The
League of Legends 26.03 Patch Notes are here. Following the
official schedule, Patch 26.03 is expected to drop on
Wednesday, February 4, 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 26.03 tackles again jungle imbalances from all the new season items and tougher epic monsters like drakes, buffing AD junglers such as Bel'Veth, Hecarim, and Xin Zhao while nerfing some AP standouts like Diana and Ekko. Early faelights and slow clears cut ganks, so yellow trinket cooldowns return to Season 15 levels (170s to 210s) to enable more successful invades without free warding. Runes including Phase Rush and items like Dusk & Dawn shift power—D&D toward bruiser sustain over burst—to curb abusers without killing appeal.
Riot is tweaking ranked parameters to curb Apex negative LP spread (now just for true top players), raise Aegis of Valor eligibility from C to B-grade against abuse, restrict overpowered top Challenger duos, and add a "climbing indicator" by 26.03 for better match fairness transparency.
The Full Patch 26.03 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhreak on X.
Buffs:
Champion: Ahri, Bel'Veth, Briar, Draven, Ezreal, Hecarim, Heimerdinger, Kayn, Maokai, Naafiri, Nunu, Trundle, Tryndamere, Vi, Xin Zhao, Yone, Zaahen
System: Actualizer
Nerfs:
Champion: Braum, Diana, Ekko, Nilah, Riven, Ryze, Varus, Volibear, Zed
System: Cash Back (rune), Phase rush (rune), T3 Defensive boots, Triple Tonic (rune)
Adjustments:
Champion: Jayce, Mel
System: Turret Plates, Champion Bounties, Dusk and Dawn, Endless Hunger, Protoplasm Harness
Read more about
League of Legends changes on the X account of
Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.
Ranked
- Apex Negative LP Gains: We've found and are resolving the cause of some of the Apex tier negative LP issues. There will still be some negative LP gains at the super top of the ladder as the very very best players are pushing the limits of what's possible in the system, but it shouldn't be as widespread as it is
- Aegis of Valor Eligibility: We're upping the value required for Aegis claims from C to B; we're seeing C's be too easy of a criteria, we think B still accounts for players needing to "play well enough" while accounting for players being on an unfamiliar role
- Duo at top of Challenger: After being able to observe the power of duos on Live and how they're performing across the ladder, the very top of the ladder duos (eg. rank 1&2 together or 2x top 10) are too strong together. So we're making some adjustments to make these games more fair.
- Enabling climbing indicator on 26.3: Climbing indicator is a feature that will help players understand whether someone's rank is low, but their MMR is higher (they are still climbing!). This will help players have a better idea about fairness of the match when there's say a Silver in a Plat game
Jungle Champs
- A lot of the proposed changes yesterday that were causing alarm were actually Jungle specific changes; don't worry we're not trying to buff Naafiri mid for example
- In the new Season we wanted to increase Jungler ability to take objectives as part of their unique role power, amongst a few things like Epic monster durability adjustments (+armor to Drakes for example)
- This & some new item additions caused a large internal shift of which champs were strong and weak in the jungle
- This patch is our first pass at rebalancing these champs across the board
- In general, many AD junglers are getting buffed, AP jungler nerfs (along with the Dusk & Dawn context from yesterday)
Vision
- With early game faelights and slower first clears, early ganks have been a bit harder to come by
- We're pushing back early game yellow trinket cds back to S15 values (170 >>> 210s) to make warding a bit less "free" and early ganks a bit more successful on average
Item Changes
- There's a bunch of concern about Riot specialing certain champs (like Dusk and Dawn users)
- For the most part, this is targeted at being power neutral on the item, but shifting its power budget somewhat
- Some champions like Diana, Ekko, Varus synergize disproportionately extremely well with D&D and will receive targeted nerfs (but still find the item very attractive)
- Actualizer is being buffed, and so to compensate as it's current only user, Ryze is receiving a nerf
Game Metrics
- We've seen game snowballiness continue to stabilize lower than Season 15 values
- Game times are also coming down a bit back to S15 values
- As discussed in a previous preview though, players feel like downtime is down and so feel like the game is faster. On the flip side, there are many players saying that this Season feels really fun and part of that is due to how much action is going on
- We're going to let it ride a bit though, as it seems like players are getting used to a new normal here and at least a good portion are finding it more fun
- What we are changing though is how much players are worth for repeat kills on a player who is not worth that much; we reduced this in 26.1 but are pulling it back a bit
- At the same time, we're investigating what communicating this state looks like on the scoreboard, but have a pretty strong aversion to cluttering up the scoreboard with a lot of exact numbers; nothing to share back yet on that front, but doing some investigations
Mel
- Riot Emizery put out thoughts on the changelist and I tweeted about it a while ago; can read up on thoughts there for more context
- We will follow up where necessary for any balance adjustments required for Mel
- We intend for these changes to overall be winrate neutral, but frustration down
