The League of Legends patch 12.19 is about to arrive for players worldwide. Riot Games hasn’t forgotten their update duties despite being busy with the ongoing World Championship in Mexico. Patch 12.19 is seen as the end-of-season update, so it will carry an entertaining theme. As such, many exciting changes will appear soon with the message: “Enjoy the innovations” from the publisher.
In patch 12.19, Blitzcrank will be moved to the jungle role, while Syndra will undergo a complete rework. Previously strong in the early game, Syndra, with a completely new mechanic of collecting Shards, will now be pushed more towards the mid-game.
However, Riot Games has provided a statistic that has left the community quite confused in patch 12.19. Specifically, they have dramatically nerfed Moonlight Blade, increasing the item by 5 attack power but taking away 6 lethality. Of course, this trade-off is quite unbalanced, as lethality is very important if players already have a few major items. When comparing the two elements, players will definitely notice that Moonlight Blade has clearly weakened.
To clarify the concerns of the global player community, Riot provided an explanation: “Moonlight Blade was strong due to the armor penetration mechanism of its Mythic passive. An item that provides both percentage armor penetration and has an already high lethality stat will give the user a tremendous amount of power. The reduction in lethality aims to help the Mythic stat perform better and prevent physical champions from exploiting this item too effectively.”
Indeed, as Riot explained, Moonlight Blade was strong due to the Mythic passive interacting too well with the basic stats. When players have a few major items, this item not only provides percentage armor penetration but also has the ability to directly reduce the opponent’s defenses. This is quite contradictory, like having two elements in one item. Therefore, even though Riot Games has not done well with balancing in recent times, perhaps the publisher is correct about Moonlight Blade in patch 12.19.
The champion most affected by patch 12.19 will certainly be Aatrox. The Darkin Blade, which belongs to the fighter archetype, can utilize Moonlight Blade well due to its stats, effects, and ability to deal burst damage with its skill set. Additionally, other champions such as Jayce, Hecarim, and Graves will also indirectly be weakened.
