Annie, Azir, Taliyah, Galio and Aurora are getting nerfed
The League of Legends 25.18 Patch Notes are out. According to Riot’s official schedule, Patch 25.18 is expected to drop on Wednesday, September 10, 2025. We’re now just two patches away from Worlds, and the meta is starting to take shape with this update, as we’re seeing a lot of changes that directly impact the pro scene.
This is especially clear in the midlane, where several recurring picks are considered too durable during lane phase in competitive play. As a result, champions like Taliyah, Azir, Galio, Aurora, and Annie are getting nerfed. The only exception is Cassiopeia, who gets a small buff with more mana and increased damage on her E in the late game. Yunara is also receiving a nerf, even though Riot highlights her release as one of the most balanced to date. Her early game and trading patterns will be slightly weaker.
In the jungle, Qiyana is losing a good chunk of her damage to champions, while Sylas—who was recently made viable as a jungler—is getting his monster damage reduced by 20% to slow down his clear speed. On the item side, Bami’s Cinder and Sunfire Cape are both getting buffs, mainly to help junglers.
Buffs:
Champions: Amumu (support), Ashe, Cassiopeia, Garen, Hwei, Jayce, Vel'Koz
System: Bami's Cinder, Sunfire Cape, Mercurial Scimetar
Nerfs:
Champions: Annie, Aurora, Azure, Galio, Qiyana (jungle and mid), Sylas (jungle), Taliyah, Volibear, Yunara
Adjustments:
Champions: Briar, Illaoi
Read more about League of Legends changes on the X account of Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.
"Items
- Bami’s and Sunfire have been pretty weak for quite a while. So we’re buffing the Sunfire line by putting a decent buff into Bami’s.
- In particular, many of these champs don’t optimally buy Sunfire first, which kind of defeats the purpose of Bami’s as a component.
- Mercurial has also been pretty weak, so we’re giving it a net buff
Yunara
We’re really happy with where Yunara has landed overall.
- Now that her Mastery curve is starting to catchup, she’s pretty overpowered though (mostly for Elite/Pro) and there are 2 key areas that seem immediately off that we want to correct now
- The first is how strong she is at early levels with high E movespeed, Lethal Tempo, Q reset and range, especially given her scaling profile
- The second is her E uptime, especially later in the game, given that we kept a few mastery moments in like ERE, E being off CD when R wears out, etc.
- Long term, we want to move her off E second max as Pros and Elite players unsurprisingly use this spell ~30-40% more than regular players and it’s very powerful in ways that aren’t immediately obvious
- Base W is also paying costs for it, being a spell that feels limp for the majority of the game (it’s actually pretty fun when this spell does damage)
Illaoi
- After the changes to Illaoi a while ago, her tentacles can sometimes unsatisfyingly fail to slam on a spawned E vessel. These changes aim to resolve that case, but as a result require a bit of a compensation nerf
Briar
- Now that Briar has hit her mastery curve saturation point, she’s a bit too fair in higher levels of play
- We’re making some changes to her ult that lower its counterplay a bit, but compensating by lowering her damage when it hits (making her a bit less feast or famine)
Mid Meta
- The mid meta has been a lot about tempo AP champs (Annie, Aurora, Galio, etc.) who also build pretty tankily while also having a lot of damage. This results in them strategically not having a ton of tradeoffs, so we’re making a few adjustments to these champs that skew them a bit out of Pro
- For Annie, this is moving her more on to Q max, which is already her most popular solo Q build and nerfs the W max that most Pro Annies end up having before their Q is maxed
- For Aurora, nerfing some of the Liandries oriented builds that allow her to do a ton of damage while also being very durable and getting a lot of passive procs off. This build is pretty hard to play against when comboed with a lot of her trickery tools
- We think the burst build is pretty balanced, so it will be a bit of a nerf in the early game, but ~even a bit up later on in the game
- Azir is also just too strong of an outlier, especially after his 15.14 buffs
- Cassio could use a bit of a buff relative to where she is today to be a decent pick late in fearless against Sylas, Galio, Ryze, etc. type champs
Qiyana & Sylas
- Overall, we’re pretty happy with injecting some of the novelty back into the jungle with these champion picks
- However, they’re too strong, especially in Elite, so we’re taking some of the power out here
- They don’t need to be stronger than their primary roles
Ashe
- Despite Kraken, PD buffs, Ashe hasn’t picked up too much viability
- She does seem sleeper strong though, so not going too hard here
Header Photo Credit: Riot Games
- Clément Chocat -
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