League of Legends is getting exciting changes for the upcoming 2026 season, but that doesn’t mean that the work on the current season stops. Holidays are nearly upon us, so with a plethora of needed balance changes, we also get some Winter-themed skins, and one of the biggest updates League has ever seen: the WASD control scheme.
Let’s take a look at everything this League patch has to offer, and explain the balance changes and what they mean for every individual champion.
System changes
WASD launches in limited queues
Riot Games has decided to make one of the biggest and most impactful control scheme changes at the end of this year. WASD control is aimed to serve many purposes at once: give a new way to play for those who are used to controlling their characters via a keyboard, offer an alternative option to those who feel they can’t get better with regular controls, and maybe lay the groundwork to have the game work with controllers for a possible future League of Legends console launch.
For now, WASD will launch in these queues:
- Normals: Customs, Swiftplay, ARAM
- Game Modes: Arena, ARAM: Mayhem, ARURF
New features:
- Dynamic Camera – New Camera that follows your mouse, with speed settings!
- Scout Ahead Button – Middle mouse click to freely move your camera while in Dynamic Camera, release to snap back.
- WASD Remapping – Remap your keybinds as you wish
If you find that you’re unable to pick WASD as your control scheme, don’t worry: Riot is doing a gradual rollout starting with OCE server.
Champion Select
- You are no longer able to ban champions hovered by your teammates.
- In patch 25.23, we introduced improvements to speed up champ select for Summoner’s Rift (Solo/Duo, Flex, and Normal Draft) to 2 pilot regions in NA/OC. These improvements are now being rolled out to all regions.
Not being able to ban champions being hovered by your teammates is a change that’s going to tie nicely into the Autofill changes that are coming next year.
Sanctum
- We’ll be running two Mythic Variants in the Sanctum this time around. Sunken Shadows Lucian and Nami will be joining the roster terrorizing bot lanes everywhere and will be available until patch 26.02, so if you’d like to wreck havoc in style you and your duo should check these out!
Your Shop
- Your Shop is back this patch so make sure to check it out! That is all.
Arcane Anniversary
- By popular player request we’ve made a new icon featuring Mel and Ambessa that will be releasing this patch. Drop by the shop where you’ll be able to pick it up for direct purchase for 250 RP.
Balance changes
Riot Games updates the champion and item balance every two weeks (though they usually take holidays off, which will happen at the end of the year as well), and the effect of some of the changes isn’t always immediately obvious. We’re here to help and explain what to expect from each individual adjustment.
Braum
- Base Health: 610 ⇒ 630
Passive – Concussive Blows
- Damage On Follow-up Attacks: 20% ⇒ 40%
Some additional base health should make Braum feel better in early trades, especially against the aggressive mages and enchanters that try to abuse him before he gets his second ability unlocked. Passive damage increase could also help win trades: his passive proc deals 26−196 damage based on level, 40% of this value is 10.4- 78.4, which could add up to a potion use in lane.
Dr. Mundo
Q – Infected Bonesaw
- Monster Damage Cap: 350 / 425 / 500 / 575 / 650 ⇒ 300 / 375 / 450 / 525 / 600
Mundo received a bugfix in the previous patch, and his compensatory buff made him a bit too strong in the jungle. This nerf is aimed at slowing down his clear, especially in the early game. Losing 50 damage flat on the ability he maxes first feels bad, but you have nothing to worry about if you play him in toplane.
Kayn
Passive – The Darkin Scythe
- Bonus Post-Mitigation Magic Damage: 25-45% ⇒ 20-40%
This one is mainly aimed at reducing Shadow Kayn’s poke damage from the fog of war or from within the walls. If he’s your main, you have nothing major to worry about: he still more than overkills his enemies during an all-in.
Kha’Zix
W – Void Spike
- Base Damage: 85 / 115 / 145 / 175 / 205 ⇒ 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 / 195
Riot claims that this change is only going to slow his jungle clear, and we tend to agree. Kha’Zix usually maxes his W second, and 10 damage per level is not something that you’re going to feel after the initial bump of maybe needing one more auto to kill the Krugs.
Master Yi
Base Stats
- Base Health: 655 ⇒ 640
- Attack Damage Growth: 2.8 ⇒ 2.5
Ah, Master Yi, ever a balance thorn. He’s been getting changes all season long, and this time around, they’re nerfing his early game durability as well as his late-game damage output by decreasing the scaling. It’s highly unlikely that this latter change alters his patterns much, as his most popular options are on-hit anyway.
Mel
E – Solar Snare
- Orb Magic Damage: 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240 ⇒ 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220
- Magic Damage per Second: 16 / 32 / 48 / 64 / 80 ⇒ 16 / 26 / 36 / 46 / 56
- Lingering Debuff Duration: 0.75 ⇒ 0.5 seconds
- Mana Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 ⇒ 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 mana
The young Medarda has been super annoying to play against ever since release, and this change will try to ease the frustration of laning against her. This likely kills the high-level strat of E-max, but it also makes the spell worse and more expensive to use. Still, her Q will remain the most frustrating ability to dodge, but it’s likely that by losing some strength, Mel becomes less popular and ever-present.
Nasus
Base Stats
- Base Health: 631 ⇒ 650
Q – Siphoning Strike
- Base Damage: 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 ⇒ 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120
These Nasus changes are more about some quality of life, than anything else. He will still lose lane against those he lost lane to, and win lane against those he used to beat anyway. But now, he can greed for one more minion and actually last him with Q more easily.
Nidalee
Q – Javelin Toss
- Bonus Damage Beyond 525 Range: 30-125% ⇒ 0-125% (Note: Damage at ranges below 525 are unaffected.)
This is a bugfix, but it will affect the players at the Elite level and those who have greater accuracy with her spears. And you should not be playing Nidalee in low Elo anyway.
Sejuani
Q – Arctic Assault
- Cooldown: 19 / 17.5 / 16 / 14.5 / 13 ⇒ 18 / 16.5 / 15 / 13.5 / 12 seconds
- Mana Cost: 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 ⇒ 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 /80
- AP Ratio: 60% ⇒ 75%
W – Winter’s Wrath
- Mana Cost: 65 ⇒ 60
- First Hit AP Ratio: 20% ⇒ 30%
E – Permafrost
- AP Ratio: 60% ⇒ 70%
R – Glacial Prison
- Cooldown: 130 / 110 / 90 ⇒ 120 / 105 / 90 seconds
This is a very peculiar set of changes. While the cooldown adjustments are good and will help her both with ganks and teamfights, as well as her pick potential, since she usually seeks for fights as soon as her ultimate is up, the AP ratio buffs are just weird. Sejuani almost never builds any AP, aside from those meme full-AP builds for midlane, so it’s hard to even imagine what the optimal build could be, integrating some magic damage. It’s most likely still better to just build full-tank. Or give in to your whimsy and go full-AP, Who are we to tell you what to do?
Swain
Passive – Ravenous Flock
- Heal per Fragment: 3-6% (based on level) ⇒ 6%
Swain was buffed in the last patch, but it wasn’t nearly enough to bring him back into the spotlight. This change will make his trading feel better early, as he will benefit more from landing his E. However, there are still many champions that just bully him out of the lane without allowing any kind of trades, so this change won’t make him the standout midlaner either.
Viktor
Q – Siphon Power
- Shield: 40-115 (based on level) (+18% AP) ⇒ 40-140 (based on level) (+25% AP)
- Bugfix: Fixed a bug that caused Viktor bot’s shield to calculate incorrectly.
- Bugfix: Fixed a bug that caused Q’s tooltip AP ratio to be inaccurate.
Contrary to what you’ve seen during the last Worlds, Vikrot is a bit on a weaker side right now, but the direction he’s getting buffed in could bring unexpected consequences. Giving back so much power into his Q could make him a viable counterpick option against various toplaners, his Q-max build being at the forefront again. It won’t be the Iceborn Gauntlet Viktor again, but faster passive stacking while being safer could be a big enough draw to go top.
Zaahen
Passive – Cultivation of War
- Bonus AD per Stack (25.23): 1.5-3.3 (based on level) ⇒ 1.5-2.8 (based on level)
Q – The Darkin Glaive
- AD Ratio (25.23): 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% bonus AD ⇒ 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60% bonus AD
- Second Cast Base Damage (25.23): 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 ⇒ 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125
- Cooldown (25.24): 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 ⇒ 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6
- Monster Damage Modifier (25.24): 50% ⇒ 75%
E – Aureate Rush
- Sweet Spot Damage (25.24): 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% ⇒ 4 / 4.5 / 5 /5.5 / 6%
These are the changes Zaahen received as a hotfix nerf during the last patch, and he’s still the best fighter in the game, abuse him while you can. Just ban Malphite or Teemo.
Zed
Passive – Contempt for the Weak
- Damage to Monsters: 2x ⇒ 1.8x
This is something that’s only going to come into play on his first clear, slowing him down for a couple of seconds. If you’re good enough of a Zed jungler, this means nothing to you. But if you were going to try him out: don’t. Don’t.
Runes
Legend: Bloodline
- Life Steal per Stack: 0.4% ⇒ 0.45%
- Maximum Life Steal: 6% ⇒ 6.75%
A bit better, but still a hard sell to pick it over Alacrity or Haste because of how much use the champions that need them get out of them.
Bug fixes & QoL changes
- Fixed a bug that caused basic attack hit VFX to be visible without dealing damage if the attack was canceled by basic attack empowering abilities.
- Fixed multiple bugs that occurred during the resurrection portion of Zaahen’s passive upon taking fatal damage.
- Fixed a bug that caused Yunara’s VO line when killing Varus to not play correctly.
- Fixed a bug that caused jungle pet heals passing through spell shields to briefly dispel the shields VFX.
- Fixed a bug where if Bel’Veth has a coral available somewhere, she could R her own Herald to kill it instantly and transform.
- Fixed a bug that caused Ashe’s R to create brief ping spikes for enemies when appearing from the Fog of War.
- Fixed a bug that caused Gwen’s recall animation to not always play correctly.
- Fixed a bug that caused Karma’s disk to stop spinning after reviving from Guardian Angel.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Nocturne’s R dash to not always follow the enemy champion until colliding with them.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes caused Garen’s Q animation to override his E animation.
If you’re an avid Arena or ARAM Mayhem player, you can read the respective mode changes in the official patch notes.
This patch is not very heavy on the changes to balance. Riot Games is clearly getting ready for the first split of the next season, which is going to feature a plethora of new items, ranked changes, and the new narrative thematic: Demacia.
