Patch 12.5 Overview

The latest League patch hits some of the strongest outliers in the meta, like Ahri and Hullbreaker, while buffing a couple of champions who have struggled to find their place in recent metas. This patch will also be live for 4 weeks instead of the standard 2 weeks, as Riot will be taking a week off from balance updates to focus on the company’s practices rather than their games.

Hullbreaker

After several nerfs to bruiser items a couple of patches, Hullbreaker emerged as a fantastic item to rush for top laners. Considering the item has been built on some ranged champions the item was not intended for (such as Jayce), it has been nerfed specifically for ranged users:

• Passive - Boarding Party - bonus magic and armour resist - 10-30 (based on level) for ranged champions, down from 20-60
• Siege and super minion bonus magic and armour resist - 30-90 (based on level) for ranged champions, down from 60-180

This makes Hullbreaker much less appealing for range champions without nerfing its strength for melee champions, meaning it may still be rushed by melee users like Sett and Camille.

Jungle

Alongside Lee Sin, Xin Zhao has been a top tier pick for several patches now. Xin is able to output a great amount of damage and has pretty decent survivability between his ultimate, Goredrinker and Conqueror. Therefore, the invulnerability duration from his ultimate has been reduced by 1 second (4 seconds, down from 5) and the cooldown of his E (Audacious Charge) has been increased by 1 second (12 seconds, up from 11), making him more vulnerable. Master Yi has also received several changes:

• Q (Alpha Strike) - damage - 30/60/90/120/150 (+60% AD), down from 25/60/95/130/165 (+90% AD)
• Bonus damage from critical strikes - 50% + bonus critical strike damage %, down from 60%
• New effect - each mark of Q now applies on hit effects including his E (Wuju Strike). On-hit effects from subsequent hits are also reduced by 75%
• Cooldown reduction upon attacks now scales down with ability haste (e.g. 100 ability haste = each hit reduces cooldown by 0.5 seconds, rather than 1)
• Cast time no longer counts against his E and ultimate (Highlander) active durations
• Master Yi can now activate his E and R during his Q
• E (Wuju Style) - true damage 30/38/46/54/62 (+35% bonus AD), down from 30/40/50/60/70

These nerfs are primarily targeted at the Duskblade Yi builds, as the on-hit scaling will encourage Yis to basic attack the target and make himself vulnerable rather than hiding away in the Q cast and Duskblade passive. There are also some small buffs to his Q, as the cast time no longer detracts from the E and R durations and you can now activate his E and R during the cast. The last jungle change is to Gwen, who's received a nerf to her damage:

• Passive (Thousand Cuts) - maximum damage against monsters - 10 (+15% AP), down from 10 (+25% AP)
• E (Skip ‘N Slash) - bonus attack range - 50, down from 100

Ahri and Seraphine

The Ahri update has landed very successfully in solo queue, so she has received a slight nerf:

• W (Fox-Fire) - damage - 50/75/100/125/150 (+30%), down from 60/85/110/135/160
• E (Charm) - mana cost - 60, up from 50

Meanwhile, Seraphine has been struggling to find her place after being split between the mid and support roles, so she has received some buffs for when she is played as a support:

• W (Surround Sound) - mana cost - 50/60/70/80/90, down from 50/70/90/110/130
• Cooldown - 28/26/24/22/20, down from 26/25/24/23/22
• Shield - 60/80/100/120/140 (+40% AP), changed from 75-225 (based on level) (+45% AP). Allies now receive the same shield as Seraphine
• Healing if already shielded - 5/5.5/6/6.5/7% (+0.75% per 100 AP) of missing health per ally in range, up from 5% (+1.125% per 100 AP)
• E (Beat Drop) - cooldown - 11/10.5/10/9.5/9, down from 13/12/11/10/9

The changes to Seraphine’s W means it is much stronger to max W second when playing her as support, as the shield now scales with its rank rather than your level. Additionally, the W heal (procced when Seraphine is shielded) also increases with its rank instead of how much AP Seraphine has, so good Seraphine positioning will be rewarded with more heals for the team. Overall, these buffs sound pretty strong and may be enough to push Seraphine back into an S tier support pick.

-Rilea