LoL Patch 26.04 Preview: Ryze's R simplified, thirty champions balanced

Still in these early patches of the year, Riot Games is bringing tons of balance adjustments to around thirty champions. They’re also finally fixing Ryze’s ultimate, simplifying how its teleport interaction works.

Credit: Riot Games

Patch 26.04 is expected to drop on Thursday, February 19, 2026

The League of Legends 26.04 Patch Notes are here. Following the official schedule, Patch 26.03 is expected to drop on Thursday, February 19, 2026. This is the second real update of the new season, bringing lots of adjustments from Riot Games for the first 2026 games to be more balanced.

Patch 26.04 refines several high-impact balance points after January’s systemic shakeups. Ryze’s Realm Warp (R) loses its unreliable champion prediction logic for cleaner, more consistent teleport behavior that should prevent from the odd interactions often seen in pro play. Meanwhile, Dusk & Dawn continues to settle as a staple bruiser-hybrid item.

For marksmen, Hexoptics now defines a greedy 3rd-slot Crit damage niche for when LDR isn’t mandatory. Jinx and Twitch lose some mid-game durability to sharpen risk–reward angles, Aphelios takes another general nerf post-hotfix, and Samira gets adjustments to restore Bloodthirster build diversity. Xayah receives QoL buffs to lessen Essence Reaver dependency and boost W uptime for better meta viability. Senna’s Enchanter builds are dialed back slightly so her AD path feels once again like the “intended main fantasy.”

The Full Patch 26.04 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhreak on X.

Buffs:

Champion: Annie, Brand, Camille, Darius, Fizz, Graves, Hwei, Illaoi, Lux, Maokai, Samira, Teemo, Udyr, Xayah

System: Hexoptics C44

Nerfs:

Champion: Ambessa, Aphelios, Braum, Gwen, Jinx, Kassadin, Kayle, Kennen, Naafiri, Qiyana, Rengar, Rumble, Swain, Syndra, Twitch, Zac

Adjustments:

Champion: Ryze, Senna

Read more about League of Legends changes on the X account of Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.

Ryze

Ryze's resurgence in the last few months has increased visibility on R's prediction behavior. This behavior is frequently difficult to predict and often doesn't teleport champions when it feels like it should
We're removing this functionality as it leads to overall less predictability around Ryze R behavior

Dusk and Dawn, Gwen & Kayle

While we nerfed several other Dusk and Dawn users, Gwen has floated to be one of the better ones; we're tapping her done a bit as a result
Kayle also falls into a similar boat
We're overall pretty happy with the state of Dusk & Dawn; it's a popular item with a strong fantasy and after this patch, we hope it's a balanced item with an appropriately sized user base

Manamune Kassadin

We're thrilled to see Kassadin finding a new fun build to play; unfortunately he's a bit too strong both with and without it, so we're tapping him down
The early game changes to let him get back to lane a bit faster has made punishing him a bit more difficult and so he'll have to work a bit harder to access those 2 and 3 item spikes he used to

Rengar

Rengar's had a good number of bugs fixed on 26.2 that added quite a bit of power and consistency to him; we're pulling a bunch of that back as he's a bit too powerful for Elite players in particular

ADC's & Senna

We're trying a niche for Hexoptics where it is positioned as a greedy 3rd full damage item for Crit users when they don't need LDR (or post LDR)
Jinx and Twitch are receiving durability nerfs in the mid-game to keep some of their damage fantasies intact, but create sharper tradeoffs if they misposition
Aphelios is still one of the stronger ADC's, even after a hotfix nerf in 16.1; just a generic nerf here to bring power level down
Samira's BT build is significantly worse for wear, especially after the changes to Crit; so this adjustment is intended to bring some of that build variety back
Xayah has been out of the meta for quite a while; we're trying to ease her reliance on Essence Reaver procs in order to open up a bit more build variety for her. Additionally, her damage output is just superseded by several of her contemporaries, so increasing her W uptime will help her be competitive relative to the pack
For Senna, in Support, her Enchanter builds have been on average a bit too strong relative to her AD builds and so we're trying to make that balance a little more AD skewed - We like the Enchanter build being viable, but AD should be the stronger one for her fantasy