League of Legends is getting yet another patch next week with LoL Patch 26.8, but Riot Games has made a major change to the expected nerfs.
The LoL Patch 26.8 preview had big buffs planned for Viego despite the champion being listed as one of the most popular junglers on various third-party websites.
Viego was set to get damage buffs to both his Q and his Ultimate after Riot’s internal data suggested he needed a boost.
LoL’s lead gameplay designer Matthew ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison admitted a mistake might have been made:
“There’s some notable discrepancies for specifically Viego’s data in our internal data that led us to want to initially buff him. Looking at external data, however, seems to be notably different.”
Phroxzon then promised to check the data again before locking in the changes, and it seems the community was right as he has now announced Viego won’t be getting buffed after all.
“We have pulled Viego from the patch after reviewing some of the data issues from yesterday that led us to want to buff him in the first place,” Phroxzon revealed.
“There’s a bit of weirdness that happens with his data, due to some of the form swapping that goes on and how that makes its way into the data pipelines for both internal and external data that we’re investigating and resolving,” he further explained.
Ambessa LoL Nerfs Delayed
As well as cancelling the Viego buffs, Phroxzon also announced that planned Ambessa nerfs have been pushed back from LoL Patch 26.8 to 26.9.
Patch 26.9 is set to be a large patch as the start of Season 2 2026 and could potentially see the release of League of Legends’ new champion, Locke.
Ambessa is one of the most picked top laners in LoL esports this split, with her tankiness and mobility proving to be very valuable.
The Noxian champion is set to receive the following changes:
- Passive base damage reduced from 5 – 30 → 5 – 25
- R bonus AD ratio reduced from 80% → 70%
What champion are you desperate to get nerfed? Let us know on the Insider Gaming Discord.
And in another welcome change, Riot added a new quality of life feature to LoL which makes levelling moves much easier.
