League of Legends Patch Notes 25.05 and 25.06 through March include Vanguard Anti Cheat adjustments, two S Tier adjustments to Champions, Lane Swap adjustments and a big ADC meta shakeup. The updates seem half for pro and half for solo queue, which makes it probably less volatile for lower elo players. Naafiri and Gwen are broken beyond belief and have been buffed to the moon in these two patches to thrust them into premier picks at all levels of play. The ADC meta should make solo queue players expand their pick pool and make less viable Champions more relevant.
Lane Swaps
Lane Swaps are a way that traditional League of Legends players swap their lanes to gain an advantage. This goes more into the theory of strong and weak sides, as well as resources. The swap was prevalent in pro play where weaker botlane matchups would go top in order to dodge the botlane 2v2, while the top laner would go bot and sacrifice Gold, as teams would play less resource-dependent champs such as Tanks like K’Sante against enemy botlanes.
The prevalence of Lane Swaps was felt even in solo queue as teams could opt for swaps to get through weak early game compositions with any non-laners not native to their lane outside Jungle being detected in the first 3 and a half minutes getting a warning and giving opponents a buff to their tower and getting gold and XP from dying minions.
On 25.06, Anti-Lane Swaps have been adjusted with the warning and anti system ending earlier on Top and Mid Lane. The Minon Gold/XP Penalty also aims to tone down the effect of this system.
Vanguard LP Refunds
Vanguard is refunding LP to players who encounter cheaters, or more commonly known as scripters, in League of Legends. Valorant is also introducing this system in the same patch, which runs on the same kernel anti-cheat system as League of Legends, so it must be a Riot Games-wide attempt to crack down on cheaters and the bad experience that ruins the competitive integrity of ranked modes and loss of LP through illegitimate methods. If Vanguard detects a player who lost a game due to a cheater, they will refund the lost LP retrospectively, with winners benefitting from the cheater not losing LP.
As an effort for the average players not to feel hard done by being stomped by a cheater, it is a great step that will not have players lose their hard earned LP due to someone without integrity compromising their games. This adjustment is a commendable effort in a first step towards mitigating the effects of unhealthy gameplay patterns that cheaters will perpetuate.
LP will be refunded if a player loses a match due to a cheater on the other side.
Champion Buffs
The buffed champions are as follows:
- Aphelios
- Dr. Mundo
- Fiora
- Jarvan IV
- Jhin
- Kai’Sa
- Kha’Zix
- Lillia
- Lucian
- Poppy
- Seraphine
- Smolder
- Twisted Fate
- Xin Zhao
- Zed
The nerfs to ADC have been discussed later, but the buffs to Kai’Sa, Lucian, Smolder, Jhin and Aphelios point to Riot wanting to shake up the lesser-used ADCs. The fact is, these ADCs weren’t the best in the pool, but due to the nature of fearless draft in pro play, they were still used fairly often by pros when the ADC pool dried up and weren’t weak on the whole. Kai’Sa benefits from these buffs and becomes one of the best carries on the patch, as her base stats being bumped make her laning less miserable.
In terms of big buffs, Xin Zhao and Lillia were both fairly picked in Jungle and got buffed, which is nice, and any time Dr. Mundo gets a buff, low MMR tops will probably sigh as they know it will fill solo queue. It will also be nice to see champions like Twisted Fate and Seraphine become more viable again, as they haven’t been very good for a while, and a buff is probably warranted.
25.05 includes some nerfs to the overpowered Scorpion and K’Sante.
Champion Nerfs
The nerfed champions are as follows:
- Ambessa
- Ashe
- Aurora
- Caitlyn
- Cho’Gath
- Corki
- Darius
- Draven
- Ezreal
- Elise
- Garen
- Jinx
- Karma
- K’Sante
- Skarner
- Yorick
Yorick Jungle got nerfed two patches in a row, which probably locks him into the top lane. The nerfs to Ashe, Caitlyn, Corki, Ezreal and Jinx point to Riot wanting to shake up the ADC meta especially in higher elo and pro play where Ezreal, Corki, Ashe have been high priority, and Caitlyn and Jinx just can warp the game around them in later matches of Fearless BO5’s when the meta champions have been burned through early.
K’Sante nerfs will not affect the champion because nothing will, and Karma and Skarner will probably still fulfill their niches in pro level because their purpose is built into their kit, so changing numbers doesn’t rectify their relative role in the landscape.
The adjustments on this patch are really all buffs.
Champions Adjusted
The adjusted champions are as follows:
- Gwen
- Master Yi
- Naafiri
- Poppy
- Singed
Two New S-Tier Champions
Naafiri and Gwen have been mega buffed in these patches, with Gwen’s skills becoming more powerful while her base stat scaling has been nerfed, and her passive and Ultimate scaling less. With Naafiri, her abilities have been tuned, so now she’s a hyper-carry assassin that snowballs hard, and her execution abilities are more consistent and have a crazy range. Speaking of the effects of this, both Gwen and Naafiri have become the number one priority picks, and both work as flex champions that can be played in Top/Mid and Jungle, respectively.
Because Gwen and Naafiri have so much damage and damage mitigation in their kit, they have the burst of an assassin, they have longer ranges than traditional assassins, and they have more survivability than other assassins, so they don’t die after deleting their first target. In terms of Gwen, she’s a known tank buster who scales. Naafiri’s ability to be good in skirmishes allows her to snowball hard in early skirmishes with untargetability and shields, along with ridiculous range on engage, which makes her a threat against squishies for the whole game.
Singed Gets a QOL Improvement
Singed has been a non-interactive champ that kites enemies and dodges lanes by proxying against lane bullies, while kiting close-range top lakers with poison without effective gap closers. Riot has decided to mitigate this, and to make sure he is a viable pick option outside of one tricks, to make sure he farms easier as a lane presence with his poison and raising his attack speed while reducing some power Fling and Health Growth.
It certainly makes him stronger in lane and gives him more presence rather than defaulting to a non-interactive laner. However, this optionality just lets him stomp champions he stat checks early, while still giving him more CS safety when he does avoid lane against champs he can’t win against early. Suppose Riot wants Singed to be an interactive laner. In that case, they need to nerf his get out of lane free proxying, or he will just win lanes or avoid lanes, much like he has been doing now, but he just wins against more of the roster, which doesn’t change the base experience for both users and opponents of Singed.
Check out more League of Legends content.
