League of Legends Patch 26.9

PCEzrealBuffShare

We want to bring back some playstyles that have been lost to the sands of time. First up on that list is AP Ezreal. Bring out your global snipes—there's a lot of good mages out there but none of them are this skillful!

PCGragasBuffShare

Gragas top is most impacted by the removal of Phase Rush, and only time will tell whether Grasp or Comet comes out on top. As we wait to see how his laning shakes out, this change should let Gragas players better frontline for their teams, and have a bigger impact in the late-game where they struggle most.

PCTahm KenchBuffShare

Last patch's adjustment last patch ended up a very slight nerf (less than .5%) for both top and support. So we're making some support-focused improvements to compensate.

PCWarwickBuffShare

Our favorite wolf-boy Warwick has been struggling to find his place over game time. We are looking to soften the blow of his transition into the late game by bringing up some of his scaling.

PCAmbessaNerfShare

Ambessa has carried the Medarda legacy a bit too well. Her brutality and fantasy has resonated with her mains, but we believe her ult has felt slightly fast to the point that players hit by it often don't have clarity on what happened. We're extending her cast time to open up clearer counterplay, and will be keeping a watchful eye on opportunities for follow-up work.

PCBriarNerfShare

Briar has one of the steepest mastery curves in League. However, as time has gone on, more and more players have ended up at the high end of that curve and have been finding a lot of success. So we're looking to nerf a bit of her survivability, but keep her ability to kill a target.

PCZoeNerfShare

Looking to move some of Zoe's power out laning phase stat checking, and into more skillful outplay around her Bubble.

PCKennenChangeShare

Our second lost playstyle is AD Kennen. In this case, we're adding critical strike synergy to Kennen's W and E. While a more attack speed focused on-hit hybrid build may stand out as a more intuitive choice for an auto-attack focused Kennen, we actually think it would spill over too hard into his standard AP builds and want to avoid adjustments to his typical playstyle just to enable this one.

PCShyvanaChangeShare

With Shyvana having been out for a few patches, we've taken stock of where she's landed and identified two areas to address: broadening bruiser item viability and sharpening the distinction between AD and AP builds.On the bruiser side, we've reduced the emphasis on pure dps items like Kraken Slayer. Adjustments to her base stats, Q and W create more room for Sheen, ability haste, and health to meaningfully contribute to her kit.For build differentiation, AD Shyvana looks to engage in more sustained combat through auto attacks followed by big Q hits, using her W for sustain and sticking power and E for supplementary chase power. AP Shyvana, by contrast, centers damage around R and E, with W existing as a way to weave in and out of combat.

PCTaliyahChangeShare

Taliyah is in the same spot as Gragas (RIP Phase Rush), except she was also taken down a notch from the pro mid meta in her last nerf. We don't expect her to be able to utilize the changes as well as a lot of her competition, so we're walking back our last hit to her, while also making sure she doesn't approach sub-2:30 clears.

PCTeemoChangeShare

Our third lost playstyle—On-hit-focused Teemo builds have slowly fallen out of vogue as he's been tuned around Malignance and Liandries. We are adding bonus AD ratios to Teemo's E to open up itemization options for auto-attack builds featuring hybrid items like rageblade and the reworked Statikk Shiv.

PCUdyrChangeShare

Currently, we feel that Udyr's AD Q builds are extremely one note—which makes sense when you look at their scaling. We want to broaden his AD Q bruiser builds by shifting some of his AD ratios out of his Q and into W and E so the stance swapper has more than one stance.

PCXin ZhaoChangeShare

Our fourth lost playstyle is centered around Xin Zhao—particularly attack speed and AP Xin Zhao. Over the years Xin has moved off of auto attack builds solidly into bruiser AD-caster builds buying items like Sundered Sky or Black Cleaver. We think more attack speed-centric Xin Zhao builds offered an enjoyable melee fighter experience, and we want to bring it back. Whether it's full AP builds revolving around drain tanking, heavy attack speed on-hit carry builds, or just some minor pivots into Stridebreaker, Titanic Hydra, and Triforce, we want to see a bit more build options.

PCZeriChangeShare

Zeri's changes have pushed her over time to become more of a bursty assassin than the fantasy that initially called to many of her players. By moving power from her burst and late-game DPS towards her mobility and early laning, these changes should allow Zeri to shine once again as the zappy, speedy legend she is (while still doing ADC damage!)

PCDoran's BowNEWShare

We're looking to give more starting item options to auto attack-focused champions. Doran's Bow offers a high risk, high reward fantasy that will reward those who are able to sneak in extra autos and come out on top even without the additional health.

PCDoran's HelmNEWShare

We wanted to give more starting item options to champions who want to stack resistances. When it comes to the fantasy of being unkillable, current items assume a losing position. Though champions who want resistances tend to start on the back foot, we want to reward players who take advantage of the opportunity to come out even or ahead in laning phase with an item that pays off in valuable stats throughout the rest of the game.

PCGluttonous GreavesNEWShare

In addition to new starting items, we're adding new boots to the game that provide omnivamp. We've felt that many fighters and casters are limited in their boot selection, with only Ionian Boots as a real offensive option, and when they do pick something else, it's purely defensive, which isn't exactly exciting. These boots should fit a nice middle ground of aggressive and defensive, offering sustain through combat.

PCEndless HungerBuffShare

Melee AD Fighters face major trade offs when considering this item against building other more durability focused items. We do want them to consider Endless Hunger however, for those pop off games when they get to play greedy, so we're giving it a minor buff for melee champs.

PCVoltaic CycloswordBuffShare

Voltaic Cyclosword brings some cool Energized options to AD casters, but we think we can make it even broader by allowing it to open up the strict auto-attack gate that stops many melees from being good with it. We also don't love the slow effect, as it tended to trivialize a lot of the combat once players did manage to get into melee. With Opportunity removed, Voltaic should also be able to stand as the premier "upfront burst" item for AD casters.

PCDusk and DawnNerfShare

One of the standout items for the season so far, we continue to feel it overlaps with Lichbane a bit too much. We want to encourage Dusk and Dawn users to stick around for multiple triggers, and empower them to do just that.

PCOpportunityRemovedShare

We feel that Opportunity has always overlapped a bit too much with Youmuu's, even after we tried to push them apart a year and half ago, and in its current iteration sits in between Youmuus for mobility and Voltaic for upfront trade power.

PCTrailblazerRemovedShare

Similar to the reason we removed Opportunity, Trailblazer is sitting between two other tanky mobility options (Bandlepipes and Deadman's Plate). In this case, we feel not only is its output overlapping with similar effects in the space, it also had the highest complexity unique effect—asking allies to pay attention to a wispy trail which simply seemed over in terms of visual noise.

PCAxiom ArcChangeShare

Last year, we adjusted Axiom Arc to have a higher base refund on its ultimate effect with less scaling. We think this was a mistake, as offering an item early in the game that reduces ultimate cooldowns to this degree on high burst lethality champions can lead to very narrow windows of opportunity for opponents to act.

PCHubrisChangeShare

Hubris cost buffs put it in line with a lot of other 1st slot lethality items, but in its current state feels like it's crowding out other options by providing both scaling and immediate power. These changes should differentiate Hubris more from immediate powerspikes like Youmuu's, while making it even stronger than before if you get rolling.

PCStaff of Flowing WaterChangeShare

In the past, Staff's unique effect granted ability haste, and then we changed that to move speed, and then we removed the move speed. We are re-adding the ability haste, as we believe only granting ability power has made the item too narrow and granting move speed made it too generic.

PCStatikk ShivChangeShare

We've been unhappy with Shiv sitting as a pure waveclear first item purchase for a while now. With so much power in deleting the wave, it removes a lot of the space for back and forth lane trading. So instead, we're taking this opportunity to move it into a scaling purchase for on-hit builds, a build path that has been missing some itemization since we opened up the 7th item slot for bot laners.This new version of Shiv allows on-hit builds to apply their effects to multiple enemies at once, creating cool combos and helping them scale into teamfighting.