New League of Legends patch preview features Hullbreaker nerf
Image Credit: Bethesda
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hullbreaker graves

New League of Legends patch preview features Hullbreaker nerf

We were singing, 'Bye, bye mister Hullbreaker guy'

Hullbreaker has been terrorizing League of Legends over the last month or so, in large part thanks to Team Liquid top laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau who popularized it during the League Championship Series Lock In. Hullbreaker is also a great item to counter all the enchanters in the top lane we’ve been seeing. With its growing popularity, however, Riot Games decided to nerf it in Patch 12.5, along with a few other updates.

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Most of the recent patches have been large, which is standard for the early part of the season due to the volatility in the game after the preseason updates. Patch 12.5 will be the first small update of the year, with only a handful of buffs and nerfs to balance things out.

Hullbreaker is one of the biggest nuisances in the game right now, with it taking over much of the top lane meta, showing up across the globe in competitive play, even in jungle. Hullbreaker gives a ton of strength to any side lane champion, forcing the enemy to answer. The item can effectively make the game a 4v4, otherwise whoever buys it will just win the game by themselves.

The item itself has nearly 200% cost efficiency at Level 18 when a champion holding it is not near any of their allies. On top of the stats it gives, it also buffs up nearby minions to make them take less damage and deal more to turrets.

Hullbreaker’s biggest offender is Graves. In combination with Eclipse and his True Grit passive, Graves becomes an incredibly tanky champion with Omnivamp to heal him if he happens to take any meaningful damage. This build was popularized by Bwipo at the start of the season.

Riot’s nerf to Hullbreaker is specifically to ranged champions, meaning Graves will get less mileage out of it in future patches. It will still be a strong item, and now that it’s become a standard in the meta, it’s possible that it will get another nerf in the near future.

Otherwise, a few champions that we haven’t seen in the meta for a while are getting some small love taps to increase their viability, while another few that are performing well are getting bumped down a peg.

The biggest change is to Master Yi, who is getting a decent-sized nerf to his two damage abilities with a bunch of quality of life changes elsewhere to compensate a bit.

These is just the patch preview and everything is subject to change, so look out for the official patch notes on the League website soon.

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Image of Parkes Ousley
Parkes Ousley
League of Legends esports reporter and photographer for half a decade. Sometimes I try to touch grass.