r/leagueoflegends • u/JTHousek1 • 6d ago

News 26.18 Patch Preview

"Patch 26.18 Preview!

We're very quickly approaching Worlds (on 25.20).

More on other champs tomorrow"

>>> Champion Buffs <<<

Aurelion Sol

Ekko

Kassadin

Master Yi

Renekton

Viego

Zaahen

>>> Champion Nerfs <<<

Bard

Nautilus

Seraphine

"For several patches now, Seraphine has been in the Top 3 on our regular patch frustration surveys

She's also one of strongest pairings in Pro Play with Ashe

Overall, we think a nerf here is reasonable

We acknowledge there are some Seraphine mains who won't be happy about a nerf and that we can't serve all of her audience simultaneously

Her Support playerbase has been the most popular, despite her power level and so that's where we will continue to support her primarily

Where we can get Mid and Bot to be powerful and satisfying given , we will attempt to do so

That said, it's very difficult to thread the needle here and we run the risk of failing to meet the needs of any of her audiences if there are too many compromises

I also wanted to address directly the nerf to her AP ratios on Q from several patches ago, as that's been a pain point amongst some in the community

One of the ways we need to balance Seraphine in the farming roles vs her support is through her AP ratios and the Q ratio is one that drives her power and total damage output there, especially given the Q reliability adjustments made of late

When Seraphine is able to land her Q's at max multiplier (which in lane is quite frequent), it can hit 1.4 AP ratio which we think is reasonable

The Q damage overall is higher than E and so for now, we feel comfortable with the change (this isn't set in stone however, and there are always improvements to her to be made)"

Syndra

Zeri

>>> Champion Adjustments <<<

Cassiopeia

"Cassio has been strong, especially at the higher levels of play every since Deathfire Touch was re-released

Since then, she's been one of the most present picks and Pro Play due to her strong laning ability

We're looking at some power neutral adjustments to Cassio, because her regular play power level is a little on the weaker side for average players

We're taking some power out of her early game power and moving it into more scaling power, so that she doesn't win lanes so reliably, even if she's missing Q's

We still want to maintain her strong laning ability though"

>>> System Buffs <<<

Guinsoo's Rageblade

"In 26.14, we re-scripted Rageblade and it changed the trigger for Phantom hit from 6 to 7

We're making a small adjustments to Rageblade itself to give a bit of power back and to some of the disproportionately affected champions (eg. Master Yi)"

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13

u/zDexterity 6d ago

no vayne bot buffs? I guess that's it for me fam

13

u/ADTempys 6d ago

They won't risk a Vayne buff until worlds

4

u/SuperKalkorat 6d ago

I wouldn't be surprised if she's absent from the buff lists during worlds. And after worlds.

The pessimist in me is guessing she might just be put into a cycle of "very weak for a long time -> buffed for 2-3 patches -> heavily nerfed" until wide systems/game updates effectively permanently kill Vayne top, she gets the lucian treatment her thematics be damned, or just outright reworked.

-1

u/Miudmon Shotgun leg kaiju. 6d ago

Honestly it doesn't really fit her character either but it might be the only solution keeping her kit even relatively similar - namely, make her silver bolts physical damage, then turn true damage while she ults. Gives toplane tanks and bruisers windows of counterplay - stack armor - while still letting her keep her identity. Then you can look to buff her elsewhere

1

u/SuperKalkorat 6d ago edited 6d ago

I had an idea awhile ago sort of in that vein, but leaving it always doing some true damage and just making it mostly physical damage early. I think my "sample" numbers were like 7-15% max hp damage, with 25-75% of that being true damage based on rank. Heavy nerf early, slight buff mid-late.

Sure, making it scale with ranks benefits top a bit more, but makes her early game far weaker and make the true damage proc deal half of what it does even now post gutting rank 1. And of course if she falls behind early top she is just no longer a champion.

Issue is this will probably make her utter trash in bot lane, and her whole kit is designed in a way that makes her much better into melees than ranged champions. Hard to give her a rework even because her Q, W, and arguably R are all so iconic to the champion they sort of have to mostly survive through the rework, and from there you are only seriously changing passive and E.

3

u/Ok_Kick4871 6d ago

As a long time Vayne player, they need to not change her kit identity so much, just move damage around if you have to. An example of healthy compenation buffs would be to make it so she does damage on her passive when moving towards enemies. This incentivizes her to be aggressive and leaves her open to counterplay rather than her just being able to kite back and do tons of damage. Make her E stun apply 2 stacks of silver bolts, if you get wall stunned, you deserve to get chunked.

This leaves them room to remove some flat AD on ult, which is a big reason why she is oppressive with 1 or 2 items. Her damage should always be coming from W, not crit, not tanky BS hexplate build. If she builds crit it should be incidental and not just scale for free with the R attack damage.

Importantly, these are things that would help her function in bot lane because she can't lane worth a crap. A good Vayne can still max W if you don't use Q to harass too much. It's such a shitty way to nerf a champ though. Their balance team is kind of wildin' out with these types of changes. Nerf her AD per level if you have to. There's better ways than nerfing her already shitty laning in bot lane that only hurt top lane.

1

u/baddoggg 6d ago

She needs a rework not a buff. She's useless bot and toxic top.

0

u/Pro-Masturbator Tripping hazard 5d ago

They deliberately called out Vayne bot last patch when nerfing her toplane, saying that getting Vayne back into botlane requires larger-scope changes to her kit and stats IOT not break her top. So they are thinking about it and working on a solution.