Buying boots in League of Legends is an essentially universal experience, as the value of movement speed cannot be overstated. From just one stat, you enhance your champion’s ability to dodge and land skillshots, position effectively, and rotate around the map. Furthermore, base-tier boots are some of the most flexible items in the game, with both Boots of Speed and Slightly Magical Boots being able to build into one of seven different options. This guide will offer an overview of when and why each type of boots should be purchased, along with a quick explanation of the stats that they provide.

Base Tier Boots

At their basic level, boots offer only one stat: movement speed. As the only base-tier item that provides movement speed, they define the gold efficiency of this stat, so thinking in terms of gold efficiency cannot accurately capture the value of these items. Instead, it is important to consider what movement speed does for your specific champion when thinking about when to buy base-tier boots.

Boots of Speed

Stats: 25 movement speed

Cost: 300 gold

Overview: Boots of Speed are your champion’s gateway into purchasing tier-two boots, since every type of boot builds out of this item. While they only offer movement speed, some champions thrive on having movement speed in the early game. Thus, at only 300 gold, Boots of Speed can be a strong early buy despite their simple stats.

When to Buy: Ultimately, answering this question depends on what lane opponent you are facing and what champion you are playing. Against champions with a lot of easily-dodged skillshots, or skillshots which easily result in kills during the early game, buying boots should be a major priority. If you are rushing boots, typically a good time to buy them is between your first major component and your first full item. Otherwise, buying them between your first and second full items is reasonable. Waiting much longer will put you at a major disadvantage during teamfights and map rotation.

Slightly Magical Boots

Stats: 35 movement speed (25 movement speed + 10 movement speed)

Cost: Free

Overview: By taking the rune Magical Footwear, your champion will gain boots free-of-charge at twelve minutes into the game, reduced by forty-five seconds for each takedown that you get. While you make yourself unable to purchase boots early in the game by taking this rune, your tier-two boots will maintain the ten extra movement speed from these boots’ passive, making them a stronger late-game option.

When to Take this Rune: Champions who want to take this rune are those would not want to buy boots before twelve minutes anyway and would appreciate the increased movement speed later into the game. As such, taking this rune is fundamentally incompatible with taking the Predator rune, and should be absolutely avoided. Since this rune locks you out from buying tier-two boots before you get your Slightly Magical Boots, champions who want to purchase Boots of Mobility early for jungling or roaming also want to avoid this rune. In short, only take this rune if you are certain that you will not want boots before twelve minutes into the game.

Tier Two Boots

By combining Boots of Speed or Slightly Magical Boots, some gold, and sometimes an item component, you obtain second-tier boots which offer your champion even more movement speed and otherwise interesting passives and stats. Just as before, buying tier-two boots is almost universal, so it's mostly a matter of which type of boots you pick rather than choosing to buy them at all.

Berserker’s Greaves

Stats: 45 movement speed + 35% attack speed

Cost: Boots of Speed (300 gold) + Dagger (300 gold) + 500 gold, or 1100 gold total

Overview: Offering 1415 gold worth of stats at a buying price to 1100 gold, Berserker’s Greaves are an innately gold efficient purchase. By forgoing a defensive option and instead choosing to prioritize more attacks per second, you allow your champion to deal large amounts of sustained damage over the course of teamfights.

When to Buy: As was said above, to purchase these boots is to prioritize offense over defense. As such, Berserker’s Greaves tend to be best on champions who typically do not want to take many hits anyway, particularly marksmen. The forty-five movement speed allows any marksman who buys these boots to position effectively, and the increased attack speed allows for them to deal more damage overall. As might be intuitive, buying these boots on a champion who does not value basic attacking would be an absolute waste.

Boots of Mobility

Stats: 25 movement speed, increased to 115 movement speed when out of combat for more than five seconds

Cost: Boots of Speed (300 gold) + 700 gold, or 1000 gold total

Overview: In terms of gold efficiency, these boots are an odd case, providing only 300 gold worth of stats in combat and 1380 gold worth of stats outside of combat. While their in-combat power is distinctly lacking, these boots shine outside of combat, allowing your champion to move quickly around the map.

When to Buy: As might be intuitive, the only champions who want to purchase Boots of Mobility are those who value moving around the map and into fights quickly instead of having high movement speed throughout teamfights. In particular, roaming supports and early-game junglers thrive with Boots of Mobility, as they can move around the map and make game-changing plays which fully utilize the out-of-combat gold efficiency of this item.

Boots of Swiftness

Stats: 60 movement speed and 25% slow resistance

Cost: Boots of Speed (300 gold) + 600 gold, or 900 gold total

Overview: While this item is only 80% gold efficient in terms of sheer movement speed, its passive brings it well above 100% efficiency in a game where powerful slows are abundant. These boots offer the highest in-combat movement speed of any type of boots available, and their slow resist means that your champion does a better job of maintaining this movement speed even when struck with crowd control.

When to Buy: The main reason why you would choose this type of boots over others is if your champion puts high value on maintaining the highest movement speed possible. Champions who gain movement speed from their own abilities, and thus often have abilities which synergize with movement speed, really prosper when given the extra movement speed from these boots. Furthermore, if your champion relies on movement speed to use abilities or navigates fights, the slow resistance from these boots allows for them to perform more efficiently on a more frequent basis.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Stats: 45 movement speed, 10% cooldown reduction, and 10% cooldown reduction specifically for summoner spells

Cost: Boots of Speed (300 gold) + 600 gold, or 900 gold total

Overview: Similarly to Boots of Swiftness, this item only becomes over 100% gold efficient when factoring in what makes it unique: the cooldown reduction on summoner spells. As one of the very few ways of reducing summoner spell cooldowns, this item fills a very distinct niche. Beyond that, the standard cooldown reduction it offers is also quite potent, as these boots provide additional cooldown reduction without committing to a major item.

When to Buy: There are two instances in which you would want to purchase these boots: when you are playing a champion who wants to rush 40% cooldown reduction, or when you are playing a champion who relies heavily on summoner spells. For the former, this item offers a quick and relatively inexpensive way to obtain more cooldown reduction while building out of an item that almost all champions buy anyway. Alternatively, the latter type of champion is bolstered by having their summoner spells up more often, allowing them to reliably make big plays.

Mercury’s Treads

Stats: 45 movement speed, 25 magic resistance, and 30% tenacity

Cost: Boots of Speed (300 gold) + Null-Magic Mantle (450 gold) + 350 gold, or 1100 gold total

Overview: Coming in at 90% gold efficiency before tenacity is even factored in, these defensive boots prove to be an incredibly efficient option. With the magic resistance that they provide offering more survivability, and the movement speed and tenacity they provide being flexible in providing the ability to evade damage or chase down enemies, Mercury’s Treads prove to be a potent offensive and defensive item.

When to Buy: There are several valid reasons for purchasing Mercury’s Treads. If you are facing a team which primarily deals magic damage, the magic resistance provided by these boots allows your champion to survive longer in fights, and thus fulfil their goals more reliably. If you are playing against a champion with a particularly potent form of crowd control, Mercury’s Treads allow you to reduce that champion’s power in a non-negligible way. If you are playing a champion who relies on running face-first into the enemy team, these boots allow you to do so through giving your champion movement speed and reducing the duration of crowd control effects that the enemy team applies. In short, these boots are all-around a strong choice, and perhaps the most versatile of the options in this list.

Ninja Tabi

Stats: 45 movement speed, 20 armor, and 12% reduced damage from all basic attacks

Cost: Boots of Speed (300 gold) + Cloth Armor (300 gold) + 500 gold, or 1100 gold total

Overview: While these boots are only 85% gold efficient in terms of pure stats, they exceed 100% gold efficiency when factoring in the damage reduced by their passive. Unlike their magic resistance counterpart, Ninja Tabi prove to be a solely defensive option. However, their defensive niche often proves effective, since most team compositions contain a champion who deals physical damage or relies heavily on basic attacks.

When to Buy: Where Mercury’s Treads were incredibly flexible, Ninja Tabi are often quite niche. In short, these boots are best built in two specific situations: when the enemy team deals primarily physical damage, or when the enemy team relies on basic attacks to deal most of their damage. Experienced League of Legends players will likely notice that these two situations are often overlapping; if a team deals mostly physical damage, it is likely that they also rely heavily on basic attacking. While these boots are more niche than their other defensive counterpart, they excel when bought in the proper situation.

Sorcerer’s Shoes

Stats: 45 movement speed + 18 magic penetration

Cost: Boots of Speed (300 gold) + 800 gold, or 1100 gold total

Overview: Since these boots match the base tier boots point for point on movement speed gold efficiency, and they are the item from which magic penetration gold efficiency is derived, they are precisely 100% gold efficient. They are essentially the magical equivalent of Berserker’s Greaves, allowing spell-slinging mages to deal more damage. However, unlike how Berserker’s Greaves increase the sustained damage of marksmen, Sorcerer’s Shoes increase the burst damage potency of mages.

When to Buy: These boots are essentially the go-to item on all mages. While some might opt into a defensive boot option against team compositions which heavily favour one type of damage, and some might go for the cooldown reduction provided by the Ionian Boots of Lucidity, many mages appreciate the increased damage potential that Sorcerer’s Shoes offer. Since these are the typical option for most mages, it is perhaps more pertinent to note that these boots are less efficient against teams which are building a lot of magic resistance, as the flat penetration can only do so much against a champion with several magic resistance items.

Conclusion

Overall, it is important to put some thought into not only what boots you should build on each champion, but what boots you should build in each game. Where some games might call for the offensive potential of Berserker’s Greaves or Sorcerer’s Shoes, others might warrant Ninja Tabi or Mercury’s Treads on the exact same champion. Thus, if there is one key takeaway from this guide, it is that being flexible in which boots you buy is the key to utilizing the gold efficiency of boots effectively.