Tag: arena

Patch 26.17 ARAM, Mayhem, and Arena: Fighters and ADCs Feel the Changes

Posted on by Geekmandem

Another fortnight, and Patch 26.17 brings a new round of changes to ARAM, Mayhem, and Arena.

ARAM: Mayhem

The fighter buffs are still coming, as Riot looks to nail down how to get the best out of them. Two new Augments this patch, both aimed squarely at the “dive in and refuse to die” playstyle.

Ultra Hydra is one of the key new ones. Finish any Hydra item, and you’re handed a free Tiamat on top. Then there’s the quest: pick up Ravenous, Profane and Titanic Hydra, and you unlock Ultra Hydra as the reward.

Upgrade Death’s Dance is the other one, and slightly more chill of the two. You get 250 gold up front, a slice of incoming damage spread out over 3 seconds instead of landing all at once, and a chunky instant heal every time you score a takedown. It should give fighters that bit of extra sustain, while also stopping them from getting crushed by early burst damage.

On the nerf side, Riot’s gone after the ADC Augments so fights are getting a second buff almost. Critical Missile fires fewer missiles at the top end. Tripleshot now prioritises enemies near your main target rather than pinging off into the void. And Double Tap got shunted from Gold up to Prismatic. The effect’s untouched, but now it’s eating your Prismatic pick, so you’re paying for it in what you give up. Upgrade Infinity Edge also quietly lost its crit chance, while Upgrade Ravenous now cleaves minions and heals a touch more.

Arena

Arena’s going back to alternating patches and will land on odd-numbered ones in the future. So no balance pass every fortnight anymore; instead, the builds are going to be left to sit each month. That said, we do have one this week!

Kled’s remount cooldown drops from 12s to 5s, and Garen’s W actually hands out resists worth caring about now. LeBlanc’s R cooldown got taken down a fair whack, while Gragas, K’Sante, Renekton, Senna, Tahm Kench and Teemo all got nudged up too. Heading the other way: Ambessa eats a real nerf across her E and R, while Zilean and Vel’Koz both had their ult cooldowns pushed up.

On items, anti-tank is back on the menu. Lord Dominik’s and Mortal Reminder both got big AD bumps, and Serylda’s penetration climbed. Meanwhile, the enchanter healing items (Ardent Censer, Redemption, Staff of Flowing Water) had their Arena-specific heal and shield power stripped back to the base 10%, so sustain takes a small haircut.

ARAM Mayhem and Arena Patch 26.16 Highlights

Posted on by Geekmandem

If you like to spend your time playing ARAM Mayhem and Arena, then Patch 26.16 adds a fair few changes.

While some of the shine was taken off ARAM and Arena thanks to the release of League Classic, the two modes are getting plenty of love, especially Mayhem.

ARAM: Mayhem – Fighters finally get some love

Riot’s decided fighters have been getting bullied in extended fights, so there are two new Gold Augments to help them. Upgrade Ravenous Hydra makes your spells apply cleave with no cooldown and chucks in 18% lifesteal on top.

Shark Bait got a proper glow-up (base damage 120-350 now, and it eats 30% of missing health instead of 20%). Nature is Healing has been reworked so each bush has its own cooldown and heals the second you step in.

Snowbomb’s radius is 30% chunkier with a longer knockup, which is going to feel dreadful to be on the receiving end of. Locke also gets a tidy buff across the board: more damage dealt, less taken, and 20 tenacity out of nowhere. Upgrade Sundered Sky is the other new Augment. It reduces the item’s per-target cooldown to 5 seconds (down from 8), grants an extra 9% missing health healing on empowered strikes, and immediately gives you 500 gold.

On the nerf side, Critical Missile and the Skilled Sniper snipe range both got trimmed. So don’t be shocked if your old comfort picks feel a touch weaker.

Arena: Bravery Wednesdays are back

Prestige Sinful Shores LeBlanc Patch 26.12

Bravery Arena is returning, and it’s landing every Wednesday alongside Crowd Favourites. Each Wednesday, you either roll the dice with Bravery or pick from your Crowd Favourite pool (the more champs you own, the more options you’re offered).

Balance-wise, this is a “lift the strugglers” patch. Rek’Sai is the standout: her maxed tunnels now have a 0-second reuse cooldown, so she can pop in and out, plus a healthy healing buff on top. Gnar’s tired time is gone entirely, meaning you’re mega-Gnar-ing and back again constantly. LeBlanc, Volibear, Shaco, Poppy and Warwick all got meaningful bumps too, so expect to see a lot more of them.

Now You See Me got a fun upgrade as well. At level 2 it leaves a clone where you vanished from, which is exactly the kind of “wait, which one’s real” nonsense Arena lives for.

Getting tapped down, Aurelion Sol, Bel’Veth, Sona and Soraka, with Three Sacred Treasures and Nesting Doll reined in on the Augment side.

There are also a host of bug fixes across both modes, which you can read in full in the official patch notes.

League of Legends Patch 26.11 Nerfs Mayhem Carries and Arena Enchanters

Posted on by Geekmandem

If you’ve been running riot on the Mayhem Bridge as Vayne, Tristana, or pretty much any hyper-carry you fancied, patch 26.11 has some news for you. Riot has swung the nerf hammer at a long list of damage-favoured champions in ARAM Mayhem. A bunch of them back to neutral in what feels like a pretty significant rebalancing sweep.

Mayhem’s Carry Club Takes a Hit

The bulk of the Mayhem changes in this patch are nerfs. Mostly targeted squarely at the champions who’ve been dealing a bit too freely. Vayne loses her damage boost (105% down to 100%) and her damage reduction (95% back to 100%), so she’s now fully exposed on both ends.

Same story for Tristana, Fizz, and Xayah, who all drop to baseline across the board. Fizz also loses his 10% Tenacity bonus, which is a quiet but meaningful cut for a champion who loves diving into the chaos and getting out clean.

Fiddlesticks is the one champion getting a buff, with his damage taken and damage done going back to 100%.

One small note, over in normal ARAM, Qiyana is getting a bit of love. Qiyana picks up 20 flat Ability Haste, going from zero to twenty. It’s not the most dramatic buff in the world. But on a champion who really wants to spam her abilities to chain elemental effects, that extra haste adds up

Arena Working in Threes

Three-person Arena is apparently doing well, because Riot isn’t pulling back; they’re doubling down with balance tweaks specifically designed around the format. The big theme this patch is pulling enchanters back in line while giving marksmen a bit more room to breathe.


On the enchanter side, Locket of the Iron Solari takes a significant shield reduction (600-1200 down to 300-900) and now has reduced effectiveness for 20 seconds after you’ve been healed. Mikael’s Blessing, Redemption, and Dawncore all drop their Heal and Shield Power from 16% to 12%. While Wordless Promise loses a chunk of its AP and AH sharing while its cooldown explodes from 10 seconds to 60. That last one is a pretty severe change for a support item that felt like a must-buy.


For the marksmen getting some new toys. Infinity Edge swaps 40% crit damage multiplier for a flat 20 extra attack damage (55 to 75 AD). Immortal Shieldbow’s shield ceiling jumps from 700 to 1000, and Statik Shiv now scales up to 160 damage instead of being stuck at a flat 60. Diamond-Tipped Spear and Terminus both get attack speed bumps, too, so ADC Arena builds are getting a lot more to work with this patch.

New Guests of Honor

Peacemaker High Noon Yone

Three new Guests of Honor arrive in the Arena this patch. Yone brings the Inner Demon quest, where you vote whether your team fights alongside the demon hunters or embraces the demons themselves. Hunters earn gold for every demon team they take down, while demons gain an augment level each time a hunter team is eliminated. It’s a fun wrinkle that makes the lobby’s overall composition matter in a way it normally doesn’t.

Nilah joins with Joyful Delight, cutting the cost of Legendary Item Anvils by 500 gold and throwing in bonus rerolls while you’re on a hotstreak. Vayne arrives with Tools of the Hunt, giving access to a curated set of “tool” augments that fit her kit.

League Arena’s New Augment Levels Could Change Every Mid-Game Draft

Posted on by Geekmandem

Since Arena was added back to League of Legends, it’s been a popular mode for players looking for something different. In recent weeks, Riot has teased some major changes to the mode, as it looks to capitalise on the popularity.

The headline change is the new Augment Levels system. Augments can now be levelled up from 1 to 3 tiers mid-match, with some reaching a Keystone effect at max level, unlocking entirely new passive abilities on top of their base kit. Over 30 augments debut with the levelling system, including fan favourites like Glass Cannon, Final Form, and Speed Demon. Once you’ve got two levelable augments, you’ll start being offered level-ups in place of new augments, fundamentally shifting how you think about the mid-game draft.

“Once you reach the maximum number of augments, you’ll only be offered augment levels or the ability to tier up an existing augment, allowing you to remove one and select another that is one tier higher.”

It’s a system that opens up a new layer of decision-making: do you spread wide with a varied augment kit, or go deep on two or three synergistic picks and push them to their Keystone potential? The answer will likely differ every game.

New Guests of Honor, maps, and a revamped schedule

Sixteen new Guests of Honor join the roster this season, including Atakhan, Kindred, Shaco, Morgana, and Taric. Each brings a unique passive effect that shapes how the entire lobby plays. Two favourites have also been reworked: Swain now rewards the last teams standing with a prismatic stat anvil at the halfway point. At the same time, Katarina now runs augment tier-ups alongside new offerings during her reign.

On the map front, the new Petricite Grove joins the rotation, a Demacian-themed arena scattered with unexploded mining bombs that roll and detonate on impact, adding an environmental hazard element to positioning. The existing Ancestral Woods and Koipond maps have also been reworked with new interactive elements.

Arena level up

The season’s event schedule is designed to keep Arena fresh well beyond launch:

  • 26.9 Arena Season 2 Launch: No event, time to learn the new systems
  • 26.10 3×6 Arena: Three players per team, six teams total, wider champion diversity
  • 26.13 Bravery: Limited champion select, embrace the random, adapt and conquer
  • 26.14 Swift Arena: Back to 2v2v2v2, faster games, familiar opponents

You can see a full breakdown in the Riot Arena patch notes.

ARAM and Mayhem Changes Come to the Bridge

While Arena is the focus for this patch, ARAM Mayhem remains the most popular mode outside of standard League of Legends. As such, it’s also getting some love in 26.9.

ARAM Changes:

ARAM’s changes in 26.9 are more focused than Arena’s but still carry a meaningful impact. Hubris has been a dominant component of assassin and snowball-heavy champions for some time. Both the Attack Damage (60 → 55) and Ability Haste (15 → 10) have been trimmed, nudging the item down a tier without gutting its identity.

ARAM Mayhem Changes:

Bard receives a quality-of-life boost to his Caretaker’s Shrine. Both the Move Speed bonus and its AP scaling have gone up, and the shrine’s ammo cooldown drops from 10 to 8 seconds, making him a more reliable and rewarding pick on a map that heavily punishes slow shrine placement. Ornn’s Living Forge passive cooldown now scales with level (90 down to 10 seconds at max), making him far more useful in ARAM’s shorter game times, where the default 120-second cooldown often felt punishing.

  • Health Relic: The AoE heal on pickup has been increased from 16% to 22% missing health and mana
  • Prom Queen: Cooldown increased from 25 to 35 seconds.
  • Grandma’s Chili Oil: Base damage per second goes up (100 → 150), while the bonus damage per burn source and all healing values are reduced.
  • Upgrade Sword of Blossoming Dawn: The 50% bonus damage to basic attacks against champions has been removed entirely

Overall, it’s a patch focused on Arena, while making meaningful changes to ARAM. The changes to Bard and Orn seem the most standout. Something that maybe needs looking at for other champions that struggle to adapt to the flow of ARAM’s quicker game time.

League Players Can Finally Queue Arena With a Third Friend

Posted on by Geekmandem

League of Legends patch 26.10 is looking to continue the momentum in the Arena after the big changes in Season 2. For those who are more fans of ARAM, it’s a QoL update for the most part as ARAM Mayhem continues to thrive.

Patch 26.10 Arena Changes

The headline feature of the patch is the introduction of 3×6 for Arena. You can now queue up with a third friend to take on other teams to fight for the win.

Riot has tuned augments based on player feedback, with stat anvil builds getting a buff to make them more viable after complaints that they felt underwhelming. Tahm Kench’s Guest of Honor has also been rebalanced, punishing greed and rewarding restraint.

A cryptic teaser hints at a new mechanic tied to shared suffering and group celebrations. “Those who have found themselves in agony from another’s desire, a collective celebration will bring your health higher.”

Key Changes

Augment Buffs


Bravest of the Brave Level 2 gold increased from 750 ⇒ 1500
Fan the Hammer Max level reduced from 3⇒2 Cooldown per side 7/6/5 ⇒ 7/5
Juiced Max level increased to 2 Damage done increased from 4.5% ⇒ 9% of mana spent. Capstone: Whenever you spend 400 mana increase Juiced damage by 10% for the rest of the round. Firesale
Combination Fried Rice Max level 1 ⇒ 3 Auto levels based on levels put into the rice augments. Ability Haste -100 ⇒ -50 Damage per level 100% ⇒ 100/125/150% Healing per level 75%⇒ 75/100/125%
SpellCraft Base slow reduced from 20%⇒10% AP ratio per red sticker reduced from 40% ⇒ 30% BAD Ratio per red sticker reduced from 30% ⇒ 20% Slow per sticker increased from 30% ⇒ 40%
Chroma Flux Movespeed per sticker increased from 20 ⇒ 30
Stats On Stats On Stats Capstone: Stat anvil percent amp increased from 10% ⇒ 20%
Stats On Stats On Stats Capstone: Stat anvil percent amp increased from 10% ⇒ 20%
Stats Capstone: Stat anvil percent amp increased from 10% ⇒ 20%
Bread Sandwich Max level 1 ⇒ 3 Auto levels based on levels put into the rice augments. Ability Haste per level 200 ⇒ 200/300/400
Gamba Anvil Max level 2>1 Legendary item anvil reduction 500 > 750 Stat anvil reduction 150/300 > 250 Ability Haste per level 200 ⇒ 200/300/400

Augment Nerfs


Draw Your Sword Bonus HP: 25/35/45% ⇒ 25/30/35% Bonus AD: 25/35/45% ⇒ 25/30/35%
Righteous Fury Spell damage per stack: 2/4/6% ⇒ 2/3/4%
Jeweled Gauntlet Crit Damage: 140/160/180% ⇒ 140/150/160%
The Brutalizer Max level reduced from 3 ⇒ 2

Champion Changes


Passive refund on takedown reduced from 75s ⇒ 15s

Emberstrike Damage: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+ 110% AD) ⇒ 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+ 100% AD)

Three Talon Strike Damage: 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+ 40% bonus AD) ⇒ 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+ 30% bonus AD) Cooldown: 7 / 6.5 / 6 / 5.5 / 5 ⇒ 8 / 7.5 / 7 / 6.5 / 6
Audacious Charge AS: (+ 10% per 100 AP) ⇒ (+ 5% per 100 AP) Cooldown: 11 ⇒ 13

26.10 ARAM Changes

26.10 Arena and ARAM changes

Just the one champion is getting changes across ARAM, with Viktor getting some love.

Damage Dealt: 95% ⇒ 100%
Damage Taken: 105% ⇒ 100%
Passive Stacks per Kill
Champion: 20 ⇒ 8
Cannon 10 ⇒ 5
NEW In ARAM maps, Viktor gains 1 stack every 5 seconds.

System Changes

Bilgewater Cannon QoL

  • Movement lockout from not taking the canon: 2s ⇒ 0.5s
  • Movement lockout from landing after taking the canon: removed

ARAM Mayhem

ARAM Mayhem is getting a few changes, including the ones above.

Augments

Big Brain

  •   NEW   Refresh on Respawn or every 70 seconds

Fan the Hammer

  • No longer triggers on minions.

Outlaw’s Grit NEW   

  • Stacks now reset based on a 15s duration instead of a fixed timer.
  • Stacks show up on the buff bar.

Upgrade Zhonya’s

  •   NEW   Grants 50% Bonus MS during Stasis.

The rest of the patch is the usual bug fixes and other small changes that you can find in the full official release.

Arena’s New Keystone Augments Will Reshape Every Season 2 Draft

Posted on by Geekmandem

Since Arena was added back to League of Legends, it’s been a popular mode for players looking for something different. In recent weeks, Riot has teased some major changes to the mode, as it looks to capitalise on the popularity.

The headline change is the new Augment Levels system. Augments can now be levelled up from 1 to 3 tiers mid-match, with some reaching a Keystone effect at max level, unlocking entirely new passive abilities on top of their base kit. Over 30 augments debut with the levelling system, including fan favourites like Glass Cannon, Final Form, and Speed Demon. Once you’ve got two levelable augments, you’ll start being offered level-ups in place of new augments, fundamentally shifting how you think about the mid-game draft.

“Once you reach the maximum number of augments, you’ll only be offered augment levels or the ability to tier up an existing augment, allowing you to remove one and select another that is one tier higher.”

It’s a system that opens up a new layer of decision-making: do you spread wide with a varied augment kit, or go deep on two or three synergistic picks and push them to their Keystone potential? The answer will likely differ every game.

New Guests of Honor, maps, and a revamped schedule

Sixteen new Guests of Honor join the roster this season, including Atakhan, Kindred, Shaco, Morgana, and Taric. Each brings a unique passive effect that shapes how the entire lobby plays. Two favourites have also been reworked: Swain now rewards the last teams standing with a prismatic stat anvil at the halfway point. At the same time, Katarina now runs augment tier-ups alongside new offerings during her reign.

On the map front, the new Petricite Grove joins the rotation, a Demacian-themed arena scattered with unexploded mining bombs that roll and detonate on impact, adding an environmental hazard element to positioning. The existing Ancestral Woods and Koipond maps have also been reworked with new interactive elements.

Arena level up

The season’s event schedule is designed to keep Arena fresh well beyond launch:

  • 26.9 Arena Season 2 Launch: No event, time to learn the new systems
  • 26.10 3×6 Arena: Three players per team, six teams total, wider champion diversity
  • 26.13 Bravery: Limited champion select, embrace the random, adapt and conquer
  • 26.14 Swift Arena: Back to 2v2v2v2, faster games, familiar opponents

You can see a full breakdown in the Riot Arena patch notes.

ARAM and Mayhem Changes Come to the Bridge

While Arena is the focus for this patch, ARAM Mayhem remains the most popular mode outside of standard League of Legends. As such, it’s also getting some love in 26.9.

ARAM Changes:

ARAM’s changes in 26.9 are more focused than Arena’s but still carry a meaningful impact. Hubris has been a dominant component of assassin and snowball-heavy champions for some time. Both the Attack Damage (60 → 55) and Ability Haste (15 → 10) have been trimmed, nudging the item down a tier without gutting its identity.

ARAM Mayhem Changes:

Bard receives a quality-of-life boost to his Caretaker’s Shrine. Both the Move Speed bonus and its AP scaling have gone up, and the shrine’s ammo cooldown drops from 10 to 8 seconds, making him a more reliable and rewarding pick on a map that heavily punishes slow shrine placement. Ornn’s Living Forge passive cooldown now scales with level (90 down to 10 seconds at max), making him far more useful in ARAM’s shorter game times, where the default 120-second cooldown often felt punishing.

  • Health Relic: The AoE heal on pickup has been increased from 16% to 22% missing health and mana
  • Prom Queen: Cooldown increased from 25 to 35 seconds.
  • Grandma’s Chili Oil: Base damage per second goes up (100 → 150), while the bonus damage per burn source and all healing values are reduced.
  • Upgrade Sword of Blossoming Dawn: The 50% bonus damage to basic attacks against champions has been removed entirely

Overall, it’s a patch focused on Arena, while making meaningful changes to ARAM. The changes to Bard and Orn seem the most standout. Something that maybe needs looking at for other champions that struggle to adapt to the flow of ARAM’s quicker game time.

Riot Just Rebuilt Arena From the Ground Up for Season 2

Posted on by Geekmandem

Riot is overhauling Arena for Season 2 with a new map, a reworked map, a brand new Augment leveling system, rotating game mode Events, and over 20 new Guests of Honor. Here’s everything coming to the mode.

Events: A Rotating Twist Each Patch

The headline addition this season is Events, limited-time variations that replace the standard eight teams of two format and shake up how Arena plays. Season 2 will have four of them.

No Event kicks things off. The first patch is intentionally left vanilla so players can adjust to the new map, augments, and Guests of Honor before the chaos begins.

3×6 swaps to three players per team across six total teams. The goal is champion diversity. A lot of champions that struggle in the traditional 2v2 format get significantly more viable when you can build around them properly. Whether that’s a Kog’Maw comp with a real frontliner or a full deathball of bruisers.

Bravery is the random-champion mode players have been requesting since Arena launched. In champ select, you get a random champion button and a small pool of curated options if full random isn’t your thing. It rewards adaptability and flexibility over champion mastery.

Swift Arena goes back to two teams of four but compresses the time commitment. Rounds come faster, and because you fight the same teams more consistently, reading your opponents becomes a bigger part of the game.

Two Map Changes

Petricite Grove (New)

A brand new map set on the outskirts of Demacia. The grove has larger walls with more hiding spots, and its defining feature is scattered mining bombs that can be knocked into enemies for heavy damage. Hit one with an immobilizing effect, and it detonates instantly, which opens up some creative burst combos for champions with CC.

Ancestral Woods (Reworked)

Ancestral Woods keeps its identity as the smallest Arena map, but loses the single central Power Flower setup. Riot acknowledged this wasn’t a great design. The rework adds Power Flowers around the perimeter of the map and places a new Bulwark Blossom in the centre. Last-hitting the Bulwark Blossom grants a large heal and shield, with the effect scaling up when your team is outnumbered. New brush and terrain around the sides also create more room for cat-and-mouse play while waiting for a teammate to respawn.

Augment Levels

The biggest systemic change to Arena this season is the introduction of Augment Levels. After selecting two levelable augments, future augment offerings will include the option to level an existing augment rather than take a new one. Leveling augments makes them stronger and, in some cases, unlocks entirely new effects.

Augments will now be offered more frequently overall, giving you the choice between taking something new, leveling something you already have, or replacing an augment with a higher-tier version. You can still only hold four augments at a time in most situations.

Round 8 also introduces a new Crafting Round, where you can either gain an extra augment slot or remove an augment to level one of your remaining ones. This gives you a mid-to-late game pivot point to reshape your build around what’s actually working.

New Augments

Over 30 new augments are coming to Arena this season. A few highlights:

Transmute: Silver fills all your remaining augment slots with Silver augments immediately on selection. Taking it early is a strong setup for the leveling system since you get a head start on stacking augments to level up while others are still building their kits.

Wild Fire: Autocasts a fireball that bounces between nearby enemy champions. Leveling it increases the number of bounces, and at the max level, it bounces endlessly. It works as both a burn source and an auto-cast trigger, bridging two separate build archetypes.

Scavenger: lets you steal one of your defeated opponent’s augments each time you eliminate a team. The trade-off is that your future augment offerings are locked to level-ups only, so you are committing to whatever you pick up along the way.

Magical Girl: summons a falling star at the start of each combat. Catching it knocks back nearby enemies during a transformation animation, then empowers you and rains stars down on opponents. Pure fun.

Arena is set for some big changes in Season 2, with Riot Games clearly looking to double down on the amount of other things League of Legends players can do.