The
League of Legends 26.8 Patch Notes are here. Following the
official schedule, Patch 26.8 is expected to drop on
Wednesday, April 15, 2026. Riot Games is releasing a small patch and openly acknowledges that it only brings
minor changes, anticipating the
many potential shifts expected with patch 26.9 and the launch of Season 2.
The patch aims at reinforcing a few champions’ identity. Riot is buffing Hwei, Lillia, Lucian and Viego. Hwei is being pushed more toward his combo-mage identity and midlane strength, Lillia is getting some of her jungle clear speed back, and Lucian is receiving more early mobility and lower cooldowns on his dash to make his botlane playstyle feel more distinct. Viego is also receiving a great R buffs which should allow him to execute his opponents more easily and get passives reset.
On the nerf side, Mel is being pulled back after her 26.5 buffs overshot. Some of her damage is being shifted later in the combo for her to have more counterplay. Dr. Mundo is losing some late-game damage because he has been overperforming and ranking high on frustration surveys, especially in jungle, so the patch is keeping him durable and mobile without letting him solo-kill as easily.
The Full Patch 26.8 Preview. Credit: @RiotPhreak on X.
Buffs
Champions: Hwei, Lillia, Lucian, Tahm Kench, Viego
Nerfs
Champions: Mel, Karma, Mundo
Adjustments
Champion: Yuumi
Read more about
League of Legends changes on the X account of
Matt "Phroxzon" Leung-Harrison.
Viego
- There's some notable discrepancies for specifically Viego's data in our internal data that led us to want to initially buff him
- Looking at external data however seems to be notably different
- Going to double check this data tomorrow and validate the data pipelines before determining whether or not to proceed with the buff
Hwei
- In line with the fantasy fulfilment I was talking about yesterday, Hwei changes are leaning into his identity as a combo mage
- It is a cool pattern and in particular, this set of changes skews him more towards being effective in mid lane compared to bot lane with the level scaling
- We're not opposed to him being viable in bot lane, but pushing him towards midlane
- We think this makes Hwei more uniquely satisfying compared to say having his damage come from predominantly single QQ, QW or QE casts
Lillia
- Lillia's power clearing and movement speed are some of her most defining aspects
- We're restoring some of that clear speed to better fulfil her fantasy there
Lucian
- Lucian in bot lane doesn't have a strong differentiation from Corki as a similarly early game dominant ability focused caster
- These changes are trying to put more of Lucian's power into his early mobility and giving him more casts of it
- We're going to monitor Lucian in solo lanes
Mel
- We separated some of Mel's damage output in 26.3 by creating a separation between her first initial hit and the subsequent hits
- We're reducing how much value she gets from this initial Q landing and backloading the damage more to give her damage more counterplay
- We still think we need to do more work to Mel long term
- (ARAM) Another note here is that we've been investigating some ARAM specific changes to Mel, since her reflect can be harder to play against in that mode, given the narrowness of the play area
Mundo
- Mundo rates very highly on our frustration metrics and our changes here are targeted at average play Jungle
- Not much to say here, we think top is in a more reasonable spot
