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Patch 26.1b Notes – League of Legends

Posted on January 10, 2026January 10, 2026 by U.GG

Following the release of the 26.1 update, League of Legend’s first micro-patch of 2026 has arrived, and it includes a handful of buffs, nerfs and adjustments. Check out the full patch updated 26.1 notes for additional details from Riot (source).

1/9/2026 Mid-Patch Updates

“Here’s a summary of the changes planned for the next update: “We have a few changes to 26.1 that we wanted to get out before the weekend. We have a few early balance changes, some quick fixes to ARAM Mayhem, and some bugfixes that we have ready to go. Appreciate all your reports and your early feedback on the new season!”

Clash Schedule Updates

“We’ve moved the first Clash of the year back one week.

Clash registration will now open on January 19th @ 11:00 AM (Local Time)

Tournament days will now be January 24th and 25th.”

ARAM/ARAM Mayhem Updates

We’ve disabled the Bastionbreaker item from ARAM and ARAM Mayhem.
We’ve temporarily disabled the Executioner augment from appearing for Gangplank due to an unintended interaction.
We’ve temporarily disabled the Flashy augment while we resolve some bugs that have popped up with it.
Fixed an issue that allowed the ability to roll multiples of the same augment and stack them.
We’ve identified an issue that caused two Stormrazors to appear in the shop.
Fixed an issue where Zeri could reach over the attack speed cap. (This was actually fixed in the original 16.1 patch but was missing from the notes)

Champions

Aphelios

See Highest Win Rate Aphelios Builds

Many of Aphelios’s abilities can crit, and while we compensated for this power increase, he’s still become one of the strongest champions in the game. We’re here to reduce some of that burst damage while preserving the power of his weaker AD-AS builds.

Passive – The Hitman and the Seer

Lethality per E rank: 5.5 ⇒ 4.5

Graves

See Highest Win Rate Graves Builds

Graves is looking worse for wear in the new season and seems to not need some of the preemptive crit damage mitigations we put in place. So we’re here to help his crit attacks have more oomph. Graves’s critical strikes are pretty complicated but the short of it is that now a crit will deal twice as much damage as a non-crit if all pellets hit.

Passive – New Destiny

Crit Scaling: 35% bonus crit damage ⇒ 50% bonus crit damage
Maximum damage on crit relative to non crit: 1.8x ⇒ 2x

Kayle

See Highest Win Rate Kayle Builds

Kayle – Q max is looking very strong this patch due to the top lane XP buffs. Removing some AP scaling we added back when there were less AP items available that improved attack power.

Passive – Divine Ascent

Attack Speed per stack: 6% (+1% per 100 AP) ⇒ 6%

Q – Radiant Blast

Mana Cost: 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 ⇒ 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100
Slow: 26 / 32 / 38 / 44 / 50% ⇒ 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45%

Nilah

See Highest Win Rate Nilah Builds

Nilah has been the biggest winner of this patch’s systemic changes to bot lane and so is deserving of a meaningful adjustment. Because she gets plenty of attack speed from her Q, we’re taking a chunk out of her base stat growth.

Base Stats

AS Growth: 2% ⇒ 1.25%

Q – Formless Blade

Crit scaling multiplier: 80% bonus crit damage ⇒ 70% bonus crit damage

Quinn

See Highest Win Rate Quinn Builds

Quinn has suffered more than most in the new season from systemic changes like the removal of Symbiotic Soles and role quests. Since she was hit hardest in top lane, we’re targeting her level scaling and giving a boost to her passive. This should further reward effective snowballing and buff the early trading she needs to get her quest online earlier, supporting Quinn players whether they want to continue playing a heavy roaming style or lean more into split pushing.

Base Stats

AD Growth: 2.7 ⇒ 3.2

Passive – Harrier

Base Cooldown: 8 seconds ⇒ 7 seconds

Rammus

See Highest Win Rate Rammus Builds

Rammus has had a lot of success with some of the new map changes. We still want him to maintain his identity as a particularly strong pick into an AD comp, but we look to curve a bit of that power against magic damage champs.

Base Stats

Health: 675 ⇒ 645

W – Defensive Ball Curl

Magic Resist: 27 / 32 / 37 / 42 / 47 ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40

Tryndamere

See Highest Win Rate Tryndamere Builds

We overcompensated for how much Tryndamere would gain from the base crit damage increases, so we’re here to make things better for him. We’re leading with a big E buff to make him less reliant on lucky crits for successful trades and help him not need a Tiamat for wave clear. He’s also getting a W slow duration to make him better at taking extended fights.

W – Mocking Shout

Slow Duration: 2.5 seconds ⇒ 3.25 seconds

E – Spinning Slash

Base Damage: 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 ⇒ 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240

Essence Reaver

Total Cost: 2900 Gold ⇒ 3050 Gold
Recipe: Sheen + Caulfield’s Warhammer + Cloak of Agility + 350 Gold ⇒ Sheen + Caulfield’s Warhammer + Cloak of Agility + 500 Gold
Attack Damage: 55 Gold ⇒ 50

Bugfixes

Fixed several issues where Actualizer could incorrectly increase mana costs indefinitely.

Known Issues

Some settings are not available when in Ranked games.
When in spectator mode if you skip forward in time towers will remain standing after being destroyed.
Winter Rift Baron is still appearing. (sorry Baron just wants to be on the Winter Rift a little longer, we’ll get him to put the mittens away later)

Patch Notes Preview

26.01b Preview!

Our first Micropatch of the year is coming!

Expected to be on Live in a few hours.

Overall
– Patch overall has landed about within bounds a few balance outliers as expected but nothing crazy
– We're continuing to monitor things like Faelights, Homeguards,… pic.twitter.com/kdIpqPuhXa
— Matt Leung-Harrison (@RiotPhroxzon) January 9, 2026

General

Patch overall has landed within bounds and a few balance outliers are expected, but nothing major.
Riot continues to monitor things like Faelights, Homeguards, general game snowballing and will have more details to share on Monday, January 12, after they’ve observed more of how things are playing out.
More details on how the team currently feels about role power is coming on Monday.
Game times are slightly up by around 1.5% on average, but long and short games are mostly the same.
Only the most extreme outliers are being addressed in this pass, they’re saving the rest for patch 26.2.

Bot Lane

Essence Reaver is the biggest outlier right now, so it’s being nerfed to see what it does.

Miscellaneous

They’re monitoring weak/strong items, including Bandlepipes, Dusk & Dawn, etc.
Power levels within the jungle role are looking a bit off, but nothing micro-patch worthy outside of Graves and Rammus.
Overall, AD junglers have dropped some, Tank junglers are up.

Non-Gameplay Related

Riot continues to triage a few things with Demacia Rising and there will be updates from LoLDev when it’s back online.
They intend to rectify KR and JP accounts who landed in the wrong Ranked buckets as soon as possible.
Some players are not receiving Aegis when they are autofilled and Riot’s investigating the root cause of the bug.

Patch 26.1 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on January 7, 2026January 8, 2026 by U.GG

The first patch notes of the new season have arrived, and include a handful of buffs, nerfs and adjustments. Check out the full patch 26.1 notes for additional details from Riot (source).

Patch 26.1 Overview

Atakhan, Blood Roses, Feats, And Kills

Minions

Role Quests

Champions

Akshan

See Highest Win Rate Akshan Builds

Akshan’s abilities currently scale crit in three different ways and we’re making that more consistent here. His passive auto, being functionally a true basic attack, will crit for 100% value. Meanwhile, the crit scaling on E and R are going down as compensation. We’re also doing some discretionary adjustments to allow Q-max and E-max to perform at similar levels of power by adjusting their rank-up incentives.

Passive – Dirty Fighting

P second shot crit damage: 30% of bonus crit damage (1.225/1.345x) ⇒ 100% of bonus crit damage: 2/2.3x
Fixed a bug where the second shot could bypass blind if it didn’t crit.

Q – Avengerang

Damage: 5/25/45/65/85 (+ 80% total AD) ⇒ 45/75/105/135/165 (+ 70% bonus AD)

E – Heroic Swing

Damage: 15/30/45/60/75 (+ 15% total AD) ⇒ 8/16/24/32/40 (+ 25% total AD)
Crit Scaling: 1.575/1.935x ⇒ 50% of bonus crit damage: 1.5/1.65x
Clarified that damage scales with attack speed in tooltip.

R – Comeuppance

Crit Scaling: 1.5/1.7x ⇒ 30% of bonus crit damage: 1.3/1.42x

Aphelios

See Highest Win Rate Aphelios Builds

Aphelios has a lot of intricacies and some of his abilities try to behave exactly like basic attacks. With that in mind, we’re converting Severum’s active to total attack damage in line with similar abilities and generally lowering the bonus AD ratios of several abilities that already scale well due to firing off basic attacks that can crit as part of their cast.

Calibrum

Bonus Damage per Mark: 15 (+ 20% bonus AD) ⇒ 15 (+ 10% bonus AD)

Severum

Onslaught Damage per Hit: 10/15/20/25/30/35/40 (+ 22/25/28/31/34/37/40% bonus AD) ⇒ (+ 19/22.5/26/29.5/33/36.5/40% total AD)
Still critically strikes for 100% crit damage (1.75/2.15x ⇒ 2.0/2.3x)

Infernum

Duskwave Active Damage: 25/31.67/38.33/45/51.67/58.33/65 (+ 56/60/64/68/72/76/80% bonus AD) ⇒ 20/35/50/65/80/95/110 (+ 10/11/12/13/14/15/16% bonus AD)
Follow-up attack still critically strikes for 100% crit damage (1.75/2.15x ⇒ 2.0/2.3x)

Crescendum

Sentry Active Damage: 35/50/65/80/95/110/125 (+ 42/45/48/51/54/57/60% bonus AD) ⇒ 35/50/65/80/95/110/125 (+ 30/32/34/36/38/40/42% bonus AD)
Still critically strikes for 100% crit damage (1.75/2.15x ⇒ 2/2.3x)

R – Moonlight Veil

Follow-Up Attack Critical Damage: 1.2/1.6x with IE ⇒ 30% of bonus critical strike damage: 1.3/1.39x with IE

Ashe

See Highest Win Rate Ashe Builds

Ashe is already quite attack-reliant and pretty balanced but considering she buys about 1.5 crit items per game, we’re lowering her late game a little to make room for the increased damage coming her way.

Base Stats

Attack Speed Growth: 3.33% ⇒ 3%
Attack Damage Growth: 3.45 ⇒ 3

Passive – Frost Shot

Crit Scaling: 100% (up to 1.75/2.15x) ⇒ 100% (up to 2/2.3x)

W – Volley

Damage: 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+ 110% Bonus AD) ⇒ 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+ 100% Bonus AD)

Caitlyn

See Highest Win Rate Caitlyn Builds

Caitlyn’s top-end Headshot damage has gotten out of hand and with the value of critical strikes going up it’s about to get even stronger, so we’re taking a heavy swing to Headshot’s top end. We’re also making her R scale with Infinity Edge, as it already scales with critical strike chance, but we’re reducing its damage to make room for her stronger basic attacks.

Passive – Headshot

Crit Scaling: 0-148.75/182.75% total AD ⇒ 100%*Bonus Crit Damage (0-100/130% total AD)

R – Ace in the Hole

Crit Scaling: Up to 1.5x ⇒ 30% of bonus critical strike damage: up to 1.3/1.39x with IE

Cassiopeia

See Highest Win Rate Cassiopeia Builds

While Cassiopeia’s no boots passive is very thematic, the addition of more boot based systems over the years (like role quest rewards) has made it feel like a punishment at times instead of a boon. We think it’s important for Cassio to have the opportunity to engage with these new systems so we’re reworking the passive into a new movement based effect. (We also wanted to do Soobin a solid.)

Base Stats

Base Movement Speed: 328 ⇒ 335

Passive – Serpentine Grace

Passive Rework: Gain 4-72 Movement Speed (Based on level), but she cannot purchase boots. ⇒ Increased effectiveness of all Movement Speed buffs by 6-40% (based on level).

Corki

See Highest Win Rate Corki Builds

Corki isn’t particularly strong at the moment, so while this is a nerf on paper, we expect Corki will be overall stronger at the start of the season. This nerf is aimed at weakening his ability to crush a minion wave right before a Recall.

W – Valkyrie

Damage per second: 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 (+40% bonus AD) (+ 30% AP) ⇒ 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 (+40% bonus AD) (+ 30% AP)

Draven

See Highest Win Rate Draven Builds

Draven is very auto-attack focused and averages about two crit items per game, so he’s also in need of some compensation. Considering he’s gaining direct auto-attack DPS, we’re trying to compensate him directly on the same axis.

Base Stats

AD Growth: 3.6 ⇒ 3

W – Blood Rush

Attack Speed: 30/35/40/45/50% ⇒ 20/25/30/35/40%

Elise

See Highest Win Rate Elise Builds

Elise is in a silly spot where ability power quickly fails to scale her damage against monsters after the mid game. We’re delivering a change that will be a slight buff on average but is primarily meant to let her damage scale up with AP like it would for anyone else.

Q – Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite

Monster Damage Cap: 75/100/125/150/175 ⇒ 65/85/105/125/145 (+ 90% AP)
Maximum Damage to Monsters: 115/170/225/280/335 ⇒ 105155/205/255/305 (+ 90% AP)

Gangplank

See Highest Win Rate Gangplank Builds

Gangplank is one of two champions (alongside Smolder) who we think is going to gain extra power due to Essence Reaver once again building from Sheen. We expect him to perform much, much better with his increased critical strike damage, so we’re pulling out many of the unique crit scalars that have been added over the years and delivering an extra hit to his E on top.

Passive – Trial by Fire

Damage: 50-250 (based on level) (+100% bonus AD) (+200% Crit Chance) ⇒ 50-250 (+ 100% bonus AD) (+ 0% crit scaling)

E – Powder Keg

Bonus Champion Damage: 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 / 195 ⇒ 75 / 95 / 115 / 135 / 155
Timer no longer reduces to 0.25 seconds at level 19.
No longer deals 5% more damage on critical strike.

Garen

See Highest Win Rate Garen Builds

Critical strike chance on Garen is pretty good since both his basic attacks and Judgment are improved by it. We want to continue to make space for non-crit Garen builds, so we’re compensating the global critical strike damage increase and updating the calculation to properly discount bonus crit damage.

E – Judgment

E Crit Ratio: 80% of total (1.4/1.72x) ⇒ 30% of bonus (1.3/1.39x)

Graves

See Highest Win Rate Graves Builds

The functional result of these Graves changes should be almost nothing. He’ll deal about 1% more damage with his basic attacks when critically striking.

Base Stats

Crit Damage: 45% of bonus (33.75/51.75%) ⇒ 35% of bonus (35/45.5%)
Total Damage on Crit: 250-357% total AD ⇒ 252-360% total AD

Jax

See Highest Win Rate Jax Builds

Now that the top lane quest can raise champion levels to 20, we’re looking for any champions who intermittently scale their passives and giving them another breakpoint if they deserve one. Jax is one such champion who’s gaining a bit more attack speed at level 19.

Passive – Relentless Assault

Now gains an additional 1.5% attack speed per stack at level 19.

Jhin

See Highest Win Rate Jhin Builds

Jhin won’t behave any differently next season as we want to avoid letting his guaranteed crit fourth shot do too much damage.

Base Stats

Multiplicative Crit Damage Mod: 86% ⇒ 75% (1.505x ⇒ 1.5x)

Jinx

See Highest Win Rate Jinx Builds

We like the overall shape of how Jinx functions and generally just want to preserve the value of her minigun’s high attack speed, so we’re making sure her two stances are more distinguished from one another and generally lowering a bit of spell damage to keep her attack-focused.

Base Stats

Attack Speed Growth: 1.4% ⇒ 1%

R – Super Mega Death Rocket!

Maximum Flat Damage: 250/400/550 (+ 130% bonus AD) ⇒ 200/350/500 (+ 120% bonus AD)

Kindred

See Highest Win Rate Kindred Builds

Kindred’s E mechanics are rather confusing and they build several critical strike items already. So we’re updating the E to be much easier to understand and reducing the numbers. We’re also modernizing the E’s monster cap to allow for more damage when building AD and ranking up the ability.

E – Mounting Dread

Missing Health Crit: 1.5/1.9x if target is below 25-75% (based on crit chance) Health ⇒ 50% of bonus crit chance and crit damage always (up to 1.5/1.65x)
Pounce Damage: 1.75/2.15x on crit ⇒ 50% of bonus crit chance and crit damage always (up to 1.5/1.65x)
Monster Damage Cap: 300 including base damage and bonus AD ratio ⇒ 200 to only the %HP portion (This is a buff in almost all scenarios)

Lucian

See Highest Win Rate Lucian Builds

Lucian’s builds are pretty sensible and as a spell-focused ADC, but we want to make sure his spell scaling is good. We’re updating R to fire even more bullets with crit damage, which will make crit scale his ult just as well as it scales basic attacks. Considering he’s already got extremely strong AD scaling and we want to make sure that Navori Flickerblades feels good, we’re bringing down some of his Q’s AD scaling.

Base Stats

Attack Damage Growth: 2.9 ⇒ 2.5
Attack Speed Growth: 3.3% ⇒ 2.5%

Q – Piercing Light

Damage: 85/115/145/175/205 (+ 60/75/90/105/120% bonus AD) ⇒ 80/115/150/185/220 (+ 100% bonus AD)

R – The Culling

R Extra Bolts from Crit Chance: Up to 25 ⇒ 100% of bonus crit damage: Up to 22/28
Total R Bolts: 22-47 (based on critical strike chance) ⇒ 22-44/50 (based on critical strike chance and damage)

Miss Fortune

See Highest Win Rate Miss Fortune Builds

Miss Fortune tends to build quite a lot of critical strike chance and we’d like it to stay that way, but she can’t just be directly buffed so we’re here to compensate some of that value by softening her Q crit mod. For her R, we want to make sure that critical strikes feel like they have some impact, so we’re increasing the crit mod slightly, but in order to not push her scaling too hard, have compensated that with a new base damage and a lower AD ratio.

Q – Double Up

Active Critical Damage: 1.75/2.15x ⇒ 50% of bonus crit damage (1.5/1.65x)

R – Bullet Time

Damage: 80% total AD (+ 25% AP) ⇒ 20 / 30 / 40 (+60% Total AD) (+ 25% AP)
Crit Scaling: 1.2/1.28x ⇒ 30% of bonus crit damage (1.3/1.39x)

Nilah

See Highest Win Rate Nilah Builds

Nilah’s in an interesting place where her Q didn’t scale with Infinity Edge, so unlocking that avenue marks a small power increase on top of her basic attacks getting better, so we sought to find other ways to slightly lower her late game scaling as compensation.

Base Stats

Attack Speed Growth: 2.25% ⇒ 2%

Q – Formless Blade

Active Damage: 5/10/15/20/25 (+ 90/95/100/105/110% total AD) ⇒ 0/10/20/30/40 (+ 100% total AD)
Crit Scaling: Up to 2x ⇒ 80% of bonus crit damage: 1.8/2.04x
Armor Penetration Crit Scaling: 0-33% ⇒ 0-30%

R – Apotheosis

Mana Cost: 80 ⇒ 100

Quinn

See Highest Win Rate Quinn Builds

As Quinn builds a decent amount of crit and that crit manifests in stronger autos and more passive procs, we’re compensation nerfing those same auto-reliant passive procs.

Passive – Harrier

Damage: 10-95 (based on level) (+ 16-50% (based on level) total AD) ⇒ 15-120 (based on level) (+ 40% bonus AD)

Rengar

See Highest Win Rate Rengar Builds

Rengar is getting a heavy re-script. This is mostly intended to maintain current functionality and feel, while addressing bugs and tech debt. The list of bug fixes is too long to add here so it’ll be added to the bugs section. Alongside the crit changes, we’re looking to make Rengar’s Q work more intuitively by letting the underlying attack itself roll for critical strikes, and if so, deal bonus damage based on his total AD. This removes an optimization around rushing Infinity Edge to enhance the old forced-crit mechanic and also makes him not immediately lose 30% of his damage if his opponents build Randuin’s Omen. We’ll keep an eye on lethality-vs-crit Rengar and how it performs next season as we suspect Essence Reaver will be a big deal on him.

All abilities rescripted

Q – Bonetooth Necklace

Q is now consumed on plants
Q is no longer always always considered a critical strike
Q damage no longer deals up to 101.25% total AD bonus damage based on crit chance and damage
Q now deals 100/130% total AD bonus damage if Rengar crits the attack.

Samira

See Highest Win Rate Samira Builds

We like that Samira’s R and Q are almost direct auto-attack replacements and want to preserve as much of their crit damage as possible. However, with the value of crit going up, the value of AD must then go down.

Q – Flair

Q Non-Crit Damage: 5/10/15/20/25 (+ 95/102.5/110/117.5/125% total AD) ⇒ 0/5/10/15/20 (+ 110% total AD)
Q Critical Strike Damage: 1.25/1.65x with IE ⇒ 50% of bonus crit damage: 1.5/1.65x with IE

R – Inferno Trigger

R Non-Crit Damage: 5/15/25 + 45% total AD ⇒ 20/40/60 + 30% total AD
R Critical Damage: 1.75/2.15x with IE ⇒ 100% of bonus crit damage: 2.0/2.3x with IE

Senna

See Highest Win Rate Senna Builds

Like Jhin, Yasuo, and Yone, Senna’s guaranteed critical strikes cannot sustain a 2x modifier, so we’re lowering her base crit damage down to a value similar to last year.

Base Stats

Crit Damage: 100% of total crit damage (1.75/2.15x) ⇒ 90% of total (1.8/2.07x)

Shaco

See Highest Win Rate Shaco Builds

When Shaco crits during a Backstab or a Deceive, everything crits along with it for his full crit damage, so his top end can be very, very high. We like that he builds for crit sometimes and want to let as many of these tools inherit the new higher base crit damage, but also want to modernize his other scalings to respect crit damage mods more consistently and generally preserve the total power level of Shaco builds that don’t buy any critical strike chance.

Passive – Backstab

Damage: 20-35 (based on level) (+25% bonus AD) ⇒ 20-35 (based on level)(+ 20% bonus AD)
Crit Modifier: 100% (1.75/2.15x) ⇒ 100% (2.0/2.3x)

Q – Deceive

Backstab Modifier: 1.55/1.95x ⇒ 60% of bonus crit damage (1.6/1.78x)
Backstab on Crit: 100% (1.75/2.15x) ⇒ 100% (2.0/2.3x)

Sivir

See Highest Win Rate Sivir Builds

As Sivir’s going to gain a lot of power from stronger Ricochet crits, we’re reducing her Q’s scaling.

Q – Boomerang Blade

Damage: 60/85/110/135/160 (+ 85% bonus AD) ⇒ 60/85/110/135/160 (+ 70% bonus AD)
Crit Scaling: Up to 1.5x ⇒ 40%: 1.4/1.52x

Smolder

See Highest Win Rate Smolder Builds

Smolder, like Gangplank, stands to gain a lot of power from Essence Reaver’s changes in this patch so we’re taking a swing at how strongly his Q scales with critical strike purchases.

Q – Super Scorcher Breath

Crit Scaling: Up to 1.75/2.15x ⇒ 50% of bonus crit damage (Up to 1.5/1.65x) (also affects passive Q stacks)

Tristana

See Highest Win Rate Tristana Builds

Tristana’s E is one of the sharpest-scaling abilities in the game, and considering her late game is already poised to be great with a strong attack speed steroid, long range, and lots of crit damage, we think the top end of her E can stand to go down a few pegs.

E – Explosive Charge

Non-crit Damage: 60/70/80/90/100 (+ 100/110/120/130/140% bonus AD) ⇒ 60/85/110/135/160 (+ 80% bonus AD)
Crit Scaling: 100%: Up to 1.75/2.15x with IE ⇒ 40% of critical strike damage: 1.40/1.52x with IE

Tryndamere

See Highest Win Rate Tryndamere Builds

Tryndamere is getting some real gameplay updates with this patch and some very real nerfs due to how much critical strike chance he normally has. To weaken how incredible his early game all-ins can be with 200% crit damage, we’re nerfing his early bonus AD from Q and nerfing his early E as well. However, he’s also getting some new tools.

First, his Q now gives full value at 10% remaining health, meaning he can get the full bonus attack damage during his ultimate and it no longer has a disincentive for ranking up. Second, his W will now slow enemies any time they are running away from Tryndamere, regardless of where they were looking when he cast it. We expect this substantial increase in reliability is a big buff, so we’ve preemptively nerfed the slow itself. Though the slow duration is going down, the AD reduction is still the full four seconds regardless of facing.

Q – Bloodlust

Attack Damage: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 (+ 0.15 / 0.25 / 0.35 / 0.45 / 0.55% missing HP) ⇒ 0 (+ 0.2 / 0.35 / 0.5 / 0.65 / 0.8% missing HP)
Maximum Bonus AD: At 0% remaining HP ⇒ At 10% remaining HP
Clarified the per-fury and maximum heal in Q’s tooltip.

W – Mocking Shout

No longer slows enemies who are facing away when cast for 4 seconds.
Now slows any enemy while they’re facing away from Tryndamere during the 2.5 second debuff.
Slow: 30 / 37.5 / 45 / 52.5 / 60% ⇒ 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50%
Enemy attack damage is still reduced by 4 seconds.

E – Spinning Slash

Damage: 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 / 195 (+ 130% Bonus AD) ⇒ 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+ 100% Bonus AD)

Twitch

See Highest Win Rate Twitch Builds

Twitch’s late game team deletion with 200% crit damage will probably be too fast, so we’re targeting some general late-game DPS nerfs.

Base Stats

Attack Speed Growth: 3.38% ⇒ 3%
Attack Damage Growth: 3.1 ⇒ 3

Q – Ambush

Bonus Attack Speed: 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65% ⇒ 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60%

Viego

See Highest Win Rate Viego Builds

Viego buys a decent amount of crit chance and we want to make sure those crits allow him to play out a consistent auto-attack pattern, so the larger nerfs are to the active damage of the Q and R.

Q – Blade of the Ruined King

% Current HP Crit Scaling: 100% of total (1.75/2.15x) ⇒ 50% of bonus (1.5/1.65x)
Second Strike Crit Scaling: 100% of total (1.75/2.15x) ⇒ 100% of bonus (2/2.3x)
Active Crit Mod: 100% of total (Up to 1.75/2.15x) ⇒ 50% of bonus (Up to 1.5/1.65x)

R – Heartbreaker

Crit Scaling: Up to 2x ⇒ 70% of bonus (Up to 1.7/1.91x)

Xayah

See Highest Win Rate Xayah Builds

We’re updating Xayah’s E to care about crit damage and adjusting her E’s overall damage profile to be more reliable and less snowbally.

E – Deadly Plumage

Damage: 55/65/75/85/95 (+ 60% bonus AD) ⇒ 50/65/80/95/110 (+ 40% bonus AD)
Crit Scaling: Up to 75% ⇒ Up to 50% of bonus crit damage: 1.5/1.65x

Yasuo

See Highest Win Rate Yasuo Builds

Yasuo won’t be much different this year. Considering he doubles how much critical strike chance he gets from each item, he just isn’t allowed to crit for full damage.

Base Stats

Crit Damage: 1.75/2.15x ⇒ 90% (1.8/2.07x

Yone

See Highest Win Rate Yone Builds

Yone won’t be much different this year. Considering he doubles how much critical strike chance he gets from each item, he just isn’t allowed to crit for full damage.

Base Stats

Crit Damage: 1.75/2.15x ⇒ 90% (1.8/2.07x)

Yunara

See Highest Win Rate Yunara Builds

Yunara has a crit build and an on-hit build, but even her on-hit build almost always picks up Hurricane, so she’s getting stronger no matter what she does next season. We’re looking for nerfs that will skew more toward low-Attack Speed high-AD crit builds, as they’ll be more directly buffed by the global crit damage increase.

Q – Cultivation of Spirit

Attack Speed: 25/35/45/55/65% ⇒ 20/30/40/50/60%

>R+W – Arc of Ruin

Damage: 175/350/525 (+ 150% bonus AD) ⇒ 160/320/480 (+ 120% bonus AD)

Zeri

See Highest Win Rate Zeri Builds

We’re updating Zeri’s E to crit exactly as a basic attack would, which means re-tuning some of her abilities to make room for that power.

W – Ultrashock Laser

Damage: 30/70/110/150/190 (+ 130% total AD) ⇒ 30/70/110/150/190 (+ 120% total AD)
Through-Wall Damage: 1.75x, 2.15x with IE ⇒ 75% of bonus critical strike damage: 1.75/1.975x
Tooltip now shows the enhanced damage
Damage now cosmetically critically strikes its targets when shot through a wall

E – Spark Surge

Damage: 20/22/24/26/28 (+12% bonus AD) ⇒ 17/19/21/23/25 (+ 10% bonus AD)
Crit Scaling: Up to 1.85x every hit ⇒ 100% of bonus crit damage on crit: 2.0/2.3x

R – Lightning Crash

Active Damage: 200/300/400 (+ 100% bonus AD) ⇒ 150/250/350 (+ 100% bonus AD)

New Items

Actualizer

It’s been a while, but we’ve got a new active item. This one is made to support mana-stacking builds, to create more builds where mana isn’t just a limitation but instead make it so that it can be an advantage to have large amounts of mana available to you. Activating Actualizer significantly increases your manacosts in exchange for lower cooldowns and more ability damage, healing, and shielding for a short duration, so get your mana items ready for a very powerful popoff moment.

Build Path: Lost Chapter + Blasting Wand + 1050g
Total Gold Cost: 3100g
Ability Power: 90
Mana: 300
Ability Haste: 10
[ACTIVE] Mana Made Real (60s cooldown): For 8 seconds, your mana is Empowered. While Empowered, your spells cost 100% more mana, you gain (15 + .005% bonus mana)% increased ability damage, healing, and shielding, and your basic ability cooldowns progress 30% faster.

Bandelpipes

Tank supports don’t have very many items, and the ones they do have generally focus on helping them roam or protect their allies. We wanted to go a different direction this time, instead giving them a team-wide attack speed aura you can keep up in fights as long as you’re able to frequently apply crowd control to your enemies.

Build Path: Kindlegem + Cloth Armor + Null-Magic Mantle + 500g
Total Gold Cost: 2000g
Health: 200
Armor: 20
Magic Resistance: 20
Ability Haste: 15
Fanfare: Slowing or Immobilizing an enemy champion grants Fanfare for 8 (melee) / 4 (ranged) seconds. Fanfare grants 20 Movement Speed. While you have Fanfare, nearby allies, including yourself, gain 30% (melee) / 20% (ranged) attack speed.

Bastionbreaker

Most AD assassins aren’t particularly good at ending games, even when they are capable of getting lots of kills. This can lead to pretty frustrating situations where the assassin player feels like they don’t have the tools they need to complete the game, and the players on the receiving end get continuously killed and stay trapped in a game where they can’t survive. Bastionbreaker gives AD assassins a new luxury item that can help them close out games by giving them large amounts of damage to epic monsters and turrets as long as they’re building lots of lethality and can kill some takedowns.

Build Path: Brutalizer + Serrated Dirk + 863g
Total Gold Cost: 3200g
Attack Damage: 55
Lethality: 22
Ability Haste: 15
Shaped Charge: Dealing Ability damage to a champion or epic monster deals an additional (30 + 150% lethality) true damage.
Sabotage: Taking down a champion within 3 seconds of damaging them grants Sabotage for 90 seconds. While you have Sabotage, your next attack against an epic monster or turret deals an additional (300 + 2500% lethality) true damage over 3 seconds.

Dusk and Dawn

Most AP fighters have incentives in their kit to autoattack, but they have very little access to items that actually support that pattern since Lich Bane and Nashor’s Tooth don’t offer the defensive stats that this subclass often needs. Dusk and Dawn offers a Sheen pattern that doubles on-hits to help champions in this space live their dreams of sustained combat with lots of additional on-hits to enhance whatever their kit is already doing.

Build Path: Sheen + Blasting Wand + Kindlegem + Dagger + 300g
Total Gold Cost: 3100g
Ability Power: 70
Health: 300
Ability Haste: 20
Attack Speed: 25%
Spellblade (1.5s cooldown): After using an Ability, your next Attack deals 100% base AD + 10% AP bonus magic damage on-hit and applies on-hit effects an additional time.

Endless Hunger

Since the removal of Goredrinker and the removal of omnivamp on Eclipse, AD caster fighters have had little to no access to sustain via the item system. Endless Hunger is a heavy AD-scaling item that rewards building high amounts of AD and can lead to some awesome popoffs in teamfights if you can get a takedown and keep casting through the enemy team.

Build Path: Caulfield’s Warhammer + Pickaxe + 1075g
Total Gold Cost: 3000g
Attack Damage: 60
Tenacity: 20%
Omnivamp: 5%
Famine: Gain (5 + 10% bonus AD) Ability Haste
Feast: When a champion that you damaged within 3 seconds dies, gain 15% omnivamp for 8 seconds.

Fiendhunter Bolts

When marksmen look at Zeal items, we want them to have different options to choose from that are good in different situations or good for particular champions. Fiendhunter bolts allows for a concentrated moment of power after casting an ultimate, which is particularly exciting for the marksman that already have that pattern like Twitch, Zeri, or Yunara. Some others might like the ultimate haste this item offers, or just want to be able to get immediate combat value after ulting.

Build Path: Zeal + Scout’s Slingshot + 850g
Total Gold Cost: 2650g
Attack Speed: 40%
Critical Strike Chance: 25%
Movement Speed: 4%
Night Vigil: Gain 30 Ultimate Haste.
Opening Barrage (45s cooldown): After casting your Ultimate, your next 3 basic attacks within 8s gain 50% attack speed and critically strike for 75% of your normal critical strike damage. If an attack would already critically strike, it deals normal critical strike damage and also deals 10% bonus true damage.

Hexoptics C44

We’ve always wanted to support more diversity in crit marksman builds after the first item, so Hexoptics C44 is here to add an additional option for those looking to opt into big teamfight outputs. If you can get one takedown, you can get some extra range to help you secure more kills, and on top of that you also get some bonus damage scaling based on how well you can space your opponents.

Build Path: Pickaxe + Noonquiver + Long Sword + 275g
Total Gold Cost: 2800g
Attack Damage: 50
Critical Strike Chance: 25%
Magnification: Deal up to 10% increased damage with attacks, based on how far away the enemy is (max damage at 750 range).
Arcane Aim: When a champion that you damaged within 3 seconds dies, gain 100 additional attack range for 6 seconds.

Protoplasm Harness

Tanks have lots of tools to make them more durable in different ways, but Protoplasm Harness offers them a Lifeline item that has some movespeed and tenacity to enable a choice: do you want to keep going forward, or do you want to try to leave the fight? If you’re tanky enough to survive, you can even get the full benefits from the healing over time this item grants, which scales with your armor and magic resistance to make sure it slots well into resistance-building tank builds.

Build Path: Kindlegem + Giant’s Belt + 800g
Total Gold Cost: 2500g
Health: 600
Ability Haste: 15
Lifeline: Taking damage that would reduce your health below 30% causes you to gain 200 maximum health for 5 seconds, then heal (200-400 [level scaling] + 250% armor + 250% magic resistance) health over the duration. While regenerating health, you gain 15% increased size, 10% Movement Speed, and 25% tenacity.

Whispering Circlet / Diadem of Songs

This is a two-item pair for enchanters: a new evolving Tear item. Some enchanters really like mana and some even step into the mage system to get it, so we’re going to offer a new item that allows them to get flat mana from the enchanter system but also scales well with additional mana purchases if anyone does want to get into a heal-based mana-stacking build.

Whispering Circlet

Build Path: Forbidden Idol + Ruby Crystal + Tear of the Goddess + 850g
Total Gold Cost: 2250g
Health: 200
Mana: 300
Base Mana Regeneration: 75%
Heal and Shield Power: 8%
Harmony: Gain (.005% bonus mana)% Heal and Shield Power.
Manaflow: Landing Abilities grants 4 max mana (doubled vs champions). Transforms into Diadem of Songs at 360 max mana.

Diadem of Songs

Health: 200
Mana: 1000
Base Mana Regeneration: 100%
Heal and Shield Power: 8%
Harmony: Gain (.005% bonus mana)% Heal and Shield Power.
Consonance: While you or any ally you’ve healed or shielded in the last 3 seconds is in combat with champions, each second, heal the lowest health nearby ally champion for (.008% bonus mana).

Returning Items

Hextech Gunblade

Gunblade is one of the most requested removed items, as well as a popular item in alternate game modes despite a relatively limited champion user pool. We think that we can control some of the negative gameplay of this item with tuning, especially on the amount of Omnivamp granted and on the frequency with which users can apply the powerful active effect, so we think this is safe to add back in.

Build path: Vampiric Scepter + Hextech Alternator + Amplifying Tome + 600g
Total Gold Cost: 3000g
Ability Power: 80
Attack Damage: 40
Omnivamp: 10%
[ACTIVE] Lightning Bolt (60s cooldown): Shock the target enemy champion, dealing (175-253 [level scaling] + 30% Ability Power) magic damage and slowing them by 25% for 1.5 seconds.

Stormrazor

Stormrazor complements our efforts at increasing the variety of items available to critical strike-using champions, providing another Energized effect in that system. Stormrazor will be our second Attack Damage + Attack Speed + Critical Strike option in the ecosystem, lowering the degree to which critical strike build paths funnel through Yun Tal Wildarrows.

Build Path: B. F. Sword + Cloak of Agility + Scout’s Slingshot + 700g
Total Gold Cost: 3200g
Attack Damage: 50
Attack Speed: 20%
Critical Strike Chance: 25%
Energized: Moving and Attacking generates an Energized Attack.
Bolt: Your Energized Attack applies 100 bonus magic damage and grants 45% Movement Speed for 1.5s.

SR Ranked and Matchmaking

2025 Season 3 End and 2026 Season 1 Start

End of Season Year 2025 Ranked Rewards

Aegis of Valor

Apex Duo Restriction Update for Solo/Duo Queue

Patch 25.24 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on December 3, 2025December 10, 2025 by U.GG

League of Legends 25.24 Patch Notes are here and include a handful of buffs, nerfs and adjustments. Check out the full patch notes for additional details from Riot (source).

Season 3 Ranked Ending Soon

The Summoner’s Rift Ranked Season for Season 3, 2025 will end 2026-01-07 23:59:59, according to your local server time, which is the last day of 15.24 patch cycle.

Similar to previous years, Summoner’s Rift ranked queues will be disabled for 12 hours for preparation of Season 1, 2026 start, which will begin on 2026-01-08 12:00:00 (noon) local server time at which point LP and ranks will reset for the new year.

The end of season 3 2025 also means the 2025 ranked season is coming to an end. The end of season year rewards will include not only Victorious Draven Skin and Chromas, but also accessories that celebrate your highest rank achieved during the year! Rewards will be as follows and will be distributed in patch 26.1 next year:

Victorious Skin Border that is compatible with all 3 Victorious Skins of 2025 (requires owning all 3 Victorious skins of the year)
Season 2025 Ranked Emote
Season 2025 Ranked Icon

We’ll have more details about the 2026 ranked season in the 26.1 patch notes, but for now good luck on your end of year climbs!

WASD Launches in Limited Queues

WASD will go live in most unranked queues across all regions this patch. Draft and Ranked queues will not support WASD at this time. We will roll out on OCE, and slowly scale to all regions. Given WASD is still in a beta state and that we are in active iteration, we might disable certain queues or champions in case of a degraded player experience. In cases where we disable WASD for specific modes or champions, your keybindings will return back to Point and Click while playing those champions/playing in those queues. For 25.24, both Briar and Taliyah will have WASD disabled. When enabled again, your control scheme will default to the player selected choice.

Please make sure to report to Player Support any issues found, and to learn more about WASD, read here!

WASD will be enabled in the following queues:

Normals: Customs, Swiftplay, ARAM
Game Modes: Arena, ARAM: Mayhem, ARURF

WASD New Features:

Dynamic Camera – New Camera that follows your mouse, with speed settings!
Scout Ahead Button – Middle mouse click to freely move your camera while in Dynamic Camera, release to snap back.
WASD Remapping – Remap your keybinds as you wish

We will be using balance data from live to further iterate on the WASD experience, prior to considering enabling it within Ranked queues, so please let us know what you think and report any bugs! We will be continuing to release additional promised features in the next year.

Champion Select

After a successful pilot and positive player feedback following the introduction of disallowing champions allies hover from being banned as well as faster champion select timings, we’re fully releasing both updates. On a similar note, the QoL improvements to speed up champ select have also been well received and, as a result, we’ve decided to roll them out to all regions globally.

You are no longer able to ban champions hovered by your teammates.
In patch 25.23, we introduced improvements to speed up champ select for Summoner’s Rift (Solo/Duo, Flex, and Normal Draft) to 2 pilot regions in NA/OC. These improvements are now being rolled out to all regions.

Champion Buffs & Nerfs

Braum

See Highest Win Rate Braum Builds

Our resident mustachioed muscle man is a little weak right now, so in this patch we’re looking to put a bit more pep in his… punch. To do that, we’re playing up his active brawling with some durability early on and increased damage in extended fights so he can punch his opponents into submission.

Base Stats

Base Health: 610 ⇒ 630

Passive – Concussive Blows

Damage On Follow-up Attacks: 20% ⇒ 40%

Dr. Mundo

See Highest Win Rate Dr. Mundo Builds

We overestimated the impact of last patch’s Dr. Mundo bugfix, which means our compensation buff overshot as well. That said, we’re still happy with where Top Mundo ended up, but Jungle Mundo is now a little over the line, so we’re here to deliver a jungle-specific nerf to bring his two primary roles closer to parity.

Q – Infected Bonesaw

Monster Damage Cap: 350 / 425 / 500 / 575 / 650 ⇒ 300 / 375 / 450 / 525 / 600

Kayn

See Highest Win Rate Kayn Builds

Shadow Assassin Kayn is a bit too good at taking down his targets at the moment so we’re here this patch to give them a fighting chance. We don’t want Rhaast to be caught in the crossfire of these nerfs so we’re taking aim at some of Blue Kayn’s assassin-specific damage that often comes in the form of W poke from the fog of war.

Passive – The Darkin Scythe

Bonus Post-Mitigation Magic Damage: 25-45% ⇒ 20-40%

Kha’Zix

See Highest Win Rate Kha’Zix Builds

Kha’Zix is one of the strongest junglers at the moment and is in need of a nerf. We don’t want to hurt his ability to assassinate targets, so instead we’re going to slow down his jungle clear a touch by reducing his early AoE.

W – Void Spike

Base Damage: 85 / 115 / 145 / 175 / 205 ⇒ 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 / 195

Master Yi

See Highest Win Rate Master Yi Builds

Master Yi is another powerful champion who’s been dominating the jungle as of late. To level the playing field we’re bringing down his durability and damage a bit split between the early and late game as we’re currently happy with his overall combat and game pacing.

Base Stats

Base Health: 655 ⇒ 640
Attack Damage Growth: 2.8 ⇒ 2.5

Mel

See Highest Win Rate Mel Builds

While not mathematically overpowered, Mel has solidified herself as the most frustrating champion to face in League, which is a deeper problem than just numbers. In the short term we’re delivering a direct nerf that will still allow dedicated mains to win an appropriate number of games, but will make her suboptimal for inexperienced players. As for our changes themselves, we’re going after how inescapable her E can feel to play against.

In the longer term, we have some larger work planned for early next year with more significant changes aimed at returning her to a more appropriate power level while also making her feel more fair to play against for her opponents.

E – Solar Snare

Orb Magic Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240 ⇒ 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220
Magic Damage per Second: 16 / 32 / 48 / 64 / 80 ⇒ 16 / 26 / 36 / 46 / 56
Lingering Debuff Duration: 0.75 ⇒ 0.5 seconds
Mana Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 ⇒ 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 mana

Nasus

See Highest Win Rate Nasus Builds

Nasus has been an underdog for some time now so we’re looking to throw him a bone with some changes that will make him a bit more durable in lane and powering up his Q for more effective stacking (because who hasn’t missed a cannon minion by 5 health before).

Base Stats

Base Health: 631 ⇒ 650

Q – Siphoning Strike

Base Damage: 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 ⇒ 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120

Nidalee

See Highest Win Rate Nidalee Builds

Nidalee has risen up the ranks as an extremely high-powered jungler, largely due to a bug where her Q deals more damage than it should at most ranges. We’ve fixed this bug and will keep an eye on her to see how she lands.

Q – Javelin Toss

Bonus Damage Beyond 525 Range: 30-125% ⇒ 0-125% (Note: Damage at ranges below 525 are unaffected.)

Sejuani

See Highest Win Rate Sejuani Builds

Much like her fellow Freljordian tank, Sejuani is one of the weaker champions in the game right now, so we’re here to deliver a shot in the arm with some cooldown buffs. While we’re here, we’re also taking a pass on making Top Sejuani and AP Sejuani more viable as well because who doesn’t love a good AP Sejuani?

Q – Arctic Assault

Cooldown: 19 / 17.5 / 16 / 14.5 / 13 ⇒ 18 / 16.5 / 15 / 13.5 / 12 seconds
Mana Cost: 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 ⇒ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 /80
AP Ratio: 60% ⇒ 75%

W – Winter’s Wrath

Mana Cost: 65 ⇒ 60
First Hit AP Ratio: 20% ⇒ 30%

E – Permafrost

AP Ratio: 60% ⇒ 70%

R – Glacial Prison

Cooldown: 130 / 110 / 90 ⇒ 120 / 105 / 90 seconds

Swain

See Highest Win Rate Swain Builds

Swain’s buff last patch didn’t help him out as much as we had wanted to so we’re following up to put more wind in his sails (wings? Demon wing?) We’re keeping things relatively straightforward with increased healing from his passive which should be generally appreciable.

Passive – Ravenous Flock

Heal per Fragment: 3-6% (based on level) ⇒ 6%

Viktor

See Highest Win Rate Viktor Builds

Viktor’s in need of a little more power right now, and we’d like to do that by leaning into his strengths as a mid-range battlemage. To do this we’re increasing the shield on his Q so that he can stick it out better when going in to look for trades against opponents.

Q – Siphon Power

Shield: 40-115 (based on level) (+18% AP) ⇒ 40-140 (based on level) (+25% AP)
Bugfix: Fixed a bug that caused Viktor bot’s shield to calculate incorrectly.
Bugfix: Fixed a bug that caused Q’s tooltip AP ratio to be inaccurate.

Zaahen

See Highest Win Rate Zaahen Builds

These changes went out as a micropatch during 25.23, but we wanted to capture them here for posterity and offer some thoughts on how we think Zaahen’s release went.

For 25.23, overall Zaahen released a bit too strong. His damage was a bit high and had room to go down while still feeling satisfying, so we decided to target that over other parts of his kit. We’re being cautious here, so we’re taking a little more time to see how he settles before we make additional changes, but we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled and will make additional changes as needed.

Now we’re at 25.24 and Zaahen is still a bit strong, particularly in higher ranks, so we’ve got some skill skewed changes here which should bring him down a bit. We also want to compensate his jungle a bit as we expect it to lose some power as a result of these changes, so we’re upping his Q’s monster damage mod.

Passive – Cultivation of War

Bonus AD per Stack (25.23): 1.5-3.3 (based on level) ⇒ 1.5-2.8 (based on level)

Q – The Darkin Glaive

AD Ratio (25.23): 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% bonus AD ⇒ 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60% bonus AD
Second Cast Base Damage (25.23): 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 ⇒ 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125
Cooldown (25.24): 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 ⇒ 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6
Monster Damage Modifier (25.24): 50% ⇒ 75%

E – Aureate Rush

Sweet Spot Damage (25.24): 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% ⇒ 4 / 4.5 / 5 /5.5 / 6%

Zed

See Highest Win Rate Zed Builds

One bar we want to hold for high-quality jungle gameplay is around exactly how quickly a champion can clear their own jungle and then reasonably invade their opponents. In Zed’s case, he can clear his jungle to hit level 4 and invade you, or instead, Recall, buy two Long Swords, and then fight you for Rift Scuttler. Of course someone has to have the fastest clear in the game (that crown will move to Ivern most likely), but what they do with that speed is important, and the way Zed manifests his jungle strengths crosses the line. So this patch, we’re slowing his early jungle clear speed by a few seconds, which we expect will make him too weak for many players. While we like the variety he brings to the game and jungle, we don’t believe it can come at the cost of overall game health.

Passive – Contempt for the Weak

Damage to Monsters: 2x ⇒ 1.8x

Runes

Bloodline

Our recent buff to Legend: Bloodline didn’t land it quite as strong as we had hoped, so we’re back to deliver another buff to make it competitive.

Life Steal per Stack: 0.4% ⇒ 0.45%
Maximum Life Steal: 6% ⇒ 6.75%

Ranked 2026 Will Completely Change How You Climb in League

Posted on December 1, 2025December 1, 2025 by U.GG

All of this information comes from Riot’s official /dev blog, which can be found here.

Autofill Parity

“A reality of League is that some roles are just more popular than others. Autofill exists to keep your queues going, otherwise we’d see extremely long queue times for mid lane especially. That said, we know that getting a role you didn’t choose is frustrating, especially when you tried your best and lost LP for something out of your control.”
/dev: Ranked 2026 – Riot Dev Blog

Autofill Parity is Riot’s new approach to matching autofilled players in games. While Autofill isn’t going away in 2026, it’s gotten a big upgrade. Being autofilled into a role you’re not comfortable with (especially against someone who mains it) can be rough, so the updated system changes things up to make the experience better:

Autofill now attempts to match autofilled players vs autofilled players in the same role, e.g jungler vs jungler.
If that isn’t possible, it aims to have the same number of autofilled players on each team.
In the worst case, the team with more autofilled players will have slightly higher MMR players.

Aegis of Valor (LP Protection)

“Aegis of Valor will reward you with either double LP or full protection from LP loss on an autofilled game if you get a mastery score of C or higher.

When you get into a lobby, you’ll be notified that the Aegis is in effect, and that you’ll be protected (or rewarded) for your effort in that game if you meet the requirement.”
/dev: Ranked 2026 – Riot Dev Blog

Support and Jungle mains will automatically get Aegis rewards around the same rate that Autofilled players do, though they won’t be notified before going into a match.

Dodging

“Another pain point we want to address this year is the awful experience of experiencing chain dodges, and the lobbies that result from them. Aside from the time wasted getting back into new lobbies, your opponents might be able to predict your picks and target ban you, and trust between teammates may start off on the wrong foot. So, we’re implementing several changes to cut back on dodging.”
/dev: Ranked 2026 – Riot Dev Blog

Dodging will no longer reset your autofill status. If you dodge, your autofill will carry over to your next match.
For Ranks Master+ a dodge will count as a full loss, in addition to the autofill change, and dodge timer penalties.

Faster Time to Game (Pre-game Lobby Changes)

“Another pain point we’re looking to address is how long it takes to get into a game. Before a successful game even starts, there are all sorts of things that could go wrong, including dodging, lobby hostaging, or more. And all of these things cause your queue time to be extended. We know that lobby hostaging is an area that needs improvements, and we’re working on a suite of changes to help address this early next year, but for now let’s talk about what’s changing now.”
/dev: Ranked 2026 – Riot Dev Blog

To start, we’re removing the ability to ban an ally’s hovered champion, to eliminate one of the first reasons that folks may tilt before they even get into the game.
Also helping you get in-game faster, we’re cutting down on animations and timers in Champ Select by roughly 30 seconds.

Ranked Skill Distribution & Climbing Indicator

“Another place that we’re trying to make changes is how MMR and ranks line up at the lower end of the ladder. Over time, the distribution of players across different ranks has drifted out of alignment with their actual skill. Simply stated, you’ve all gotten much better since we introduced Ranked years ago. Where a Bronze player of the past might not know much about the game at all, today’s Bronze player is often familiar with wave management, champion matchups, and objective timing.

If a new player entering Ranked ends up in a match against opponents with that degree of knowledge, it’s just not a great experience for anyone involved. So, we’ll be recalibrating some of those lower tiers to more accurately reflect the skills of the players within them. This update is about realigning the tiers with actual skill, not inflating ranks, to properly match today’s level of play.

Speaking of the climb, we’re adding a Climb Indicator that appears when your visible rank is lagging behind your current MMR. A frustrating experience is being in a Plat lobby and seeing a Silver player in your games—it often feels like you have someone who shouldn’t be on your team. But the reality is that very often this player just started their climb a bit later than everyone else and actually does belong in that lobby. So this indicator will help show when someone’s rank just hasn’t caught up to their MMR.”
/dev: Ranked 2026 – Riot Dev Blog

Other Changes

“Lastly, we’ve got two more quick updates.

First, we’re making changes to how Flex and Solo MMR are determined. An incredibly painful experience is playing Flex with your friends in a Gold lobby and being absolutely stomped by someone who’s Gold in Flex and Master in Solo/Duo. So, we’re going to be bringing Flex ranks more in-line with Solo/Duo ranks (Flex will never pull Solo up, however.) We think this change will make Flex games feel a little more fair, while still allowing you to play with friends (within reason.)

And finally, we’re re-enabling duoing in Solo/Duo at all ranks, including Challenger, for most regions. We previously disabled Apex duos due to concerns around Rank manipulation, but with recent boosting detection and matchmaking improvements, we’re confident it can return without fear of exploitation.

That’s it for our changes for this year. We hope you’re as excited for Ranked in 2026 as we are. We’ll be monitoring queue health, match quality, and your feedback closely and refine where needed. Good luck on your climb! “
/dev: Ranked 2026 – Riot Dev Blog

Patch 25.24 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on November 25, 2025 by U.GG

The Preview Patch notes for 25.24 are here. From Riot Phroxzon via X (Source)

Zaahen

Zaahen has been off to a powerful start, and after the micropatch nerf, he’s relatively stable
For regular players, he’s stabilizing out, but seems a little stronger in higher levels of play right now, especially with what we’re seeing out of his early mastery growth currently
We intend to nerf him in 25.24, but haven’t yet decided what nerf or by how much and want a bit more information before we act
We don’t think he’s so overpowered currently that he can stay in this state

Bloodline

Bloodline has fallen a little behind Alacrity especially for most champs, so evening it up a bit there

Jungle Changes

We’re monitoring a lot of the feedback coming in over the last patches about the jungle changes; doing a few small tap downs to get some of the top end into a better state
Overall, some of them are still not particularly viable, but not looking to take another swing at them at this point

Mel

Mel‘s changes this patch are aimed a bit at reducing frustration
eg. The lingering of her E zone and the particle are slightly mismatched (this follows the behavior of several other similar types of spells), but is resulting in a little more frustration than we think is worth it
E max is also being reduced in power level and being a little more costly for her to cast

Listen to Zaahen’s Champion Theme

Posted on November 21, 2025December 1, 2025 by U.GG

Zaahen went live with the 25.23 LoL Patch and Riot has posted the official Champion theme on their YouTube channel. You can listen to it below.

More About Zaahen

While the Champion is fairly new to the game, our site has been updated with preliminary data, as top builds continue to emerge.

Is Zaahen Good in League of Legends? Champion Stat Breakdown

Posted on November 20, 2025November 27, 2025 by U.GG

Zaahen, the newest Darkin champion in League of Legends just released on November 19th with Patch 25.23. The question is, how strong is he, and can he be played in roles other than Top Lane?

View Full U.GG Data For Zaahen

What The Data Tells Us

Based on our data, Zaahen ranks as an S+ champion in the Top Lane across All Ranks. While he can also be played Mid or Jungle, he performs much better when he’s in the Top Lane.

To quote Phreak from the Champion Spotlight: “If you’re drawn to-unflinching champions like Illaoi, Darius, or Jax, give Zaahen a try.”

Zaahen at his core is an AD teamfighter that gets stronger the longer a fight goes on. If he’s able to reach maximum stacks during a fight, he is able to revive when killed mid-fight.

Some of his best items are Trinity Force, and Sundered Sky, though some Challenger players have been experimenting with Stridebreaker.

Top Lane Stats

Rank	Champion Tier	Win Rate	Pick Rate	Ban Rate	Matches
Challenger	S+	53.16%	10.5%	25.5%	269
Grand Master	S+	50.99%	9.3%	29%	506
Master	S+	51.86%	9.4%	29.7%	1587
Diamond	S+	50.89%	10.1%	30.8%	4146
Emerald	S+	50.23%	10.9%	31.2%	10,309
Platinum	S+	50.09%	11.9%	30.1%	19,497
Gold	A	49.85%	12.6%	28.1%	31,555
Silver	B	49.78%	13.6%	25.2%	34,659
Bronze	S+	50.04%	14.7%	20.7%	22,571
Iron	S+	50.89%	15.2%	16.9%	12,027
All Ranks	S+	50.08%	12.9%	26.2%	137,126

Top Lane Counters

Zaahen has quite a few counters, and interestingly, both Illaoi and Jax are among them, two champions that were listed as “Similar Champions” in the Champion Spotlight.

Unsurprisingly, an armor-heavy tank like Malphite counters him, as well as Teemo who can blind Zaahen and stop him from landing his Q.

Compared to other Darkin?

Finally, let’s compare Zaahen with Aatrox, another Darkin champion who also primarily plays Top Lane.

Overall, it seems that Zaahen is off to a hot start on the rift. Keep track of his best builds, stats, counters and more with U.GG.

View U.GG Zaahen Build

Patch 25.23 Notes – League of Legends

Posted on November 18, 2025November 18, 2025 by U.GG

League of Legends 25.23 Patch Notes are here and include a handful of buffs, nerfs and adjustments. Check out the full patch notes for additional details from Riot (source).

Patch 25.23 Overivew

New Champion: Zaahen

Zaahen

Zaahen, The Unsundered, is reborn on the rift November 19th.

Zaahen Abilities Rundown here!
Zaahen Champion Spotlight here!

Just a heads up that Zaahen’s Eternals are delayed to patch 25.24.

When we make a champ’s Eternals we normally use a champion’s PBE time to see how you all play a champion—what are the key moments that feel great that you’d want to track. However, since Zaahen had a different cycle (so we could keep him a secret until his cinematic) we didn’t get the normal time allowing this. So for the Zaahen Eternals, you have a chance to shape what his Eternals might be! So queue up, lock him in, and start swinging that glaive and maybe your match data will help us decide!

Champion Buffs & Nerfs

Aatrox

See Highest Win Rate Aatrox Builds

Here’s a fun story: Aatrox’s VGU was slated for the jungle for part of his early development before being shipped as a top laner. He’s a very interesting champion with fun mechanics to play around, so we’re alleviating some max-HP caps and adding some jungle juice to see how he performs in this new role.

Deathbringer Stance

Monster Damage Cap: 100 ⇒ 100 – 320 (based on level)

Q – The Darkin Blade

Bonus Monster Damage: 0 ⇒ 40 flat bonus damage (multiplied by other effects like sweetspots and multicasts)

Ahri

See Highest Win Rate Ahri Builds

Our latest buff to Ahri didn’t get her quite as high up as we’d hoped, so we’re back to deliver some more damage. We’re juicing up her W when used to pick off an individual target to reward her for landing autos, E, or generally just properly isolating her opponents.

W – Fox-Fire

Subsequent hit damage: 30% ⇒ 40%
Maximum single-target hit damage: 64 / 96 / 128 / 160 / 192 (+ 64% AP) ⇒ 72 / 108 / 144 / 180 / 216 (+ 72% AP)

Ambessa

See Highest Win Rate Ambessa Builds

Ambessa’s jungle play rate never really took off but it’s always been right behind top lane in terms of actual power. We’re giving it a light nudge that should make her balanced in this alternate role and especially help unoptimized players who can’t always get sweet spots to land on large jungle monsters.

Q – Cunning Sweep

Monster Damage: +125 ⇒ +150

Ashe

See Highest Win Rate Ashe Builds

We’re delivering a suite of ADC changes in this patch in order to shake up the end-of-season solo queue meta. A few of the most commonly picked are being nerfed and some of the least common are being buffed. We’d also like to move in a direction of making non-caster ADCs more attack speed-reliant, which you should notice in many of the ADC changes later on in this patch.

Ashe has been a top performer in terms of both pick and win rate for most of this season, so we’re tapping her down to create a little more equity in ADC pick rates. We’re maintaining Ashe’s appetite for attack speed by giving her a little bit less from Q.

Q – Ranger’s Focus

Attack Speed: 25 / 37.5 / 50 / 62.5 / 75% ⇒ 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60%

Caitlyn

See Highest Win Rate Caitlyn Builds

Like Ashe above, Caitlyn has also been eating up a lot of ADC pick rate. We think she should maintain her identity as a long-range lane bully, but she’s also bursting champions too hard with late game Headshots, so we’re bringing down the top-end damage a bit.

Passive – Headshot

Champion Damage Increase: 60 / 90 / 120% total AD ⇒ 60 / 80 / 100% total AD (Crit formula unchanged)
Non-Champion Damage Increase: 110 / 115 / 120% total AD ⇒ 110% total AD (Crit formula unchanged)

Cho’Gath

See Highest Win Rate Cho’Gath Builds

While he’s no stranger to being played in all sorts of alternate roles, Cho’Gath has a naturally fitting jungle kit and we’d like to make that work well. We’re adjusting his E damage vs. monsters to no longer care about their max HP and instead just deliver a solid punch to get through his camps. This should be an unequivocal buff to early monster damage.

E – Vorpal Spikes

Monster Damage: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+30% AP) + up to 200 based on target max HP ⇒ 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 (+30% AP)

Dr. Mundo

See Highest Win Rate Dr. Mundo Builds

Dr. Mundo has once again risen up the ranks in popularity due to some very skilled players playing him very publicly. This time, in the jungle! We think Dr. Mundo is appropriately balanced in both roles at the present, but will continue to monitor how he’s performing in the coming weeks. All that said, we’re shipping a very impactful bug fix in this patch, which will increase his win rate, so we’re also preemptively nerfing him a bit. We’re happy with his recent reduction in burst damage, which this bug fix furthers, but want to maintain his overall sustained threat, so we’re re-buffing his functional attack damage.

E – Blunt Force Trauma

Bonus Attack Damage from Maximum Health: 2 / 2.2 / 2.4 / 2.6 / 2.8% ⇒ 2 / 2.3 / 2.6 / 2.9 / 3.2%
Fixed a bug where Dr. Mundo was getting maximum damage at 30% missing HP instead of 70% missing HP.

Fizz

See Highest Win Rate Fizz Builds

While Fizz wins an appropriate number of games in mid lane, he’s incredibly feast-or-famine and often relies on simply leaving his lane to go kill other champions, so we’d like to make him more robust in playing out his laning phase. In order to do that, we’re improving his early resilience so that he can take more trades and compensate elsewhere to make him a little less ult-reliant.

We’re also taking a swing at enabling jungle Fizz. We think this new role is a bit of a stretch and may not pan out in the end, but we’re swinging hard to get his first jungle clear into something comfortable and seeing if players will enjoy him here.

Base Stats

Base Armor: 22 ⇒ 26

Passive – Nimble Fighter

Increased by 10 against jungle monsters (now 14 + 1% AP)

W – Seastone Trident

Active and on-hit damage deals +60 damage to monsters

R – Trickster

Cooldown: 100 / 85 / 70 ⇒ 120 / 100 / 80

Jayce

See Highest Win Rate Jayce Builds

We think Jayce jungle is a bit of a longshot but there’s a chance he’s got a real player base in this new role, so we’re delivering some buffs to make his first clear more comfortable and watching to see how many players are interested.

Q – To the Skies! (Hammer Stance)

Bonus Monster Damage: 0 ⇒ 50 flat bonus damage

Q – Shock Blast (Cannon Stance)

Bonus Monster Damage: 0 ⇒ 50 flat bonus damage

Jhin

See Highest Win Rate Jhin Builds

Jhin looks quite weak at the present, so we’re giving him some damage buffs and found another place to include the number 4 in his tooltips, which is the only buff he really needs, right?

Base Stats

Base AD: 59 ⇒ 61

Passive – Whisper

Move Speed on Crit: 14% (+ .4% AS) ⇒ 14%(+ .44% AS)

W – Deadly Flourish

Damage: 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+ 50% AD) ⇒ 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+ 50% AD)

Jinx

See Highest Win Rate Jinx Builds

As with the other ADC nerfs above, Jinx wins a large portion of her games and risks crowding out other champions if left untouched amidst the other nerfs in this patch. We want to preserve her identity as a late-game auto attack monster, so we’re nerfing some of Jinx’s spell damage.

R – Super Mega Death Rocket!

Maximum Damage: 300 / 450 / 600 (+ 155% Bonus AD) (+ 25 / 30 / 35% missing HP) ⇒ 250 / 400 / 550 (+ 130% Bonus AD) (+ 25 / 30 / 35% missing HP)

Kai’Sa

See Highest Win Rate Kai’Sa Builds

Kai’Sa has been the most picked solo queue ADC in most ranks for months on end, so we’re delivering a small nerf to create more variety in the role. The primary nerf is to her base armor, where a bit less early safety should make her feel more assailable.

Base Stats

Base Armor: 27 ⇒ 25

R – Killer Instinct

Cooldown: 120 / 90 / 60 ⇒ 130 / 100 / 70

Hwei

See Highest Win Rate Hwei Builds

Hwei’s a well-performing mid laner who has low-quality gameplay when he can simply throw out Q-E and clear waves with little effort. We’d like to weaken his access to non-committal wave clear by nerfing that output. As the intended rank 5 magnitude would mark an over-nerf, we’re partially compensating him with an AP ratio buff. These changes will still result in a net reduction in power and should open up more room for laning phase interactivity.

QE – Molten Fissure

Hit Damage: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+ 30% AP) ⇒ 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 (+ 30% AP)
Damage over time: 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 (+ 50% AP) ⇒ 50 / 87.5 / 125 / 162.5 / 200 (+ 60% AP)
Total Damage: 70 / 140 / 210 / 280 / 350 (+ 80% AP) ⇒ 70 / 122.5 / 175 / 227.5 / 280 (+ 90% AP)

Malphite

See Highest Win Rate Malphite Builds

Malphite has a natural jungle kit with a decent gank paradigm, and repeatable damage for killing monsters. He just doesn’t deal enough right now to comfortably clear, so we’re juicing both his early game clear (hint hint start W!) and late-game as well, since he often builds full tank and needs his damage to keep up with growth monster health.

W – Thunderclap

Monster Modifier: 1x ⇒ 2x

Mel

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

Miss Fortune

See Highest Win Rate Miss Fortune Builds

Miss Fortune isn’t winning as often as she should for how straightforward she is to play, and unlike many of the other ADCs in this patch, she is indeed a caster, so we’re looking to amp up her ability to take over teamfights with her ultimate.

R – Bullet Time

Damage per wave: 75% Total AD (+ 25% AP) ⇒ 80% Total AD (+ 25% AP)

Ornn

See Highest Win Rate Ornn Builds

While Ornn is a totally viable top laner, we think he could also shine in the tank jungle roster, so we’re buffing some of his monster damage caps. We’re also adding some tooltip clarity, as some of his numbers weren’t exposed to players.

W – Bellows Breath

Active Monster Damage Cap: 155 / 180 / 205 / 230 / 255 ⇒ 260 / 320 / 380 / 440 / 500
Passive Monster Damage Cap: 250 ⇒ 260 / 320 / 380 / 440 / 500
Level-up tooltip now displays the minimum and maximum damages per rank.

Rek’Sai

See Highest Win Rate Rek’Sai Builds

Rek’Sai top has been an enjoyable spectator experience but a fairly miserable one to play against and she’s significantly overpowered for those who know what they’re doing. We don’t want to remove this role from viability but we’d like to reduce just now immovable she is through her lane sustain. Her jungle will take a small hit from this nerf, but she can sustain a small nerf there, as well.

Passive – Fury of the Xer’Sai

Fury gained on minion hit: 20% ⇒ 16% (5 ⇒ 4)
Max HP gained: 10 – 20% (based on level) ⇒ 9 – 20% (based on level)

Riven

See Highest Win Rate Riven Builds

Riven’s native mobility, strong dueling, and interesting risk profile of having to burn damage in order to close the gap could make for a really compelling jungle champion. She’s also monstrously hard to play, but even accounting for that, she appears to be a pretty abysmal jungler at her current tuning. We’re substantially buffing her first clear to see if players will find a fun, dynamic, high-skill fighter compelling in this new role.

Passive – Runic Blade

Bonus Monster Damage: 0 ⇒ 50 flat bonus damage

Sion

See Highest Win Rate Sion Builds

Sion is pretty playable in the jungle but is slightly weak and deserving of a small nudge for players who want to yell “COWARDS!” as they barrel up and down the river. We’re just delivering a light touch to see how many players want to try their hand at Si-ungle.

Q – Decimating Smash

Monster Mod: 150% ⇒ 165%

Skarner

See Highest Win Rate Skarner Builds

Last patch’s Skarner changes unfortunately landed him weaker than we had hoped and anticipated. We’re now here to deliver direct buffs in order to give him the power he deserves. We were overly cautious on how much attack damage to give him, so we’re back for more, and his Q isn’t doing quite enough now that he can’t quickly get two cycles off, so we’re buffing its uptime and throughput.

Base Stats

AD Growth: 4 ⇒ 5

Q – Shattered Earth / Upheaval

Cooldown: 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 4 ⇒ 8 / 6.75 / 5.5 / 4.25 / 3
Target Max HP Damage: 8% ⇒ 9%

Swain

See Highest Win Rate Swain Builds

Swain is quite weak in his most-played role of support. We’re giving him a little more power in his E as well as lowering its mana cost to let Swain support have more room to work with without a mana item, since he typically doesn’t buy one there.

E – Nevermove

Damage: 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+ 70% AP) ⇒ 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 / 250 (+ 70% AP)
Mana: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 ⇒ 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70

Tristana

See Highest Win Rate Tristana Builds

Tristana is a little underrepresented and could do with a small buff and we’d like to ensure she has good late-game attack power, so we’re bumping her AD growth.

Base Stats

AD Growth: 2.5 ⇒ 2.9

Vladimir

See Highest Win Rate Vladimir Builds

We’re continuing to identify ranged top laners who undeservedly gained laning dominance from our recent lane sustain changes, and Vladimir is next on that list of overperforming ranged tops. We’re looking to make his matchups more interactive by giving more room for typically-physical melee champions to strike back during Vlad’s moments of downtime. Also, the number 607 makes it uncomfortably easy to type 6-7 and we just can’t have that.

Base Stats

Base Health: 607 ⇒ 600
Base Armor: 27 ⇒ 24

Volibear

See Highest Win Rate Volibear Builds

Volibear’s last patch succeeded in addressing his jungle-vs-top gap but left him a little weaker than we wanted across both roles. We’re here to deliver him some more power to our favorite Zilean-hating demigod. We chose attack damage here to ensure that as a moderate-mobility melee champion, his attacks are appropriately threatening

Base Stats

Base Attack Damage: 62 ⇒ 65

Xayah

See Highest Win Rate Xayah Builds

While Rakan’s been making waves, Xayah’s been sitting on the sidelines for quite some time. We’re looking to bring up her feather damage to help her cut through her opponents.

Passive – Clean Cuts

Damage: 30 / 40 / 50% AD ⇒ 35 / 45 / 55% AD to secondary targets

Zeri

See Highest Win Rate Zeri Builds

Zeri’s in a relatively weak spot with pretty much no presence in pro play as well as a generally low pickrate. We want to bring her back toward those glory days of being one of the fastest ADCs in the game, so we’re buffing her top-end move speed during her ultimate.

R – Lightning Crash

Move Speed per Stack: .5% ⇒ 1%

Items

Sunfire Aegis

Sunfire Aegis has been strongly losing to Liandry’s on any tank jungler who can reasonably choose between the two. We’d like to bring back tank-forward itemization here and allow Aegis to return to the forefront.

Monster Damage Mod: 1.6x ⇒ 2x

All You Need to Know About Zaahen, League’s Newest Darkin Champion

Posted on November 14, 2025November 14, 2025 by U.GG

Darkin are ancient warrior gods trapped within powerful weapons. When someone unknowingly (or knowingly) wields such a weapon, the Darkin will fight to take control of the host’s body.

The first Darkin champion in League of Legends, Aatrox, was released in 2013. The second was Kayn in 2017, followed by the Varus retcon the same year, which altered his original Ionian lore and turned him into a Darkin. The last Darkin champion released was Naafiri in 2023. Like the other Darkin, Zaahen has possessed a host (Xin Zhao) and League even temporarily removed Xin Zhao from play to reflect the takeover.

Zaahen, the Unsundered will hit the Rift November 19th at 11 AM PDT.

League of Legends’ newest Darkin champion, Zaahen, is a powerful skirmisher with built-in armor penetration, a revive for risky dives, and has plenty of attack damage and sustain.

Zaheen Abilities

Exact data subject to change upon release.

Passive: Cultivation of War

Cooldown: 300 / 240 / 180 / 120 (based on level)

Innate: Zaahen’s damaging basic attacks and against enemy champions generate a stack of Determination for every instance of damage dealt to each target, lasting for 5 seconds, refreshing on subsequent damage, and stacking up to 12 times.

After the duration, the stacks expire by 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (based on seconds elapsed) every 0.5 seconds.
Determination: For each stack, Zaahen gains bonus attack damage equal to 1.5% – 3.3% (based on level) AD; at maximum stacks it is further increased to 36% – 79.2% (based on level) AD.

Periodically, if Zaahen would take lethal damage while at maximum stacks, he enters resurrection for 4 seconds: becoming invulnerable, untargetable, and unable to act. He restores 30% – 75% (based on level) of his maximum health over the duration.

Q – The Darkin Glaive

Cost: 25 mana – Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 – Cast Time: none

Active: Zaahen empowers his next basic attack within 5 seconds to have an uncancelable windup and gain 25 bonus range. On-attack, he will strike the target twice and heal himself. The strikes deal modified physical damage and the heal is reduced against non-champions.
Each strike applies on-hit effects and can critically strike for 50% bonus critical damage AD bonus physical damage.

Total Physical Damage:
15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+ 100% AD) (+ 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% bonus AD)

Healing:
5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9% of his maximum health

In 1.5 seconds after the attack, The Darkin Glaive can then be recast within the next 5 seconds.

Recast: Zaahen empowers his next basic attack within 5 seconds to have an uncancelable windup, gain 25 bonus range, deal bonus physical damage and knock up the target for 0.75 seconds.

The Darkin Glaive deals 150% damage against monsters.

Both casts will reset Zaahen’s basic attack timer.

Bonus Physical Damage:
30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% AD)

W – Dreaded Return

Cost: 50 mana – Cooldown: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 – Cast Time: 0.5s – Range: 850

Active: Zaahen extends his glaive in the target direction, dealing physical damage to enemies hit. Upon reaching maximum range, all enemies hit are dealt the same physical damage, stunned for 0.25 seconds, and pulled 225 units toward Zaahen.

Physical Damage:
40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+ 50% bonus AD)
Total Physical Damage:
80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+ 100% bonus AD)

E – Aureate Rush

Cooldown: 10 / 9.5 / 9 / 8.5 / 8 – Cast Time: none – Range: 350

Active: Zaahen dashes to the target location. Upon arrival, he flourishes his glaive to deal physical damage to nearby enemies.

Physical Damage:
40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+ 50% bonus AD)

Enemies hit by the outer edge are dealt increased physical damage and bonus magic damage, with the latter capped at 400 against monsters.

Increased Physical Damage:
60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 100% bonus AD)
Bonus Magic Damage:
4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% of the target’s maximum health

Aureate Rush deals 50 bonus physical damage against monsters.

R – Grim Deliverance

Cost: 100 mana – Cooldown: 110 / 95 / 80 – Cast Time: 0.5s – Range: 600

Passive: Zaahen gains armor penetration.

Armor Penetration:
10 / 20 / 30%

Active: Zaahen launches to the target location. He then slams his glaive, unleashing a shockwave that deals physical damage to nearby enemies and heals himself for 33% of the post-mitigation damage dealt to champions.

Physical Damage:
250 / 400 / 550 (+ 200% bonus AD)

Zaahen is unable to act, gains crowd control immunity, and gains 50% damage reduction from the start of the cast time, and retains these effects until 0.9 seconds after the dash.

Patch 25.23 Preview – League of Legends

Posted on November 11, 2025November 24, 2025 by U.GG

Update: The full Patch 25.23 notes are live.

Check out the full patch 25.23 here

The Preview Patch notes for 25.23 are here. From Riot Phroxzon via X (Source)

Zaahen

-Zaahen is starting out development as a support.

-We hadn’t made a support for a while and we already had a headstart on wanting Zaahen to be a Darkin with eye/all-seeing motifs.

-The first iconic ult Squad5 tried was swinging his Glaive to Deathmark everybody (think Deathmark meets Xin Ult)

-One of the issues with this was that Zaahen had a support economy, so he’d do this and just die. It wasn’t a fatal flaw, but it wasn’t quite cool enough to build a kit around.

-Another idea tried was to embody the idea of sacrifice; Zaahen would gain stats each time he got a takedown or died (because supports die a lot)

-Teammates weren’t super enthusiastic about this though, even if it ended up being powerful and useful

-At this point, we decided that Top lane might be a better fit, especially because some of the Xin Zhao parallels weren’t quite working out from the support role

Zaahen in Top Lane

-We were taking a bunch of inspiration from Erlang Shen and Guan Yu throughout development.

-Erlang Shen has a third eye, which is often known for being all-seeing and associated with enlightment/higher levels of consciousness in Hinduism or Buddhism and some other Eastern religions.

-So some of the ideas were related to these motifs.

-Squad5 tried some ideas like Ult makes him untargetable to non-targeted abilities (think Gwen W), but this only lasted a test (was very experimental)

-Also tried versions where he learned about his opponents while fighting them.

-Another version that was interesting was dodging attacks every X seconds (but that became kinda hard to use and was already similar to old Pantheon’s passive)

-Kind of late in development however, we had a pretty functional kit that was working well and was satisfying, but it still felt it was missing something, and August suggested adding the revive back as max stacks on the passive. That just immediately clicked in Playtest and so we kept it.

Rek’sai

-Rek’sai was erroneously listed as a buff yesterday, sorry about that.

-For those watching Worlds, or playing high ELO solo Q, Rek’sai has been pretty pretty powerful in Top Lane, but we’re OK with her Jungle strength currently.

-In particular, she is sustaining too much, so we’re taking those aspects down.

Skarner

-Skarner has been pretty heavily overnerfed, so we’re restoring a bunch of power to him this patch.

Mel

-Thanks to Faker for raising visibility on Mel, we’re making some relatively power neutral adjustments that move power out of some of her high frustration and lower counterplay builds (eg. E max) into other places with higher counterplay and interactivity (eg. Passive)

-The E max build in particular is pretty fire and forget and is looking quite a bit stronger than Q max in many situations

-This is relatively unintuitive to players and lower gameplay, so we’re making adjustments to it

Mundo

-Recently, the team found a quite impactful bug where Mundo was getting max damage at 30% missing health instead of 70% missing health.

-While it didn’t result in a change in his winrates overall (he was still balanced around this), it did change his overall power budget, so the damage is being adjusted back up to compensate.

-Despite his recent rise to fame in several series’, we still think he’s overall pretty balanced, but just has pretty sharp success/failure cases which seems OK for now (might re-consider later).

Vlad

-As one of the beneficiaries of the sustain nerfs in previous patches, Vlad has benefited quite a bit, so we’re tapping him down a bit and making him more vulnerable in top lane especially.

ADC Meta

-ADC meta has been stale for a while, so we’re looking for a bit of a shake up here. Most of the changes here are pretty self-explanatory

Alternate Junglers

-This patch, we’re looking at a lot of novelty oriented changes around adding new champs into the jungle (and some old ones)

-Many regions suffer from high jungle autofill rates and being able to play your mains when you’re autofilled we think is overall net positive.

-Some of these changes are more experimental (we’re trying Fizz in the jungle for example), but will be monitoring closely to see how they shake out.