Riot Games has released the League of Legends patch notes for LoL Patch 26.21, with a lot of changes.
The first update after the LoL Worlds 2026 patch means that Riot is now trying to rebalance the ranked ladder for the end of the season.
And as a result of that, 25 different champions are receiving buffs, nerfs, or adjustments in this update alone.
Plus, Riot has addressed concerns over the delayed plans to make LoL replays private.
Riot Pulls Back on Privating LoL Replays
Previously, Riot announced that it was going to make LoL’s in-game replays private and only accessible to players in that match.
This sparked outrage amongst a lot of community members as it hurt content creators and high-level players.
Many argued that watching replays of pro players is the best way to improve and for pro teams to analyse.
But Riot was concerned with third-party sites downloading replays en masse and using AI to train scripts and other cheating tools.
However, Riot has now announced that instead of privating replays, players will be limited to downloading 10 replays per hour.
“We’ll continue to monitor how many replays are downloaded to ensure players have access to this important feature while preventing clear misuse,” Riot added.
LoL Patch 26.21 Champion Nerfs
Caitlyn
Caitlyn’s been at a very high pick and ban rate for months now despite adjustments to other marksmen and the bot meta so it’s time for nerfs.
Riot feels her late-game scaling has been too strong, so is moving some of her power from her full build headshots into her early-game Q damage to rebalance her power curve.
- Passive – Headshot
- Damage: 60 – 100% AD (+1% AD per 1% per Crit Chance) (+1% AD per 1% Bonus Crit Damage) ⇒ 60 – 80% AD (+0.8% AD per 1% per Crit Chance) (+0.8% AD per 1% Bonus Crit Damage)
- Q – Piltover Peacemaker
- Base Damage: 50 / 90 / 130 / 170 / 210 ⇒ 50 / 95 / 140 / 185 / 230
Jinx
Like Caitlyn, Jinx has been similarly dominant in the meta, even with the Hurricane nerf last patch. So Riot is making it slightly harder for her to snowball.
- Base Stats
- Attack Damage: 59 + 3.25/Level ⇒ 59 + 3/Level
- Health: 630 + 105/Level ⇒ 610 + 105/Level
Lee Sin
Lee Sin has been extremely popular since his adjustments. While Riot likes the extra flexibility the W changes have given him, it’s a bit too much power.
- W – Safeguard
- Cooldown: 7s ⇒ 8s
- E – Tempest
- Bugfix: No longer reveals invisible enemies if they stealth after being hit by Tempest.
- R – Dragon’s Rage
- Kick Damage: 175 / 400 / 625 (+200% bonus AD) ⇒ 150 / 350 / 550 (+200% bonus AD)
- Collision Damage: 175 / 400 / 625 (+200% bonus AD) (+12 / 15 / 18% Kicked Champion’s Health) ⇒ 150 / 350 / 550 (+200% bonus AD) (+12 / 15 / 18% Kicked Champion’s Health)
Locke
Riot is adjusting Locke’s extremely generous mana tuning and ability to shrug off harass, while also refining his power curve by improving his scaling damage slightly, because he falls off a bit too fast if he can’t close out games early.
- Q – Ritual Nails
- Unused Charge Refund: 20 – 35% mana and cooldown refund ⇒ 10 – 40% mana and cooldown refund
- Base Stats
- Mana Growth: 70 ⇒ 60
- W – Soul Ignition
- Mana Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 ⇒ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
- Grey Health Store Based on Current Health: 40 – 200 (both level-based) ⇒ 20 – 200
- Current Health Store: 150 – 450 (both level-based) ⇒ 100 – 500 (+60% AP)
- E – Ashen Pursuit
- Blink Damage: 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 (+40% AP) ⇒ 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 (+50% AP)
Nidalee
Nidalee has an extremely high win rate in high skill brackets ad has been a little too overpowered even if thought she’s not currently meta.
Because of nerfs to other meta junglers like Lee Sin, Riot is giving Nidalee a minor nerf to prevent her from getting too strong.
- W – Pounce
- Damage: 55 / 88.75 / 122.5 / 156.25 / 190 (+50% bonus AD) (+30% AP) ⇒ 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+50% bonus AD) (+30% AP)
- E – Primal Surge
- Attack Speed: 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% ⇒ 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60%
Qiyana
Damage on Qiyana’s Q turned out to be a lot more impactful than Riot anticipated, so they’re partially reverting the buff from 26.17.
- Q – Elemental Wrath / Edge of Ixtal
- Damage: 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 / 200 (+90% bonus AD) ⇒ 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+90% bonus AD)
Rammus
While Nidalee’s win rate has been borderline overpowered at high skill levels, Rammus has been dominating everyone else, so he’s getting a light nerf too.
- W – Defensive Ball Curl
- Bonus Armor: 27 / 32 / 37 / 42 / 47 (+30 – 60% Armor) ⇒ 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 (+30 – 50% Armor)
- Bonus Magic Resistance: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+30 – 60% Magic Resistance) ⇒ 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+30 – 50% Magic Resistance)
Tristana
Riot admits Tristana’s level 1 pattern of pressing Q and taking control of the lane is problematic, so they’re hitting her early [Q] attack speed so she’ll have to work a bit harder.
- Q – Rapid Fire
- Attack Speed: 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120% ⇒ 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120%
Viktor
Riot is looking to open exploitable weaknesses of Viktor by making him slightly more vulnerable in early-game skirmishes and across the board.
- Base Stats
- Move Speed: 335 ⇒ 330
- Q – Siphon Power
- Shield: 40 – 140 (based on level) (+25% AP) ⇒ 30 – 130 (+20% AP)
- Shield Uptime: 2.5s ⇒ 2s
Wukong
Like Lee Sin and Qiyana, Wukong has been a meta staple for a while so Riot is looking to tap down his strength in the jungle while compensating lane Wukong.
- Base Stats
- Health Regeneration: 3.5 + 0.65/Level ⇒ 5.5 + 0.65/Level
- Passive – Stone Skin
- Armor per Stack: 6 – 10 (based on Champion Level) ⇒ 4.5 – 10 (based on Champion Level)
Yone
Recent changes to Yone successfully got him considering crit in his first item purchases, but also put him at a somewhat unsustainable power level.
- Q – Mortal Steel
- Damage: 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+110% AD) ⇒ 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+105% AD)
LoL Patch 26.21 Champion Buffs
Azir
Riot kept Azir’s mana pool relatively low to make sure he needs to use soldier attacks properly for lane control early instead of just spamming [Q] Conquering Sands.
However, Riot admits this is overly restrictive now that there are strong rank-up incentives on his [W] Arise!, so is buffing his Mana Growth so he can more freely use his abilities to contest lane.
- Base Stats
- Mana Growth: 40/Level ⇒ 50/Level
Darius
Darius has moved from being a persistently durable damage threat that needs to be kited to more of a one-shot combo playstyle.
Since he has some room for power, Riot is giving him a slight boost so he can Q more often in sustained fights.
- Q – Decimate
- Cooldown: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5s ⇒ 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 4s
Miss Fortune
Miss Fortune has been in a relatively decent place throughout the year, but with the Hubris nerf this patch, Riot is looking to compensate with a couple of buffs to her damage output.
- E – Make It Rain
- Damage: 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+120% AP) ⇒ 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 / 210 (+120% AP)
- R – Bullet Time
- Critical Strike Damage: 130% (+0.3% per 1% Bonus Crit Damage) ⇒ 145% (+0.45% per 1% Bonus Crit Damage)
Nunu & Willump
Nunu lost some power when Riot nerfed Hextech Rocketbelt earlier this year, so Riot is restoring some of that damage elsewhere.
- R – Absolute Zero
- Maximum Damage: 625 / 925 / 1275 (+300% AP) ⇒ 750 / 1100 / 1450 (+300% AP)
Orianna
Riot is buffing Orianna’s scaling to help her chunk a bit harder with her bread-and-butter combo in the late game without giving too much additional power to her laning phase.
- Q – Command: Attack
- Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+55% AP) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+60% AP)
- W – Command: Dissonance
- Damage: 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+80% AP) ⇒ 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+85% AP)
Ryze
After the significant early-game nerfs to Ryze in 26.19, he hasn’t been rewarded enough for succeeding when he does scale, so Riot is buffing that.
- Q – Overload
- Flux Bonus Damage: 15% / 40% / 65% / 90% increased damage ⇒ 10% / 40% / 70% / 100% increased damage
- Bonus Move Speed: 28% / 32% / 36% / 40% / 44% ⇒ 30% / 35% / 40% / 45% / 50%
- W – Rune Prison
- Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+60% AP) (+3% bonus mana) ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+70% AP) (+3% bonus mana)
Sion
Sion has struggled in recent patches, so Riot is buffing his baseline durability and rewarding him when he succeeds at using his ult to engage.
- Base Stats
- Health: 655 + 87/Level ⇒ 655 + 95/Level
- R – Unstoppable Onslaught
- Damage Increase over the First 3s of Channeling: +0 – 166.67% Base Damage, 0 – 100% Ratio Damage ⇒ +0 – 200%
- Bugfix: Tooltip now displays the correct minimum and maximum bonus AD ratios (40-120%). It displayed an incorrect Bonus AD Scaling (60%-120%). It was never actually changed in patch 25.16 beyond the tooltip.
Taliyah
Taliyah is one of the few mage junglers, and Riot thinks she can be better supported for meta diversity by buffing her [E] Unraveled Earth damage to make it more satisfying to land her CC combo.
- E – Unraveled Earth
- Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240 (+60% AP) ⇒ 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+70% AP)
- Detonation Damage: 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 (+30% AP) ⇒ 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 (+30% AP)
- Monster Damage: Deals 225% damage to monsters.
Vel’Koz
Vel’Koz has had little presence or meta impact in mid and support. So Riot looking to help him by rewarding successfully landing his combos.
- Passive – Organic Deconstruction
- Damage: 35 – 180 (+60% AP) ⇒ 35 – 205 (+65% AP)
- Q – Plasma Fission
- Cooldown: 7s ⇒ 6s
Xin Zhao
Following Sundered Sky’s nerfs, Riot feels like Xin Zhao has room for buffs to both his AD Bruiser and AS-focused builds.
- Q – Three Talon Strike
- Damage per Strike: 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+40% bonus AD) ⇒ 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 (+45% bonus AD)
- E – Audacious Charge
- Attack Speed Scaling: 1% per 5% bonus Attack Speed from permanent sources ⇒ 1% per 4% bonus Attack Speed from permanent sources
Zyra
Like Vel’Koz, Zyra has had relatively little impact in the meta so she’s getting a buff.
- W – Rampant Growth
- Seed Ammo Cooldown: 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 / 10s ⇒ 16 / 14.5 / 13 / 11.5 / 10s
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LoL Patch 26.21 Champion Adjustments
Taric
Taric’s W was adjusted a long time ago to combat the popular Master Yi + Taric funnel strats in that spells would fizzle if they were cast at the same time that his bound ally became untargetable.
Riot now believes this harsh restriction to how his abilities function is no longer necessary given the existence of Role Quests.
So Riot is partially reverting this change so that spells now work on untargetable allies, while keeping an existing exemption on [E] Dazzle for champions that disappear on screen because the gameplay is too unclear.
- Q – Starlight’s Touch
- Cast Behavior: Q casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
- E – Dazzle
- Cast Behavior: E casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
- Tooltip: Updated to include “Dazzle will not cast from Vanished allies”.
- R – Cosmic Radiance
- Cast Behavior: R casts when allies are untargetable will now successfully fire.
Twisted Fate
Alongside the Taric QoL changes, Riot is giving Twisted Fate’s R the same treatment so he can reveal champs even if they’re untargetable.
- R – Destiny
- Reveal: Now reveals untargetable units.
Varus
These large-scale changes are trying to hurt top lane Varus, where he tends to max W, unlike the more common Q max in bot.
This won’t bring his [Q] Piercing Arrow back up to prior Lethality Varus levels of power, but Riot believes it will help their ability to tune him for bot lane.
As a maxed ability, it also offers more gameplay to Varus and his opponents to interact with rather than more passive damage on W.
- Q – Piercing Arrow
- Damage Calculation: Max Damage scaling, 53.33 – 240 (+80% bonus AD) to 80 – 360 (+120% bonus AD) ⇒ Min Damage scaling, 50 – 230 (+80% bonus AD) to 85 – 391 (+136% bonus AD)
- Damage Increase over Channel Time: Up to 50% ⇒ Up to 70%
- W – Blighted Quiver
- On-Hit Damage: 4 / 13 / 22 / 31 / 40 (+15% bonus AD) (+25% AP) ⇒ 4 / 10 / 16 / 22 / 28 (+20% bonus AD) (+30% AP)
- Per Stack Damage: 3 – 5% (+1.3% per 100 AP) Target Maximum Health ⇒ 2.5 – 4.5% (+1.4% per 100 AP) Target Maximum Health
- Active Missing Health Damage: 6 – 14%, increased by up to 50% based on Q Channel ⇒ 6 – 10%, increased by up to 70% based on Q Channel
- Basic Ability Cooldown Refund: 13% per stack, increased by up to 50% based on Q Channel ⇒ 11%, increased by up to 70% based on Q Channel
LoL Patch 26.21 Item Changes
Bastion Breaker
Bastion Breaker was buffed into being a bit of a generic stat stick in order to give it a proper swing in the meta. Now Riot is nerfing that generic power with a QoL improvement to keep it a satisfying item in its niche.
- Lethality: 22 ⇒ 18
- Shaped Charge Damage: 50 Melee + 1.5/Lethality / 25 Ranged + 0.75/Lethality ⇒ 40 Melee + 1.5/Lethality / 20 Ranged + 0.75/Lethality
- Sabotage Duration: 90s ⇒ Infinite
- Sabotage Duration Context: This is how long you have to use the bonus damage against objectives.
Dawncore
Currently, only Soraka picks up Dawcore. Even when other supports get to full build, they often prefer other purchases. So Riot is buffing its AP value to make it less bound to purely Healing and Shielding.
- Ability Power per 100% Base Mana Regeneration: 10 ⇒ 15
Gluttonous Greaves
The greaves are overperforming for marksmen, even when getting very few stacks, so Riot is hitting it with a nerf to its cost to delay early acquisitions from getting too much value.
- Total Cost: 1000g ⇒ 1100g
Hubris
While Hubris has been a bit weak for melee champions, it’s clearly been overperforming for ranged users. These changes are to encourage melees and disincentivize ranged users from building it.
- Base Bonus Attack Damage: 12 ⇒ 15 Melee / 10 Ranged
- Bonus Attack Damage per Stack: 3 ⇒ 3 Melee / 2 Ranged
What do you make of this very large patch? Share your thoughts with us on the Insider Gaming Discord.
Meanwhile, Riot has announced a midscope rework for Mel is coming next patch. And for even more Insider Gaming delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.
An esports journalist for nine years with a focus on LoL Jack has written for national newspapers, interviewed major names, and driven people mad with puns. He's most proud of…
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