LoL Patch 26.22 Preview: Locke nerfed as Mel midscope goes live

LoL Patch 26.22 Preview: Locke nerfed as Mel midscope goes live | Sheep Esports

The patch is expected to hit live servers on Wednesday, November 21, 2026

Riot Games has released the patch notes for League of Legends Patch 26.22. According to Riot Games' official schedule, the patch is expected to hit live servers on Wednesday, November 21, 2026. Like Patch 26.21, it will not affect Worlds, which will already be underway on Patch 26.20 and remain on it for the rest of the competition.

Ten champions will receive buffs, while only three will be nerfed. The newest Mel midscope is also going live, as the champion will radically change its identity. Overlord’s Bloodmail is going to be buffed, while Doran’s bow will receive a nerf.

LoL Patch 26.22 Preview. Credit: Riot Games

Buffs

Champions: Aurelion Sol, Corki, Kayle, Naafiri, Rumble, Shen (Jungle), Smolder, Viktor, Zaheen
Items: Overlord’s Bloodmail

Nerfs:

Champions: Locke, Tresh, Yasuo.
Items: Doran’s Bow

Adjustments:

Champions: Mel

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

Mel

Mel's mini-update will be Live on Patch 26.22
When we released Mel, we intentionally went for a new ability that was pretty ambitious; we like to try to push the boundaries with new champions and mechanics to give players new puzzles to solve with each release
After being on Live for a while, it's clear that many players feel that Mel's reflect was too frustrating to play against. There are things in League that are allowed to be frustrating, as that can create a feeling of triumph when overcoming it and challenging players to grow, but there are some things that are too frustrating even given those upsides
Realistically, every champion should have something that they do uniquely that other players might feel is frustrating
So we're reworking Mel's W to keep the feeling of destroying projectiles, but not have it hard counter some subsets of the roster
We tried many versions of Mel's W that tried to retain the reflect, but we couldn't find one that would hit the mark for Mel players and would be satisfactory for opponents
We know this is disappointing for Mel players and we're sorry we couldn't uphold this end of the contract with you all
That said, we hope this will allow Mel to be balanced at relatively higher resting power levels and be more effective for Mel players

Viktor

Viktor's nerfs last patch overshot a bit, but we're happy with the power redistribution to make his mobility (base movespeed) a bit worse
This emphasizes his weakness of walking around the map unassisted, but in return pays for the power budget of his strong laning and good scaling

Shen

Shen is decently strong in Top lane and Support, but we also think his jungle could be a bit stronger too
It's a playstyle that players have found fun, so we're throwing it a bit of a bone

Rumble

Rumble has been one of the strongest champs in Pro Play, but now that Pro Play patches are done, we're giving him a bit of power, as it's not like he's overly strong in Elite play either

Smolder

Our previous Smolder buff was a bit less impactful than intended, so we're giving another follow-up buff
He's been a bit weaker, especially after the adjustments to Deathfire Touch

Naafiri

We're trying to give a buff to Naafiri mid (at least with the Q heal that's more impactful there vs when she's jungle clearing)
Overall, we think she's close to being appropriately powerful, so we're not trying to go too hard here

Locke

We've been trying to fine-tune Locke's strengths and weaknesses post-release and don't think it's too far off
One place we think is a bit off, though, is how much damage he gets, especially early from his Q, so there's a decently sized nerf here (keep in mind that this stacks up to 3x and is increased by 40% for 3 stacks, to be a ~30 dmg nerf at max)
The other place that we think is a bit off is Locke's W Movespeed
This nerf will make the spell a bit more windowed, while trying to retain satisfaction while it's active and making it a bit more costly to spam while running around the map

Aurelion Sol

There are a few Aurelion Sol players who enjoy maxing W second, but most ASol players max E second, even though it's weaker
This is mostly the intuitive thing to do, but is quite a bit weaker than the alternative
In an ideal world, these would be balanced against each other so both playstyles feel powerful.

Systems

Overlord's Bloodmail has been pretty weak overall and it's pretty hard bound to Sett as currently tuned
We're looking to try to buff this for other users who should be interested in an item that converts Health to Damage (Mundo, Sion), but some aspects of the item make it too Sett skewed [eg. the missing HP portion]
Doran's Bow has been a bit too strong relative to Doran's Blade, especially at higher levels of play - So we're looking to balance out the relative tradeoffs of the items a bit
We're overall happy wtih the direction of how the tradeoffs are playing out though! Just that the magnitude is a bit off

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