Patch 7.1e

Released: 2026-05-13 Source: Riot patch notes Headline: Taliyah joins the fight.

Note: Riot ships content on staggered dates inside a patch window. Taliyah and Pool Party Taliyah release 2026-05-15 00:01 UTC; Cafe Cuties Norra releases 2026-05-20 00:01 UTC.

Headline summary

• New champion: [[Champions/Taliyah]], The Stoneweaver — Shurima mage, 2026-05-15
• Buffs: Bard, Graves, Kayn
• Nerfs: Garen, Ryze, Twisted Fate, Smolder
• Mixed: Shyvana (AD up, Dragon form sustain/utility down)
• Item buffs: Randuin's Omen (anti-crit), Kraken Slayer (cheaper + max damage up), Sundered Sky (HP + healing up)
• No rune changes this patch
• No map / objective changes (drakes, baron, towers, jungle untouched)
• ARAM augment rebalance (Bumper Car cooldown up + knockup gutted; several Autocast augments now stack haste/charges)

Champion buffs

Bard

• Caretaker's Shrine Charge Time: 15/15/15/15s → 15/14.5/14/13.5s
• Tempered Fate Cooldown: 80/70/60s → 75/65/55s

Graves

• End of the Line Explosion AD ratio: 80/110/140/170% → 110/130/150/170%
• Quickdraw Cooldown: 16/15/14/13s → 13/13/13/13s

Kayn

• The Darkin Scythe (Shadow Assassin bonus damage): 48%~62% (by level) → 52%~66%
• Blade's Reach AD scaling: 110% → 120%

Champion nerfs

Garen

• Perseverance HP regen: 1.3%~5.5% (by level) → 1.2%~4.5%
• Judgement Base Damage: 15/19/23/27 → 13/17/21/25
• Judgement Armor Shred: 15% → 10%

Ryze

• Base AD: 58 → 54
• Overload Bonus MS: 30/35/40/45% → 20/27.5/35/42.5%
• Overload Base Damage: 80/105/130/155 → 70/95/120/145

Twisted Fate

• Loaded Dice Bonus gold per kill: 2~12 → 1~9
• Stacked Deck Attack Speed: 30/35/40/45% → 20/25/30/35%

Smolder

• Super Scorcher Breath Stacks needed: 20/85/150 → 25/100/175
• Super Scorcher Breath Crit damage scaling: Critical Rate × 50% → (Critical Rate + bonus Critical Damage) × 45%

Mixed

Shyvana

• Base AD: 58 → 62 (buff)
• Fury of the Dragonborn Large Monster stacks: 10 → 8 (buff — easier to jungle-up Dragon form)
• Twin Bite Dragon-form slow: 50% → 30% (nerf)
• Dragon's Descent Fury generated per second: 1.5/2/2.5 → 1/1.5/2 (nerf — slower Dragon form uptime)

Item changes

Randuin's Omen — BUFFED

• Resilience Crit damage reduction: 20% → 30%

Kraken Slayer — BUFFED

• Price: 3000 → 2800
• Bring It Down max damage vs missing HP: 50% → 70%

Sundered Sky — BUFFED

• Health: 300 → 350
• Lightshield Strike healing from missing HP: 5% → 6%

Rune changes

None.

System changes

ARAM Augment Adjustments

• Bumper Car: Cooldown 40s → 60s; Knockup Duration 1.5s → 0.5s (big nerf)
• Slow and Steady: AS→AD ratio 0.75 → 1
• One Strike: Gold reduction 5%/5% → 4%/4%
• Charged Shield: Shield 30% → 25%
• Fuel Graffiti: +10 damage (now counts as ability)
• Air Blade: +20 Ability Haste per additional Autocast
• Energy Canister: +1 extra capsule per Autocast
• Bloodbath: +20 Ability Haste per additional Autocast
• Proximity Mine: +1 mine charge per Autocast

New content

Champions

• Taliyah, The Stoneweaver — released 2026-05-15 00:01 UTC. Shurima mage. See [[Champions/Taliyah]].

Skins

• Pool Party Taliyah — 2026-05-15 00:01 UTC
• Cafe Cuties Norra — 2026-05-20 00:01 UTC (see [[Champions/Norra]])

Bug fixes

• Fixed incorrect Ixtal Seedjar rune description
• Fixed Sett ability (1) damage calculation error

What this means for the wiki

• Garen — AD "Oneshot" build ([[Champions/Garen]]) takes a hit: Judgement base damage and armor shred both cut. Survives, but trades are weaker. ⚠ flag pre-7.1e Garen damage figures.
• Ryze — Royal's 7.1d "GOD tier" read ([[Champions/Ryze]]) gets directly challenged: AD down 4, Overload damage and MS both nerfed. Re-verify priority next patch.
• Smolder — Royal's 7.1d "GOD scaling" read ([[Champions/Smolder]]) hit by stack-threshold increases (25/100/175). Still scales, but power spikes land later.
• Twisted Fate — Stacked Deck AS gutted by 10% at every rank; Loaded Dice gold-per-kill nearly halved. ⚠ flag pre-7.1e TF build claims.
• Kayn — Shadow Assassin form gains 4% bonus damage at every level + 10% AD scaling on Blade's Reach. Shadow Assassin pick rate likely up.
• Bard / Graves — Both received modest buffs. No prior wiki tier data, but worth watching post-patch.
• Item meta shift toward anti-crit + mythic-Kraken bursty ADCs: Randuin's tankier against ADCs, but Kraken is cheaper and hits harder vs low-HP targets. Both pull harder. Sundered Sky becomes a stronger bruiser pickup (more HP, more healing).
• Shyvana — More AD on hand, but Dragon form is harder to keep up and its slow lost 20%. Net: slight nerf to the splitpush/teamfight identity, slight buff to early clear/lane.

Meta interpretation (community sources)

Two trusted-creator patch analyses captured for 7.1e — both same release day:

• [[Sources/videos/2026-05-13-hellsdevil-patch-7.1e-analysis]] (9:52, reactions + power-level calibration)
• [[Sources/videos/2026-05-13-royal-patch-7.1e-analysis]] (16:40, deeper build-level strategy from rank-1 player)

Major analytical conflict — Graves

The two creators read the End of the Line (Q) AD ratio buff opposite ways:

| Source | Read | Mechanical basis | |---|---|---| | HellsDevil | "Very early on in the game you're already going to pack a massive punch" | Frames as a real damage buff | | Royal | "This is not even a buff" — "This is probably the most nothing buff of all time" | Points out Graves maxes Q first. The ratio change only matters during rank 1 (which lasts ~3 min); at max rank the ratio is unchanged at 170% |

Royal's analysis is mechanically sharper. The real lever is the flat 13s Quickdraw cooldown enabling early invades — both creators land on that. Royal calls the Q buff "Riot does this when they want to increase the play rate of a champion. They have these like fake buffs just to get people talking about him."

HellsDevil headline takeaways

• Garen's hidden lever is armor shred, not Judgement damage. "Armor shred — it allows his teammates to do bonus damage as well, which is very broken. Like it's way too much." The 15%→10% shred cut hurts team damage, not just personal damage.
• Shyvana is a hard nerf, not "mixed." HellsDevil reads the 10→8 large monster stacks change as a scaling slowdown, not a buff, because the Fury-per-second cut means Dragon form is gated longer. "These are huge nerfs to Shyvana. Everything that matters for Shyvana is nerfed."
• On-hit Twisted Fate is dead. "You get 10% less attack speed on the third ability. So on-hit Twisted Fate is dead for sure." Low-elo TF unaffected; high-elo TF mains hit hardest.
• Bard was "completely useless" pre-7.1e — 7.1e is a recovery patch on a fallen-off champion.
• Graves was already balanced — buffs make him strong. HellsDevil flags personal Graves play as a bias disclosure.
• Randuin's Omen becomes giga-broken against crit comps. "Against Yasuo, Yone, any crit ADCs, just build Randuin's Omen and you're never going to die." Strongest single item call in the video.
• Smolder pre-7.1e was "the most broken champion in the game right now" — stronger calibration than Royal's 7.1d GOD framing. Nerfs are substantial but "doesn't matter that much... a good Smolder player is still going to be completely fine."
• Kayn buff hits Shadow Assassin form harder — Blade's Reach +10% AD scaling is "this matters a lot."

Royal headline takeaways

• Garen armor shred nerf is K'Sante-targeted — "specifically targeted to make the K'Sante matchup a little easier for K'Sante." Different lens than HellsDevil's team-damage framing.

• Shyvana is a pub-stomper in high elo — "already weak against players that kind of know what they're doing." 7.1e nerfs hurt low/mid-elo players more than top.

• Ryze nerf is surgical — punishes the best Ryze players by removing early-lane bully, but preserves his late-game scaling identity (the Royal 7.1d GOD thesis).

• TF nerf hits AD on-hit AND AP Nashor's Tooth builds; gold cut hits AP TF in the crossfire. Recommendation: replace TF with Ryze for similar role.

• TF Stacked Deck AS pattern is historical — Riot nerfs it every time AD TF gets viable; 7.1e is the third such cycle. AS was 70% in early Wild Rift, now 20-35%.

• Smolder pacing argument — stack threshold 150→175 pushes max-form from ~12-13 min to ~15 min, but nothing significant happens in that 3-min window (3rd dragon and late Baron not yet accessible). Smaller practical impact than the numbers suggest.

• Smolder build-meta shift — new crit formula (Crit Rate + bonus Crit Damage) × 45% rewards Infinity Edge stacking. Build path may shift from Manamune→Trinity→Serylda's to full-crit or Essence Reaver, possibly skipping Manamune.

• Blue Kayn Manamune build — proposes Manamune-stack interaction with +10% Blade's Reach AD scaling. 7.1e shifts form selection back to actual choice (vs. red-Kayn default).

• Randuin's buff may COUNTER the Graves buff — Graves is a crit jungler; tanky baron lanes building Randuin's gain durability against him. Two changes partially cancel.

• Kraken Slayer becomes a viable crit-replacing first buy — Akshan mid called out as a specific beneficiary.

• Sundered Sky as Trinity Force second item for Camille, Riven, Jax, Xin Zhao, Vi — "for that big bap hit."

• [[Sources/videos/2026-05-17-royal-tier-list-7.1e|Royal 7.1e tier list]] (added 2026-05-17)

• [[Sources/videos/2026-05-19-hellsdevil-tier-list-7.1e|HellsDevil 7.1e tier list]] (added 2026-05-19)

Open questions

• Does the Kraken Slayer price drop reshuffle ADC mythic priority across the meta? (Lethality crits gain a budget option.)
• Does the Randuin buff push more tank-baron-lane viability into a meta currently dominated by bruisers (per Royal 7.1d analysis at [[Sources/videos/2026-05-04-royal-tier-list-7.1d]])? HellsDevil's "giga broken" call points to yes.
• Sundered Sky now competes more directly with Trinity Force / Stride Breaker on bruisers — does this dethrone Stride Breaker on Garen-class champs?
• Taliyah role expectation (mid? jungle?) — fill in once trusted-creator content lands. HellsDevil didn't speculate.
• Smolder, Shyvana, Bard, Graves, TF tier movement — wait for next HellsDevil/Royal/iTzSTU4RT tier list video.
• Smolder full-crit build viability — Royal flagged for testing.
• Nami skin discrepancy resolved — Royal mentioned a Nami skin landing this patch ("Finally, we're getting a Nami skin.") but verified absent from the official 7.1e notes on second fetch (2026-05-13). Only Pool Party Taliyah and Cafe Cuties Norra are listed. Royal was likely referencing a roadmap preview or upcoming-patch announcement, not 7.1e content.