LoL Patch 25.05 – Full Preview rundown: are lane swaps dead?

Here is everything you need to know about LoL Patch 25.05, the fifth patch of the new 2025 League of Legends season.

LoL Patch 25.05 – The official patch for First Stand

With the first edition of First Stand fast approaching, Riot has been working on delivering the patch which will define the first international tournament of the season.

While there aren’t many champion changes planned, the devs have been working on completely eliminating the lane-swap meta that has plagued the first two months of the season, bringing in major changes to nerf the strategy into the ground. By utilizing a detection mechanic, the goal is to make the lane swap strategy obsolete and inefficient. Below you can find the changes detailed by Riot game designer Spideraxe. In the upcoming days, we should have more details about other champions and system changes.

Patch 25.05 Release Date

The official patch schedule for 2025 has been confirmed, and Patch 25.05 will be released on Mar. 5, 2025.

How will the upcoming patch shake the meta?

With no numbers leaked so far, it’s hard to make a call on how the meta will change. That said, the lane-swap mechanic is quite drastic and we should see the strategy be completely disregarded in the upcoming months, to the joy of many League players. In the meantime, feel free to check out our tier lists:

• Top lane tier list
• Jungle tier list
• Mid lane tier list
• ADC tier list
• Support tier list

LoL Patch 25.05

Champion changes in Patch 25.05

Ambessa

• E damage per hit: 40 – 140 ⇒ 40 – 120

Aphelios

• Attack speed ratio: 0.640 ⇒ 0.658

Ashe

• R damage: 250/450/650 ⇒ 200/400/600

Aurora

• E damage: 70 – 230 + 80% AP ⇒ 65 – 225 + 70% AP

Cho’Gath

• Q damage: 80 – 340 ⇒ 80 – 320
• W damage: 80 – 300 ⇒ 80 – 280
• E max HP damage: 3% ⇒ 2.5 – 3.5%

Dr. Mundo

• Base HP: 613 ⇒ 640

Elise

• Human Q damage: 40 – 160 + 4% current HP ⇒ 40 – 140 + 4% current HP
• Spider Q damage: 60 – 180 + 8% missing HP ⇒ 50 – 170 + 8% missing HP

K’Sante

• Passive mark damage: 20 + 1 – 2% max HP ⇒ 12 + 1 – 2% max HP
• W All Out bonus true damage: 10 – 100% ⇒ 10 – 80%

Poppy (less support, top-jungle buff)

• HP growth: 104 ⇒ 110
• Passive shield: 13/15.5/18% max HP at levels 1/7/13 ⇒ 11 – 20% max HP
• E damage: 100 – 260 + 100% bAD ⇒ 80 – 240 + 120% bAD

Seraphine

• Q maximum champion damage amp: 60 ⇒ 75%

Skarner

• Q max HP damage: 10% ⇒ 8%
• Q slow duration: 1.25 seconds ⇒ 1 seconds
• E cooldown: 20 – 16 seconds ⇒ 22 – 18 seconds

Yorick

• R monster damage cap: 100 ⇒ 50

Zed

• E damage: 65 – 165 + 65% bAD ⇒ 70 – 170 + 80% bAD

System Changes

Anti lane-swap changes

• Fortification buff removed for all turrets
• If a team has 0 junglers, detection never fires
• If two non-jungler enemy champs appear in top or mid lane, the outer turrets now gains:
  • 95% damage reduction
  • Attacks are fully charged
  • Deals 1000% damage to minions (detecting) – executes them in one hit
  • Enemy champs gold and XP reduced to 50%
  • Defending minion and turret kills will redirect all gold to nearest allied champ
  • Defending champ gains 20% bonus gold and XP – removed
  • Detection starts at 1:30 and ends at 3:30 for top and 2:25 for mid
  • Detection linger duration: 6 seconds ⇒ 20/8 seconds (top/mid)
  • Top lane turret now deals 1000% damage against enemy champs (while detecting) – executes in one hit
  • Top lane turret now grants defending champ 50% damage reduction (while detecting)

Axiom Arcanist

• Ultimate amp: 14% ⇒ 12%
• AoE mod: 9% ⇒ 8%

Sixth Sense

• Cooldown: 275/350 seconds ⇒ 250 seconds

Staff of the Flowing Water

• Buff duration: 4 seconds ⇒ 6 seconds

Unflinching

• Armor and MR: 2 – 10 ⇒ 6 – 12

Yun Tal Wildarrows

• Crit per stack: 0.2% ⇒ 0.4% melee/0.2% ranged

Upcoming skins

• Grand Reckoning Alistar
• Grand Reckoning Rell
• Grand Reckoning Sion
• Grand Reckoning Talon
• Grand Reckoning Draven
• Sahn-Uzal Mordekaiser