Neeko's passive will now be disabled when hit by a tower
The League of Legends 25.23 Patch Notes are here. Following the official schedule, Patch 25.23 is expected to drop on Wednesday, November 19, 2025. This is the first patch after Worlds and the penultimate update before the end of the year, bringing the final major adjustments from Riot Games on the eve of the new 2026 season.
The patch introduces Zaahen, the final champion of 2025. According to Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison, the champion was initially developed as a support, he evolved into a toplane Darkin warrior inspired by Xin Zhao, Erlang Shen (Chinese God), and Guan Yu (Chinese Military General). His kit focuses on lifesteal and extended fights, with a revive mechanic that rewards sustained combat and ties together his thematic concept.
The patch also brings major balance adjustments: Rek’Sai’s sustain is toned down, Skarner regains lost power, and several ADCs receive updates to refresh the meta. Riot is testing new jungle options like Fizz to combat high autofill rates, while Mel, Mundo, and Vladimir get targeted tweaks for balance and counterplay.
Buffs:
Champion: Ahri, Jhin, Miss Fortune, Skarner, Swain, tristana, Xayah, Zeri, Aatrox, Ambessa Cho'Gath, Jayce, Malphite, Ornn, Riven, Sion
System: Sunfire Aegis
Nerfs:
Ashe, Caitlyn, Hwei, Jinx, Kai'Sa, Neeko, Rek'Sai, Vladimir
Adjustments:
Fizz, Mel, Dr. Mundo
Read more about League of Legends changes on the X account of Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.
Zaahen
- Chatted a bit yesterday about Zaahen starting out development as a support!
- We hadn't made a support for a while and we already had a headstart on wanting Zaahen to be a Darkin with eye/all-seeing motifs
- The first iconic ult Squad5 tried was swinging his Glaive to Deathmark everybody (think Deathmark meets Xin Ult)
- One of the issues with this was that Zaahen had a support economy, so he'd do this and just die. It wasn't a fatal flaw, but it wasn't quite cool enough to build a kit around
- Another idea tried was to embody the idea of sacrifice; Zaahen would gain stats each time he got a takedown or died (because supports die a lot)
- Teammates weren't super enthusiastic about this though, even if it ended up being powerful and useful
- At this point, we decided that Top lane might be a better fit, especially because some of the Xin Zhao parallels weren't quite working out from the support role
Zaahen in Top Lane
- We were taking a bunch of inspiration from Erlang Shen and Guan Yu throughout development
- Erlang Shen has a third eye, which is often known for being all-seeing and associated with enlightment/higher levels of consciousness in Hinduism or Buddhism and some other Eastern religions
- So some of the ideas were related to these motifs
- Squad5 tried some ideas like Ult makes him untargetable to non-targeted abilities (think Gwen W), but this only lasted a test (was very experimental)
- Also tried versions where he learned about his opponents while fighting them
- Another version that was interesting was dodging attacks every X seconds (but that became kinda hard to use and was already similar to old Pantheon's passive)
- Kind of late in development however, we had a pretty functional kit that was working well and was satisfying, but it still felt it was missing something, and August suggested adding the revive back as max stacks on the passive
- That just immediately clicked in Playtest and so we kept it
- We hope you'll all enjoy Zaahen
Rek'Sai
- Rek'sai was erroneously listed as a buff yesterday, sorry about that
- For those watching Worlds, or playing high ELO solo Q, Rek'sai has been pretty pretty powerful in Top Lane, but we're OK with her Jungle strength currently
- In particular, she is sustaining too much, so we're taking those aspects down
ADC Meta
- ADC meta has been stale for a while, so we're looking for a bit of a shake up here
- Most of the changes here are pretty self-explanatory
Skarner
- Skarner has been pretty heavily overnerfed, so we're restoring a bunch of power to him this patch
Header Photo Credit: Riot Games
/Comments
Write a comment