The Brutalizer

The Brutalizer is the Lethality component in League of Legends: 25 Attack Damage, 10 Ability Haste and 5 Lethality for 1,337 gold in patch 26.22, no passive. It merges a Pickaxe with a Glowing Mote and builds into four finished items: Profane Hydra, Voltaic Cyclosword, Axiom Arc and Bastionbreaker, which makes it the standard first purchase for AD assassins and a few bruisers.

What does The Brutalizer give you?

Three things at once. 25 Attack Damage is the Pickaxe you built it from, the 10 Ability Haste comes from the Glowing Mote, and the 5 Lethality appears only when you combine the two.

That last stat is the reason the item exists. Lethality is flat armor penetration scaled to your level, and even 5 points of it means your abilities hit a low-armor target a little harder than the raw Attack Damage suggests (not a lot, honestly, but assassins live on small margins). Ability Haste on a component is the quieter bonus: an assassin whose whole kill pattern is one rotation of spells gets that rotation back sooner, and in a lane where the enemy is slowly losing Health to poke, ten Haste on the first recall adds up to a surprising number of extra casts before the first fight. Is it a damage spike on the level of a Pickaxe alone? Slightly better, because you keep the Pickaxe and add two stats on top.

Is The Brutalizer gold efficient?

Comfortably: 114%. At the basic item rates of 35 gold per point of Attack Damage, 50 gold per point of Ability Haste and 30 gold per point of Lethality, the stats are worth 1,525 gold (875 from damage, 500 from Haste and 150 from Lethality) against a 1,337 gold price.

Where does the surplus come from? The Lethality, mostly, since it costs you nothing beyond the 212 gold combine fee and the reference table prices it at 30 gold a point. Thing is, that fee is high for a component (yes, the price really is 1337), so the item only feels cheap once you finish it; holding a Pickaxe and a Mote separately gives you most of the stats for 1,125 gold. The sell price is 936 gold.

What does The Brutalizer build into?

Four items, each for a different kind of physical damage dealer:

• Profane Hydra, the assassin’s wave-clear item with an active cleave.
• Voltaic Cyclosword, which stores energy while you move and discharges it into a slow.
• Axiom Arc, which refunds ultimate cooldown on takedowns.
• Bastionbreaker, the bruiser option that trades Lethality for Health and damage against tanky targets.

So the component commits you to physical damage with Haste, and not much else. Put simply, a Zed, Talon or Qiyana can buy one on the first recall and still choose between three assassin items an hour of game time later, while a Pantheon or a Renekton who wants Bastionbreaker starts from the same piece. The LoL items database lists the prices of all four.

Who buys it?

Assassins first: Zed, Talon, Qiyana, Naafiri and Kha'Zix in nearly every game, and Rengar when he goes Lethality rather than crit. Bruisers who end up with Bastionbreaker take it too, and so do AD supports like Pyke and Senna’s Lethality build. Marksmen almost never do, because their items want Attack Speed and critical strike instead, and a Brutalizer on a crit carry is a wasted slot. Who else? Lethality junglers (Kha’Zix, Rengar, Nocturne), for whom the first full clear often ends with exactly the gold for one.

How has The Brutalizer changed over the patches?

The name is one of the oldest in the game, but in Riot’s current data the item appears from patch 14.1, when the 2024 item update brought it back as the Lethality component. Since then Riot has adjusted it three times, all on the same stat:

• Patch 14.6: Lethality 8 → 5.
• Patch 14.10: Lethality removed entirely.
• Patch 14.11: Lethality back to 5, one patch later.

Funny enough, the 14.10 version lasted exactly two weeks, which tells you how the item felt without its signature stat. Attack Damage, Ability Haste and the price have not moved at all.

When should you buy it?

On the first recall where you can afford it, if your champion ends on one of the four finished items above. If you are a bit short, a Pickaxe at 875 gold gets you most of the damage now and the rest of The Brutalizer on the next back; the Glowing Mote on its own is a weak buy, so take it last. For what it’s worth, the recall order that works for most assassins is Long Sword start, Pickaxe, Brutalizer, then straight into the finished item, and it has barely changed since patch 14.1. Not sure whether your champion is an assassin at all? The guide to LoL roles covers what mid lane and jungle assassins are built to do, and The Brutalizer is the item their builds start from.

FAQ

How much does The Brutalizer cost?

1,337 gold in patch 26.22, of which 212 gold is the combine cost. It sells for 936 gold.

What stats does it give?

25 Attack Damage, 10 Ability Haste and 5 Lethality.

What does it build from?

A Pickaxe and a Glowing Mote.

What does it build into?

Profane Hydra, Voltaic Cyclosword, Axiom Arc and Bastionbreaker.

Does it have a passive?

No. All of its value is in the three stats.

Why was the Lethality removed in patch 14.10?

Riot took the Lethality off the component in 14.10 and restored it at 5 in 14.11. The data records the change but not the reasoning.