Patch 25.21 Notes

Patch 25.21 is bee-autiful! 🐝
Game Updates
Riot Sakaar

It's time for Patch 25.21! We hope your Pick 'Ems are going well in the Swiss stage and if not then maybe the Crystal Ball picks will save you.

On the balance front we're delivering some important systemic changes to early lane aggression with nerfs to Doran's Shield and Second Wind, plus better incentives for aggressive play with Doran's Ring. We're also bringing back Gwen to her pre-update state earlier this year, bringing back Graves's magic resist through Grit stacks, nerfing Dr. Mundo's late game burst, and swinging at the biggest balance outliers for regular at-home play.

This patch, we've got the Act 2 Pass that has double the currencies in celebration of Worlds being back in full swing, so make sure to complete that to get double BE, OE, and ME. We've also got the brand new ARAM Mayhem, sporting an entirely new experience around ARAM but filled with augments! Create the snowball build of your dreams, or your enemies' nightmares.

We've also got an update to the Practice Tool that will allow you to try out champions before you buy them, some updates to some min spec changes we made earlier this year, and of course, some new goodies in the Sanctum and Mythic Shop!
TFT patch notes here!
Caden "Riot Sakaar" House

Patch Highlights

Beeko, Mecha Kingdoms Skarner, and Prestige Aspect Zoe will be available with the pass on October 22, 2024.

Season 3 Act 2 Battle Pass

With 25.21 we have the last seasonal pass of the year! Make sure to complete it to grab Beeko, Mecha Kingdoms Skarner, and Prestige Eternal Aspect Zoe, plus all the emotes, icons, and more that we have on the pass.

This pass we have a special treat to celebrate Worlds being back: all currencies across the 48 levels on the pass will be doubled! So any Blue Essence, Orange Essence, and Mythic Essence on the pass is 2x its normal value! Meaning instead of 25 Mythic Essence you'll get 50!

A portion of the proceeds from the Season 3 Act 2 Pass will also be shared with LoL Esports teams.

Here's the full list:

  • Level 1: 3 Worlds 2025 Orb
  • Level 2: Worlds Watcher Poro Icon
  • Level 3: 6000 Blue Essence
  • Level 4: 3 Ancient Spark
  • Level 5: “We are League” Title
  • Level 6: Neeko Champion Permanent
  • Level 7: Hextech Chest + Key
  • Level 8: Beeko Skin
  • Level 9: Beeko Border + Icon
  • Level 10: Mystery Icon
  • Level 11: Champion Capsule
  • Level 12: Aww-relion Sol Emote
  • Level 13: Mecha Menace Icon
  • Level 14: 6000 Blue essence
  • Level 15: Rrraaw! Emote
  • Level 16: Hextech Chest + Key
  • Level 17: Worlds 2025 Orb
  • Level 18: Hextech Chest + Key
  • Level 19: 1000 Orange Essence
  • Level 20: Mystery Icon
  • Level 21: 6000 Blue Essence
  • Level 22: Skarner Champion Permanent
  • Level 23: Worlds 2025 Orb
  • Level 24: Mecha Kingdoms Skarner
  • Level 25: Mecha Kingdoms Skarner Border + Icon
  • Level 26: Mystery Icon
  • Level 27: Hextect Chest + Key
  • Level 28: Mystery Emote
  • Level 29: Smite Pls Emote
  • Level 30: Hextech Chest + Key
  • Level 31: Champion Capsule
  • Level 32: 50 Mythic Essence
  • Level 33: Scraping Silver Icon
  • Level 34: Worlds 2025 Orb
  • Level 35: Champion Capsule
  • Level 36: Hextech Chest + Key
  • Level 37: Look at the Time!
  • Level 38: Glorious Champion Capsule
  • Level 39: Mystery Icon
  • Level 40: Hextech Chest + Key
  • Level 41: Trials of Twilight Icon
  • Level 42: Mystery Emote
  • Level 43: Hextech Chest + Key
  • Level 44: Mystery Ward
  • Level 45: 1000 Orange Essence
  • Level 46: Zoe Champion Permanent
  • Level 47: Worlds 2025 Orb
  • Level 48: Prestige Eternal Aspect Zoe

Repeating Missions:

  • Level 49: 750 Blue Essence
  • Level 50: 750 Blue Essence
  • Level 51: 750 Blue Essence
  • Level 52: 25 Orange Essence
  • Level 53: 750 Blue Essence
  • Level 54: 750 Blue Essence
  • Level 55: 750 Blue Essence
  • Level 56: 25 Orange Essence

ARAM Mayhem

Our newest game mode, ARAM Mayhem, is going live with this patch! ARAM Mayhem answers that question of “What happens if we take the augments from Arena and cram them into ARAM?” The answer to which is, of course... Mayhem.

ARAM Mayhem is just like the usual 5v5 single lane goodness but with something a little extra added. At the start of each match, you'll get to choose one of three augments to kick off your build, with another choice at levels 7, 11, and 15. Just like items, you can claim them on death! (Or if you're a “cheater” you might find an augment that allows you to back to base to shop and claim augments)

ARAM Mayhem will be live through patch 25.24 so make sure to pop in and cause some mayhem before it goes away!

Practice Tool Updates

As Meddler mentioned in the Dev Update, we're making a few improvements to the Practice Tool this patch. Among other things, you can now use any champion in Practice Tool before purchasing them for PvP play. An icon will appear in the Practice Tool lobby to show you that all champions will be unlocked when you hop into Practice Tool as a single player. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
  • All champions are unlocked for players using Practice Tool in solo mode (1 human player, so bots & spectators are ok).
  • Added a feature to spawn/respawn neutral monster camps (i.e., jungle camps & scuttle crab).
  • Fixed a bug where scuttle crab would not respawn in certain circumstances.

Mac OS to Metal and DirectX 11 Changes

To maintain the stability and performance of our games, we sometimes need to deprecate support for older hardware or software that isn't widely used by players anymore. These kinds of changes typically only impact a small number of players, but we wanted to give a heads- up in case you're impacted by these changes starting in 25.21.

At the beginning of the year (Patch 25.02 aka the patch formally known as 25.S1.2) we updated our minimum spec requirements as we updated League to require DirectX 11 feature level 11_0 for Windows users and Metal for Mac users. With 25.21 these will now be required, meaning that you'll need to have these graphics technologies in order to continue playing League. If you already meet the minimum requirements to play League then you should be okay and won't notice a difference when 25.21 goes live. However if you don't you'll find that the “Play” button is greyed out and you'll receive a pop up telling you that you'll need to update your hardware in order to play League again.

For Minimum and Recommended System Requirements we recommend checking the support article.

Champions

Bard

We're pretty happy with Bard's current balance state but would like to open up some more options for him, namely in building AP items like Shurelya's, making him better at supporting his team when playing AP-heavy.

W - Caretaker's Shrine

  • Minimum Heal: 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 (+ 30% AP) ⇒ 25 / 50 / 75 / 100 / 125(+ 40% AP)
  • Maximum Heal: 50 / 87.5 / 125 / 162.5 / 200 (+ 60% AP) ⇒ 50 / 87.5 / 125 / 162.5 / 200(+ 70% AP)
  • Movement Speed: 20 / 22.5 / 25 / 27.5 / 30 (+ 5% per 100 AP) ⇒ 20 / 22.5 / 25 / 27.5 / 30(+ 6% per 100 AP)

Diana

Diana's last buff to her jungle clears overshot a bit, so we're walking it back slightly to keep her in line.

Passive - Moonsliver Blade

  • Monster Damage: 300% ⇒ 280%

Dr. Mundo

Dr. Mundo is a scaling juggernaut who has to wade through a fairly weak early game in order to scale into the ability to go wherever he pleases. And we're happy he's able to go where he pleases, but he's bursting whomever he pleases a bit too easily. We're looking for some power neutral adjustments that take away some late-game burst and give back late-game durability in its stead.

Base Stats

  • Armor Growth: 3.7 ⇒ 4.5

E - Blunt Force Trauma

  • Minimum Active Damage: 5 / 15 / 25 / 35 / 45 (+ 7% Bonus HP) ⇒ 5 / 15 / 25 / 35 / 45 (+ 5% Bonus HP)

Ezreal

Ezreal has been a low performer lately especially at lower ranks. We're looking to add a little bit of general power to help him keep up as games go late.

Base Stats

  • Attack Damage Growth: 2.75 ⇒ 3.25

Graves

We'd like to nudge Graves back toward having a strong sustained fight pattern and that means letting him rely on Grit and playing to stack it up. As he's getting this MR from Quickdraw, he can once again have the base magic resistance of a ranged champion. So, if you can catch Graves before he's able to stack up, he's more burstable than before, but if he's able to play the fight out the way he wants, he'll grow to be the sustained monster we all know and hate love.

Base Stats

  • Magic Resistance: 32 ⇒ 30
  • Magic Resistance Growth: 2.05 ⇒ 1.3

E - Quickdraw

  • Now grants 50% of armor as bonus Magic Resistance.
  • Magic Resistance per stack: 2 / 3.5 / 5 / 6.5 / 8
  • Max Magic Resistance: 16 / 28 / 40 / 52 / 64

Gwen

Back in 25.06 we sought to give Gwen more power over her laning phase while still being that scaling AP skirmisher. However, those changes have left her in a less popular state that has alienated Gwen players from the version of her that they enjoyed. So we're going back to almost the exact same champion from 25.05, with two differences: Her armor growth is a little lower, and her jungle levers are weaker. These two changes weren't reverted because she was a little too strong in top and significantly too strong in the jungle back before the changes. Enjoy your Gwensday tomorrow!

Base Stats

  • Health: 600 ⇒ 625
  • Health Growth: 100 ⇒ 125
  • Attack Speed Growth: 2.5% ⇒ 2.25%

Passive - A Thousand Cuts

  • AP Ratio: 0.55% per 100 AP ⇒ 0.6% per 100 AP

Q - Snip Snip!

  • Small Snip Damage: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+2% AP) ⇒ 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+5% AP)

W - Hallowed Mist

  • Armor and Magic Resistance: 22 (+ 7% AP) ⇒ 22 / 24 / 26 / 28 / 30 (+7% AP)
  • Cooldown: 24 / 22.5 / 21 / 19.5 / 18 ⇒ 22 / 21 / 20 / 19 / 18

E - Skip 'n Slash

  • Damage: 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20 (+ 25% AP) ⇒ 15 (+ 20% AP)
  • Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 ⇒ 13 / 12.5 / 12 / 11.5 / 11
  • Cooldown Refund: 50% ⇒ 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 / 65%

R - Needlework

  • Damage: 30 / 60 / 90 (+ 8% AP) ⇒ 35 / 65 / 95 (+ 10% AP)
  • Slow: 30 / 45 / 60% ⇒ 40 / 50 / 60%

Kalista

Kalista has been underperforming for quite a while now and we'd like to carve out some mid-game strength for her. We're hoping to achieve that by increasing her attack damage growth, which directly feeds into her attacks as well as her Q and E damage.

Base Stats

  • Attack Damage Growth: 4.25 ⇒ 4.75

Kog'Maw

Kog'Maw is one of the winningest bot laners in the game and has also lost his old identity as a scaler. We're delivering a targeted nerf toward his early trading in order to re-balance him and retain some of that scaling potential.

Q - Caustic Spittle

  • Passive Attack Speed: 10 / 15 / 20 /25 / 30% ⇒ 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25%

Morgana

Morgana has taken off as a highly powerful mid laner across all ranks of play. We're super happy that she's found a new audience here but she's also meaningfully overpowered. In order to open up some more weaknesses, we're looking to bring down her guaranteed durability, making her rely more on Black Shield and Soul Siphon.

Base Stats

  • Armor Growth: 5 ⇒ 4.2

Qiyana

Qiyana has been one of the clear winners from the recent changes to Profane Hydra and Axiom Arc. She's been taking over in both mid lane and jungle especially in elite play. We're hitting her with some nerfs that'll take her down a notch in both roles.

Base Stats

  • Health Growth: 124 ⇒ 121

Q - Elemental Wrath / Edge of Ixtal

  • Damage: 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+ 90% Bonus AD) ⇒ 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 / 190 (+ 85% Bonus AD)

Quinn

Quinn has been one of the winningest top laners for a while now and with us nerfing both Doran's Shield and Second Wind this patch, we're confident that Quinn is due for some nerfs of her own lest she completely overtake top lane. We hope that these nerfs will open up her build options away from simply high AD lethality burst, allowing her the space to play out a more sustained auto-attacking pattern.

Q - Blinding Assault

  • Damage: 65 / 100 / 135 / 170 / 205 (+ 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120% Bonus AD) ⇒ 65 / 100 / 135 / 170 / 205 (+ 80 / 85 / 90 / 95 / 100% Bonus AD)

R - Skystrike

  • Damage: 70% Total AD ⇒ 60 / 90 / 120(+ 35% Bonus AD)

Yone

Yone's been a low performer for quite a while now, and the upcoming changes to Doran's Shield and Second Wind will likely leave him in a pretty sad state. We'd like to pre-emptively give him some early game power to make up for it.

Base Stats

  • Attack Damage: 60 ⇒ 62

Yunara

We're here to buff Yunara today. As she's still relatively new, over two thirds of her games are played by inexperienced players, substantially dragging down her win rate. But even after accounting for that fact, she's still weaker than the average bot laner. We want to achieve two goals here: First, we want to improve the value of ability ranks in W so that players who invest in spell damage are rewarded for their skill points. Second, we want to make her more consistently mobile, bringing up Kanmei's Steps average movement speed so that players don't have to hold it just to juke a key skillshot and instead can take more proactive and aggressive fights.
The change here to her ultimate is a very slight nerf that aligns both W abilities to use bonus attack damage while keeping her total appetite for Long Swords about the same.

W - Arc of Judgment

  • Initial Damage: 5 / 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 (+ 85% Total AD) ⇒ 55 / 95 / 135 / 175 / 215 (+ 85% Bonus AD)
  • Damage per second: 5 / 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 (+ 40% Total AD) ⇒ 33 / 57 / 81 / 105 / 129 (+ 51% Bonus AD)

W - Arc of Ruin (Transcendent State)

  • Damage: 50 / 200 / 350 (+ 175% Total AD) ⇒ 175 / 350 / 525 (+ 150% Bonus AD)

E - Kanmei's Steps

  • Movement Speed: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% decaying over 1.5 seconds ⇒ 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% decaying after 1.5 seconds
  • Movement Speed toward Enemies: 45 / 52.5 / 60 / 67.5 / 75% decaying over 1.5 seconds ⇒ 45 / 52.5 / 60 / 67.5 / 75% decaying after 1.5 seconds
  • Cooldown: 7.5 ⇒ 9
  • Step Right: Fixed a bug where Yunara could retain the enhanced movement speed without facing any enemy champions

Items

Catalyst of Aeons

Catalyst needs to be competitive with Lost Chapter in giving tankier AP champions enough mana to play out their laning phases. It does not, however, need to invalidate burst damage so strongly. So we're delivering a small health nerf until it's turned into Rod of Ages.
  • Health: 350 ⇒ 300

Doran's Blade

We're moving Doran's Blade back to its 14.1 version with omnivamp because the item is meant to serve more than just attackers, but instead a wide range of AD champions, such as those who rely on abilities do deal their damage.
  • 3% Lifesteal removed.
  • newHeal for 2.5% of damage dealt (reduced to 33% of this value for area of effect spells and pet spells)

Doran's Ring

The current tuning of some starter items and Second Wind can make it feel pointless to attempt to harass during lane phase, resulting in stale gameplay especially in mid lane where players don't play for kills often enough. With these changes, we're attempting to nudge back towards poke being more valuable in the lane phase.
  • Mana Regeneration: 1.25 per second ⇒ 1 per second, increased to 2 per second for 5 seconds after damaging an enemy champion
  • Health Regeneration: 0.55 per second ⇒ 45% of mana regenerated value

Doran's Shield

See Doran's Ring.
  • Max Healing after taking damage: 45 (melee) / 30 (ranged) ⇒ 40 (melee) / 30 (ranged)

Runes

Second Wind

See Doran's Ring.
  • Healing after taking damage: 3 + 4% of missing health ⇒ 4% of missing health

Brawl Game Mode Extension

Previously we communicated that Brawl was only going to be active for two patches and would be turning off with 25.21 going live. However, we're looking to capture a bit more data on how Brawl is performing as we investigate its value as a new player tool, so we're going to be extending it two more patches! So if you were sad about Brawl leaving… surprise! It's still live for a little bit longer.

Brawl will now be live through patch 25.22 and will be disabled when patch 25.23 goes live.

Skins

RETURNING SANCTUM ITEMS

With this patch Genesis Nightbringer Yasuo will be entering the Sanctum for the first time! We'll be aligning this skin with the current Mythic Variant Sanctum format (max 40 pulls), with the Mythic Variant Emote as an A-Tier drop.

The Mythic Variant Icon will be added to the Featured Section of the Mythic Shop for 5 Mythic Essence for the duration of the banner and enter the pool for daily rotations. However, similar to Prestige skins that come back to the Mythic Shop, the Border & Border Icon will not be returning at this time as we want to ensure that the players who acquire them in their initial run have something special that sets it apart.

Genesis Nightbringer Yasuo will be available in the Sanctum until patch 25.23 goes live.

NEW NEXUS FINISHER

We also have the new Nexus Finisher “Twilight Surge” that will be coming with this patch that will be added into the Mythic Shop for 250 Mythic Essence.

Twilight Surge will be available until patch 26.01 goes live!

Bugfixes & QoL Changes

QUALITY OF LIFE CHANGES

  • Practice Tool games should now display as such in players' friend lists instead of “Normal” Summoners Rift matches.
  • Added the ability for Custom Games' lobby leaders to pass lead.
  • Added the ability for players to swap pick order in Custom Games' champ select.

BUGFIXES

  • Fixed an issue where Champions and Minions would freeze in Spectator Mode if someone was using streamer mode settings.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented Ambessa from dashing through an ally Azir's R.
  • Fixed an issue where if Yone casted his Q or E too quickly after W it would cause his visuals to separate.
  • Fixed an issue where Zoe's yoyo idle SFX wouldn't play at the end of her taunt or spawn in animation.
  • Fixed an issue where Yunara's Q stacks wouldn't appear in Spectator Mode.

ARAM BUGFIXES

  • Fixed a camera snapping issue on the Bilgewater ARAM map for the Chaos side.
  • Disabled the forced camera lock when your champion is flying or landing.

Upcoming Skins & Chromas

The following skins will be released in this patch:

Prestige Eternal Aspect Zoe

Beeko

Mecha Kingdoms Skarner