League of Legends Patch 26.9 Notes Overview — Buffs, Nerfs, New Events, and More

The newest patch notes are here, giving us a good look at what sort of content we can expect! This patch, 26.9, kicks off the start of 2026 Season 2 Act 1: Pandemonium, bringing bigger gameplay changes to build on the overall systems implemented on the first Season of the year.

First, we're going to start with some of the larger changes, before we move on to our usual format.

Role Quests

When the new League of Legends Dev Update landed before the release of Pandemonium, we got a look at all of the gameplay changes that we could expect. One thing we touched on at the time was the adjustments coming to Role Quests, which mentioned some of the changes that players could expect in terms of overall expectations.

The overview is essentially that Role Quests have been unkind to some of the champions that don't synergise well with them. Heavy roamers and those who need to move out of their lane near the ending of the phase were being unfairly punished for playing the way the champion was intended, which was making a complication with the whole point and purpose of the Role Quests to begin with.

Now that we've spoken about the why of the changes, we can take a look at the specifics. Here are the changes to the Role Quests that we've been expecting:

• Quest Point Penalty applied to CS, turrets, and plates outside of your own lane havebeen increased to -75%, but it'll decrease down to 0% based on the overall Quest Progress the player has.
• Passive Point Progression has been adjusted to 0.333 per second and 1.5 per second while in the quest lane (from 0.333 and 1.6, respectively)
• "In the quest lane" above has been defined more broadly, as anywhere in the lane that is outside of the player base. While it used to be the outermost turret, it has now been redefined to include the lane overall to respond to proxying and roaming.
• Passive Point Earn is disabled 12 seconds after recalling.
• After level three, champions can bank seconds for Passive Point Progression, meaning that for every two minutes the player is in the lane, they can earn one minute of passive points via roaming without being penalised.

Additional to this, we also touched on the fact that some champions were being punished for their Quest Rewards. Top laners who wanted to teamfight were struggling to keep up with those who were designed for split-pushing, and mid laners are getting their Role Quest revised to better fit the power fantasy, similar to top and bot lanes.

For top, then, the overall XP increase is being changed to +80 flat XP on champion takedown and 11% from all other sources. With this, top laners who want to be teamfighting will be receiving higher amounts of experience, instead of being punished for not soaking solo XP in different lanes with the 12.5% flar increase.

Mid lane will be having its previous Role Quest, the Empowered Recall, entirely removed and replaced. Now, mid laners can expect 6% bonus AD and AP, which should help them scale into the later game equivalent to top and bot lane, emphasising their scale-ability and giving them harder spikes per item purchased.

Finally, bot lane is receiving a minor nerf to the bonus takedown gold they receive. Now, after the Role Quest has been completed, takedowns give an extra 40g instead of 50g, preventing them from scaling too easily into their late-game fantasy.

Minion Wave Changes

Minions are being buffed slightly into the mid and late game, allowing players to have higher roaming windows while lanes build up. This change should make them a bit stronger, increasing the overall wave durability.

• Melee Minion Health has been changed from 440, scaling by +25 every 90 seconds, and then only 35+ after seven minutes to a flat 430 HP and 35+ every 90s.
• Minion Slayer, which is the minion damage bonus to other minions, is being changed to +2, +3.5, and +5% current HP on hit for Melee, Ranged, and Siege minions, respectively, down slightly for Ranged and Siege.

Buffs

Now, for the buffs. Some of the champions have been heavily affected by the removal of some runes that players could pick, and to compensate early, some champions are being given alternatives in the interim, while Riot Games sees what new runes they favour. Others are receiving buffs in response to previous patches.

• Gragas (Based on Phase Rush removal)
• Tahm Kench (Buff to Support)
• Taliyah (Based on Phase Rush removal)
• Warwick (Strengthening late-game scaling)

Nerfs

• Ambessa Top (All Ranks)
• Briar Jungle (All Ranks)

Adjustments

Now, the new Pandemonium Season is trying to re-emphasise player identity and builds. With some champions, which have strong ratios across AD and AP on their abilities, this means that they're trying to bring back different playstyles in these champions.

This change is likely tied to Shyvana, and also a bit of the fact that champion identity has been bound to just the one build style. We'll highlight (where applicable) which builds are trying to be brought back.

• Ezreal: Ezreal's AP Builds are being brought back into the mix, increasing his AP ration on Q, W, and R respectively.
• Kennen: Kennen is being offered a new build path focusing on AD and Crit. The crit element is being added to prevent attack-speed builds from spilling too much into standard AP.
• Shyvana (Stronger build differentiation between AD and AP builds)
• Teemo: Teemo's on-hit strength on his E is being brought back in the form of new AD ratios, stacking for both the initial damage and the damage-over-time effect.
• Udyr (Adjustments to AD Udyr to make it less Q-focused and more kit-wide)
• Xin Zhao: Xin Zhao's AP build is being brought back with AP scalings, emphasising the attack-speed build that heals him based on the number of attacks he does. It should give him a unique, sustain-focused approach that could work well with Dusk & Dawn. This change should also enable Attack Speed Xin Zhao to be reintroduced, moving him from his strictly AD Caster that he was stuck at.
• Zeri (Re-focus to her AD roots rather than late-game burst to better appeal to her original fantasy)
• Zoe (Higher focus on Sleepy Trouble Bubble instead of stronger damage based on her Spell Thief)

Items

As mentioned prior, Pandemonium is looking to emphasise player builds a bit more, and this means bringing more options for the player to pick. Following this, there have been a lot of new items to broaden build options, restructures to change the systems into what they were intended to work as, removed items that were between others, and reworks.

This section is going to be more of an overview of everything that happened, including the reason for the changes, but we won't be covering every little detail. Since some changes are pretty major, or new items overall have various stats and passives to take a look at, it would make this article too long to justify it as an overview.

• Axiom Arc: Revert back to higher lethality scaling.
• Doran's Bow: New starting item for high-risk, high-reward playstyles that has no additional health, but offers a bit of omnivamp.
• Doran's Helm: New starting item for players who stack resistances early.
• Dusk & Dawn: New Spellblade effect that heals the user, lowering its stats overall.
• Endless Hunger: Additional Buff to Melee champions for greedy plays.
• Gluttonous Greaves: New omnivamp boots to broaden options.
• Hubris: Lower immediate power upon purchase, but stronger scaling for passive AD per stack and bonus AD.
• Oppotunity: Removed because it sat between Youmuus and Voltaic.
• Staff of Flowing Water: Its Ability Power granting has been lowered, but the old Ability Haste increase for shields has been brought back to broaden its use cases.
• Statikk Shiv: It's being reworked to fit better into the bot lane itemisation. Now, instead of a first-buy wave-clear item, Statikk Shiv is going to apply on-hit effects, making it a stronger late-game itemisation to assist scaling into team fights.
• Trailblazer: Removed because it sat between Bandlepipes and Deadman's Plate, while contributing to gameplay visual noise and depending on the team to engage with its unique mechanic.
• Voltaic Cyclosword: It is being reworked to fit into the empty space now left by Opportunity, focusing more on the upfront burst element for AD casters.

Runes

Finally, we have the runes. Like the items, some of these are being reworked, changed, or added based on their use cases; we're going to give an overview of the changes to each one to give you an idea about what you can expect.

• Deathfire Touch: New rune specifically built for damage-over-time casters, with changes to other runes to compensate for the space this is now taking in building.
• Phase Rush: The rune has been removed due to its problematic nature for intended early lane gameplay.
• Stormraider's Surge: Replacing Phase Rush, Stormraider's Surge is meant to fill the hole Phase Rush was leaving. Instead, it'll give speed and slow resist after dealing 25% of a champion's max health within 3 seconds.
• Arcane Comet: Arcane Comet is now being changed, with its Cooldown Refund being removed since that was intended for burn users. Now, it has its damage increased, favouring its damage and bringing it back to its intended audience and fantasy.
• Hail Of Blades: Hail of Blades has fallen into a niche that isn't doing much with it, so it's being broadened. Some of its attack speed is being shifted over to true damage capabilities, and emphasising further its auto-attack-reset system, buffing it to an extra two attacks (+5 attack speed attacks for champions with auto-attack reset abilities).