MLBB July 2025 Patch: 9 Nerfs, 1 Buff

Moonton dropped a mid-season correction patch at the start of July 2025 and the message is clear: the Phoenix Empress Rising update broke too many things at once. Nine heroes got nerfed. One got buffed. The inner turret got tankier. Call it what it is — an admission that the previous patch pushed the meta too far.

This isn't a headline patch. There's no new hero, no item rework, no system overhaul. It's a balancing act after a chaotic meta shift, and those patches tell you more about what Moonton was worried about than anything else.

Here's what changed, and what it actually means for ranked.

#The One Hero Who Got Buffed: X.Borg

Before the nerfs, let's get X.Borg out of the way because this is the interesting one.

X.Borg (Buff)

• Passive: All skills now deal True Damage to enemies in the Overheated state (previously only Skill 1)
• Ultimate: Number of Flame Sprays reduced from 14 to 12

This is a meaningful rework of his damage identity. Previously, True Damage during Overheated was limited to Skill 1 contact. Now every skill deals True Damage against overheated enemies. In teamfights where he's staying in the middle of a pile, that's a significant DPS increase.

The ult rotation cut (14 to 12 sprays) softens his solo-target burst but the True Damage extension more than compensates in sustained fights. X.Borg goes from a hero who poked with one True Damage window to one who punishes grouped enemies consistently while overheated.

He's been irrelevant in ranked for most of Season 37. This might not fully revive him — his kit still has survivability issues — but the direction is correct.

#The Nine Nerfs

Kimmy

• Movement Speed: 255 → 245
• Ultimate Slow Effect: 75% → 50%

Kimmy was the standout hero of the Phoenix Empress Rising patch. Her revamped kit — continuous movement while shooting, terrain-passing Skill 1, pull-and-group Ultimate — made her oppressive in both mid and gold lane. Oheb demonstrated her ceiling at the MPL PH level, and ranked players followed immediately.

The 10-point movement speed cut is harsher than it looks. Kimmy's defensive gameplan relied heavily on kiting. That gap between her and melee divers just got smaller. She'll feel slower on retreats and slower between lane segments.

The Ultimate nerf is the more targeted change. A 75% slow is essentially a root. Dropping to 50% means the traction pull becomes easier to walk out of, and follow-up damage from teammates requires better coordination to land. Her teamfight initiation gets weaker without a full team rotating before the slow expires.

Kimmy stays playable. She's still a magic damage marksman who can walk and shoot simultaneously — that's unique. But her floor-level impact drops. You now need mechanical precision to make her work, not just the revamped kit carrying you.

Wanwan

• Physical Attack Growth: 9 → 7

This targets her late-game scaling specifically. Wanwan's strength in Season 37 was straightforward: Fanny nerfs opened up more space for marksmen to breathe in the gold lane, and Wanwan's mobility and anti-CC ultimate made her the top choice.

Physical Attack Growth affects how much her raw attack scales per level. The difference compounds from the midgame onward — at level 15, she loses roughly 30 physical attack compared to the previous patch. Against tanks, that's noticeable. Against squishies, less so.

She's still the best gold lane option in most comps. Mobility, anti-CC ultimate, low skill floor for a high-mobility hero. The nerf keeps her viable without removing her from the meta. Moonton isn't trying to end Wanwan — they're trimming the late-game stat advantage that made her too safe even in unfavorable matchups.

Lapu-Lapu

• Damage Reduction on Hit (Skill 2): 30% + 8% per additional enemy hero hit → 20% + 8% per additional enemy hero hit

The base damage reduction value drops 10 percentage points. In a 1v1 trade, Lapu-Lapu now absorbs 10% more damage during Skill 2. In a 1v3 scenario, the totals still get high (20% + 24% = 44%), so the multi-target tanking ceiling remains.

This nerf targets his laning phase specifically. In the EXP lane, 1v1 trades were where the old 30% baseline made him nearly impossible to burst. Now aggressive fighters like Arlott and Paquitio have a better window to chunk him down before he toggles stances.

He was already sitting at a below-average win rate before the Phoenix Empress Rising buffs. Moonton overcorrected upward, now overcorrecting downward. Classic.

Kalea

• Passive HP Recovery: 120 + 10% Total HP + 60% Total Magic Power → 40 + 10% Total HP + 60% Total Magic Power

An 80-point flat reduction to her passive HP recovery base value. In the early game where Magic Power is low, this is significant. Kalea's sustain during lane harass was making her too safe to pressure, which undermined her intended role as an engage tank who takes risks.

Kalea also received nerfs in the Phoenix Empress Rising patch (ult knockback removed, base damage cut) and yet she kept performing. This passive nerf addresses the survivability that let her absorb punishment before engaging. She should now feel the pressure of committing to a fight.

Baxia

• Passive Final Damage Reduction: 25 at all levels → 15 + (Hero level × 1)

This is a restructuring more than a straight nerf. At level 1, Baxia loses 9 points of damage reduction (25 → 16). At level 15, the values equalize (25 → 30, actually a slight buff at max level). The nerf hits the early and mid game.

The intent is readable: Baxia with full items was too hard to kill while his anti-healing passive made healers useless. His early-game invulnerability window pushed him into near every draft against sustain compositions. Moonton wants him to earn that damage reduction through levels, not arrive with it pre-loaded.

Joy

• Skill 2 Magic Bonus: 55% → 40%

Joy's been on the decline since her playstyle got read and countered more consistently in Mythic+. This nerf hits her burst window during Skill 2 application. 15 percentage points of magic bonus is roughly 60-80 damage reduction per hit at mid-game item levels. Across a full combo, that's 200-300 damage removed.

She's not dead, but her kill confirmation threshold just went up. Against tankier targets or when slightly behind, she'll struggle to close fights she previously guaranteed.

Granger

• Skill 1 Physical Attack Bonus: 50% → 45%
• Skill 1 Movement Speed Bonus While Firing: 15% → 10%
• Ultimate Dash Distance: 2 → 1.7

Granger received nerfs in Patch 1.9.68 (dash distance cut, vision removed from ult), and Moonton came back for more. The Skill 1 physical attack bonus reduction softens his poke. The movement speed bonus cut during Skill 1 is the key change — this is what made him difficult to catch while firing, and a 5% reduction noticeably tightens his escape margin.

The ultimate dash distance cut (2 → 1.7) is a follow-up on the previous nerf. His chase and escape range continues to shrink. Two consecutive patches of nerfs on the same stat is a statement. Moonton wants him repositioned as a high-ceiling pick, not a safe floor-level meta staple.

Uranus

• Skill 1 Radiance Stack Damage Bonus: 8-16 → 6-14

Uranus received a significant rework in the Phoenix Empress Rising patch, gaining a new Skill 1 damage interaction based on Radiance stacks. The new mechanic was clearly tuned too high. Two points off the base and scaling value of that bonus bring him closer to tank territory without reverting the rework itself.

His sustain and magic damage still give him presence. This is fine-tuning, not gutting.

Badang

• Skill 2 Cooldown: 9s → 11s

Badang's Skill 2 is his wall — the structure that creates his Skill 1 knockback combos. A 2-second cooldown increase means fewer opportunities to set up his signature lockdown per fight. His burst combo window now arrives less frequently, which hurts him in extended skirmishes where opponents can space around his wall.

He's still dangerous in coordinated drafts where teammates can follow up. Badang without a wall is largely harmless. Make him wait longer for his setup.

#Battlefield Adjustment

Mythic Battlefield — Inner Turret HP: 6200 → 6700

Phoenix Empress Rising accelerated the game pace significantly. Matches were ending too fast at high rank. A 500 HP increase on inner turrets adds roughly one full tower hit of buffer before a tower falls. For Mythic+ lobbies where objective trading and rotation timing define games, this matters.

This is Moonton acknowledging that the new meta created pacing problems at the competitive tier. The meta correction above will help more than the tower HP change, but the turret buff buys teams an extra rotation window before structure fights close out.

#Meta Verdict

The heroes who benefit most from these nerfs are the ones who were shut out by the dominant picks: Karrie (true damage bypasses Baxia's DR stacking), Hayabusa and Fanny junglers (less Lapu-Lapu and Kalea to deal with), and pure poke mages in mid lane who were getting bullied by Joy and Kimmy.

Zetian's global impact goes untouched. She's still the premier mid laner in coordinated play. The meta correction happens around her, not to her. Expect her to consolidate at S-tier while the field tightens up below.

Granger's second consecutive nerf is the most telling signal. He occupied the exact role Moonton wanted to create room in — high damage, high mobility, low-commitment poke — and he was too safe doing it. Two patches of targeted nerfs suggest the devs see a different distribution of gold-lane power as the goal for Season 37's latter half.

Check our tier list for updated rankings after this patch, and the Kimmy hero page for builds that account for the reduced mobility in her kit.