Patch 26.21 rundown: Phroxzon says Azir and Orianna could get more, a Viktor compensation may be decided by 28 October, and Varus is pushed back to bot lane

What the rundown is

Riot's gameplay lead Matt Leung-Harrison (Phroxzon) posted his 26.21 rundown on 24 October at 20:41 UTC, a 44-minute video on his Riot channel with chapters on systems, buffs, nerfs and adjustments. The framing: in the patches before a major tournament Riot leans towards pro play — fringe counterpicks get a nudge, the top pro picks get trimmed even when solo queue does not need it — and 26.21 is the patch that hands that power back to regular players now that the Worlds patch is locked on 26.20. Azir, Orianna and Ryze are the named beneficiaries, and three items that had become outliers are pulled in: Bastion Breaker, Hubris on ranged champions and Gluttonous Greaves.

Systems: the three item outliers

• Bastion Breaker: power moves out of lethality and the shaped charge and into the sabotage passive, which now keeps procing; it becomes a worse first buy and a better second or third item. Phroxzon calls the passive change experimental.
• Gluttonous Greaves: about 100 gold dearer, because AD carries had been buying them for durability since the crit-damage change in 26.1. He expects the price to push melee champions off the item and wants to fix that later.
• Hubris: the ranged and melee modifiers change so it is worse on Jhin and Miss Fortune, who were buying it even when not snowballing, and better on the melee champions it was designed for.
• Dawncore: buffed as a late-slot capstone for enchanters, where it had almost never been the best buy.

Buffs, and how they landed

Orianna's buff came in a little above +1 per cent win rate, which is the target, and Phroxzon says she could go further; Azir's was moderate and he does not rule out another. Ryze is the two-way case: the early Q wave-clear that makes him oppressive in coordinated play is cut, while Q damage and late-game W power come back for everyone else. The rest of the list puts power where the champion's players want it — Darius into Q rather than the passive, Miss Fortune into spells to offset the Hubris nerf, Nunu's ultimate for non-AP builds, Sion's fully channelled ultimate, Taliyah in mid lane, Vel'Koz's passive (a Q-cooldown version was tried in development and reverted as too strong), Xin Zhao's attack speed after the Sundered Sky nerfs went too far, and Zyra in both jungle and support.

Nerfs: who feels them

• Caitlyn and Jinx: about one per cent each, on target. Caitlyn loses late-game headshot damage but gains Q base damage; Jinx loses 20 base health and some AD per level so a misstep can be punished.
• Lee Sin: W Safeguard cooldown 7 to 8 seconds and R kick damage 175/400/625 to 150/350/550 — felt most at the top, as intended, because he had been dominant in China and Korea.
• Nidalee: W and E attack speed trimmed, an elite-skewed nerf that barely registers in average games.
• Qiyana: Q damage down 10 after the earlier +20, lighter than usual because Bastion Breaker is nerfed in the same patch; still strong, and Riot keeps watching.
• Tristana: Q attack speed 60–120 per cent to 40–120 per cent, aimed at the level-one stat check.
• Viktor: move speed 335 to 330 and a smaller Q shield — more impactful than planned, so a compensation may be decided by Wednesday 28 October.
• Rammus, Wukong (jungle passive down, top regen up, meant to be neutral) and Yone round out the list; the Yone change claws back the gain from the crit-item rework.

Adjustments

Taric can now cast Q and R on allies who are untargetable while under his Bastion; the matching E change was held back because the Taric and Master Yi duo is a pattern Riot associates with boosting, which it says it is detecting both manually and automatically. Twisted Fate's ultimate reveals untargetable units. Locke's mana costs go up across the board, his W is weaker early and stronger late, and E is meant to become the second max — Phroxzon says that has not landed yet. Sion keeps the Q-into-revive trick that a previous standardisation had broken. Varus is rebuilt so that maxing W, the top-lane build, is worse and maxing Q with full charges (the max-charge bonus goes from 50 to 70 per cent) is better; the Q bug that skipped the damage fall-off on later targets was fixed in the 22 October hotfix.

What it means for your climb

• Orianna, Azir, Ryze and bot-lane Varus are the solo-queue winners of the patch, and two of them may get more.
• Lee Sin, Nidalee and Qiyana are still playable below Master; the nerfs are built to bite at the top.
• If you are on Viktor, expect a touch-up: Riot has said it will decide on compensation by 28 October.
• Patch 26.22 is on 4 November with the Mel midscope already announced; Phroxzon's preview usually lands a week or so before.

What we are watching

A Viktor hotfix in the week of 26 October, a second Azir or Orianna buff in 26.22, Phroxzon's 26.22 preview, and whether the Locke E-max intent gets another pass.