What's with the new patch naming system? Riot is changing how patches are named. "25.S1.1" breaks down as follows: "25" signifies the year (2025); "S1" indicates Season 1, as there will be three uniquely themed seasons throughout the year; and ".1" denotes the specific patch number within that season. We will likely shorten the patch name to "S1.1".
What are the new tier 3 boots, and how do you get them? Tier 3 boots are new upgrades for existing boots. To access them, you need at least two legendary items, your team must have "Nox's Blessing" (obtained by completing Feats of Strength: being the first to get two out of First Blood, First Turret, or three Epic Monsters) and pay 750 gold. There are different versions:
Armored Advance (Plated Steelcaps): grants extra armor, movement speed, and a physical damage shield on receiving physical damage from champions.
Chain Lanced Crushers (Mercury's Treads): grants extra magic resist, movement speed, and a magic damage shield on receiving magic damage from champions.
Crimson Lucidity (Ionian Boots of Lucidity): grants additional ability haste, movement speed and provides movement speed upon healing/shielding allies, damaging enemies with abilities, or using summoner spells.
Forever Forward (Synchronized Souls): grants additional movement speed and out of combat movement speed.
Gunmetal Greaves (Berserker's Greaves): grants extra attack speed, movement speed, and movement speed when basic attacking a champion.
Spellslinger Shoes (Sorcerer's Shoes): grants extra magic penetration and movement speed.
Swift March (Boots of Swiftness): provides movement speed and a bonus to total movement speed. Due to these changes, Zephyr has been removed from the game.
What's new with items? There's a new legendary item called Bloodletter's Curse, a magic damage item with ability power, health, and ability haste. It has a passive called Vile Decay that applies a stacking magic resist reduction. Also, Abyssal Mask now causes enemies to take increased magic damage instead of reducing their magic resistance and can now be built alongside other blight items. Heartsteel's passive base damage is reduced, but the bonus health scaling is changed, making it more effective overall at one item completion. Unending Despair has a new, less efficient build recipe, reduced armor, and nerfed damage. Warmog's Armor has had its build recipe altered and the passive severely nerfed with increased activation requirements.
What are the new runes, and how will they impact the game? Four new runes are being added:
Axium Archinist (replacing Nullifying Orb in the Sorcery tree): increases ultimate damage and reduces ultimate cooldown on takedowns.
Deep Ward (replacing Eyeball Collection in the Domination tree): grants increased vision duration and health to wards placed in the enemy jungle.
Grizzly Mementos (replacing Ghost Poro in the Domination tree): grants trinket haste on champion takedowns.
Sixth Sense (replacing Zombie Ward in the Domination tree): tracks untracked nearby wards and reveals them at level 11.
What is Aon, and how does it affect the game? Aon is a new monster that spawns at 20 minutes, on either the top or bottom side of the map, determined by whichever side has more kills or damage within the first 14 minutes.
Veracious Aon (spawns in lower kill games) grants False Life buff (a temporary resurrection and teleport to base after 5.5 seconds) and a permanent buff which grants extra gold on kills.
Ruinous Aon (spawns in higher kill games) spawns blood roses granting experience and adaptive damage. It also grants a permanent buff increasing epic monster buffs by 25%.
How are objective timers and teleport changing? Harold now spawns at 16 minutes (instead of 14), and Baron spawns at 25 minutes (instead of 20). Teleport now has a cosmetic change of the caster traveling in an orb towards their target. The travel time will now be based on distance. Minions and wards can be targeted with teleport before 14 minutes, and its cooldown has been reduced.
What major minion, turret and champion changes are being introduced? Minion damage to structures and champions has increased, their experience range is increased, melee minions deal extra damage on hit to lane minions and Cannon minion spawn times have been delayed. Super minion health and damage late game has been reduced. First turret no longer gives extra gold. Fortification damage reduction has been reduced to 50%. Nexus turrets now respawn after being destroyed. There are no major top lane, jungle or mid-lane champion changes outside of Cassiopeia gaining bonus movement speed when her team gets the noxus buff. Ashe, Kalista and Varus are the only champions directly changed for this patch. Ashe has had her passive, Q and W changed, aiming to increase her mid game strength. Kalista has had mana regen increased, Q mana cost increased and damage reduced, E damage reduced. Varus base mana and Q mana cost has been reduced, W on-hit damage reduced and E mana cost increased.
What are the most powerful roles and champions in patch 25.S1.1? The patch doesn't feature direct champion changes for top lane or jungle, meaning champions who were strong prior will likely remain so. A Tier for top lane includes Aelia and Kennen, with the latter benefitting from the Axium Archinist Rune. Jungle includes Wukong, Warwick, Nocturn, Graves, Briar and Viego who are all performing well. Zyra and Udyr are highlighted as potential picks who may benefit from the new Bloodletter's Curse item. Midlane is similar to the end of season 14 with Viktor being the strongest. Battle Mages like Cassiopeia, Ryze and Swain will be powerful with Bloodletter's Curse. ADC has a lot of viable picks, but mages are currently the strongest bot lane picks with champions like Viktor, Seraphine, Lux and Brand excelling. Support has Poppy, Vel'Koz and Tahm Kench in the top tier. Vel'Koz will benefit significantly from Axium Archinist.
