With a new year comes a new League of Legends (LOL) season. Unlike past years where there were major changes to specific parts of gameplay, season 16 of LOL makes small changes to every aspect of the game. From getting into game to making each game faster paced, the focus of season 16 changes is to make everything happen faster. The goal is probably to attract younger players into the game with non-stop action; allow more casual players to get in and out of game within a reasonable amount of time; and to help high ranking players get into games much faster. There is a lot to cover, so here are the details.
Role Quests: Just like the support and jungle roles have had quests for years now (i.e. World Atlas and Jungle Pets), Top, Mid, and ADC positions now have quests too. These quests reward players for playing optimally within their lane and are effectively the same across all lanes. Upon completion, the quests will award small item/money rewards as well as buffs to damage or passive gold gain for the rest of the game.
Objectives: Dragons, Void Grubs, Rift Herald, Baron, and Atakan all got minor changes to their stats to make harder to kill at all stages of the game. This makes it so more teammates will be needed to attempt these objectives and will also prompt more team fights. Turrets also got changes. Tier one and two turrets both have plates now, making them tougher to destroy but rewards much more gold for destroying each plate and the whole turret.
Game Time: The entire game effectively starts 35 seconds earlier than in past seasons. Minions spawn 30 seconds into the game, and Jungle camps at a little over a minute. After the game reaches 14 minutes, the frequency in which minions spawn also increases. The only thing that remains largely unchanged is objective spawn timers (i.e. Dragons, Atakan, Rift Herald, etc.).
Items: There are 11 new or returning items in the game. Six focused on Ability power using champions, and five for Attack Damage/Attack Speed using champions. On top of that, 14 existing items got small changes aimed at balancing the use of Critical Hit Damage and its scaling into the late game. Tank items only received a couple changes, indicating that LOL Developers are largely happy with the state of tank as it was in the previous season.
Ranked Queue Times and Role Selection: The changes to these two things are probably the largest and they happen before the game even starts. Queue times have been reduced across all ranks. This was achieved by adding the Aegis of Valor system, where players are forced into roles they do not main more often. On the surface, this seems like a terrible change but there are extreme benefits to it. A player that is under the effects of the Aegis of Valor are given a role they did not queue for after getting into champion select. If that player does will enough in that role (C mastery score or higher) by the time the game is over, they get specific rank-related rewards based on a win or loss. For a win, the Aegis of Valor player awards with double LP – LP is the ranked points that determine a player’s rank. For a loss, the player receives no LP loss. This system aims to eliminate game dodging and rewards players for actually trying on roles they do not main.
LOL Client: These changes are not actually out yet but are played for some time in 2026 and are desperately needed. For a long time, the LOL Client has taken forever to load and when into game, a second instance of the client is opened to run the game. This has caused issues for players with lower-end PCs for many years. LOL Developers announced recently that they will be trying to remedy these issues by releasing a better client. They have done this in the past and it has not worked, but hopefully it works this time around.
That’s the overview of the noteworthy changes that came with Season 16 of LOL. For the specifics that are not covered here, check out the official season 16 patch notes from the developers.
