League of Legends is in a bit of an odd state just now. While it feels like early games can be decided by a single death or objective win, as things start to go late we’ve seen miracle steals and mammoth comebacks galore. At pro level, Atakhan seems to be relatively low priority despite his controversial Guardian Angle-style buff and the XP gains from Bloody Petals. And then there’s the Blue Essence drama which, while somewhat ironed out, shook the faith of a lot of players – especially with Hextech Chests and level-up rewards biting the dust coming into 2025. League of Legends patch 25.S1.2 fixes a lot of these issues, but the addition of Arcane’s Mel Medarda may just shake things up all over again.
But let’s start off with the big thing: Blue Essence. Coming into 2025, Riot has abandoned League of Legends‘ traditional event passes and scrapped various free resources, specifically Hextech Chests and level-up rewards. This led to a dramatic decrease in the level of Blue Essence that’s available in the MOBA, in turn sparking backlash as players slowly realized that the once-abundant free reward had become much harder to obtain.
To quell the flames, Riot has since confirmed that Blue Essence is being adjusted overall, upping the number to 9,000 per battle pass instead of 4,750, with Epilogue milestones (the repeatable ones at the end of the pass) being upgraded from 50BE to 750. Players will also receive 4,250 BE in compensation, which will be rewarded by completing “a one-time easily completable mission.”
But there’s more. The final Champion Capsule in the pass has been upgraded to a Glorious Champion Capsule, each of which drops more Blue Essence and several champion shards, as well as ward skins and ‘Legend’ emotes on occasion. XP is also being raised by around 40%.
League of Legends’ Blue Essence and XP changes go live on Thursday January 23 at 4am PST / 7am EST / 12pm BST / 1pm CEST.
Feats of Strength and Atakhan changes
As a squishy enchanter support main who has begrudgingly made the switch to tanks, one of the main things I’ve had issues with in Season 1 is how quickly games can snowball out of control. A single first blood brings you one step closer to Feats of Strength, and given half of your team always decides to invade in normals with no support, things quickly begin to spiral.
Riot’s noticed this too and is removing the Feat of First Blood entirely, replacing it with Feat of Warfare. While it largely does the same thing, your team will need to kill three opponents instead of attaining first blood.
Atakhan is another point of contention (literally), as it feels like the Voracious form’s Guardian Angel-esque withdraw buff grants incredible pushing power for its duration, while the Adaptive Force buffs from Ruinous’ Blood Petals do start to stack up hard – especially when the winning team gets them.
As a result, the XP per rose has been reduced from 25 to 23, and Adaptive Force decays quicker, with petals granting 34 stacks as opposed to 39. If Voracious spawns, killing a champion with the GA buff will grant 200 gold as opposed to 100, giving you an extra 500 gold all around. While I don’t think it’ll completely dissuade teams from pushing, it’s a decent chunk of gold in your pocket.
New League of Legends champion Mel, new Mythmaker skins
And, of course, there’s Mel. Finally making her debut on the Rift following her reveal earlier this year, I can’t wait to see her reflect my entire team’s CC. You can read more about her abilities – and why I think she’s one of the most broken champs we’ve seen in a while – right here.
Alongside Mel’s debut skin, Arcane Councilor, we’ll see four new Mythmaker cosmetics. Inspired by the Lunar New Year, Jarvan, Jhin, and Nami are all getting a glow up, with Cassiopeia getting this round’s prestige skin (perhaps that makes up for the nerf to her movement speed, which drops Triumphant from 6 to 5).
The League of Legends Mythmaker skins, alongside Arcane Councilor Mel, will be available from 12pm PST / 3pm EST/ 8pm GMT / 9pm CEST.
If you’re eager to take Mel for a spin when she releases, check out our LoL tier list to see what other champs you can play when she’s inevitably banned every game. Alternatively, if you’re in the mood to splash some cash on some Lunar-themed skins, here’s a rundown of all of the League of Legends skins that are currently on sale.
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