League of Legends Patch 26.15
League of Legends Patch 26.15 was released on Jul 28, 2026. This update included changes to 16 champions, with 5 buffs, 5 nerfs, 6 adjustments. It also updated 4 items. The patch also changed 1 game system: Gameplay & Mechanics. It also changed 2 runes: Jack of All Trades, Deathfire Touch.
Jump to changes
Alistar
Kai'Sa
Maokai
Volibear
ZacNerfs (5)
Locke
Mordekaiser
Naafiri
Riven
Sylas
Bel'Veth
Cassiopeia
Diana
Neeko
Nilah
ThreshItems
Bastionbreaker
Terminus
Yun Tal WildarrowsChanges (1)
Zeke's ConvergenceRunes
Nerfs (1)
Jack of All TradesChanges (1)
Deathfire TouchSystems
Changes (1)
Gameplay & MechanicsChampions
Ever since the loss of Mobility Boots / Symbiotic Soles, Alistar has felt constrained in his gameplay, to the point he's failing to compete in the current meta even though it favors roaming supports - a space we expect him to excel in.
Stats
- •Base movement speed increased to 335 from 330.
Despite the recent buff, Kai’sa remains weaker than expected, especially late game for a marksman who is supposed to hyperscale to make up for her short range. We’re tapping up her scaling to help her output as she nears her final form.
Second Skin
- •Caustic Wounds base damage increased to 4 to 30 (based on level) from 4 to 24 (based on level).
- •Caustic Wounds base damage per Plasma stack before application increased to 1 to 8 (based on level) from 1 to 6 (based on level).
Maokai has gradually faded out of both top and jungle play since our last major work on him. We think that ultimately his top laning experience is not the greatest for all parties involved, so for now we are mainly focused on buffing his jungle back up, where we think he has a fairly unique output as a zone controlling tank.
Bramble Smash
- •Bonus monster damage increased to 150/160/170/180/190 from 140/150/160/170/180.
- •AP ratio increased to 50% AP from 40% AP.
Since our direct and systemic adjustments, the bear has been hibernating from dusk till dawn for a couple patches… we’re giving him more chances to gap close, especially for laners, without raising his already thrilling ceiling of spell chaining.
Thundering Smash
- •Cooldown reduced to 12/11.5/11/10.5/10 seconds from 14/13/12/11/10.
We believe that Zac brings unique gameplay and class diversity to the jungle. That said, his presence in the jungle has fallen quite a bit over the more recent patches. We believe giving him a bit more opportunity to execute on his distinct gank angles as well as a bit of durability in a team fight can help lift up our favorite secret weapon.
Stats
- •Armor growth increased to 5.2 from 4.7.
Elastic Slingshot
- •Cooldown reduced to 21/18/15/12/9 seconds from 22/19/16/13/10.
Locke continues to climb the mastery curve, so we’re continuing nerfs to keep him in line. Particularly, we observe his early game to be clearly over, even for a snowball reliant assassin, and we also want to avoid W 2nd max as optimal as it gives him too much safety for the risks he should need to take.
Stats
- •Base health reduced to 620 from 655.
Ritual Nails
- •Base damage reduced to 40/48/56/64/72 from 50/58/66/74/82.
Soul Ignition
- •Bonus movement speed reduced to 40% at all ranks from 40/45/50/55/60%.
- •Grey Health base value reduced to 40/60/80/100/120 from 40/70/100/130/160.
- •Grey Health AP ratio reduced to 100% AP from 120% AP.
Purgatory
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where it was not recolored when the artifact was reflected by Rebuttal.
We overshot last patch with the R buffs, and after re-assessing what he looks like with a meaningfully stronger ult, decided to instead revert the R buff entirely in favor of improving his ability to catch and keep opponents in his range. Accounting for the bugfix for his R, we believe these two adjustments to his E will be a net positive from 26.13 and will keep an eye on his performance.
Death's Grasp
- •Cooldown reduced to 16/14/12/10/8 seconds from 18/16/14/12/10.
Realm of Death
- •Stolen stats reduced to 10% from 13%.
- •Bug Fix: Inverted the order of operations for the maximum health reduction to prevent the ability from dealing up to double its intended damage to enemies whose current health exceeds their post-reduction maximum health.
Naafiri remains a hot topic in the meta, both for solo queue and pro play. While we are quite happy with how many people have taken her up since her rework, she’s still on the strong end, especially when she really gets the ball rolling with back-to-back-to-back ultimates.
Hounds' Pursuit
- •Base damage reduced to 125/200/275 from 150/225/300.
- •Bonus AD ratio reduced to 100% bonus AD from 120%.
Endless Hunger's addition to the game has given Riven an extremely potent new tool that fits her play pattern almost perfectly. While we feel we've gotten it into a fairly good spot among most users, Riven is notably overperforming. Targeting her R’s AD scaling (heavy synergy with Endless Hunger haste, mid quest scaling) will impact all her spells and how unstoppable her snowballing can feel, while still leaving a lot of room for her high moments.
Blade of the Exile
- •Bonus attack damage ratio reduced to 20% bonus AD from 25%.
Wind Slash
- •Bonus AD ratio reduced to 55% bonus AD from 60%.
After his buff in 26.12, it was clear that we moderately overshot our target. We’re pulling back the chains a tad to prevent him from bullying too hard.
Chain Lash
- •First lash base damage reduced to 40/60/80/100/120 from 40/65/90/115/140.
- •First lash AP ratio reduced to 40% AP from 45% AP.
This patch, we're launching a set of Bel'Veth changes that are aimed at making her gameplay pattern a bit less focused around her early game, in order to allow her to fulfill her fantasy as a late game scaling champion. The major changes here are making her Q at early levels function more like a regular dueling ability in order to reduce just how heavily she can put certain champions behind with early invades. Historically, this Q tuning has caused us to repeatedly balance around her very early strength at a loss to many of her other more core functions. While we acknowledge that there's a subset of Bel'Veth players who love this capability, broadly, we think it's paying too many tradeoffs for the rest of her audience. We are looking to move some of her early game power to her mid and late game by leaning more on her evolution fantasy and her stacking mechanic. We believe that high moments like having form until death when you have gotten enough stacks feels like a transformative yet exciting moment that lines up a bit more with her kit expectations.
General
- •Total attack animation adjusted to feel better at lower attack speeds.
- •Model size reduced to 95% from 100%.
Stats
- •Base attack speed reduced to 0.67 from 0.85.
- •Attack speed ratio reduced to 0.67 from 0.85.
- •Base attack damage reduced to 55 from 60.
- •Basic attack damage modifier increased to 100% from 75%.
- •Attack cast time reduced to 0.22 from 0.25.
- •Base armor reduced to 28 from 32.
- •Armor growth increased to 5 from 4.7.
- •Base health reduced to 580 from 610.
- •Health growth increased to 110 from 105.
Death in Lavender
- •Bonus attack speed after cast:
- •New: Bel'Veth's ability casts grant her ghosting and 20% bonus attack speed for 3 seconds, refreshing on subsequent casts.
- •Old: Bel'Veth's ability casts each generate 2 stacks of Death in Lavender, lasting for 5 seconds, refreshing on basic attacks and subsequent casts, and stacking up to 6 times. While Bel'Veth has stacks, she becomes ghosted and gains 20 to 40% (based on level) bonus attack speed. Her basic attacks each consume 1 stack.
- •Lavender bonus attack speed per stack changed to 0.1 to 2% (based on level) from 0.28 to 1.1% (based on level).
Void Surge
- •Base dash speed changed to 850 at all ranks from 800/850/900/950/1000.
- •Cooldown increased to 4/3.25/2.5/1.75/1 seconds from 1 at all ranks.
- •Monster bonus damage changed to 70 at all ranks from 55/65/75/85/95.
- •Removed: Damage is no longer modified to 60/70/80/90/100% against minions.
- •Undocumented / Removed On-hit damage is no longer reduced to 75% effectiveness.
- •Base damage increased to 12/14/16/18/20 from 0/5/10/15/20.
- •AD ratio increased to 105% AD from 100% AD.
- •Attack speed to ability haste conversion reduced to 0.2 from 0.25.
Above and Below
- •Base damage increased to 80/140/200/260/320 from 70/110/150/190/230.
- •AP ratio increased to 150% AP from 125% AP.
- •Removed: Damage no longer scales with 100% bonus AD.
- •Slow strength reduced to 30% from 50%.
- •Slow duration changed to 2 seconds at all ranks from 1.25/1.5/1.75/2/2.25.
- •Knock up duration changed to 0.6/0.7/0.8/0.9/1 seconds from 0.75 at all ranks.
Royal Maelstrom
- •Damage reduction changed to 20/30/40/50/60% from 35/40/45/50/55%.
- •Base life steal increased to 20/25/30/35/40% from 20% at all ranks.
- •Removed: Gained life steal no longer scales with 100% life steal.
- •Base damage per strike increased to 10/12/14/16/18 from 6/7/8/9/10.
- •AD ratio increased to 12% AD from 8% AD.
- •Missing health modifier reduced to 0 to 100% (based on target's missing health) from 0 to 300% (based on target's missing health).
- •On-hit effect modifier changed to 12 to 24% (based on target's missing health) from 8 to 32% (based on target's missing health).
- •Bonus attack speed ratio needed for 1 strike changed to 40% from 33.3%.
- •Cooldown changed to 24/21/18/15/12 seconds from 20/19/18/17/16.
- •Monster damage increased to 200% from 150%.
Endless Banquet
- •Passive on-hit application is now on every attack instead of every other attack.
- •Passive base damage reduced to 2/4/6 from 6/10/14.
- •Passive bonus AD ratio reduced to 3% bonus AD from 12%.
- •Removed: The mark and stacks no longer expire upon attacking a new target.
- •Maximum epic monster stacks reduced to 8 from 10.
- •Removed: Void Surge and Royal Maelstrom no longer require Bel'Veth to have attacked the target first for passive application.
- •Active damage AP ratio increased to 150% AP from 100% AP.
- •Active damage health ratio reduced to 20% of target's missing health from 25%.
- •True Form bonus health increased to 100/250/400 from 100/150/200.
- •True Form health bonus AD ratio increased to 150% bonus AD from 120%.
- •True Form health AP ratio increased to 150% AP from 90% AP.
- •True Form bonus attack range changed to 25/75/125 from 75 at all ranks.
- •True Form increased total attack speed changed to 5/15/25% from 10/15/20%.
- •True Form size increased to 10/15/20% from 10% at all ranks.
- •Removed: True Form no longer grants 10/45/80 bonus movement speed while out-of-combat.
- •True Form duration:
- •New: Both forms lasts 45s / 90s / infinite at 0 / 40 / 80 stacks.
- •Old: True Form lasts 60 seconds, Enhanced Void Coral lasts 180 seconds.
- •Post-cast lockout duration reduced to 0.25 seconds from 0.5.
Petrifying Gaze
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the VFX didn't match the ability's hitbox.
Lunar Rush
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where it may fail to dash over terrain.
Shapesplitter
- •New Effect: When disguising as a Voidborn Rift Scuttler, Neeko now adopts the Rift Scuttler's Voidborn model instead of its base model.
- •Bug Fix: When disguising as Lulu, the spawned Pix, Faerie Companion now uses a skin based on Lulu's skin ID instead of Neeko's skin ID.
- •New Effect: When disguising as Nidalee in Aspect of the Cougar or Elise in Spider Form, Neeko now adopts their current models instead of their base models, and becomes melee with 125 range.
- •Undocumented / Bug Fix: Neeko's movement speed is no longer reduced by 25 when disguising as Elise.
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug that prevented her to disguise herself as DJ Concussive and Ethereal Forms.
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where if she was disguised as DJ Kinetic form the hair was missing.
- •Bug Fix: When disguising as Smolder, Neeko's horns will now reflect Smolder's current number of Dragon Practice stacks instead of being invisible.
- •Undocumented / Bug Fix: While disguised as Bel'Veth, Neeko's attacks now deal the intended amount of damage instead of 0.
- •Undocumented / Bug Fix: Disrupting Neeko's leap no longer enables her to store stats across units.
General
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where her attacks immediately after Formless Blade or Slipstream may not trigger Hail of Blades.
Flay
- •Undocumented / Bug Fix: Maximum damage no longer unintentionally reached after ~0.5 seconds.
Items
The item has been near bottom pickrate since release, and the distance between it and the next least popular Lethality item is quite far. We’re making it both more accessible and slightly stronger on its less noticeable effect, because we find that lethality users putting more of their gold into utility and progressing the team game is healthy in the long term.
General
- •Total cost reduced to 3000 gold from 3200 gold.
- •Combine cost reduced to 663 gold from 863 gold.
- •Shaped Charge base damage increased to 50 from 30.
Terminus is meant to be one of the premium capstone items for scaling On-Hit builds, but has been more of a mid game spike item than a true late game scaling option, leaving the on-hit space a bit sparse for options later on.
General
- •New Effect: Shadow on-hit damage now scales with 10% bonus AD and 10% AP.
Yun Tal Wildarrows has fallen significantly over this year from its spot as the go-to scaling crit item. We believe the game continues to benefit from its function as a scaling option, so we are buffing it up to compete with the broader array of early crit items currently on offer.
General
- •Total cost reduced to 3000 gold from 3100 gold.
- •Combine cost reduced to 750 gold from 850 gold.
- •Attack speed increased to 45% from 40%.
General
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the active effect would not damage monsters.
Runes
General
- •Adaptive force at 5 stacks reduced to 8 from 10.
- •Adaptive force at 10 stacks reduced to 20 from 25.
General
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where the burn duration could be overwritten when landing an ability with a shorter duration.
System Changes
Role Quests
- •Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Mid lane Tier 3 role quest boots could not be refunded with the undo button.