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League of Legends developer Riot Games has shared the first preview patch notes for upcoming Patch 26.15. This update will focus on a small bundle of champion balance changes, along with some miscellaneous items and gameplay system changes.
July 29 also happens to be when League Classic launches, so consider Patch 26.15 one of the larger patches of the season. Ten champions are getting adjustments in this first preview.
However, Riot stated that these smaller numbers would be compounded further when players factor in the game systems being changed as well. A detailed list of numerical values will be released in a full patch note document before the update launches.
LoL Patch 26.15 buffs and nerfs
- These are the champions who are receiving buffs: Alistar, Kai’Sa, Maokai, Volibear, Zac.
- These are the champions who are receiving nerfs: Locke, Mordekaiser, Naafiri, Riven, Sylas.
Why are these changes being made to champions? For Alistar, Riot stated that he’s fallen behind the curve as other melee supports have been buffed in attempts to help out the role in general. As for Locke, Riot said he continues to perform exceedingly well in mid-to-high ELO where players can abuse his power more effectively.
They noted that even though he scales off player skill, he still needs to be tuned down. In addition to champion tweaks, there are going to be several balance changes to items and gameplay systems. Bastionbreaker is getting buffed due to low pick rates, while Jack of All Trades is being nerfed as it’s been spotted in too many builds.
Riot is also experimenting with fighters itemization by altering Sundered Sky. They want players to have more choices when building items, without heavily impacting the fighter role.
Bel'Veth rework
In this patch, Riot is introducing a series of Bel’Veth changes that tone down her power spikes at her early levels to open space for her to reach her fantasy as a late-game scaling champion. The bulk of this change comes from making her Q scale to a more effective 4-1s CD at her early levels.
This will allow her to maintain high uptime with this ability while dialing back just how punishing she can be on certain champions during early invades with her Q at 1s cooldown.
Over time, RIot found this has led to continually need to nerf her when she spikes as an invading champion, leaving her otherwise balanced around this tool at the expense of many of her other kit parts that players really enjoy.
Riven changes
Ever since the introduction of Gluttonous Greaves and buff to sustain with the Endless Hunger change, Riven has skyrocketed to becoming the number one fighter in the meta. Better healing and itemization has made her overall stronger.
Riot feels that Riven is actually in a relatively decent spot as a whole light fighter. However, they would like her to have more flexibility in the future.
Namely, her first major item built. As of right now, Axiom is pretty much the best option due to how it stacks so well with her ability haste-focused kit.Ideally, Riot would like to open up more avenues for different builds that can provide her with extra durability rather than completely spamming burst.
Mordekaiser
Riot finds the direction they took Mordekaiser with his final changes last patch interesting, but believes they went a bit too far. Based on their observations of him on live servers, they think it took away too much tension from his traditional 1v1 duels and made him feel painfully weak when his ultimate isn’t available.
Riot believes Juggernauts should excel at having short periods of time where they can dash to and apply pressure on their target, instead of having reliable mobility or chase. They should excel at punishing enemies during those windows instead of sticking to them for the whole fight.
In an effort to reinforce that playstyle, Riot wants to give Mordekaiser better tools to catch enemies. They plan on doing this by buffing Death’s Grasp (E) to give him more consistent opportunities to pull enemies into fights without overloading too much onto Realm of Death (R).
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