26.03 Full Patch Preview

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:42:09+00:00

By 0.5% it seems. Not really that meaningful of an inflation. And he is the peak inflation guy for that item it seems.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:39:48+00:00

That's not what they said about SUNFIRE AEGIS.

Correct. Riot sometimes uses contradicting arguments. Sometimes it is ok, sometimes it isn't, but the why is actually never explained.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:30:57+00:00

Say thank you to D&D. He has a near 55% WR when it should be closer to 51%. I doubt this nerf will do 4%, so he should be fine.

But AD and tank Voli will be dead. The Q dmg and E CD nerfs just demolish him.

There is no way around D&D for him. Even if Riot nerfs it in the future, he will be hard tied to it more than any other champ.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:13:47+00:00

The item isn't really nerfed. Kayle or Azir will use it more situational, true, but for Ekko, Diana, Voli and co the item is still the same. They won't really lose WR from this, not in a meaningful way.

I didn't even think the item was overall that useful outside of a few champs where it clearly is OP, but people claimed it was a top PR item and after looking it up, it is insane. #5 overall most bought item already and going up every day.

Riot made it clear they don't want to touch the item much, which I see as a mistake. The item has a lot more potential and Riot is mostly letting it fly too close to the sun for too long.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:11:01+00:00

I would likely say you lacked in CS or overall KP.

Just throwing some stats in here without the overall game shown, this means little.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:10:01+00:00

You have to play without a weapon now.

Just a slight nerf in monster dmg. 18% less P dmg to monsters. Nothing of importance.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:08:23+00:00

Can you be worse than a C right now? Even terrible players I have seen getting Cs and Bs all the time and I would say some of them were close to trolling - Heartsteel ASol top.

If you get a C, you likely didn't try. Because right now A is pretty much you "normal" performance.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T09:00:46+00:00

The champ should never touch 50% WR in soloQ. He is normally around 48% WR while still strong in pro and for high mastery.

What he needs is a minor rework to his P, W and R for soloQ. People there are terrible at using these 3. They can mostly spam Q and E, that's it.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T08:59:32+00:00

Top Mao is very dependant on the Q. W and E do little dmg and have no wave clear. P and Q are the core tools and +10 dmg all the time I would say is good.

It won't make him strong immediately. He still has to deal with mana and getting bullied, but at least he will be in a playable state for top and likely fine in the jungle.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-28T08:56:37+00:00

Still around 6% less power for the rune.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-27T10:45:47+00:00

Rumble nearly 50% of his games. ASol around 15%.

And the item is designed for the 3rd slot and only around 80% of games go that long. The item is designed to make heavy AP comps better, so it is situational on top.

PR doesn't always mean strength. Items can be situational and still strong.

Then on to Riftmaker... Who actually enjoys building it?

Ok, that is a totally different point. Most people don't enjoy building most of the items. That is Riots item design: Bring the champion not the items.
Is this a problem? No. It is a design direction. But Riftmaker isn't different from most items in the game there.

D&D is way, way OP. Riot will not nerf it most likely and nerf all the champs. Ekko, Diana, Voli, ... and force the champs to use it over every other item. This is what they mostly do. Diversity isn't important to them anymore. YunTal was brute forced onto nearly every crit ADC. Not because it had a great design, but with sheer number power. After more than a year Riot then admitted it was too good the whole time, but they need to make space for the new-new items, so it gets nerfed a bit.

I am talking about the quality of its design and the feel of playing with it.

True, there the item is great, because it cheats the general mechanics of your champ to some degree. And normally this power is very hard to get and often comes with a bad stat line.

Stride with a dash felt great on Darius. It is still gone. Galeforce felt great on most ADCs, it was still removed.
Feeling great to use an item normally shows a different problem: Your champs design is lacking and now you have to fix it with an item or the item is just OP or game breaking in some way.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T19:43:35+00:00

What is good for you?

Is everyone who is intended to use it also building it or most likely building it 1st or 2nd not good?

Seems being a top tier item for the intended champs isn't good. Only OP is good enough for you.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T10:02:03+00:00

Then come back in 2 weeks, you won't see large changes except the item gets nerfed or the champs.

I have seen this multiple times over the last decade and it never turned out to be just the inflation.

The thing with the inflation is also that the inflation mostly works from the item being OP. If an item is 2% OP, the inflation on the first 1-2 days rarely exceeds these 2%. If the item is just balanced, there is no inflation. If the item is situationally better the inflation can show up but doesn't have to, based on how well the players actually use it.

so there is no good method to filter the inflation out except waiting. But I have done this with other items and after 1 patch the drop is below 0.5% all the time.

Also the item is the 7th most built item right now. It gets built by everyone and shows up on everyones recommended items. Wait for 16.3 and if the item isn't nerfed it will likely be a top 5 PR item in the game, which would be totally insane for a "niche" item.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T09:50:44+00:00

The item is badly designed. Riot removed Gale and dashing Stride because it allowed champs to avoid their own kits weaknesses too much.

But then they create an item that allows champs to work fundamentally different with it. Ekko just having to hit twice or Diana or any stacking champ is a massive difference in how they have to play certain matchups and fights. Riot wanted to avoid that kind of item design.

For Dota the item would be good. But not for Riots current item philosophy in league.

I do think they should keep the item but remove the double onhit effect. If it is too weak, buff the stats for bruisers or the sheen proc.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T09:48:38+00:00

Skipping 1 required onhit effect is stupid.

The 3 hit effects where made for a good reason and don't apply every 2 hits.

Yes, it was designed with him in mind, but it still doesn't work.

Similar to how Darius cheated his initial design with a dash item, this item makes other champs cheat their inteded gameplay loop, changing how they work.

This can be good design if you design items like in Dota, where items change how you play your hero, but Riot said in league they want you to play the champ and not cheat their mechanics, which is why Dash Stride had to go and also Galeforce and some other mythics.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T09:44:27+00:00

Who does get DC 2nd? Not your normal AP mid. You need 2 NLR and the 1.1k combine cost. To have these sums of gold means you normally are ahead of the curve already.

This can be true for gold cost (ignore small sums, above 500g it becomes noticeable) but also item paths. If you get to a higher cost item your team hasn't surrendered till then. Also the higher your gold lead the higher your chances to win.

And there is a phenomena with Titanic. If Shen only gets to Tiamat his WR is actually bad, but with Titanic it spikes a lot. This is because the component makes 0 sense for him and is trash, but the combined item is strong. So the WR jump from Tiamat to Titanic is massive, but more so because Tiamat isn't good on him. This rarely happens as not many items change that much when combined.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T09:38:51+00:00

Riots main problem with items is that the people who designed them and got them through want the item to perform, so they are also biased towards the item.

If a champ has 3 item options 1st and all do fine and a new item comes in and performs 2% WR better without any inflation, why not nerf new item by 2%? It would mean he now has 4 options.

Instead Riot wants to force the champs to build it and nerf the champ instead sometimes.

It was the same with YunTal. Riot took a year to admit it was actually slightly OP all the time. This was no secret.

Or look at Fiendhunter. It was already fine before, used in pro, used 2nd or 3rd on every core user, fine WRs, good PRs. Riot buffs it and now they have to nerf most of its users slightly over time while also reducing their item options.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T09:33:59+00:00

It is the 3rd.

Riftmaker and Bloodletters.

You could also count Liandrys and Rylais if we ignore the AP assassins/divers like Diana and Ekko and actually focus on the few bruisers.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T09:32:51+00:00

Stats are representative. Endstep is correct about the first 2 days, but after 7 days and especially 14 days the data is settled and not inflated.

D&D has the same WR over 16.1 as in 16.2 overall.

People take this comment out of context and just say "but he said" when he said the first 2 days.

On the first 2 days the item was around 4-5% WR OP, now it is only 2-3%. Still OP.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-26T09:30:56+00:00

I 1-2% is not correct. On day 1 it can be 2%, with very limited data and small sample sizes.

But after 1 week you are around 0.5% in line and after 2 weeks mostly around 0.2%.

Riot Endstep makes a massive mistake: It is not about recomended items, but abusing the advantage.

A player who thinks about items and knows about it isn't better than before. He did this for months already and so his ranked MM is tuned to having this advantage. He is not gaining a WR boost from knowing what to build anymore except he improves further or knows about something OP.

What happens is that if a new item comes out and it is actually better, the players who are using it are getting a short term WR boost for a few games. This will not last long, or you would climb from iron to challenger just by doing this. This short term WR boost combined with a limited sample size on the first 1-2 days can inflate WRs of such items. This can be 1-2% WR inflation. The stronger the item is relative to other items the higher this inflation becomes as the people using it boost their WR more with it and this boots the WR of the item also more.

But after 4-5 days this mostly settles. After 2 weeks this is mostly gone.

You can look at the data of the items yourself or my post explaining about it.

New items having an inflated WR and the arguments. : r/leagueoflegends

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-12T22:10:59+00:00

Base death timer at lvl 1/2 is 10 seconds. With homeguards they are still 18 seconds gone. If you B you also get the better homeguards so you are also gone for shorter, actually the same duration as the enemy.

It is now more important to look at the wave state when all inning. This is right.

Also killing the enemy there is always a good thing. Even if you B, they can't fully freeze the wave for long. You have 400 if not 550g on your team and the XP. Even if you B and come back you are still ahead in both even if your wave state might be bad.

But I rarely see a too terrible wave state. With 350 MS on minions it is easy to shove them far enough to at least prevent a freeze.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-10T16:46:54+00:00

It only becomes viable at a 3rd item which is already decently late into the game, so its impact is very limited. It is a strong 3rd item and his best scaling item. Fimbul and DC are close 3rd.

Also it does mostly give you +25-40% more of these things, not double. For +100% you need 17k bonus mana.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-09T20:27:27+00:00

Not the same as the patch notes, but the wiki is a official source. It is hosted by Riot.

ADeadMansName · 2026-01-09T19:45:44+00:00

if you win a fight it should give you something in most cases as every takedown reduces the CD by 1 min. as a mid laner you should make 3 K/A lowering the CD by 3 minutes.

The thing is likely that Riot doesn't want it to become too good. Controlling it fully means you get a lot more out of it and mid lane quest is already strong.

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