LoL Patch 26.17 Notes: Every Champion and Item Change

Patch 26.17 goes live on Wednesday 26 August 2026. The changes below come from Riot’s official patch preview, published by lead gameplay designer Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison on 19 August. Preview values can change before ship. We will check this page against the official notes on release day and mark anything that moved.

This is a stabilisation patch, not a meta reset: nine buffs to underused picks, targeted nerfs to Vayne, Graves and Nocturne, and item trims to Sundered Sky and Swiftmarch.

Champion changes

Buffs

• Aurelion Sol – Q mana cost per second 35 to 55, down to 25 to 45. W cooldown 22 to 16 seconds, now 22 to 14 seconds.
• Cho’Gath – E damage 20 to 100, up to 30 to 110. AP ratio and Feast max health scaling unchanged.
• Irelia – Q AD ratio 70% to 80%. W damage reduction 7% to 8% per 100 AP. R AP ratio 70% to 100%.
• LeBlanc – Attack speed ratio 0.4 to 0.625, growth 2.35% to 1.5%. W and R-W AP ratio 80% to 90%.
• Qiyana – Q damage 70 to 190 (+85% bonus AD), up to 80 to 200 (+90% AD). Monster damage cut from 175% to 160%.
• Trundle – W attack speed 30 to 90%, now 30 to 110%.
• Yasuo – Passive crit damage reduction eased from -10% to -5%.
• Yone – Passive crit damage reduction eased from -10% to -5%.

Nerfs

• Graves – Q damage bonus AD ratio 65% to 55%. Q return damage ratio 55/70/85/100/115% down to 45/60/75/90/105%. Less damage and slower clears.
• Nasus – Passive lifesteal 12/18/24% down to 10/15/20%.
• Nocturne – Base armour 38 to 36. Base health 655 to 640.
• Thresh – E active damage 75 to 255 down to 65 to 245, AP ratio held at 70% after an intermediate revision.
• Vayne – Base health 550 (+103/level) becomes 580 (+98/level). Health regen 3.5 (+0.55) becomes 4 (+0.5). Attack speed ratio 0.658 (+3.3%/level) becomes 0.67 (+2.8%/level). Q mana cost 30 becomes 46 to 30. W true damage 6 to 10% max health becomes 4 to 10%, minimum damage 50 to 110 becomes 40 to 100.
• Xerath – Health 596 to 575. Base armour 22 to 20, per-level unchanged. Q damage 75 to 235, now 70 to 230.

Hecarim changes appeared in an earlier version of the preview and were pulled before publication.

Item and system changes

• Stormrazor – Attack speed 20% to 25%. Aimed at widening its use beyond Jhin.
• Sundered Sky – Attack damage 45 to 40, health 450 to 400.
• Swiftmarch – Slow resist 40% to 25%.

New skins

• Heartsong Seraphine – Legendary, 1820 RP. Riot is directing 100% of its proceeds, plus a 2x match, to the Riot Games Social Impact Fund between 26 August and 23 September.
• Ocean Song Jinx – 1350 RP.
• Ocean Song Soraka – 1350 RP.

What this actually changes for your climb

Most of this list will not change a Gold game. Two entries will.

1. Graves junglers, expect slower clears. Losing ten percent bonus AD on Q and ten points of return ratio hits both his damage and his clear speed, which moves his first full clear timing. If you path off Graves tempo, re-time it rather than assuming it holds.
2. Vayne top gets punished harder in lane. The Q mana cost now starts at 46 and scales down, so early tumbles are no longer free. Trade into her before six with more confidence than last patch.
3. Do not reroll your champion pool on Wednesday. A tuning nerf on a champion you know beats a healthy champion you have twenty games on. Give it two weeks and judge from your own results.

The Sundered Sky trim is the one worth watching beyond champion tuning. Riot has now nerfed it twice in consecutive patches while stating the direction is right and only the magnitude is off. Five attack damage and fifty health does not remove it from your build, but it does narrow the gap against the alternatives on bruiser junglers. If you have been buying it automatically, this is the patch to check whether the second item is still correct in your own games rather than because a build page says so.

“Patch changes do not matter at my rank”

Mostly true, and worth saying plainly. In Gold you are not losing games to a five percent ratio change. You are losing them to deaths you did not need to take and objectives nobody set up. The exception is anything that moves a timing you cannot outplay, and this patch has one of those: the Graves clear change. Everything else on this list is a number, not a decision.

From the coach

I do not read patch notes looking for what got stronger. I read them looking for anything that changes a timing, because that is the only thing I have to relearn. Everything else I find out from my own games over the next two weeks, and so should you.

TBR37, Challenger, mid and ADC coach at Level Legendary. See the coach profile.

If you want to know which of these changes actually affects the way you play, your first session is free: a coach reads your OP.GG and goes through one of your games with you, live, with no card required.

Source: Riot’s official Patch 26.17 preview, 19 August 2026. Release date confirmed against Riot’s published patch schedule. This page will be checked against the official patch notes when 26.17 goes live on 26 August.