Riot Games is bringing in Patch 25.18, a fine-tuning update that balances the meta rather than shaking it to its foundations. This patch has some notable nerfs (looking at you, Qiyana, Yunara, and jungle Sylas), buffs for underperformers, improvements to quality-of-life, and several system and game mode tweaks. We’re also getting the T1 Worlds 2024 winners’ skins, updates to ARAM, changes to how player tracking and death recaps work – you’ll want to keep an eye out on this one.
T1 Worlds 2024 Skins

When T1 clinched back-to-back World Championships in 2024, Riot immortalised their victory with a special Worlds 2024 skin line themed around the team and its players.
Each player picked a champion to receive a skin, and Faker, for being Finals MVP, got two.
Here are the champions and which player they represent:
Visual style & themes
The skins carry a strong “championship” aura: deep reds, heavy ornamental armour, bold accents. They tie into T1’s identity, celebrating their dominance and legacy.
Some skins include personal touches referencing moments from their Worlds journey, such as a recall animation nod to Zeus’s trophy celebration.

Champions

Amumu
“Amumu has been very sad in support for a while now and we’d like to give him some power back to add a bit of pep to his step. We think he’d be tickled pink if he could start maxing Q first, so we’re leaning in that direction by giving it a lower cooldown per rank while also lowering the mana cast so he’ll be able to cast two charges relatively cheaply.”

Q – Bandage Toss
Mana Cost: 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 ⇒ 50 at all ranks
Cooldown: 16 / 15.5 / 15 / 14.5 / 14 ⇒ 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 seconds

Annie
“Annie’s been on fire in pro play for quite some time as is also OP for regular play with the right skill order. Her W-first-max tech is quite powerful compared to her Q max, despite it being very uncommon outside of Pro, so we’re going to reduce the power of this under-the-radar tech.”

W – Incinerate
Base Damage: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 ⇒ 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230

R – Summon Tibbers
Magic Penetration: 15 / 17.5 / 20% ⇒ 10 / 15 / 20%

Ashe
“Ashe is once again finding herself near the bottom of the ADC list. We’re pretty happy with her current shape with crit and some on-hit items being solid options for her, so all we’re really doing here is looking to nudge her success rate up just a bit.”
Base Stats
AD Growth: 2.95 ⇒ 3.45

Aurora
“In a similar boat as a few other mages in this patch, Aurora has been outcompeting and dominating the mid meta in Pro. We’re looking to take some power out of her pro specific advantage of baseline target agnosticism without buying into high AP, as well as worsen her lane phase slightly so she is less capable of supporting her team in early skirmishes.”

Passive – Spirit Abjuration
Base Percent Max Health Damage: 2.5% ⇒ 1%
Percent Max Health Damage AP Ratio: 2% per 100 AP ⇒ 2.7% per 100 AP

Azir
“Azir has been at the top of his rule, especially in pro play. He’s reliably able to get to a high point of power, so we’d like to reduce how effective he is when that happens by bringing down his Attack Speed growth and late-game W damage.”
Base Stats
Attack Speed Growth: 5.5% ⇒ 5.0%

W – Arise!
AP Ratio: + 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 / 65% AP ⇒ + 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60% AP

Briar
“Briar’s ultimate is a little too hard to hit, especially against aware players. While it’s intended that the spell has high counterplay, we wanted to ensure smart Briar players are able to find situations where it is much more in their favor to land. To do this, we’re delaying the global warning sound until after the 1 second cast time, which should make R much easier to hit when cast at nearby enemies from out of vision. To compensate, we’re nerfing her damage a bit as she’s quite strong right now and doesn’t have room for a straight buff.”

Q – Head Rush
Base Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 ⇒ 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160
Damage Type: Magic ⇒ Physical

W – Blood Frenzy
Bugfix: Fixed a bug where Briar would sometimes stop moving and lose her attack command when Frenzy expired

R – Certain Death
Global Sound: Plays on cast ⇒ Plays after cast
Damage: 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 50% bonus AD) (+ 120% AP) ⇒ 150 / 250 / 350 (+130% AP) (Note: 50% bonus AD ratio removed.)
Range: 10000 ⇒ 12000

Cassiopeia
“Cassiopeia has been stagnating in the grass for a while ever since the early few patches of Noxus earlier this year. To help her out we’re adding a small buff to her offensive power and early laning by giving her (twin) fangs a bit more bite.”
Base Stats
Base Mana: 400 ⇒ 450

E – Twin Fang
Base Damage vs Poisoned Targets: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 ⇒ 20 / 43 / 66 / 89 / 112

Galio
“Galio is currently one of the most dominant mid picks and has been for a few patches now. His mid-game is by far his strongest point, which has meaningfully contributed to him out competing other picks, so we’re looking to bring it down to a more reasonable spot. With these changes we’re looking to target both tank and full damage builds to keep his itemization between the two healthy.”

Passive – Colossal Smash
AP Ratio: 45% ⇒ 40%

Q – Winds of War
Percent Max Health Damage per Tick: 2.5% ⇒ 2%

Garen
“Garen is hitting a historical low breadth (the amount of unique players), and we’d like our signature accessible top lane fighter to be more enticing for more players. We’re going to buff him up by showing some love to his E AD Ratio, which should further incentivize more fighter-y runes and items.”

E – Judgment
AD Ratio per Spin: 36 / 39 / 42 / 45 / 48% AD ⇒ 38 / 41 / 44 / 47 / 50% AD

Hwei
“Hwei has been producing fine art, but we’ve seen some player feedback saying that he struggles to find footing, partially due to his strength waning over gametime, which we agree with. To fix this we’re buffing his AP ratios to give his art more impact as he gets gold, and giving him some higher-mastery skewed buffs that will help his WQ feel smoother to use.”

Passive – Signature of the Visionary
AP Ratio: 30% ⇒ 35%

WQ – Serenity: Fleeting Current
Base Bonus Movement Speed: 20 / 22.5 / 25 / 27.5 / 30% ⇒ 30 / 32.5 / 35 / 37.5 / 40%
Bonus Movement Speed AP Ratio: +2% per 100 AP ⇒ +3% per 100 AP

E – Subject: Torment
EQ – Grim Visage AP Ratio: 60% ⇒ 65%
EW – Gaze of the Abyss AP Ratio: 60% ⇒ 65%
EE – Crushing Maw AP Ratio: 60% ⇒ 65%

Jayce
“Piltover’s poster boy hasn’t been defending tomorrow very well lately, and has seen little presence in pro play despite the top lane meta being one he should thrive in. To help him out a bit we’re going to give him a high skill skewed buff to make his shock blasts all the more… shocking.”

Q – Shock Blast (Cannon Stance)
Damage: 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 / 310 ⇒ 80 / 126 / 172 / 218 / 264 / 310

Illaoi
“When we nerfed Illaoi’s vessel duration, she was left in a state where she could sometimes fail to get any follow-up tentacle attacks on a newly-minted vessel in the early game. We’re extending the debuff duration slightly to make it more likely that she can get her well-deserved follow-up slap, but as this has a meaningful power impact, we’re also giving her a small compensation nerf. We’re also delivering a nice QoL buff requested by Illaoi players: no longer will she waste her passive cooldown while channeling or travelling with Summoner Teleport.”

Passive – Prophet of an Elder God
QoL Change: No longer spawns tentacles during Summoner Teleport. Her passive now waits until she’s done teleporting.

W – Harsh Lesson
Target Max Health Damage: 4% per 100 total AD ⇒ 3.5% per 100 total AD

E – Test of Spirit
Vessel Duration: 3 ⇒ 4 seconds

Qiyana
“Qiyana’s recent buffs were quite potent, bringing her into the spotlight as arguably the strongest champion in the game and driving her ban rate up significantly. This queen has been shining too brightly, in both mid and jungle, so to take the attention off of her (and so that her players can play her) we’re bringing her power down across the board.”
Base Stats
Base AD: 66 ⇒ 64
Armor Growth: 4.7 ⇒ 4.5

Passive – Royal Privilege
Bonus Damage: 30% Bonus AD ⇒ 25% Bonus AD

Sylas
“As players have gotten better at him, Sylas jungle has continued to rise up the ranks and now is more performant than we’re comfortable with. Since we’re happy with his power level in mid lane, we’re simply walking back a portion of his prior jungle buffs.”

Passive – Petricite Burst
Bonus Damage to Monsters: 150% ⇒ 130%

Taliyah
“Taliyah has been no stranger to higher level play and we think the culprit is a combination of reliability and durability in her most common builds. We’d like her to be weighed down less by her high mana costs in order to make her less reliant on Tear of the Goddess. Additionally, we would also see her build more aggressively so we are lowering her base damage in order to make AP a larger portion of her power budget. We’re improving her jungle modifiers as a way to offset these adjustments to mid lane.”

Q – Threaded Volley
Mana Cost: 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 ⇒ 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75
Q2 Mana Cost: 20 ⇒ 10
Base Damage: 56 / 74.5 / 93 / 111.5 / 130 ⇒ 55 / 72.5 / 90 / 107.5 / 125
Flat Damage per Rock to Monsters: 10 ⇒ 20

E – Unraveled Earth
Mana Cost: 90 / 95 / 100 / 105 / 110 ⇒ 90 at all ranks
Detonation Base Damage: 25 / 45 / 65 / 85 / 105 ⇒ 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85
Monster Damage Modifier: 175% ⇒ 190%

Vel’Koz
“We’re looking to give a bit of love to Vel’Koz who’s been looking a tad weak in both main roles, with a bit more emphasis on the mid lane.”

E – Tectonic Disruption
Cooldown: 14 / 13.5 / 13 / 12.5 / 12 ⇒ 12 / 11.5 / 11 / 10.5 / 10 seconds

R – Life Form Disintegration Ray
Total Base Damage: 450 / 625 / 800 ⇒ 450 / 700 / 925

Volibear
“Volibear has clawed his way to the top of the ranks of junglers as the rest of them were brutally wounded by nerfs in the last hunt. While it’s acceptable for this thunder god to be potent, his current strength is just a bit too thunderous. As such we’re tapping down his AP Ratio on his passive, which should make his first item power spike less electrifying.”

Passive – The Relentless Storm
Attack Speed AP Ratio: 4% (up to 20%) per 100 AP ⇒ 3 (up to 17.5%) per 100 AP

Yunara
“Yunara has quickly risen to be the strongest marksman in the game accounting for mastery while also seeing high pick/ban priority in professional play (especially in China and Korea). In this patch we’re looking to nerf her across the board, ideally lowering her priority in professional play, which should also lower her ban rate in higher levels of play as well.”
Base Stats
Base Health: 600 ⇒ 575
Base AD: 56 ⇒ 53

E – Kanmei’s Steps
Bonus Movement Speed: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70% ⇒ 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50%
Movement Speed Duration: 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 ⇒ 1.5 seconds at all ranks

Zac
Zac can rarely get stuck on units in his ultimate. The original Zac ultimate allowed him to pass through units to prevent this, so we’re bringing that functionality back!

R – Let’s Bounce!
Going Ghost: Now grants Ghosting during ultimate.
Items

Bami’s Cinder
We’ve revisiting Bami’s this patch to help keep it in line with Fated Ashes, which has seen a clear dominance between the two options. We’d like the difference to be less decided between the two components for jungle clear power, so these buffs should help do just that.
Percent Amp on Monsters: 50% ⇒ 100%

Sunfire Cape
“Sunfire Cape has been the clearly worse option for tank junglers when compared to Liandry’s, and while a meaningful amount of that difference is generated from the early clear impacts of Bami’s vs. Fated Ashes, there is still a degree of power and excitement missing from Sunfire once completed that we want to bring to the item.”
Percent Amp on Minions and Monsters: 50% ⇒ 60%

Mercurial Scimitar
“When you find yourself forced to rush a QSS to survive an enemy Malzahar, Warwick, or just a team with heavy CC, it’s still usually in your best interest to complete this item last. Even then, you still may feel like you’re giving up more power than you can afford due to the meager stats that the item gives on completion. We’re looking to make sure the item still feels appropriately tuned while keeping a focus on the active as its main strength.”
Attack Damage: 40 ⇒ 50
Magic Resistance: 40 ⇒ 35
Active Movespeed Duration: 1.5 ⇒ 2 seconds
Source: Riot Games
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