Click here to view the FULL 25.16 patch notes!
From Riot Phroxzon via X (Source)
The upcoming changes included in Patch 25.16 are out, with numerous champion buffs and nerfs across many champions. Take a look at the current patch 25.15 notes here.
Balance Strategy
-As mentioned yesterday, heading into the back half of the year where things are pretty well balanced, we’re going to be spending a lot more time trying to find opportunistic alt builds, alternate roles and other things that feel like opportunities for players to express creativity.
-If you have any suggestions for builds or roles that could use a little bit of love, earflicks that can be fixed, we’d love to hear them.
-This also can include things where it might take a little more time to land a more involved gameplay change to them (like Rek’Sai’s returning of E damage, or improving clarity and counterplay of Illaoi’s E)
-There are a multitude of such changes in the patch, (better balance of WW JG vs Top, Lane Viego, AD Morde, Qiyana JG, AD Sion, JG Sylas, etc.) – In the meantime, our high level strategy is to be more nerf heavy on the jungle role, as we think the role is too strong overall and are avoiding net buffing it over time.
Sentiment on the game is too balanced
-Have heard a bunch of sentiment recently around the game being too balanced.
-Often, people feeling this way can feel like the game feels the same patch over patch, TFT can sometimes feel like this when the balance team is doing too good of a job!
-A great problem to have, but also a real indicator of some opportunities for us – When the game is in a pretty balanced state, we’re particularly interested in getting champions into multiple roles (in a way that doesn’t break the game) that can add a bit of freshness back.
-Things like Nautilus Jungle, AD Morde, Viego mid (a bit more speculative), Qiyana Jungle, Sylas jungle, AD Sion, etc.
-These opportunities are often hard to prioritize when we need to put balance fires out.
-At the same time, we need to be a bit careful of over-correcting; most of this sentiment is coming from people who play League for most of the day (streamers, high ELO players) and will be quite vocal.
-We need to be mindful of regular players too, who don’t play as often and have communicated to us that they are more sensitive to rate of change.
-To set some expectations though, outside of Season Starts, we don’t have plans to do large shakeups to the game, as players have expressed that rate of change being high in these periods is particularly damaging to new players, reviving players, etc.
Yunara
-Overall Yunara has landed in a really great spot, she’s seeing a little bit of Pro Play, while being amongst the most popular champs in role, without significant banrate. We’re really happy y’all are enjoying her so much!
-Her mastery growth after playing several games on her is pretty high, so just stick out that early learning curve.
-Over-time, her Kraken and BORK builds have started to edge out Yun-Tal, especially at higher skill levels.
-We’re not going to target changes to her for now, and want to observe a bit more to see how her build and skew plays out.
Shaco
-Shaco has had an extremely high banrate for a pretty extended period of time at this point
-We’re looking to bring down his frustration overall and he doesn’t need to be close to 50 to be a satisfying champion for his audience
Systems
-Hexplate has been a pretty unpopular item for a long while and mostly been tuned around Nocturne (with some fringe Olaf use too)
-We’re giving it a buff and a compensation nerf to an already strong Nocturne
-Baron’s HP regen is going away for real this time… missing your smites because of in-fight regen hopefully a thing of the past now?
Last Patch Follow-up
In an effort to improve Illaoi’s gameplay around the curse (low satisfaction for Illaoi, high frustration for opponents), the changes landed a little harder than intended, so walking it back a tiny bit. We’ve noted some of the complaints around E and repeated slams, but didn’t quite have time to address it this patch.
Rek’Sai also landed a little weaker than intended, though her E max first (which was historically quite good) is back to being pretty strong and we’re hoping her players enjoy the E true damage back.
Kalista has finally had her power level catch up to her Pro Presence. The main reason players would pick her is to dominate laning phase and so we want to add a bit more power into her later game to add a bit of regular play power without spiking her immediately back into Pro.
Finally, Yuumi is still at highs after her changes a few patches ago didn’t quite land as we’d like. We’re taking a bit more of a swing here as she is still very performant (more than performant enough to meet her goals for new players)
- Brand
- Gnar
- Illaoi
- (Game) Master Yi
- Morgana
- Nautilus (Jungle)
- Qiyana (Jungle/Mid)
- Rek’sai
- Sion (AD)
- Sylas (Jungle)
- Zyra
- Jarvan IV
- Lulu
- Nocturne
- Rell (yes, Relly Relly)
- Shaco
- Trundle
- Xin Zhao
- Yuumi
- Mordekaiser (AD)
- Varus (Lethality vs On-hit)
- Viego (Jungle vs. Mid)
- Warwick (Top vs. Jungle)
- Experimental ULTplate
- My Itty Bitty Baby Baron Boi and his little grabby hands (Baron Nashor)