Riot Games has released the League of Legends (LoL) patch 26.3 patch notes with substantial changes to the MOBA.

This patch is another massive update with a lot of champion balance changes, especially for AD junglers who have been struggling.

There’s also a major ARAM Mayhem update with over 40 new augments, including damaging question mark pings, and the first augment sets.

ARAM Mayhem overhaul

MISSING PINGS DO DAMAGE ⁉️

The new ARAM Mayhem augment makes your Missing Pings launch a missile at the pinged location dealing damage to enemies and healing allies

via Mayhem Mains on Youtube pic.twitter.com/jQsJDTyJnD

— Sheep Esports (@Sheep_Esports) January 29, 2026

ARAM Mayhem is staying in LoL for a lot longer and has completely overhauled with new features and reasons to play.

Mayhem Progression Track

Essentially a free battle pass, the ‘Season of Mayhem’ Progression Tracker gives players free rewards, including cosmetics and new augments to try.

Check out all the rewards you can earn below:

Level 1 – Red Envelope Augment – Pick up Red Envelopes around the map to increase your Gold and a random stat.

Level 2 – Weighted Popoffs Augment – Strike enemies to “popoff” allowing your abilities to cooldown faster.

Level 3 – “Poro Snack, Please” Emote

Level 4 – +300 Starting Gold – Gain 300 more Gold at the start of each Mayhem game.

Level 5 – Growth Spurt Augment – When cast, increase your size, health and Knockup nearby enemies.

Level 6 – Poro Blast Icon

Level 7 – Donation Augment – Gain a significant amount of Gold. No questions asked.

Level 8 – Bounce of the Poro King Augment – Bounce on enemies crazy style as the Poro King to Knockback and deal damage.

Level 9 – “So Bright!” Emote

Level 10 – Speed Demon Augment – Damage an enemy to temporarily gain movement speed.

Level 11 – Spirit Bloom Slumber Icon

Level 12 – Shrink Engine Augment – Gain Ability Haste, Move Speed, and Shrink on every takedown.

Level 13 – Gold Reroll – Chance to reroll an Augment into a higher-tier Augment.

Level 14 – Crack Open That Egg Augment – Your shields can now detonate, dealing damage to nearby enemies.

Level 15 – “Avalanche!” Emote

Level 16 – Void Immolation Augment – Convert Sunfire Aegis and Hollow Radiance into Void Immolation.

Level 17 – Gift-Giving Poros Icon

Level 18 – Anvil Voucher – You’ll get an Anvil Voucher item at the start of each game that you can redeem to gain extra stats.

Level 19 – Inferno Triggered Augment – Automatically cast Samira’s R when you reach “S” in style.

Level 20 – Champion Selfie Icon

Level 21 – Thornmail Upgrade – Thornmail and Bramble Vest will reflect more damage from attacks.

Level 22 – “Pls Send Help” Emote

Level 23 – Elixirs- Gain free Elixir at levels 9/12/16.

Level 24 – Dropkick Augment – Your attacks execute enemy champions, restoring health, and Knocking Back enemies.

Level 25 – Sonata – Automatically alternate casting Sona’s E and W.

Level 26 – Poro King Banner

Level 27 – Stuck in Here with Me Augment – Gain damage reduction and taunt enemies after casting your ultimate.

Level 28 – Loving Family Emote

Level 29 – Empowered By The Faith Augment – Heal and Shield allies to earn “Devotion” which will execute low-health enemies.

Level 30 – “Blasting Off!” Icon

Level 31 – Golden Reroll – Further increased chance to reroll into a higher-tier augment

Level 32 – ??? – Your Missing Pings now deal damage.

Augment Sets

ARAM: Mayhem now has set bonuses for augments. Grabbing 4 of the same augment sets will now have a bonus effect. There are 7 sets on launch:

Deathknell:
⁠• Augments: Clown College, Final City Transmit, Self Destruct, Dive Bomber
⁠• Set Bonus: Reduce your death timer.… pic.twitter.com/lzPYneMoXt

— Spideraxe (@Spideraxe30) January 21, 2026

Riot is introducing TFT-style augments to Mayhem in LoL Patch 26.3, which reward players for collecting combos of augments with bonus effects.

There are nine Augment Sets in total, with some getting more powerful the more eligible augments you gain.

Deathknell

(2) Reduce death timer by 40%

Augments: Clown College, Train of the Dead, Self Destruct, Dive Bomber

Firecracker

Firecracker missiles will bounce extra times to nearby enemies and deal a portion of their original damage.

(2) 2 bounces, dealing 40% of original damage.

(4) 3 bounces, dealing 80% of original damage

Augments: Fan the Hammer, Magic Missile, Critical Missile, Light’em Up, Typhoon, Twin Fire

High Roller

(2) Minions have a chance to drop a Stat Anvil on death.

(3) +50% chance for Gold or Prismatic Anvils.

(4) +50% chance for Gold or Prismatic Anvils.

Augments: Transmute Chaos, Pandora’s Box, Stats on Stats on Stats, Transmute Prismatic, Stats on Stats, Stats, Transmute Gold

Stackasaurus Rex

(2) Gain 50% More.

(3) Gain 100% More.

(4) Gain 200% More.

Augments: Infinite Recursion, Master of Duality, Tap Dancer, Soul Eater, Quest: Steal your heart, Phenomenal Evil, Shrink Engine, Hubris, Slap Around

Wee Woo Wee Woo

(2) 40% Speed, 25% Heal and Shield Power.

(3) 50% Speed, 35% Heal and Shield Power.

(4) 60% Speed, 45% Heal and Shield Power.

Augments: Windspeaker’s Blessing, I’m a Baby Kitty Where is Mama, Upgrade: Mikaels Blessing, All For You, Critical Healing, Sonata, First Aid Kit.

Fully Automated

(2) Reduce Autocast cooldowns by 30%

(3) Autocast cooldown scales with Ability Haste.

Augments: Prom Queen, Quantum Computing, Ok Boomerang, Sonata, Divine Intervention, Self Destruct, Frost Wraith, Firefox

Archmage

(2) Refund 40% of a random ability’s cooldown when you cast a spell.

Augments: Overflow, Mind to Matter, Buff Buddy, Juiced, Ocean Soul

Make it Rain

(2) 25% more gold from augments and kills.

(3) 50% more gold from augments and kills.

(4) 100% more gold from augments and kills.

Augments: Goldrend, Heads Up Cupcake!, Donation, Red Envelope, From Beginning to End, Upgrade Immolate, Upgrade Collector

Snowday

(2) Gain 50 Ability Haste on Snowball and snowballs deal an extra 30% more damage.

(3) Gain 100 Ability Haste on Snowball and snowballs deal an extra 50% more damage.

(2) Gain 150 Ability Haste on Snowball and snowballs deal an extra 100% more damage.

Augments: Biggest Snowball, Golden Snowball, Snowball Upgrade, Pinball Snowball, Snowball Roulette

Augment Balance Changes

Empyrean Promise

Delay Moving Time: 0.5 seconds → 0.25 seconds

Move Speed: 3500 → 4000

Cooldown: 30 → 20

Augment user gets the shield immediately when travelling instead of landing.

Lesser Heal

Cooldown: 45 → 30

Base Heal: 150-430 (based on level) → 200-550 (based on level)

Cerberus

Attack Speed Amp: 140% / 80% → 200% / 115%

Bonus Damage: 120 – 360 → 120 – 360 ( 40% AD) (+30% AP)

Goldrend

Gold per proc: 15 Gold → 30 Gold

From Beginning to End

First Strike Gold proc base: 10 → 20

Bonus True Damage: 7% → 10%

Gold Conversion: 50% / 35% → 60% / 42%

Lightning Strike

Attack Speed Required: 3.5 → 1.75

Mystic Punch

On-hit ability cooldown reduction: 20% → 1.25 seconds

Mayhem Quality of Life Update

You can now take any summoner spells you want in ARAM Mayhem.

For active Summoner Spell augments like Blade Waltz or Biggest Snowball, you’ll be able to select which slot to replace.

Champion Bounties

Riot accelerated how quickly champion kill gold devalued in the new season, since there were already guaranteed wins around getting role quest progress and denying it from opponents.

However, Riot claims they swung the tuning a little too hard, which has created scenarios where champion kills feel valueless.

Devalue rate on death: 1 per 2.5 gold given out → 1 per 3.5 gold given out

Re-increment rate from farming: 1 per 5 gold earned → 1 per 7 gold earned

Turret Plates

It’s too hard for teams to convert a winning teamfight into meaningful progress into the enemy base, but split-pushing razes towers a little too quickly.

To solve both issues, Riot is boosting temporary turret resists to resist solo pushes a little better and blockade teams less well.

Bulwark Temporary Resistances: 20-100 per plate based on nearby enemy champions → 30-50 per plate based on nearby enemy champions

Reactive VFX when hit by champions are now smaller, especially if the turret was recently attacked.

Faelights & Vision

Riot claims the vision meta with faelights is evolving in a mostly healthy way, but is concerned with how early game vision disrupts and zones junglers.

A major contributor to this is the shape of the bonus vision regions from the river pixel brush faelights, which provides large, reliable vision coverage in the early game.

Riot says it’s not necessary for Faelights’ systemic goals that these particular Faelight spots are so powerful, so this is a good candidate for nerfs.

The other major contributor is the season’s yellow trinket buffs. Riot buffed yellow trinkets so players could make vision plays without their support, but this isn’t as relevant in laning phase, so they’ve decided to pull back on the cooldown for early levels.

Faelights at River Pixel Brush Locations

Reveal region shape: expanded past scuttle pad and epic pit entrance → cuts off before scuttle pad and epic pit entrance
Stealth Ward Trinket

Cooldown: 170-90s (by level) → 210-90s (by level)

Other Changes

Scryer’s Blooms: Removed the Scryer’s Blooms just outside base gates (from Cloud/Chemtech rift)

Fiddlesticks: While pretending to be an effigy on a Faelight, Fiddlesticks will now display on-model visual effects as if a Faelight-enhanced effigy (does not gain bonus vision or destroy existing wards)

Neeko: While disguised as a ward on a Faelight, Neeko will now display on-model visual effects as if a Faelight-enhanced ward (does not gain bonus vision or destroy existing wards)

Support Control Wards

For support players on SR, control wards will now start in your role quest slot from the beginning of the match.

Combined with the ability to double-bind this hotkey, this should help smooth out the experience for supports.

LoL Patch 26.3 champion buffs

Ahri

As the new season has shaken out, Ahri is performing worse than last year and worse than she ought to.

Now that she’s back on high burst builds, Riot is reverting an old nerf from her “Rod of Ages every game” phase.

W – Fox-Fire

Cooldown: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 → 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5

Bel’Veth

Bel’Veth is one of several AD junglers who suffered in the new season, so Riot is aiming to bring up her late game in ways that synergise with squishy high attack speed builds by giving her a better payout for that attack speed and enough health to not need to buy as much of it.

Base Stats

Health Growth: 99 → 105

R – Endless Banquet

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

Briar

Briar is struggling in the new season and Riot says she deserves to win more games than she currently does.

They want to make sure her lifesteal-focused durability can manifest by giving her enough health and resists to make that healing efficient.

And Riot is also buffing top lane Briar by letting her trade more efficiently as well.

Base Stats

Health Growth: 95 → 100

Armor Growth: 4.2 → 4.5

Q – Head Rush

Health Cost: 6% current health → 5% current health

W – Blood Frenzy / Snack Attack

Health Cost: 6% current health → 5% current health

E – Chilling Scream

Health Cost: 6% current health → 5% current health

R – Certain Death

Health Cost: 6% current health → 5% current health

Draven

Draven’s Q was initially bugged to deal less damage at the start of the season, which was micropatched within the first week.

Players are also trying Essence Reaver over Bloodthirster, which currently performs worse.

After accounting for all of these factors, Draven’s still not doing as well as he was last year, so Riot is coming to prop him back up by reverting one of our preemptive pre-season nerfs.

Base Stats

AD Growth: 3 → 3.4

Ezreal

Ezreal’s been in a pretty weak spot for most players this season, especially after Essence Reaver got nerfed in the micropatch.

While Riot thinks there’s some win rate to be gained through players optimising their Ezreal builds, they still want to help uplift the ADC.

Base Stats

AD Growth: 3.25 → 3.5

E – Arcane Shift

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

Hecarim

Hecarim isn’t doing very well in the new season, so he’s got a buff coming up.

Riot is doing this by giving him a strong mid-game power spike that he can use to try to run the map and get his team a lead.

And even if he fails to do so, at least he’s got slightly better base damage to fall back on.

For those who don’t want to do the math, the net result of both Q changes is a strict buff until around 225 bonus AD.

Q – Rampage

Damage per hit: 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 90% Bonus AD) → 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 90% Bonus AD)

Damage amp per Rampage stack: 3% (+ 4% per 100 Bonus AD) → 3% (+ 3% per 100 Bonus AD)

Heimerdinger

Heimerdinger’s been performing worse in the new season, and he was balanced before then, so Riot is here to return him to his former glory.

Riot acknowledges that top lane Heimer can feel suffocating when his turrets are all set up, so they’re looking to re-buff him in ways that allow him to be proactive instead of turtling.

Base Stats

Health Growth: 101 → 105

W – Hextech Micro-Rockets

Initial hit damage: 40 / 65 / 90 / 115 / 140 (+ 55% AP) → 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+ 55% AP)

Follow-up  damage: unchanged

Jayce

Jayce’s build has bounced around a lot over time. He’s been a tank, he’s been (and currently is) a lethality burst mage, and he’s been a fighter.

Riot says they’d like Jayce to be an AD fighter, caring about both his damage output and durability to stick it out in melee once in a while.

He’s also still better in the jungle than in the top lane after last patch’s nerf, so Riot is looking to to give him a viable fighter build and a viable but not overbearing jungle role.

To achieve these goals, Riot is reducing his reliance on bonus AD and shifting power from his poke into his melee damage and follow-up.

Q – To the Skies!

Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 295 / 240 / 285 (+135% Bonus AD)→ 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 / 310 (+ 135% Bonus AD)

Monster bonus damage: 25 → 10

Q – Shock Blast

Damage: 80 / 126 / 172 / 218 / 264 / 310  (+ 140% Bonus AD) → 80 / 121 / 162 / 203 / 244 / 285 (+ 130% Bonus AD)

Monster bonus damage: 25 → 10

R – Cannon Stance: Mercury Cannon

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

Kayn

Blue Kayn specifically became much weaker in the new season, and Riot wants to fix that with some direct buffs.

Q – Reaping Slash

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

Maokai

Maokai has been struggling to find his place both in the top lane and in the jungle.

So Riot is giving him a little bit of extra power to find relevance in the new season by boosting his damage

Q – Bramble Smash

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

Mel

The previously revealed Mel rework in LoL is finally here to make her less frustrating to play against.

Riot wants to open up additional counterplay opportunities for opponents beyond the ban button, subsequently letting Mel mains play her more too.

One big change is her reflect damage immunity is now a shield, which will ensure when Fizz successfully lands his ultimate that she no longer completely negates the damage with a late W.

Riot is also making it so that you can see her Q coming and dodge out of the way at long ranges like many spammable projectile spells.

Base Stats

Attack Speed Ratio: 0.4 → 0.625

Passive – Overwhelm

Projectile Damage: 8-50 (based on level) (+ 5% AP) → 8-25 (based on level) (+ 3% AP)

Total Projectile Damage: 24-150 (based on level) (+ 15% AP) → 24-75 (based on level) (+ 9% AP)

Reduced the visual clutter by no longer displaying the passive mark on non-champions for enemies.

Fixed certain champion-spawned units dying to Overwhelm from an unempowered basic attack.

Q – Radiant Volley

Now deals additional damage the first time an explosion hits, with reduced effectiveness from subsequent hits.

Initial Hit: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 60% AP)

Subsequent Hits: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 (+ 5% AP)

Total Damage: 78 / 109 / 144 / 185 / 230 (+51-85% AP) →  85 / 126 / 169 / 214 / 261 (+ 85-105% AP)

Mana Cost: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 → 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90

Minion Damage: 75% → 100%

Cast Time: 0.25s → 0.35s

Projectile Speed: 4500 → 3800

Explosion Radius: 230 → 200

Area Spread: 30 → 25

Channel Time: 0.75s → 0.5s

Damage type is now DoT AoE (reduced effectiveness in resetting Arcane Comet).

Stronger area telegraph visual.

W – Rebuttal

No longer provides Damage Immunity.

Shield: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+ 60% AP)

Physical damage reflected is reduced by 30% before magic damage conversion.

Now destroys projectiles that target each unit in an area instead of reflecting them when those projectiles aren’t targeting Mel. (ex. Ryze E, Brand E, Katarina R, Samira R, Yunara Q)

Decaying Move Speed: 30% over 0.75s→ 40% over 1.5s

E – Solar Snare

Root Missile Radius: 80 → 70

End of Travel Linger Duration: 0.5s → 0.25s

DoT Radius: 260 → 230

Cast Range: 1050 → 1000

Projectile Speed: 1000 → 1100

Cooldown: 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10 → 11 / 10.5 / 10 / 9.5 / 9

Root Duration: 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 → 1.5

Damage: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 → 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240

Damage per Second: 16 / 26 / 36 / 46 / 56 → 16 / 28 / 40 / 52 / 64

No longer visually pops at the end when descending terrain.

R – Golden Eclipse

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

Naafiri

Naafiri’s doing pretty well in the mid lane at the moment, but her jungling hasn’t kept up.

Passive – We Are More

Packmate Monster Damage: 1.35x → 1.55x

Nunu and Willump

Riot aimed to give Nunu & Willump a hefty nerf, but overshot their goals.

W – Biggest Snowball Ever!

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

E – Snowball Barrage

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

Trundle

Trundle’s doing very poorly in both of his main roles and, as a very straightforward champion, should be much more successful than he is now.

Riot wants to make sure he’s good at playing the role of the front-line juggernaut who’s great at tank-busting, so they’re pushing up his late-game sustained damage output and resilience

Base Stats

Armor Growth: 3.9 → 4.5

Attack Damage Growth: 4 → 4.5

Tryndamere

After his micropatch buffs back in 26.1, Tryndamere’s power level is close but not quite back to its former glory, so Riot wants to bring him back up to where he was and continue pushing him toward strong sustained damage.

Base Stats

Attack Damage Growth: 4 → 4.5

Vi

Vi is struggling outside of pro play.

Riot wants to make her much more successful for the average League player without indexing too hard into her strengths in tightly coordinated environments, which means they’re aiming to buff her self-sufficiency and long-term brawling.

Base Stats

Health Growth: 99 → 105

Attack Damage Growth: 3 → 3.5

Xin Zhao

Xin Zhao is underpowered in solo queue.

Much like Vi’s changes in this patch, Riot wants to play up Xin Zhao’s ability to stick up for himself and scrap with enemy champions in long-term fights.

Passive – Determination

Heal every third hit: 3 / 3.5 / 4% max HP (Level 1/6/11) → 3/4/5% max HP

E – Audacious Charge

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

Yone

Yone’s on the weaker side of the roster right now, so Riot thinks he could use a buff.

They know it can feel unfair to simply lose to him right-clicking you during his E, but they don’t want him to be super bursty either.

So Riot is pushing power into his Q, which has more gameplay around predictions and dodging.

Q – Mortal Steel

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

Zaahen

Zaahen was meant to have a secondary player base in the jungle, and while he’s great in the top lane, he’s not performing well enough elsewhere.

So Riot is delivering some straightforward jungle-specific buffs to bring him back up where he was at the end of last year.

Q – The Darkin Glaive

Monster Modifier: 1.75x → 2x

E – Aureate Rush

Bonus Monster Damage: 50 → 75

LoL Patch 26.3 champion nerfs

Braum

Braum has become a top-tier support at the start of the new season with new items like Bandlepipes instrumental in helping him and his allies stick onto enemies and take them down.

Given that Braum is still looking quite strong even after the nerf to Bandlepipes, Riot is looking to revert the health buffs they gave him at the end of last year and bring down some of his overall fighting power.

Base Stats

Health: 630 → 610

Q – Winter’s Bite

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

Diana

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

Passive – Moonsilver Blade

Monster Damage: 280% → 230%

Ekko

Riot is taking a swing at both Ekko’s clear speed and burst after the early game to prevent him from going haywire after getting a lead.

Passive – Z-Drive Resonance

AP Ratio: 80%  → 90%

Monster Damage: 300%  → 270%

Nilah

Even after her micropatch nerfs, Nilah is still too strong in the new season. Riot is looking to bring her overall power down now that the dust has settled.

Base Stats

Attack Damage: 60 → 58

Armor Growth: 4.5 → 4.2

Riven

Riven’s been crushing it with Axiom Arc. Riot likes that she’s strong in the early game, but ultimately, she’s bursting down her competition too quickly once mid-game arrives.

Additionally, with all the extra gold and experience in the game right now, players have cited that late-game fights resolve too quickly.

So, all that considered, Riot is here to take out some of her late-game burst power.

Passive – Runic Blade

Total AD Ratio: 30-50% (based on level) → 30-45% (based on level)

Q – Broken Wings

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

Ryze

Ryze has risen up the ranks this season and is due for a reduction in power.

While Riot is nerfing Phase Rush, they’re also buffing Actualizer so think he deserves a direct nerf in this patch.

With his late-game damage going up and the overall game being more lethal than Riot would like, they’re reducing some late-game damage in kind.

W – Rune Prison

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

Varus

Last patch’s Varus buffs heavily overshot Riot’s target and have resulted in him becoming one of the game’s strongest top laners as well.

The publishers apologised for the inaccurate tuning, and say that they’ve got more room to work with, so is looking to weaken his top lane performance as much as possible by rendering him more susceptible to all-ins, reducing his affinity for the top lane role quest, and weakening his top-specific build of AP and maxing W first.

Base Stats

Armor Growth: 4.6 → 4

W – Blighted Quiver

On-hit damage: 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44 (+ 35% AP) → 8 / 17 / 26 / 35 / 44 (+ 25% AP)

Max health damage: 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5% (+1.5% per 100 AP) → 3 / 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5% (+ 1.3% per 100 AP)

Volibear

Riot is happy that Volibear is seeing action at all levels with a new build as our signature garage sale enjoyer, but wants to make sure he’s a little less overBearing, primarily in jungle.

They’re targeting his main build path’s Q max burst without changing how it feels to get into combat, as well as his clear speed so that he has to work a little harder to show up to fights, and compensating with some AD ratio for anyone who’s gotten a good deal on a Triforce or Gunblade recently.

Q – Thundering Smash

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

E – Sky Splitter

Cooldown: 14 → 16

Non-champion damage cap: 190 / 305 / 420 / 535 / 650 (+ 70% AP) → 150 / 265 / 380 / 495 / 610 (+ 70% AP)

Zed

Riot regrets having jungle Zed in three of the past four patches now, but players keep getting better at playing and itemising this shadow ninja to the point where he wins more frequently today than he did before they shipped that first nerf.

Riot is comfortable with how mid lane Zed is sitting, but he’s still overshadowing too many champions in the jungle.

While this nerf looks very large on paper, the net impact of nerfing his jungle mod from 2.0 to 1.2 was under 1% of win rate movement, and they’re looking for more than that here.

Passive – Contempt for the Weak

Damage to monsters: 1.2x → 0.5x

Maximum damage to epic monsters: 300 → 100

Items

Actualizer

Actualizer is not looking particularly powerful and has a very painful combine cost.

While Riot knows players haven’t had enough time to fully optimise the use cases yet, they are looking to give it a bit of a boost because it’s not looking competitive on any champions besides a certain rune mage.

Total Gold Cost: 3100 Gold → 2800 Gold

Combine Cost: 1050 Gold → 750 Gold

Dusk and Dawn

Riot has landed Dusk and Dawn into a spot where it has a healthy number of good users, but it’s a bit too good at bursting and taking a little too much of Lich Bane’s space, so they’re hitting it with a slight nerf that should shift it towards more fighter builds.

Spellblade Damage: 100% Base AD + 10% AP → 75% Base AD +10% AP

Health: 300 → 350 Gold

Endless Hunger

This item is looking okay late in builds for the intended caster fighter audience, but could be a bit better earlier in the game and can be awkward to build.

A small change to the build path and a bit more AD should help this item really shine for the caster champions it was made for.

Recipe: Caulfield’s Warhammer + Pickaxe + 1075 Gold → Caulfield’s Warhammer + Pickaxe + Longsword + 825 Gold

Total Gold Cost: 3000 → 3100

Attack Damage: 60 → 65

Protoplasm Harness

The current shape of this Lifeline effect ended up being a bit too sharp, where it’s extraordinarily powerful for the users that can leverage the resistance scaling and somewhat unexciting for most other potential users.

Riot is shifting some power around to make the item more consistently useful and less eye-popping in the outlier cases.

Lifeline max health gain: 200 → 200-300 (based on level)

Lifeline healing: 200-400 (based on level) (+ 250% Armor) (+ 250% Magic Resistance) → 200-400 (based on level)(+ 175% Armor) (+ 175% Magic Resistance)

Ability Haste: 15 → 20

Armored Advance

When Riot updated the mid lane quest boot, they wanted to make sure that champions had the option to pick items that strongly suited them.

They did not want to let early defensive purchases trivialise their competition, as mid lane is home to many assassins.

So in this patch, Riot is adjusting the upgraded versions of Mercury’s Treads and Plated Steelcaps to make them weaker anti-burst options for champions who aren’t buying any other durability items.

These changes represent a tuning close to the end of last season, but with numbers that are more readily apparent at first glance, as no one can acquire these boots at level 1, and the prior max HP ratio carried most of the shield’s value, even to squishies.

Noxian Endurance Shield: 10-120 (based on level 1-18) (+ 7% max HP) → 100-200 (based on level, scaling begins at level 9) (+ 8% Bonus HP)

Chainlaced Crushers

Noxian Endurance Shield: 10-120 (based on level 1-18) (+ 7% max HP) → 100-200 (based on level, scaling begins at level 9) (+ 8% Bonus HP)

Runes

Cash Back

Cash Back was buffed late last year and finally has an audience of its own. However, that buff shot a little overboard.

Riot is happy that it’s turned some heads, but now it’s time for the rune to be balanced across its rune competitors.

Gold Refund: 8% → 7.5%

Phase Rush

Riot thinks Phase Rush restricts the viable mid lane pool at the highest levels of play, as it’s very easy for any ranged champion to trigger Phase Rush and escape most ganks or would-be melee opponents.

Among its most common ranged users, Orianna, Vladimir, and Taliyah all have viable alternatives, and for Ryze, they intend for a direct reduction of power due to his general strong performance and an Actualizer buff in this patch.

Ultimately, they are nerfing this rune for ranged champions only and retaining its power for melee users to swiftly navigate fights and skirmishes.

Ranged Effectiveness: 75% (18.75 – 37.5% Movement Speed) → 50% (12.5% – 25% Movement Speed)

Triple Tonic

Like with Cash Back, Riot buffed Triple Tonic strongly late last year, and it’s been enough to get people to switch over to their old favourites.

Riot is bringing its power level to a more balanced state, namely by reducing the eye-popping level of burst the level 6 elixir provides.

Elixir of Force Adaptive Force: 30 → 25

Arena

Riot has seen a bit of frustration with Hellfire Hatchet so has decided to make some adjustments.

Their goal is to meaningfully reduce the power you get from stacking Lethality, while keeping it valuable as a tool for assassins to fight tanks when they have no other options. We’ll return to Arena’s typical balance patch coming in 26.4.

Items

Hellfire Hatchet

Char Damage: (5% – 10% (+ 0.2% – 0.4% per 1 Lethality) based on maximum health difference) of the targets current health → (15% – 37% (+ 0.05% – 0.125% per 1 Lethality) based on maximum health difference) of the targets current health. 

Maximum health difference still reached at 2500 HP.

Cooldown: Now is applied per target rather than an internal cooldown

Cooldown: 15 seconds → 10 seconds

Ranked System Updates

Apex Negative LP Gains

Riot has found and are resolving the cause of some of the Apex tier negative LP issues mentioned by players.

There will still be some negative LP gains at the highest levels of the ladder as the very, very best players should be pushing the limits of what’s possible in the system, but it shouldn’t be as widespread as it currently is.

Aegis of Valor Eligibility

Riot is upping the value required for Aegis claims from C to B.

The publisher has found C’s too easy a criteria, and thinks B still accounts for players needing to “play well enough” while accounting for players being on an unfamiliar role.

Mastery rating to unlock Aegis of Valor is pushed from  C to B. 

Duo at the top of Challenger

After observing the power of duos in Season 1 and how they’re performing across the ladder, the very top of the ladder duos (eg. rank 1&2 together or 2x top 10) are too strong together.

So Riot is making some adjustments to make these games more fair.

Climb Indicator

Riot is enabling the Climb Indicator feature.

This feature will help players understand and identify whether someone’s rank is low, but their MMR is higher (they’re still climbing).

This will help players in general have a better idea of the fairness of a match when there’s, say, a “Silver” in a Platinum game. 

WASD

After the polarising addition of WASD controls to LoL, Riot is continuing to update the feature.

The WASD flash directions setting is coming to all WASD movement abilities.

This setting lets you choose between your cursor location, your movement direction, or your movement direction unless your cursor location is in your movement direction, in which case the cursor is prioritised.

There is a known issue with Nidalee and this setting that will be fixed in a future patch.