The
League of Legends 25.16 Patch Notes are out. According to Riot’s
official schedule, Patch 25.16 is
expected to drop on Wednesday, August 13, 2025. This is a massive patch packed with buffs and nerfs. Riot is clearly trying to shake up the jungle meta, which has been fairly stale and dominated by picks like Pantheon, Wukong, Xin Zhao, and Trundle. Nautilus and Sylas received significant jungle buffs, with increased damage to monsters.
There are also heavy nerfs, notably to Nocturne, Jarvan IV, and Rell, along with adjustments to champions like Rumble, Viego, Warwick, and Varus. This patch could seriously shake up the meta and impact how teams draft—both compared to recent months since the end of Spring, and relative to past international events like the Mid-Season Invitational and the Esports World Cup.
The Full Patch 25.16 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhreak on X.
Buffs:
- Champions: Brand, Gnar, Illaoi, Kalista, Master Yi, Morgana, Nautilus, Qiyana, Rek'Sai, Singed, Sion, Sylas, Zyra.
Nerfs:
- Champions: Jarvan IV, Lulu, Nocturne, Rell, Shaco, Trundle, Xin Zhao, Yuumi.
Adjustments:
- Champions: Mordekaiser, Rumble, Varus, Viego, Warwick
- Monster: Baron Nashor
- Item: Experimental Hexplate
Riot's Reasoning behind these changes
Read more about
League of Legends changes on the X account of
Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison, who also addressed the community’s sentiment that the game feels
too balanced, and explained the reasoning behind the changes made.
"As mentioned yesterday, heading into the back half of the year where things are pretty well balanced, we're going to be spending a lot more time trying to find opportunistic alternative builds, alternate roles and other things that feel like opportunities for players to express creativity. If you have any suggestions for builds or roles that could use a little bit of love, ear flicks that can be fixed, we'd love to hear them. This also can include things where it might take a little more time to land a more involved gameplay change to them (like Rek'Sai's returning of E damage, or improving clarity and counterplay of Illaoi's E) - There are a multitude of such changes in the patch, (better balance of Warwick Jungle vs Top, Lane Viego, AD Morde, Qiyana JG, AD Sion, JG Sylas, etc.) In the meantime, our high level strategy is to be more nerf heavy on the jungle role, as we think the role is too strong overall and are avoiding net buffing it over time."
Yunara
Overall Yunara has landed in a really great spot, she's seeing a little bit of Pro Play, while being amongst the most popular champs in role, without significant banrate. We're really happy y'all are enjoying her so much!
Her mastery growth after playing several games on her is pretty high, so just stick out that early learning curve
Over-time, her Kraken and BOTRK builds have started to edge out Yun-Tal, especially at higher skill levels
We're not going to target changes to her for now, and want to observe a bit more to see how her build and skew plays out
Illaoi
In an effort to improve Illaoi's gameplay around the curse (low satisfaction for Illaoi, high frustration for opponents), the changes landed a little harder than intended, so walking it back a tiny bit. We've noted some of the complaints around E and repeated slams, but didn't quite have time to address it this patch.
Rek'Sai
Rek'Sai also landed a little weaker than intended, though her E max first (which was historically quite good) is back to being pretty strong and we're hoping her players enjoy the E true damage back.
Kalista
Kalista has finally had her power level catch up to her Pro Presence. The main reason players would pick her is to dominate laning phase and so we want to add a bit more power into her later game to add a bit of regular play power without spiking her immediately back into Pro.
Yuumi
Finally, Yuumi is still at highs after her changes a few patches ago didn't quite land as we'd like. We're taking a bit more of a swing here as she is still very performant (more than performant enough to meet her goals for new players)
Shaco
Shaco has had an extremely high banrate for a pretty extended period of time at this point. We're looking to bring down his frustration overall and he doesn't need to be close to 50 to be a satisfying champion for his audience.
Header Photo Credit: Riot Games
