to bonus AD and AP. We’ve felt that mid has lost some of its carry and scaling fantasy compared to top and bot’s rewards, which get more levels and XP or more gold and items. We’re hoping this change provides an edge over other lanes to spike harder on item purchases.

Role Quest Reward: Empowered Recall (300s CD, reduced by 60s on Takedown) ⇒ +6% Bonus AD and 6% Bonus AP

We feel like bot is a little too strong and snowballs a little too hard given their late game fantasy. So we’re giving a minor nerf to their bonus takedown gold.

Bonus Takedown Gold: 50g ⇒ 40g

Minion Waves

We’re moderately increasing minion wave durability, mostly around mid and late laning phase, to help increase minion action. This should also have a minor impact on opening up roaming windows as well as slightly increase wave stacking effects, allowing teams to spend a bit more time outside of the lane while a wave builds up.
Melee Minion Health: 440 (+25 every 90s; then +35 after this has happened 5 times)⇒ 430 (+35 every 90s)
Minion Slayer (Minion Damage Bonus to other Minions): +[2 Melee | 4 Ranged | 6 Siege]% Current HP On Hit ⇒ +[2 Melee | 3.5 Ranged | 5 Siege]% Current HP On Hit

Champions


Ambessa has carried the Medarda legacy a bit too well. Her brutality and fantasy has resonated with her mains, but we believe her ult has felt slightly fast to the point that players hit by it often don’t have clarity on what happened. We’re extending her cast time to open up clearer counterplay, and will be keeping a watchful eye on opportunities for follow-up work.

R – Public Execution

Cast Time: 0.55 ⇒ 0.70
Briar has one of the steepest mastery curves in League. However, as time has gone on, more and more players have ended up at the high end of that curve and have been finding a lot of success. So we’re looking to nerf a bit of her survivability, but keep her ability to kill a target.
Base Stats
Health Growth: 100 ⇒ 95
We want to bring back some playstyles that have been lost to the sands of time. First up on that list is AP Ezreal. Bring out your global snipes—there’s a lot of good mages out there but none of them are this skillful!

Q – Mystic Shot

AP Ratio: 15% AP ⇒ 40% AP

W – Essence Flux

AP Ratio: 70 – 90% ⇒ 90%

R – Trueshot Barrage

AP Ratio: 90% ⇒ 110%
Damage To Minions / Non-Epic Monsters: 175 / 275 / 375 (+50% bonus AD) (+45% AP) ⇒ 150 / 225 / 300 (+100% bonus AD) (+110% AP)
Gragas top is most impacted by the removal of Phase Rush, and only time will tell whether Grasp or Comet comes out on top. As we wait to see how his laning shakes out, this change should let Gragas players better frontline for their teams, and have a bigger impact in the late-game where they struggle most.

W – Drunken Rage

Damage Reduction: 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 / 18% (+ 4% per 100 AP) ⇒ 10 / 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 (+ 4% per 100 AP)
Our second lost playstyle is AD Kennen. In this case, we’re adding critical strike synergy to Kennen’s W and E. While a more attack speed focused on-hit hybrid build may stand out as a more intuitive choice for an auto-attack focused Kennen, we actually think it would spill over too hard into his standard AP builds and want to avoid adjustments to his typical playstyle just to enable this one.

W – Electrical Surge

[NEW] Passive: When ready, now applies the passive effect to the entire attack as an On-Hit, rather than just the first On-Hit trigger
[NEW] Passive Damage: Can now Critically Strike for 140% (+40% of Bonus Critical Strike Damage)

E – Lightning Rush

[NEW] Attack Speed Buff: Critical Strikes now extend the duration of Lightning Rush’s Attack Speed buff by 1 second, up to the initial duration of 4s. This can happen any number of times.
With Shyvana having been out for a few patches, we’ve taken stock of where she’s landed and identified two areas to address: broadening bruiser item viability and sharpening the distinction between AD and AP builds.

On the bruiser side, we’ve reduced the emphasis on pure dps items like Kraken Slayer. Adjustments to her base stats, Q and W create more room for Sheen, ability haste, and health to meaningfully contribute to her kit.

For build differentiation, AD Shyvana looks to engage in more sustained combat through auto attacks followed by big Q hits, using her W for sustain and sticking power and E for supplementary chase power. AP Shyvana, by contrast, centers damage around R and E, with W existing as a way to weave in and out of combat.
Base Stats
Attack Speed: 0.625 ⇒ 0.638
Attack Speed Ratio: 0.69 ⇒ 0.638
Attack Damage Growth: 3 ⇒ 4

Q – Emberstrike

Passive: 1% (+ 1.1% per 100 bonus AD) (+ 1.1% per 100 AP) of target’s maximum health ⇒ 1% (+ 1.1% per 100 bonus AD)
Hit Reduction: 1 second ⇒ 0.5 seconds
Area Physical Damage: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+ 110% AD) (+ 25% AP) ⇒ 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+ 110% AD) (+ 30% AP)
Cooldown ticks in the background if you do not finish the sequence. Cooldown starts ticking at the last activated input in that sequence.

W – Inferno Aegis

Cooldown: 14 / 13.5 / 13 / 12.5 / 12 ⇒ 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9
Shield: 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 (+ 5% max health) ⇒ 75 / 95 / 115 / 135 / 155 (+12% bonus health)
Damage: 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 / 160 (+ 40% bonus AD) (+ 20% AP) ⇒ 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 / 160 (+ 65% AP)
Dragon Form Heal: 75 – 214.71 (based on level) (+ 10% bonus AD) (+ 5% AP), increased by 0% – 100% (based on her missing health) for a maximum heal of 150 – 429.41 (based on level) (+ 20% bonus AD) (+ 10% AP) ⇒ 60 – 100 + 4-8% missing health (based on level)
W move speed separate from shield

E – Molten Burst

Cooldown: 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10 ⇒ 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8
Magic Damage: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+ 35% bonus AD) (+ 70% AP) ⇒ 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 (+ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80% AP) + 5% Target Max Health
Subsequent Explosion Damage Against Same Target: 50% ⇒ 40%
Slow: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% ⇒ 30%
Last patch’s adjustment last patch ended up a very slight nerf (less than .5%) for both top and support. So we’re making some support-focused improvements to compensate.

E – Thick Skin

Grey Health to HP conversion: 45 – 100% (Level 1 – 18) ⇒ 60 – 100% (Level 1 – 18)

R – Devour

Move Speed On Ally Devour: 40% for 3 seconds ⇒ 60% for 3 seconds
Taliyah is in the same spot as Gragas (RIP Phase Rush), except she was also taken down a notch from the pro mid meta in her last nerf. We don’t expect her to be able to utilize the changes as well as a lot of her competition, so we’re walking back our last hit to her, while also making sure she doesn’t approach sub-2:30 clears.

Q – Threaded Volley

Base Damage: 50 / 67.5 / 85 / 102.5 / 120 ⇒ 55 / 72.5 / 90 / 107.5 / 125
Bonus Monster Damage: 23 / 28 / 33 / 38 / 43 ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40
Our third lost playstyle—On-hit-focused Teemo builds have slowly fallen out of vogue as he’s been tuned around Malignance and Liandries. We are adding bonus AD ratios to Teemo’s E to open up itemization options for auto-attack builds featuring hybrid items like rageblade and the reworked Statikk Shiv.

E – Toxic Shot

[NEW] Initial Damage Bonus AD Ratio: 10% Bonus AD
[NEW] DoT Damage Bonus AD Ratio: 30% Bonus AD over 4 seconds
Currently, we feel that Udyr’s AD Q builds are extremely one note—which makes sense when you look at their scaling. We want to broaden his AD Q bruiser builds by shifting some of his AD ratios out of his Q and into W and E so the stance swapper has more than one stance.

Q – Wilding Claw

Bonus Damage on First 2 Attacks: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% (+4% per 100 bonus AD) of the target’s Max Health ⇒ 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% (+3.5% per 100 bonus AD) of the target’s Max Health
Bonus Damage On-Hit for 4 seconds: 5 / 13 / 21 / 29 / 37 / 45 (+25% bonus AD) ⇒ 6 / 12 / 18 / 24 / 30 / 36 (+20% bonus AD) (+1 – 2% bonus HP)
Awakened Bonus Damage on First 2 Attacks: An additional 2 – 4% (based on level) (+3% per 100 bonus AD) of the target’s Max Health ⇒ An additional 2 – 4% (based on level) (+1.5% per 100 bonus AD) (+1% per 1000 bonus HP of the target’s Max Health)
Awakened Chain Lightning Damage Per Bounce: 1.5 – 3% (based on level) (+.8% per 100 AP) ⇒ 1.5 – 3% (based on level) (+.6% per 100 AP)

W – Iron Mantle

[NEW] Shield AD Ratio: 50% bonus AD
[NEW] Awakened Shield AD Ratio: 100% bonus AD
[NEW] Awakened Heal AD Ratio: 50% bonus AD

E – Blazing Stampede

[NEW] Move Speed AD Ratio: 5% move speed per 100 bonus AD
[NEW] Awakened Move Speed AD Ratio: 10% move speed per 100 bonus AD
Our favorite wolf-boy Warwick has been struggling to find his place over game time. We are looking to soften the blow of his transition into the late game by bringing up some of his scaling.

Passive – Eternal Hunger

On-hit Damage: 6 / 16 / 26 / 36 / 46 ⇒ 6 / 18.25 / 30.5 / 42.75 / 55
Our fourth lost playstyle is centered around Xin Zhao—particularly attack speed and AP Xin Zhao. Over the years Xin has moved off of auto attack builds solidly into bruiser AD-caster builds buying items like Sundered Sky or Black Cleaver. We think more attack speed-centric Xin Zhao builds offered an enjoyable melee fighter experience, and we want to bring it back. Whether it’s full AP builds revolving around drain tanking, heavy attack speed on-hit carry builds, or just some minor pivots into Stridebreaker, Titanic Hydra, and Triforce, we want to see a bit more build options.

Passive – Determination

Healing: 3 / 4 / 5% Max HP (+65% AP) (levels 1 / 6 / 11) ⇒ 3 / 4 / 5% Max HP (+50 / 65 / 90% AP) (levels 1 / 6 / 11)

W – Wind Becomes Lightning

Slow On Thrust: 50% for 1.5 seconds ⇒ 50% for 1.5 (+.5 per 100 AP) seconds

E – Audacious Charge

Magic Damage: 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+60% AP) ⇒ 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+120% AP)
Attack Speed Buff: 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80% for 5 seconds ⇒ 38 / 46 / 54 / 62 / 70% (+1% per 5% permanent AS) (+10% per 100 AP) for 5 seconds
Zeri’s changes have pushed her over time to become more of a bursty assassin than the fantasy that initially called to many of her players. By moving power from her burst and late-game DPS towards her mobility and early laning, these changes should allow Zeri to shine once again as the zappy, speedy legend she is (while still doing ADC damage!)

Passive – Living Battery

Right Click Range: 500 ⇒ 550
Execute threshold: 60 / 82.5 / 105 / 127.5 / 150 (+ 18% AP) ⇒ 70 / 92.5 / 115 / 137.5 / 160 (+ 20% AP)

Q – Burst Fire

Damage: 15 / 17 / 19 / 21 / 23 (+ 104 / 108 / 112 / 116 / 120% AD) ⇒ 21 / 24 / 27 / 30 / 33 (+ 102 / 104 / 106 / 108 / 110% AD)
Excess AS to AD conversion: 70% ⇒ 50%
Now forced quick cast

W – Ultrashock Laser

Wall Crit Multiplier: 175% ⇒ 150%
AP Ratio: 25% ⇒ 50%

E – Spark Surge

Bonus Magic Damage: 17 / 19 / 21 / 23 / 25 (+ 10% bonus AD) (+ 20% AP) ⇒ 22 / 24 / 26 / 28 / 30 (+ 20% AP)
Cooldown: 22 / 21 / 20 / 19 / 18 ⇒ 24 / 22.5 / 21 / 19.5 / 18
Cooldown Refresh: Applies on attacks and abilities vs champions ⇒ Applies on attacks vs everything

R – Lightning Crash

Burst AD ratio: 100% ⇒ 60%
MS per stack: 1% ⇒ 1.5%
Stack duration: 1.5 ⇒ 2.5
Looking to move some of Zoe’s power out laning phase stat checking, and into more skillful outplay around her Bubble.

W – Spell Thief

Damage Per Bolt: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+ 15% AP) ⇒ 15 / 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 (+ 10% AP)
Total Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 45% AP) ⇒ 45 / 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 (+ 30% AP)

E – Sleepy Trouble Bubble

Cooldown: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 ⇒ 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14
Refunds 16 / 19.5 / 23 / 26.5 / 30% of cooldown when hitting an enemy champion

Items


Axiom Arc

Last year, we adjusted Axiom Arc to have a higher base refund on its ultimate effect with less scaling. We think this was a mistake, as offering an item early in the game that reduces ultimate cooldowns to this degree on high burst lethality champions can lead to very narrow windows of opportunity for opponents to act.
Flux: On takedown, refund 15% (+.15% per lethality) of your ultimate’s total cooldown ⇒ 10% (+.25% per lethality)

[NEW] Doran’s Bow

We’re looking to give more starting item options to auto attack-focused champions. Doran’s Bow offers a high risk, high reward fantasy that will reward those who are able to sneak in extra autos and come out on top even without the additional health.
Attack Damage: 6
Attack Speed: 12%
Omnivamp: 1.5%

[NEW] Doran’s Helm

We wanted to give more starting item options to champions who want to stack resistances. When it comes to the fantasy of being unkillable, current items assume a losing position. Though champions who want resistances tend to start on the back foot, we want to reward players who take advantage of the opportunity to come out even or ahead in laning phase with an item that pays off in valuable stats throughout the rest of the game.
Health: 100
Armor: 10
Magic Resist: 10
Helping Hand: 5 on-hit vs minions

Dusk And Dawn

One of the standout items for the season so far, we continue to feel it overlaps with Lichbane a bit too much. We want to encourage Dusk and Dawn users to stick around for multiple triggers, and empower them to do just that.
[NEW] Spellblade: Now also heals the user for (10% AP) (+3% Bonus HP)
Health: 350 ⇒ 300
Ability Power: 70 ⇒ 60
Attack Speed: 25% ⇒ 20%

Endless Hunger

Melee AD Fighters face major trade offs when considering this item against building other more durability focused items. We do want them to consider Endless Hunger however, for those pop off games when they get to play greedy, so we’re giving it a minor buff for melee champs.
Unique Passive – Famine: Grants 5 (+10% Bonus AD) Ability Haste ⇒ Grants 5 (+[13% Melee | 10% Ranged] Bonus AD) Ability Haste

[NEW] Gluttonous Greaves

In addition to new starting items, we’re adding new boots to the game that provide omnivamp. We’ve felt that many fighters and casters are limited in their boot selection, with only Ionian Boots as a real offensive option, and when they do pick something else, it’s purely defensive, which isn’t exactly exciting. These boots should fit a nice middle ground of aggressive and defensive, offering sustain through combat.
Build Path: Boots (300g) + 650g
Move Speed: 45
Omnivamp: 4%
Unique Passive – Slay: On champion takedown, gain 1% Omnivamp permanently, stacking up to 6 times
Tier 3 Immortal Path – Bonus Unique Passive – Now and Forever: While above half health, deal 5% increased damage. While below half health, receive +15% healing, shielding, and regeneration.

Hubris

Hubris cost buffs put it in line with a lot of other 1st slot lethality items, but in its current state feels like it’s crowding out other options by providing both scaling and immediate power. These changes should differentiate Hubris more from immediate powerspikes like Youmuu’s, while making it even stronger than before if you get rolling.
Base AD: 60 ⇒ 55
Passive AD per Stack: +2 ⇒ +3
Bonus AD: +15 ⇒ +12

[REMOVED] Opportunity

We feel that Opportunity has always overlapped a bit too much with Youmuu’s, even after we tried to push them apart a year and half ago, and in its current iteration sits in between Youmuus for mobility and Voltaic for upfront trade power.

Staff of Flowing Water

In the past, Staff’s unique effect granted ability haste, and then we changed that to move speed, and then we removed the move speed. We are re-adding the ability haste, as we believe only granting ability power has made the item too narrow and granting move speed made it too generic.
Unique Passive – Rapids: Healing or Shielding other ally champions grants both you and them +45 Ability Power for 6s ⇒ Healing or Shielding other ally champions grants both you and them +40 Ability Power and +15 Ability Haste for 6s
Ability Haste: 15 ⇒ 10

[REWORKED] Statikk Shiv

We’ve been unhappy with Shiv sitting as a pure waveclear first item purchase for a while now. With so much power in deleting the wave, it removes a lot of the space for back and forth lane trading. So instead, we’re taking this opportunity to move it into a scaling purchase for on-hit builds, a build path that has been missing some itemization since we opened up the 7th item slot for bot laners.

This new version of Shiv allows on-hit builds to apply their effects to multiple enemies at once, creating cool combos and helping them scale into teamfighting.
Build Path: Scout’s Slingshot (600g) + Pickaxe (875g) + Aether Wisp (800g) + 625g
Attack Damage: 40
Ability Power: 45
Attack Speed: 30%
Move Speed: 4%
Unique Passive – Electrospark: Your Energized trigger fires a chain of lightning, dealing 60 (increased to 90 for minions and monsters) bonus magic damage to up to (4 – 8, scaling with level) targets. Applies on-hit effects to secondary bounce targets.
Unique Passive – Electroshock: Basic attacks grant an additional +9 Energize stacks

[REMOVED] Trailblazer

Similar to the reason we removed Opportunity, Trailblazer is sitting between two other tanky mobility options (Bandlepipes and Deadman’s Plate). In this case, we feel not only is its output overlapping with similar effects in the space, it also had the highest complexity unique effect—asking allies to pay attention to a wispy trail which simply seemed over in terms of visual noise.

[REWORKED] Voltaic Cyclosword

Voltaic Cyclosword brings some cool Energized options to AD casters, but we think we can make it even broader by allowing it to open up the strict auto-attack gate that stops many melees from being good with it. We also don’t love the slow effect, as it tended to trivialize a lot of the combat once players did manage to get into melee. With Opportunity removed, Voltaic should also be able to stand as the premier “upfront burst” item for AD casters.
Unique Passive – Galvanize: Damaging enemy champions with abilities will trigger Energized if it is ready
Unique Passive – Firmament: Your Energized trigger grants you [15 Melee | 12 Ranged] Lethality for 4s and deals bonus physical damage equal to [9% Melee | 7% Ranged] of the target’s current health. This bonus damage is capped to 200 against non-champions.
Cost: 3000g ⇒ 2900g
Lethality: 18 ⇒ 10

Runes


[NEW] Deathfire Touch

Damage over time and sustained damage casters don’t have a keystone made specifically for them. This gap has previously been partially covered by other keystones like Comet and Aery, but we’re re-adding Deathfire Touch from the old keystone mastery system to ensure that these champions are fully supported by the runes system, and making adjustments to other keystones to compensate.
Sorcery Tree Keystone: Damaging a champion with an ability burns them for (4s singletarget / 2s AoE / 1s DoT). The burn deals 4-12 (level scaling) + 8% bonus AD + 3% AP adaptive damage per second. After the burn has been on a target for 3s, the damage of the burn increases by 100%.

[REMOVED] Phase Rush

Phase Rush has historically been a problematic rune for enabling some champions to subvert intended early lane gameplay. But we know that we need a mobility-based rune, so fear not…

[NEW] Stormraider’s Surge

Since Stormraider’s Surge asks the user to commit to dealing a lot of damage and generally ends up having its input scale well over game time, it is able to support much of the same pattern as Phase Rush in a healthier and more exciting way for the intended users.
[NEW] Sorcery Tree Keystone: Dealing 25% of a champion’s maximum health within 3s grants a movespeed and slow resistance for 3s. 20-10s cooldown, scales based on level.
[NEW] Speed: 40%; 75% for ranged champs
[NEW] Slow Resist: 50%

Arcane Comet

Previously, Comet was given a cooldown refund mechanic for damage over time and sustained damage casters. Now that Deathfire Touch exists, Comet no longer needs it, and can now better serve its original intended audience of control mages and artillery mages with a damage-per-distance mechanic that should be exciting for those subclasses to play with.
[REMOVED] Cooldown Refund: Removed
[NEW] Damage: Now deals up to 100% increased damage based on distance from the target, max damage bonus at 750 range away
Damage: 30 – 130 (based on level) + 10% bonus AD + 5% AP ⇒ 15 – 100 (based on level) + 10% bonus AD + 5% AP

Hail Of Blades

Hail of Blades has become an extremely niche keystone that gives an eye popping amount of attack speed and basically nothing else. In other words, these blades are too sharp! We’re shifting some of the attack speed power budget into a new bonus damage effect so we can tune it more comfortably for a broader variety of champions.
Attack Speed: [160% Melee || 80% Ranged] for 3 attacks, increased by +1 attack if you cast an ability that resets your auto attack ⇒ [120% Melee || 60% Ranged] for 3 attacks, increased by +1 attack if you cast an ability that resets your auto attack up to +2 attacks
New: Attacks empowered by Hail of Blades deal 4 – 20 (+8% bonus AD) (+6% AP) bonus true damage
Bugfixes: Fixed various Attack Reset abilities not properly granting bonus attacks (Bel’Veth Q, Kai’Sa R, K’Sante Q3, Gwen E, Quinn E, Rell Remount W, Riven Q)

SR Ranked Season 2

SR Ranked Season 2 will start at 12:00:00 noon, April 29, local server time.

For Apex (Master, Grandmaster, Challenger) players in NA, EUW, EUN, LAN, BR, TR, their rank status will be reset to Master, 0 LP. For all other players, nothing will change. If you want to read more about why we’re resetting Apex in some regions, check out the dev blog to learn more.

For all regions and all players, Victorious Ranked Mission (15 ranked game won) will be reset with Season 2 start.

End of Season 1 Ranked rewards will be distributed shortly after 26.09 is live, shard transfer service will be temporarily disabled until rewards are fully granted.
Posted in LoL

Patch 26.8 Notes – League of Legends

Patch 26.8 notes for League of Legends are here. (Source)


Patch Highlights


Systems


Ranked Season 1 End

The Summoner’s Rift Ranked Season 1 will end on the last day of patch 26.08 cycle, so if you’ve got ranked goals for this season make sure you hit them this patch! Good luck!
Date and Time: Regional local server time midnight (23:59:59) on April 28.
Summoner’s Rift Ranked Season 2 will start on the first day of patch 26.09 cycle.
Date and Time: Regional local server time noon (12:00:00) on April 29.

A few additional things to keep in mind as we wrap up this season:
For all regions, Ranked mission (win 15 ranked games) will be reset with the Season 2 start.
End of S1 ranked reward will be granted on 26.09.
Shard transfer services will be temporarily disabled during season transition until the reward grant is completed.
Champion Specific Keybinds

Champion specific keybinds have arrived! This long awaited player request will go live this patch and will now allow for champion specific overrides to be set for most keybinds. Rumble and Viktor players rejoice, smartcast options can also be toggled on a per-champion basis.

As a heads up, you won’t be able to do this out of game, so make sure you go into practice tool and set them up before jumping into ranked!

Discord Integration

We’re partnering with Discord to make it easier to get into your next League of Legends game with your friends. Linking your accounts unlocks new social features:

  • Invite Discord friends straight to your party, no alt-tabbing needed!
  • Copy a party link and share it in your favorite server, no more manually inviting friends one by one.
  • See which of your friends play other Riot games and jump into parties faster.

Learn more here!

We’ll be running a Beta across US, Canada and Brazil starting on April 14th. We will continue to test and refine the experience and plan on expanding to additional regions in a few patches.

Champions


Dr. Mundo has been able to more consistently reach his high points in the jungle where he is less concerned about his slow early game. We are looking to curb some of his clear speed to make sure he can’t go where he pleases too quickly and requires some more time to scale up.

Q – Infected Bonesaw

Monster Damage Cap: 300 / 375 / 450 / 525 / 600 ⇒ 250 / 325 / 400 / 475 / 550

E – Blunt Force Trauma

Monster Damage Cap:: 200%⇒ 140%
Hwei has remained on the weaker side since the nerfs to his waveclear last year, and we are fixing a bug that we expect to be a further minor nerf. We still believe those waveclear nerfs to be correct as we want Hwei League’s coolest combo mage, not just a walking waveclear machine. Therefore, we’re buffing his combo casting output up through his passive.

Passive – Signature of the Visionary

Base Damage: 35 – 230 (Levels 1 – 18) ⇒ 40 – 285 (Levels 1 – 18)
Comboing Slows: Slows from Hwei’s abilities now stack with diminishing values.
Bugfix: Slows from Hwei’s QE and R abilities no longer stack with slows from other champions / items.
Last patch we made some changes to Karma to reduce how generically powerful she was by reducing her midgame shield strength. Unfortunately those weren’t as effective as we had intended so we’re taking another swing at Karma by directly targeting her E power and reducing her base stats a tad so she is more reliant on skillful and intentional ability usage.
Base Stats
Base AD: 51 ⇒ 49
AD Growth: 3.3 ⇒ 3.0

E – Inspire

Mana Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 ⇒ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Our favorite bouncing deer has been a bit less than enthusiastic to prance from camp to camp as of late, it’s a scary jungle out there. We’re hoping to give Lillia players some more courage to bring her into the jungle by increasing her ability to have her high move speed translate into a faster clear.

Passive – Dream-Laden Bough

Monster Damage Cap: 65 ⇒ 70-180 (based on level)
Lucian has a unique role as an AD Carry that dashes in, out of, and around fights which is why many of his players enjoy him. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been doing that as effectively recently so we’re looking to remedy that. To get there, we’re lowering both the cooldown and mana cost of his dashes.

E – Relentless Pursuit

Cooldown: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 ⇒ 16 / 15.5 / 15 / 14.5 / 14
Mana Cost: 40 / 30 / 20 / 10 / 0 ⇒ 32 / 24 / 16 / 8 / 0
Since our recent adjustments to Mel, she’s been hitting too hard with her initial Q missile whether ahead or behind, even as opponents dodge the rest of the spell, so we’re looking to take her damage down a notch. We’re also aiming to reduce how frustrating her W can be by lowering the bonus mobility she gets and the spell’s uptime, with the movespeed now matching her shield and reflect duration.

Q – Radiant Volley

Initial Explosion Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 60% AP) ⇒ 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 55% AP)

W – Rebuttal

Cooldown: 35 / 32 / 29 / 26 / 23 ⇒ 38 / 35 / 32 / 29 / 26 seconds
Bonus Movement Speed Duration: 1.5 ⇒ 0.75 seconds
As a champ in both Top and Support, Tahm Kench requires periodic maintenance as the meta shifts to ensure both roles of his roles are equally supported. In this case, Dusk and Dawn’s addition to the game this season has shifted this balance in favor of top lane, so we’re adjusting how his passive scales to help balance him out.

Passive – An Acquired Taste

Damage: 6 – 48 (Levels 1 – 11) (+1.5% AP per 100 Bonus HP) (+4.5% Bonus HP) ⇒ 5 – 60 (Levels 1 – 12) (+1.25% AP per 100 Bonus HP) (+4% Bonus HP)
We’re implementing a couple bugfixes to Yuumi’s ultimate, one of which will sometimes result in the magical cat outputting significantly more healing than she may have grown used to. As such, we’re throwing her a FISH by increasing her base healing and best friend healing to provide a stronger baseline effect.

R – Final Chapter

Heal Per Wave: 30 / 40 / 50 (+10% AP) ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70 (+12% AP)
Best Friend Enhanced Heal: 30% More Healing ⇒ 30 – 60% More Healing (Levels 6 – 12)
Bugfix: The attached ally is no longer healed an additional time whenever Final Chapter heals another ally
Bugfix: Final Chapter’s overhealing shield now takes into account Heal/Shield power as well as Grievous Wounds
As a quality of life change we’re looking to make sure Zilean can only put points into abilities he can fully utilize level 1.

W – Rewind

W Level Up: No longer can level W at level 1.
Since the dawn of time Zyra’s have been accidentally putting a point into W and effectively doing nothing level 1. Well no more! We’re adding a small QoL change so Zyra can no longer put her first skill point into W to prevent this type of situation from being a thorn in your side and mental blooming.

W – Rampant Growth

W Level Up: No longer can level W level
Posted in LoL

Patch 26.6 Notes – League of Legends

Patch 26.6 notes for League of Legends are here, including nerfs to Ahri and Zaahen, as well as the Shyvana Update. (Source)


Patch Highlights


Champions


Shyvana Update


Shyvana’s update goes live this patch and we’re excited for all of you to try her out! Not only will she have a brand new look, she’ll also be sporting an updated kit, visual effects, voice over, and skins, all of which will come out alongside her release.

As a heads up at the time of writing she is still being fine tuned on PBE so these numbers you see below may have changed by the time you’re seeing this.

Oh, and for the real ones we’re bringing back the Leg Day bundle so make sure you drop by the shop to check it out!

Passive – Scalemail

  • Takedowns on champions, large minions, and monsters earn Shyvana stacks of Scalemail; each stack grants Shyvana permanent 0.4 Armor and 0.4 Magic Resist.
  • Large monsters and siege minions grant 1 stack.
  • Champions and Epic monsters grant 3 stacks.

Q – Emberstrike

  • Cooldown: 6 seconds
  • Passive: Shyvana’s Attacks deal 1.0% max Health magic damage On-Hit and reduce this Ability’s cooldown by 1.25 seconds.
  • Active: Shyvana’s next Attack strikes the target and the surrounding area, dealing 154 physical damage. This Ability may be Recast after an Attack or short delay within the next 4 seconds.
  • Dragon Form: Shyvana gains an additional Recast, causing her to bite the target of her next Attack, dealing 231 true damage.

W – Inferno Aegis

  • Cooldown: 12 seconds
  • Shyvana wraps herself in flames for 2.5 seconds, gaining 256 Shield, increased by 77 per nearby enemy champion, and 25% Move Speed, increased to 44% when moving towards enemy champions. When the effect ends, the shield is broken, or upon Recast, the area around her detonates, dealing 160 magic damage.
  • Dragon Form: If the detonation hits an enemy champion, Shyvana restores from 250 to 500 Health based on her missing Health.

E – Molten Burst

  • Cooldown: 10 seconds
  • Shyvana launches a fireball at the target location dealing 240 magic damage and Slowing by 50% for 2 seconds. It explodes upon striking an enemy or reaching its terminus.
  • Dragon Form: Shyvana’s fireball is larger and pierces through enemies. Upon striking a champion, large monster, or reaching its terminus it triggers a pulse of fire that deals 300 magic damage and Slows by 50% for 2 seconds. The fireball leaves behind a trail for 2 seconds that deals 25 magic damage per second.

R – Dragon’s Descent

  • Requires 100 Fury to activate.
  • Passive: Shyvana generates 1.25 Dragon Fury by striking enemies with Attacks and Abilities, increased by 200% while in Dragon Form, and reduced 75% when striking in an area against non-champions.
  • Active: Shyvana transforms into her Dragon Form, becoming Unstoppable, and flying to the target location breathing fire on enemies below dealing 350 magic damage and causing them to Flee for 1 second.
  • While transformed, Shyvana’s basic Abilities are upgraded, she gains 350 bonus Health, size, and Attack Range. Shyvana loses Dragon Fury over time and her transformation ends when she has no Dragon Fury remaining.

Ahri

See Highest Win Rate Ahri Builds
A moderate buff to Ahri back in 26.3 skyrocketed her to the top of the mid lane pool and pushed her power a bit too far. Her overall waveclear is quite powerful right now, so we’re targeting her Q’s base damage as it could stand to lose some power.

Q – Orb of Deception

  • Damager per Pass: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 ⇒ 35 / 60 / 85 / 110 / 135

Azir

See Highest Win Rate Azir Builds
In this patch we’re looking to make Azir a bit more powerful for players at home. These changes should be pretty appreciable for all Azir players, regardless of rank.

Q – Conquering Sands

  • Damage AP Ratio: (+ 35% AP) ⇒ (+ 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55% AP)

W – Arise!

  • Damage: 0-45 (5 damage per level starting at level 10) ⇒ 0-72 (7 damage per level starting at level 10)
  • Damage AP Ratio: (+ 32.5 / 40 / 47.5 / 55 / 62.5% AP) ⇒ (+35 / 42.5 / 50 / 57.5 / 65% AP)

Cassiopeia

See Highest Win Rate Cassiopeia Builds

We’re looking to get more damage in Cassiopeia’s poison this patch, particularly when for her mid lane players. We want to give her more freedom to look for trades and to feel rewarded when she finds successful ones, so we’re bumping up her base Mana and empowered E scaling.
Base Stats
  • Base Mana: 450 ⇒ 480

E – Twin Fang

  • Bonus Magic Damage to Poisoned Targets: 20 / 43 / 66 / 89 / 112 ⇒ 20 / 45 / 70 / 90 / 120

Lissandra

See Highest Win Rate Lissandra Builds
The Queen of Ice has not ruled in a very, very long time… thankfully, a lot of her biggest problem children like Everfrost and Aftershock aren’t in her toolkit anymore, so we’re looking to give her some a chill buff. We want to do this by letting her get that 2nd Q off more reliably in those tighter combos. We think this is going to be a big power-up, so we want to make sure she’s not icing out her AD melee matchups too hard without affecting her durability in others.
Base Stats
  • Armor Growth: 4.9 ⇒ 4.2

Q – Ice Shard

  • Cooldown: 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 ⇒ 7.5 / 6.5 / 5.5 / 4.5 / 3.5

Olaf

See Highest Win Rate Olaf Builds
Olaf top is fine but he’s lagging behind in the jungle. As such, we’re improving his clear, making his ganking stronger and leaning into his identity as a risky, low health fighter. We hope to keep top lane in a fairly stable place while boosting his jungle performance.
Base Stats
  • Base Attack Speed: 0.694 ⇒ 0.72

Q – Undertow

  • Slow Amount: 25 / 30 / 40 / 45% for 1.5- 2.5 seconds (based on distance) ⇒ 30 / 40 / 45 / 50% for 1-3 seconds (based on distance)
  • Bug Fix: Enemies only struck by the Lollipop at the end of the Q are now slowed for the proper amount of time (was a fixed 30% slow).

W – Tough It Out

  • Bug Fix: If you cast W while the previous cast was still active, it now properly re-applies its effects rather than just refreshing the prior cast (you get the attack reset and the AS value is updated).

E – Reckless Swing

  • Damage to Self: 30% of Damage Dealt ⇒ 40% of Damage Dealt

Pyke

See Highest Win Rate Pyke Builds
Pyke has often toed the line around being strong enough to be worth playing in most skill brackets and being overbearing in Elite levels of play. Recently, he’s crossed that line and is due for a power reduction. We want to keep his ability to strongly punish squishy lanes and deal tons of damage at the drop of a hat, so for this patch’s nerf we’re making him more easily counter-attacked when he makes a mistake or gets caught by a well-placed engage.
Base Stats
  • Base Armor: 43 ⇒ 37

Shen

See Highest Win Rate Shen Builds
Shungle is performing better than he is in the top lane, not to mention he’s also outperforming many other junglers with one of the best clear speeds in the game, reliable ganks, and a global presence starting at level 6. Given the latter two strengths, we think it’s fair to reduce his clear speed in order to keep the other two intact. 

Q – Twilight Assault

  • Monster Damage Cap: 120 / 140 / 160 / 180 / 200 ⇒ 100 / 125 / 150 / 175 / 200

Skarner

See Highest Win Rate Skarner Builds
Our few Skarner top laners have gained tremendous empathy for their solitary Brackern, as their brethren scattered and left them to become the last of their kind. By letting him cast more freely in lane while also giving him some more trading power on his bread and butter ability, we hope some of our scorpion bros will come out of hiding in top lane (and jungle too!)

Q – Shattered Earth

  • Mana Cost: 45 ⇒ 30
  • Third Attack Target Max Health Damage: 11% ⇒ 9%

E – Ixtal’s Impact

  • Cooldown: 22 / 21 / 20 / 19 / 18 seconds ⇒ 22 / 20.5 / 19 / 17.5 / 16 seconds

Tryndamere

See Highest Win Rate Tryndamere Builds
We’re back for another Tryndamere buff as he’s still underperforming relative to other top laners. Arguably the highlight of Tryndamere is right clicking enemy champions and killing them with crits. He can already do that extremely well in the early game, so how about doing it in the late game, too?
Base Stats
  • Attack Speed Ratio: 0.694 ⇒ 0.725

Zaahen

See Highest Win Rate Zaahen Builds
Zaahen has caught on as one of the strongest top laners and junglers in the game. In our view his jungle performance is farther over the line, so we’re delivering some nerfs with a moderate jungle skew to them. His W is more core to his ganking than it is to his laning, and this E nerf is jungle-skewed and will reduce his ability to create and react to pressure early on.

W – Dreaded Return

  • Secondary Damage: 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+ 50% bonus AD) ⇒ 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110 (+ 30% bonus AD)

E – Aureate Rush

  • Bonus Damage to Monsters: 75 ⇒ 50

Items


Chempunk Chainsword


Chempunk has been the weakest and least popular of the grievous wounds options for a while now. The reality is often that the AD fighters that would rely on this as their source of Grievous Wounds are also just worse at applying it and keeping it applied to key targets. As such, we are giving it a small buff so it can match up better with its Grievous peers
  • Combine Cost: 350 gold ⇒ 250 gold
  • Total Cost: 3100 ⇒ 3000 gold

Sunfire Aegis


Sunfire Aegis has felt annoying to purchase but we don’t think the item itself is underpowered, leading us to the smallest of buffs in this patch. Tanks typically can’t earn as much gold as other classes of champions, so instead of leaving them empty handed we’re smoothing out the build path!
  • Build Path: Bami’s Cinder + Chain Vest + 1000 gold ⇒ Bami’s Cinder + Chain Vest + Ruby Crystal + 600 gold

Systems


Read More Here

Posted in LoL

Introducing U.GG PLUS – Level Up Your Experience

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Posted in LoL

Patch 26.5 Notes – League of Legends

Patch 26.5 notes for League of Legends are here, including buffs to Mel and Lilia (Source)

“Welcome to the official patch of First Stand, the first major international tournament of the year! This patch we’re making some pro-focused changes, but not as many as we would for a larger tournament like Worlds, which means we’re re-tuning a small handful of mid laners and a single bot laner. Otherwise, we’re continuing to sweep across the roster and delivering buffs and nerfs to each role’s biggest outliers.

We also have the return of Brawl, some adjustments, buffs, and nerfs for ARAM: Mayhem, bugfixes for Arena, some fancy new skins on the Season 1 Act 2 Battlepass, updates for Demacia Rising, the arrival of last hit indicators (no excuse to miss canons now), and we have an update to how we’re punishing severely abusive chat.”

Patch Highlights


BRAWL RETURNS

Brawl is back, baby! Grab your friends, grab your enemies, they’re brawling everybody out here! Brawl will be live from March 4, 2026 through April 28, 2026.

Champions


Akali

See Highest Win Rate Akali Builds
Currently, Akali’s re-stealth timer on her Shroud scales with game time. And since we’ve adjusted Summoner’s Rift’s pacing and League now has multiple modes with varying start times, we think everyone’s favorite ninja deserves a bit more flexibility when it comes to her sneakiness.

W – Twilight Shroud

  • Restealth Timer: 1s / .9s / .825s / .725s / .625s after your last attack or ability (at game times 0:00 / 8:00 / 11:00 / 20:00 / 30:00) ⇒ 1s / .9s / .825s / .725s / .625s (at levels 1 / 7 / 10 / 13 / 16)

Azir

See Highest Win Rate Azir Builds
Azir marks one of a very few changes we are making specifically due to First Stand. We want to preserve Azir’s high points and core strengths of sustained late game damage while opening up late-game weaknesses to AP assassins in the hope that we see some exciting counter picks at the tournament.
Base Stats
  • Health Growth: 119 ⇒ 108

Garen

See Highest Win Rate Garen Builds
Garen is moderately popular but statistically underpowered, and we’d like it if he was as powerful as other straightforward top lane juggernauts. We’re continuing on the trend of making traditional fighter items more comparable to his crit builds and giving him better trading power before he has access to tools like Stridebreaker and Phantom Dancer.

Q – Decisive Strike

  • Move speed duration: 1 / 1.65 / 2.3 / 2.95 / 3.6 ⇒ 1.4 / 1.95 / 2.5 / 3.05 / 3.6

E – Judgment

  • Damage per spin: 4 / 7 / 10 / 13 / 16 (+ 38 / 41 / 44 / 47 / 50% AD) ⇒ 4 / 7 / 10 / 13 / 16 (+ 40 / 43 / 46 / 49 / 52% AD)

Kha’Zix

See Highest Win Rate Kha’Zix Builds
Kha’Zix has evolved with the season changes and overcame all his worthy prey to take the top spot of solo queue junglers. We think he has room to go down in clear speed as the game progresses, as well as overkilling isolated targets without hurting him where he’s already weak in teamfights. We’re also making the bug less speedy to hit higher skill brackets.
Base Stats
  • Move Speed: 350 ⇒ 345

Q – Taste Their Fear

  • Bonus AD: + 110% (231% isolated bonus) ⇒ + 105% (220.5% isolated bonus)

Lee Sin

See Highest Win Rate Lee Sin Builds
We’re in the fortunate position where Lee Sin is buffable for both regular players as well as pro, which means we’re going to deliver some simple power. We want to reinforce his primary strength of early game power and lethality, so we’re buffing his highest fantasy early game damage ability.

Q – Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike

  • Base Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 ⇒ 65 / 95 / 125 / 155 / 185

Lillia

See Highest Win Rate Lillia Builds
We overshot Lillia’s Q nerf and historically gave her power in places she’s less likely to appreciate, all of which has led to the speedy deer feeling limp. We are reverting her ultimate buffs from 25.19, which were fairly small, as well as Q nerfs from 26.02, which were much more impactful. The hope here is that this net buff lets her live out her sustained fight fantasy as we believe that weaving in and out of fights doing damage with Q is closer to that rather than needing to land large scale R’s.

Passive – Dream-Laden Bough

  • Monster heal bonus AP ratio: 9% ⇒ 15%

Q – Blooming Blows

  • Bonus AP ratio: 30% ⇒ 35%

R – Lilting Lullaby

  • Base damage: 100 / 150 / 200 ⇒ 150 / 200 / 250
  • AP ratio: 45% ⇒ 40%
  • Cooldown: 150 / 130 / 110 ⇒ 140 / 120 / 100

Mel

See Highest Win Rate Mel Builds
Mel’s recent update and follow-up balance work has succeeded in creating more counterplay and thus reducing her frustration and ban rate with a similar win rate to the preceding patches. With the initial dust now settled, it’s time to bring her up to a more reasonable power level. We’re looking toward her proactive damage, especially with champion level, to skew these buffs strongly toward the mid lane. We’re also sliding in a small compensation to her passive’s minion mod in order to not push her Q-driven wave clear any higher than it already is.

Passive – Searing Brilliance

  • Minion Damage Modifier: 0.6x ⇒ 0.5x

Q – Radiant Volley

  • Base Damage per Bolt: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 ⇒ 5 / 7 / 9 / 11 / 13
  • Total Q Base Damage: 90 / 132 / 176 / 222 / 270 ⇒ 90 / 145 / 200 / 255 / 310

R – Golden Eclipse

  • Initial Base Damage: 100 / 150 / 200 ⇒ 125 / 200 / 275

Neeko

See Highest Win Rate Neeko Builds
Neeko has been a dominant force in pro play through her combination of strong laning, teamfight utility, and vision control, while also being deadly enough to succeed more than the average champion for regular players as well. We like her explosive and high-spectacle teamfights, with the occasional 7th minion engage or wolf flank, but want to tap down the utility her clone provides. This change should still let her engage in trickery, while introducing a tradeoff to when clones stare people down from a bush on repeat, as we explore the best solution that limits her vision control but retains satisfying mechanics.

W – Shapesplitter

  • Slightly-Less-Tricksy-Neekoses: Cooldown now starts on clone expiration, instead of on cast
  • Fun Eliminated: Neeko can no longer use Ctrl+5, which plays the joke expression for clone only. Neeko can still joke, dance, recall, to make their clone initiate said actions.

Nocturne

See Highest Win Rate Nocturne Builds
Nocturne’s underperforming considering how easy to pick up and play he is, so he’s made the cut for buffs in this patch. In an effort to help him succeed in moderate fight durations, we’re upgrading his ability to stick to his enemies under the Dusk Trail and run them down with basic attacks.

Passive – Umbra Blades

  • Cooldown: 13 ⇒ 12

Q – Duskbringer

  • Bonus move speed: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35% ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%

Orianna

See Highest Win Rate Orianna Builds
Orianna is arguably the defining mid pick of the current pro meta, receiving the highest total picks and bans in First Stand-qualifying leagues. As with Azir and Taliyah this patch, we’re hoping to broaden the top-tier pool and allow teams to have different takes on mid lane. In the hands of a true expert, her laning phase can feel unassailable, so we’re focusing on her early game in the hope of opening up some weaknesses.

Q – Command: Attack

  • Cooldown: 6 / 5.25 / 4.5 / 3.75 / 3 ⇒ 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 / 3

Samira

See Highest Win Rate Samira Builds
We’re giving Samira some love in the form of QoL and minor bugfixing around her Q! Sometimes Q doesn’t do what you want which can be a bit frustrating, and we’re hoping to fix some of the extreme end of feels-bad cases by adding some additional logic on the decision of when to use her Sword and when to use her Gun.

Q – Flair

  • The Right Tool for the Job: Samira Q will now do multiple additional checks to see if there are units on both the right and left of her. If there are, and importantly if there are no units far in front of her, she will use Sword Q. If a unit is far in front of her, she will still use Gun Q regardless of units on the right and left.
  • Itchy Trigger Finger: Samira Q is now properly sealed during her passive. This resolves a case where Samira Q can go on cooldown despite not being used if pressed during her passive’s animation. This also applies to an instance where her ultimate was cast after her W.
  • Can’t Out-Walk Me: Samira Q will now do a check to see if the enemy is walking away from her and in the very last part of her Sword Q’s range. If so, she will instead use Gun Q. This should resolve the extreme cases where champions can simply walk away from her Q at very low move speed (higher move speeds will still likely be able to do so, rightfully.)

Taliyah

See Highest Win Rate Taliyah Builds
Taliyah joins Azir and Orianna as pro-focused mid nerfs for First Stand with the goal of opening up the mid lane pool to more than just control mages in the first games of a series. In an effort to pro-skew her nerf this patch, we’re attacking her early wave control, making it less likely she can always be first to every Scuttle Crab fight. We’re also compensating her monster damage to keep her jungle clear at similar speeds.

Q – Threaded Volley

  • Base Damage: 55 / 72.5 / 90 / 107.5 / 125 ⇒ 50 / 67.5 / 85 / 102.5 / 120
  • Bonus Monster Damage: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 ⇒ 23 / 28 / 33 / 38 / 43

Varus

See Highest Win Rate Varus Builds
Oh, Varus. Look, canonically you’re kinda three people at once, so having three times the balance changes of other champions is only fair, right? We’re nerfing Varus’s lethality build as it’s the most pro-dominant ADC in the current patch. However, because on-hit Varus in bot lane is weak, we’re compensating AD on-hit Varus to keep that build afloat.

Q – Piercing Arrow

  • Maximum damage: 80 / 160 / 240 / 320 / 400 (+ 130 / 140 / 150 / 160 / 170% bonus AD) ⇒ 80 / 150 / 220 / 290 / 360 (+ 150% bonus AD)

W – Blighted Quiver

  • On-hit damage: 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44 (+ 25% AP) ⇒ 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44 (+ 25% AP + 15% bonus AD)

Volibear

See Highest Win Rate Volibear Builds
Volibear’s last set of nerfs were effective at hitting jungle harder than top, but ended up a bit over the line still. We’re aiming to make laning a bit more satisfying for top Volibear with mana changes, and still trying to open up some bruiser builds so it’s not always wizard bear.

Q – Thundering Smash

  • Bonus physical damage: +140% ⇒ +160%

W – Frenzied Maul

  • Mana cost: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40
  • Wounded bonus: + 15% per 100 bonus AD ⇒ + 25% per 100 bonus AD

E – Sky Splitter

  • Mana cost: 60 ⇒ 50

Items


Hubris


Hubris appears to be the weakest AD assassin item, especially when you consider it should look amazing statistically due to being a situational snowball item. We’re continuing the slow and steady trend of letting assassins spike their items earlier, and especially in the case of Hubris, get the snowball rolling early on.
  • Combine cost: 950 gold ⇒ 750 gold
  • Total price: 3000 gold ⇒ 2800 gold

Locket of the Iron Solari


Bandlepipes has been a well received addition for first-slot support tanks (and others who don’t really want AP) but it’s overshadowing first-slot Locket more than we’d like. We’re choosing to front-load some of Locket’s power so that it looks more attractive as the first purchase, while keeping its later-game power pretty similar.
  • SHIELD: 200 – 360, scaling after level 1 ⇒ 290 – 360, scaling after level 8
  • Functional Shield Level 8-18: 265 – 360 ⇒ 290 – 360
Ranked and Matchmaking

Aegis of Valor

Players who were eligible for the Aegis of Valor rewards have those rewards voided if they’re reported for disruptive behaviors and the reports are validated.

Autofill and Secondary Matchmaking Improvements

“As we mentioned at the start of this year, we’re going to start rolling out improved positional matchups in game for autofills and secondaries, e.g. trying to match autofill jungle vs autofill jungle. We’ll be starting with EUW.

We’ll keep an eye on how it’s performing, and will let you know when we feel like it’s ready for a global rollout.”

Posted in LoL

Patch 26.5 Preview – League of Legends

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
Posted in LoL

Patch 26.4 Notes – League of Legends

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
Omnivamp on Summoner Spells (Smite/Ignite)

We like to make rules consistent when we can, as it helps players understand our beloved complex game that little bit more. We’ve generally maintained that summoner spells do not interact with other systems such as applying spell effects or lifesteal style effects. With Omnivamp making its return this season and being added to Lee Sin’s W this patch, we’re further consistifying this rule to our two damaging summoner spells: Smite and Ignite both do not trigger Omnivamp.

  • Omnivamp will no longer apply to Smite and Ignite damage.

Additional Miscellaneous Info

Disruptive Pinging Detections

Pings are used for a wide variety of reasons, and they don’t always need to be strictly “productive.” Using them to communicate, hype up a teammate after a kill, point out something funny, or just have fun are all totally fine.

That said, repeatedly spamming pings at teammates throughout a game as an expression of frustration can cross the line into disruptive behavior, and that’s what we’re targeting here. Starting this patch, we’ll begin detecting and penalizing extreme cases of sustained, disruptive ping spamming, where a player’s ability to ping may be temporarily reduced.

Normal ping usage, whether it’s strategic, playful or celebratory, is not intended to be affected. We’ll be monitoring the system closely and iterating as needed to ensure that only players consistently using pings in a clearly disruptive way are penalized.

Bugfixes & QoL Changes
  • Fixed a bug that caused Rengar to be unable to extend his passive duration with attacks.
  • Fixed a bug that caused High Noon Jhin’s running animation to stop playing when using Tier 2 boots.
Posted in LoL

Patch 26.4 Preview – League of Legends

The 26.4 Full patch preview for League of Legends is out, with another handful of champion buffs and nerfs. From @RiotPhroxon on X Source

Ryze

– Ryze’s resurgance in the last few months has increased visibility on R’s prediction behavior. This behavior is frequently difficult to predict and often doesn’t teleport champions when it feels like it should

– We’re removing this functionality as it leads to overall less predicatability around Ryze R behavior

Dusk and Dawn, Gwen & Kayle

– While we nerfed several other Dusk and Dawn users, Gwen has floated to be one of the better ones; we’re tapping her done a bit as a result

– Kayle also falls into a similar boat

– We’re overall pretty happy with the state of Dusk & Dawn; it’s a popular item with a strong fantasy and after this patch, we hope it’s a balanced item with an appropriately sized user base

Manamune Kassadin

– We’re thrilled to see Kassadin finding a new fun build to play; unfortunately he’s a bit too strong both with and without it, so we’re tapping him down

– The early game changes to let him get back to lane a bit faster has made punishing him a bit more difficult and so he’ll have to work a bit harder to access those 2 and 3 item spikes he used to

Rengar

– Rengar’s had a good number of bugs fixed on 26.2 that added quite a bit of power and consistency to him; we’re pulling a bunch of that back as he’s a bit too powerful for Elite players in particular

ADC’s & Senna

– We’re trying a niche for Hexoptics where it is positioned as a greedy 3rd full damage item for Crit users when they don’t need LDR (or post LDR)

– Jinx and Twitch are receiving durability nerfs in the mid-game to keep some of their damage fantasies intact, but create sharper tradeoffs if they misposition

– Aphelios is still one of the stronger ADC’s, even after a hotfix nerf in 16.1; just a generic nerf here to bring power level down

– Samira’s BT build is significantly worse for wear, especially after the changes to Crit; so this adjustment is intended to bring some of that build variety back

– Xayah has been out of the meta for quite a while; we’re trying to ease her reliance on Essence Reaver procs in order to open up a bit more build variety for her. Additionally, her damage output is just superseded by several of her contemporaries, so increasing her W uptime will help her be competitive relative to the pack

– For Senna, in Support, her Enchanter builds have been on average a bit too strong relative to her AD builds and so we’re trying to make that balance a little more AD skewed

– We like the Enchanter build being viable, but AD should be the stronger one for her fantasy

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

-Going to walk it back about halfway as a result

Posted in LoL

26.3 – Riot Aims to Fix League’s Most Frustrating Champion

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.

Mel Win & Ban Rates


By late 2025, Mel was banned in nearly half of all League matches, with her ban rate climbing to around 50% in Emerald+.

Mel in Patch 25.24 (Emerald+)

Looking at pre-26.3 data, she’s still being banned in nearly a quarter of Emerald+ games.

Mel in Patch 26.2 (Emerald+)

You can view both current and historical patch data on our main tier list page.

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 (PATCH 25.04 Changes)

See Highest Win Rate Mel Builds

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.

Q – Radiant Volley

  • Cast Range: 1000 ⇒ 950
  • Projectile Speed: 5000 ⇒ 4500

W – Rebuttal

  • Duration: 1 ⇒ 0.75 seconds
  • Mana Cost: 60/45/30/15/0 ⇒ 80/60/40/20/0
  • Reflected Damage: 40/47.5/55/62.5/70% ⇒ 40/45/50/55/60%

E – Solar Snare

  • Root Duration: 1.75/1.88/2/2.13/2.25 ⇒ 1.25/1.5/1.75/2/2.25 seconds
  • Direct Hit Damage: 60/100/140/180/220 (+50% AP) ⇒ 60/105/150/195/240 (+60% AP)

R – Golden Eclipse

  • Damage per Overwhelm Stack: 4/7/10 (+2.5% AP) ⇒ 4/7/10 (+3.5% AP)

Mel (PATCH 25.23 Changes)

See Highest Win Rate Mel Builds

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)

E – Solar Snare

  • Root Duration: 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 / 2.25 ⇒ 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6

Mel 26.3 Overhaul


Mel

See Highest Win Rate Mel Builds

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.
  • Initial Hit: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 60% AP)
  • Subsequent Hits: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 (+ 5% AP)
  • Total Damage: 78 / 109 / 144 / 185 / 230 (+51-85% AP) ⇒ 85 / 126 / 169 / 214 / 261 (+ 85-105% AP)
  • Mana Cost: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 ⇒ 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90
  • Minion Damage: 75% ⇒ 100%
  • Cast Time: 0.25s ⇒ 0.35s
  • Projectile Speed: 4500 ⇒ 3800
  • Explosion Radius: 230 ⇒ 200
  • Area Spread: 30 ⇒ 25
  • Channel Time: 0.75s ⇒ 0.5s
  • 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

E – Solar Snare

  • Root Missile Radius: 80 ⇒ 70
  • End of Travel Linger Duration: 0.5s ⇒ 0.25s
  • DoT Radius: 260 ⇒ 230
  • Cast Range: 1050 ⇒ 1000
  • Projectile Speed: 1000 ⇒ 1100
  • Cooldown: 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10 ⇒ 11 / 10.5 / 10 / 9.5 / 9
  • Root Duration: 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 ⇒ 1.5
  • Damage: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 ⇒ 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240
  • Damage per Second: 16 / 26 / 36 / 46 / 56 ⇒ 16 / 28 / 40 / 52 / 64
  • No longer visually pops at the end when descending terrain.

R – Golden Eclipse

  • Damage per Stack: 4 / 7 / 10 (+ 3.5% AP) ⇒ 4 / 7 / 10 (+ 4% AP)

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.

Posted in LoL

Patch 26.3 Notes – League of Legends

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)

Patch 26.3 Overview

ARAM Mayhem

Champion Bounties

Control Wards

Faelights and Vision

Turret Plates

Champions

Ahri

See Highest Win Rate Ahri Builds

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?

W – Fox-Fire

  • Cooldown: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 ⇒ 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5

Bel’Veth

See Highest Win Rate Bel’Veth Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • Health Growth: 99 ⇒ 105

R – Endless Banquet

  • True Damage on attack per stack: 6 / 8 / 10 (+ 12% Bonus AD) ⇒ 6 / 10 / 14 (+ 12% Bonus AD)

Braum

See Highest Win Rate Braum Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • Health: 630 ⇒ 610

Q – Winter’s Bite

  • Damage: 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+ 2.5% HP) ⇒ 75 / 120 / 165 / 210 / 255 (+ 2.5% HP)

Briar

See Highest Win Rate Briar Builds

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

R – Certain Death

  • 6% current health ⇒ 5% current health

Diana

See Highest Win Rate Diana Builds

Diana has gone to the moon due to seasonal changes, and in addition to Dusk & Dawn adjustments, this nerf should make sure her power wanes.

Passive – Moonsilver Blade

  • Monster Damage: 280% ⇒ 230%

Draven

See Highest Win Rate Draven Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • AD Growth: 3 ⇒ 3.4

Ekko

See Highest Win Rate Ekko Builds

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.

Passive – Z-Drive Resonance

  • AP Ratio: 80% ⇒ 90%
  • Monster Damage: 300% ⇒ 270%

Ezreal

See Highest Win Rate Ezreal Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • AD Growth: 3.25 ⇒ 3.5

E – Arcane Shift

  • Damage: 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+ 50% Bonus AD) (+ 75% AP) ⇒ 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280(+ 60% Bonus AD) (+ 75% AP)

Hecarim

See Highest Win Rate Hecarim Builds

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.

Q – Rampage

  • Damage per hit: 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 90% Bonus AD) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 90% Bonus AD)
  • Damage amp per Rampage stack: 3% (+ 4% per 100 Bonus AD) ⇒ 3% (+ 3% per 100 Bonus AD)

Heimerdinger

See Highest Win Rate Heimerdinger Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • Health Growth: 101 ⇒ 105

Hextech Micro-Rockets

  • Initial hit damage: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+ 55% AP) ⇒ 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+ 55% AP)
  • Follow-up damage: unchanged

Jayce

See Highest Win Rate Jayce Builds

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.

Q – To the Skies!

  • Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 295 / 240 / 285 (+135% Bonus AD)⇒ 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 / 310 (+ 135% Bonus AD)
  • Monster bonus damage: 25 ⇒ 10

Q – Shock Blast

  • Damage: 80 / 126 / 172 / 218 / 264 / 310 (+ 140% Bonus AD) ⇒ 80 / 121 / 162 / 203 / 244 / 285 (+ 130% Bonus AD)
  • Monster bonus damage: 25 ⇒ 10

R – Cannon Stance: Mercury Cannon

  • Armor/Magic Resistance Shred: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25% ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35%

Kayn

See Highest Win Rate Kayn Builds

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.

Q – Reaping Slash

  • Damage: 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 / 175 (+ 85% Bonus AD) ⇒ 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 / 195 (+ 85% Bonus AD)

Maokai

See Highest Win Rate Maokai Builds

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

Q – Bramble Smash

  • Flat Damage: 65 / 110 / 155 / 200 / 245 ⇒ 75 / 120 / 165 / 210 / 255

Mel

See Highest Win Rate Mel Builds

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.
  • Initial Hit: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 60% AP)
  • Subsequent Hits: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 (+ 5% AP)
  • Total Damage: 78 / 109 / 144 / 185 / 230 (+51-85% AP) ⇒ 85 / 126 / 169 / 214 / 261 (+ 85-105% AP)
  • Mana Cost: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 ⇒ 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90
  • Minion Damage: 75% ⇒ 100%
  • Cast Time: 0.25s ⇒ 0.35s
  • Projectile Speed: 4500 ⇒ 3800
  • Explosion Radius: 230 ⇒ 200
  • Area Spread: 30 ⇒ 25
  • Channel Time: 0.75s ⇒ 0.5s
  • 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

E – Solar Snare

  • Root Missile Radius: 80 ⇒ 70
  • End of Travel Linger Duration: 0.5s ⇒ 0.25s
  • DoT Radius: 260 ⇒ 230
  • Cast Range: 1050 ⇒ 1000
  • Projectile Speed: 1000 ⇒ 1100
  • Cooldown: 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10 ⇒ 11 / 10.5 / 10 / 9.5 / 9
  • Root Duration: 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 ⇒ 1.5
  • Damage: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 ⇒ 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240
  • Damage per Second: 16 / 26 / 36 / 46 / 56 ⇒ 16 / 28 / 40 / 52 / 64
  • No longer visually pops at the end when descending terrain.

R – Golden Eclipse

  • Damage per Stack: 4 / 7 / 10 (+ 3.5% AP) ⇒ 4 / 7 / 10 (+ 4% AP)

Naafiri

See Highest Win Rate Naafiri Builds

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.

Passive – We Are More

  • Packmate Monster Damage: 1.35x ⇒ 1.55x

Nilah

See Highest Win Rate Nilah Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • Attack Damage: 60 ⇒ 58
  • Armor Growth: 4.5 ⇒ 4.2

Nunu & Willump

See Highest Win Rate Nunu & Willump Builds

We aimed to give Nunu & Willump a hefty nerf but overshot our goals so we’re here to walk back part of the nerf package.

W – Biggest Snowball Ever!

  • Maximum Damage: 150 / 195 / 240 / 285 / 330 ⇒ 180 / 225 / 270 / 315 / 360

E – Snowball Barrage

  • Base Damage per hit: 14 / 21 / 28 / 35 / 42 ⇒ 15 / 22.5 / 30 / 37.5 / 45

Riven

See Highest Win Rate Riven Builds

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)

Q – Broken Wings

  • Damage: 40 / 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 (+ 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85% Bonus AD) ⇒ 40 / 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 (+ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80% Bonus AD)

Ryze

See Highest Win Rate Ryze Builds

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.

W – Rune Prison

  • Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+70% AP) (+ 4% Bonus Mana) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180(+ 60% AP) (+ 3% Bonus Mana)

Trundle

See Highest Win Rate Trundle Builds

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

Base Stats
  • Armor Growth: 3.9 ⇒ 4.5
  • Attack Damage Growth: 4 ⇒ 4.5

Tryndamere

See Highest Win Rate Tryndamere Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • Attack Damage Growth: 4 ⇒ 4.5

Varus

See Highest Win Rate Varus Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • Armor Growth: 4.6 ⇒ 4

W – Blighted Quiver

  • On-hit damage: 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44 (+ 35% AP) ⇒ 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44 (+ 25% AP)
  • Max health damage: 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5% (+1.5% per 100 AP) ⇒ 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5% (+ 1.3% per 100 AP)

Vi

See Highest Win Rate Vi Builds

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.

Base Stats
  • Health Growth: 99 ⇒ 105
  • Attack Damage Growth: 3 ⇒ 3.5

Volibear

See Highest Win Rate Volibear Builds

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.

Q – Thundering Smash

  • Bonus Physical Damage: 10 / 30 / 50 / 70 / 90 (+ 120% Bonus AD) ⇒ 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+ 140% Bonus AD)

E – Sky Splitter

  • Cooldown: 14 ⇒ 16
  • Non-champion damage cap: 190 / 305 / 420 / 535 / 650 (+ 70% AP) ⇒ 150 / 265 / 380 / 495 / 610 (+ 70% AP)

Xin Zhao

See Highest Win Rate Xin Zhao Builds

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

E – Audacious Charge

  • Bonus Attack Speed: 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60% ⇒ 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80%

Yone

See Highest Win Rate Yone Builds

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.

Q – Mortal Steel

  • Damage: 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+ 105% Total AD) ⇒ 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125(+ 110% Total AD)

Zaahen

See Highest Win Rate Zaahen Builds

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.

Q – The Darkin Glaive

  • Monster Modifier: 1.75x ⇒ 2x

E – Aureate Rush

  • Bonus Monster Damage: 50 ⇒ 75

Zed

See Highest Win Rate Zed Builds

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.
  • Recipe: Caulfield’s Warhammer + Pickaxe + 1075 Gold ⇒ Caulfield’s Warhammer + Pickaxe + Longsword + 825 Gold
  • Total Gold Cost: 3000 ⇒ 3100
  • Attack Damage: 60 ⇒ 65

Protoplasm Harness

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)
  • Lifeline healing: 200-400 (based on level) (+ 250% Armor) (+ 250% Magic Resistance) ⇒ 200-400 (based on level)(+ 175% Armor) (+ 175% Magic Resistance)
  • Ability Haste: 15 ⇒ 20

Armored Advance

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.
  • Elixir of Force Adaptive Force: 30 ⇒ 25

Posted in LoL