5 biggest changes from patch 6.12

5. Changes to masteries 

Masteries help build the strengths of champions, and there were a lot of meaningful changes to them in this patch.

First, Grasp of the Undying has been changed to be less frustrating. Its on-hit damage was increased from 2.5 percent of your maximum health to 3.0 percent of your maximum health, but the damage from it has never been the issue. The issue with Grasp of the Undying is the incredible sustain it gives champions, and that took a big hit as its on-hit healing has been decreased from 2.5 percent of your maximum health to 1.5 percent of your maximum health.

Tanks area always going to be an issue, but Grasp of the Undying was helping them out way too much. It’s not cool for a Maokai to be able to stay in lane forever with incredible sustain, and this change should help fix that.

The second big nerf in the masteries was to Fervor of Battle. The mastery is all about stacking up, but Riot wants that to mainly come from auto attacks — not abilities. Until today, players were able to get two stacks per ability cast. That never really made any sense, and Riot has finally changed it so that champions now only get one stack from casting an ability.

This won’t bother most champions who use the mastery, but there are a lot of champions who will probably have to use something different because they won’t be able to abuse it anymore.

Lastly, the change to Double Edged Sword is really nice. It’s always been made so that ranged champions will never feel inclined to use it, but that’s no longer the case as it has the same benefits for both ranged and melee champions. Double Edged Sword now gives a 3.0 percent increase in damage while taking 1.5 percent increased damage for every champion in the game.

Double Edged Sword is an amazing mastery, and it’s nice that ranged champions will finally be able to appreciate it.

Next: 4. Champion mastery available on all maps