03/03/2025

League of Legends 25.05 Patch Notes: Penalties for Lane Swaps

League of Legends 25.05 Patch Notes Strafen fur Lane Swaps

In its latest patch note, LoL is adjusting the scope with lane swaps and players are unsure what to make of it.

Fortnite: Save the world - How to create your perfect team of heroes

The early update for League of Legends patch 25.05 brings some adjustments for champions, but also causes discussion due to controversial changes to lane swapping.

Lane Swapping in LoL

Although lane swaps are normal in most LoL matches, they are particularly problematic in professional matches. Bot laners could almost completely skip the laning phase and focus gold on both teams' ADC with minimal risk.

This practice reduced the importance of lane matchups in pro games, which is why the Balance team is trying to restore the traditional lane structure with the new changes.

However, the way in which Riot is tackling the problem has met with skepticism in the community.

Here are all the details on the changes to lane-swapping and all the other adjustments coming with League of Legends Patch 25.05 - an update that focuses primarily on high-elo and pro play.

Penalties for lane swaps

In this patch, there will be drastic buffs for towers as soon as there is more than one non-jungler in the mid or top lane. Here are the effects and the area in which they apply:

Removal of tower fortification: All towers lose the usual damage reduction.
Buffs for outer towers (if two non-junglers appear on the top or mid lane):

95% damage reduction for towers
Tower shots are fully charged
1000% damage against minions
50% less gold and XP gain for enemy champions
Gold from killed minions/turrets automatically goes to the next allied champion
Top lane tower grants 50% damage reduction to defending champions under the tower
Time window for detection:

Top lane: 1:30 - 3:30 minutes
Center lane: 2:25 - 3:30 minutes

Duration of the tower buff after detection:

Top lane: 20 seconds
Mid-lane: 8 seconds

With the removal of the default damage reduction for towers, these changes could not only greatly affect regular matches, but also lead to pro players simply waiting until the debuff expires to benefit from the reduced tower durability.