With the addition of enchantments to your boots all those patches ago in Season 3, they've been of rising importance as the game has developed. While some don't see a lot of play, some champions benefit from the purchase in their role. I aim to provide some understanding as to which champions go with which enchantments, why you bought the enchantment for the champion, what situations you'll see its success and finally, when in the game are you aiming to buy the item in relevance to your opponents and role in the team. I'll discuss 2 champions with each enchantment, focussing on their success with that purchase.

Homeguard is the staple enchantment players go to as you cant help but love the huge boost you get from the base platform. Getting onto the map brings a lot of positives such as; getting that one minion wave, that one assist/kill or that one buff which can change the flow of a game. With its mass heal and mana restore, you can quickly get on the Rift and impact the game. These properties make the purchase worth it, especially when you consider it's strategic strengths in both soloQ and competitive play. Maokai and Hecarim highlight some of the strategical reasons you buy Homegaurds.

 Maokai

The tree has seen dominant prominence on the top lane since his changes in Season 4. With AOE damage reduction, innate tank stats and crowd control, Maokai can a run amuck on an enemy with the grief he causes in team fights. With the meta as it is right now, teleport is a basic must on the top laner, especially in competitive play. Maokai can have some of the best teleport ganks with the root CC attached to his "Twisted Advance". When partnered with the homeguard enchantment, he can have a prominent impact on the team fights through the game. A return to the base with the teleport continues the speed boost you get from homeguards, meaning Maokai can quickly get on top of a target and contain them for his team to follow up. If completed successfully, this singular action can win a team fight, leading into multiple advantages in turrets, objectives and gold. With Homeguards, Maokai will see a continued stay on the top lane, especially in competitive play due to its strategical strengths in macro play.

 Hecarim

Hecarim uses the Homeguard enchantment in the same way Maokai does in that he joins fights from the top lane and demands presence. As a few buffs hit the centaur form the shadow isles, he disappeared from the jungle and joined the top lane roster. While he's also a tank, Hecarim can be a genuine damage threat due to his unique scalings. Hecarim's passive "Warpath", whilst giving Hecarim no unit collision, also scales his attack damage up through a level scaling percentage of his total movement speed. The link with Homeguards comes from the fact that the bonus attack damage scales of what Hecarim's movement speed is in that exact moment. With Homeguards 200% bonus movement speed, Hecarim gets a percentage of that in damage. When allied with teleport, he can join a fight and devatstate the back line with his amplified attack damage and huge AOE ultimate fear that comes from "Onslaught of Shadows". While Hecarim has seen a minor reduction in play due to the small nerfs he got to a few of his abilities, the big damaging team disruption that he can cause in fights with homeguard enhanced teleports can still be incredibly beneficial when played with and around effectively.

The homeguard enchantment is a staple accessory to buy for your boots; as the speed up and quick health/mana regain mean its strategic properties are especially good on certain champions. Purchasing it alongside a teleport summoner or a global movement ability utilises the 200% speed up from the base well. This in turn optimizes your damage output/lock down by getting on the priority targets and reducing their impact on the game. In deciding between the 5 enchantments, while the homeguard boots are a staple choice, look at your champion and summoner spells to see if the properties it brings makes your champion a bigger threat.

The Alacrity enchantment is one of the lesser pick ups by players but its merits still count and can be utilised when used on the correct champion and in the correct situation. The only stat that Alacrity brings is a +20 base movement speed. The main difference with Alacrity in comparison to enchantments such as Homeguard and Furor is that this stays with you even if you haven't left base or hit an enemy champion. Alacrity bringing just base movement speed can be an offensive and defensive stat, depending on how you utilise is it as a player. I'll try and explain why I believe Caitlyn and Kog'Maw can use the enchantment effectively.

 Caitlyn

Caitlyn sees a varied amount of play and only gets put into competitive compositions when the team can work around her strengths. We see Caitlyn get picked up a lot by players as she's an easy champion to pick up mechanically with her simple skillshots and click-on ultimate. Caitlyn's main weaknesses are highlighted when flanks and ganks occur with her lack of escape mechanisms. This is in addition to the mid game being weak due to the lull in damage she has until she has around 3-4 items. Being consistently killed in the mid game by easy flanks means she is delayed from hitting any form of damage spike. The alacrity enchantments base +20 movement speed boost helps her kite more efficiently around the champions and skillshots that are aiming for her. Optimizing her damage by kiting foes around and using the 650 range to kill her opponents and objectives from afar.

 Kog'Maw

Kog'Maw is in an interesting place where he can be played in the 2 carry roles and prioritises different damage sources. In the ADC role, he's a hyper carry who outputs damage by using the targets maximum health from a 630-710 attack range with "Bio-Arcane Barrage". In the Mid lane, the void creature uses his multiple long ranged skillshots to decimate his foes from a superior range where he relies in his "Void Ooze" and "Living Artillery"s magic damage scaling. You see multiple competitive teams use the champion in the pick and ban phase as a flex pick, picking into a potential Juggermaw comp or destructive siege that works around the level 11 mark. The alacrity boost in either form sees its usage when considering Kog'Maw's main flaw as a champion is his lack of mobility. You want Kog'Maw to be unreachable and destroy the enemy team from a huge distance. By adding movement stats, Kog'Maw can fend for himself by moving in and out of detrimental damage and keep himself alive. While it isn't the biggest increase in speed, being able to efficiently kite and fight from a significant range is what Kog'Maw players need to do.

The alacrity boot enchatment is a rather bland purchase but in specific scenarios, it's 475g purchase can be beneficial. Using it on champions with low to no mobility tools, the +20 movement speed helps them avoid the enemies aiming for them. Dodging the stun, avoiding damage or just increasing the gap, it can do a lot of work to add that small amount of movement speed. So if the conditioned stats the other enchantments give you aren't right for the game, picking alacrity can be a solid choice for purchase.

The Furor enchantment excels when your champion's playstyle shouts aggression. Keeping you to your target with the speed boost you get when using your auto attacks or spells. So fighters and assassins are the main champion archtypes you're looking at. Its one of the least bought enchantments in the game as the stats can be bought in other avenues but it 100% has its merits still. I believe Fiora and Vayne epitomise some of the strengths of the Furor purchase.

 Fiora

While we've only seen one patch to experience the new Fiora, her light footed fighter style has hit a storm with us players on the Rift. Her agile dashes and parries have made her very scary in the 1 v 1 duels. Seeing her place on the top lane, Fiora works to slowly chip away her opponents health with her true damage and high AD scalings then go in for the kill with her ultimate "Grand Challenge". 95% of Fiora's damage comes from her auto attack damage which is buffed through the on hit Q dash and attack speed buff from her E, "Bladework". Her duelist playstyle is deepened with the purchase of Furor. Furor grants her an extra movement speed buff which is really useful in situations where you need the AOE heal of "Grand Challenge" to heal your allies for a big team fight win. Hitting every proc of her "Vulnerability" passive to gain it. By enunciating her mobility to accelerate her damage output on a target with the speed that furor grants, Fiora can be more nimbly aggressive.

 Vayne

Vayne excels in disorientation. Using her mobility tools in her passive "Night Hunter" and Q ability "Tumble", she can pick off the champions thrown in front of her, tank or carry. Being consistently mobile in duels and team fights is incredibly important in playing her correctly. Vayne is an auto attack carry and scales well with critical damage combined with attack speed and attack damage. Build items like BOTRK to build on her existing health based damage which wrecks through all opponents that come in front of her. The furor enchantment's stats already exist on Vayne with her passive but the furor boots enunciate it further. Keeping Vayne safe by consistently kiting with her movement speed, keeping her from or on enemies. When you’re facing enemies who will be consistently trying to keep you down and stay on top of you, the furor purchase can help you stay away while outputting the highest damage possible.

The furor enchantment gives mobile carries the possibility to kite in fights eloquently. Keeping on top of the enemies with their damage and making sure the priority targets are jumped on and killed. Fiora is a good example, with her auto attacks being so crucial to her kit, having the little boost in speed really helps her stick to that ADC or mage. When on the retreat, the enchantment can help you kite that enemy around, so your still outputting damage but on a quicker escape with the boost. To conclude; furor gives that champion a higher ability to kite and optimize their damage while staying agile and on the move.

Captain boots are the purchase to be made when you're aiming to be a selfless ally. Working for the benefit of your team by giving them a mobility aura that keeps them alive while creating the most damage. The captain enchantment gives the champion's allies a 10% movement speed buff when approaching that champion. Champions with low kill threat but have the ability to buff their allies see the purchase with higher benefit as it enlightens those buffs more. Janna and Nunu are great examples for champions who can use the captain boots effectively.

 Janna

The disengage support who aims to reset fights with her "Monsoon" and keep all the enemy threats from jumping on her priority allies. With an AD buffing shield, she works well in siege compositions and is a strong laner with the right style of AD carry. Janna doesn't do well in aggressive actions like flash "Howling Gale"/"Monsoon", Janna is better when placed in the back line and uses her displacement effectively. This is Janna's way of carrying in the support role. Janna already has an in built captain buff in her movement speed aura passive so the captain enchantment enhances that stat even further when purchased. Janna can then help her ADC and mid laner kite efficiently around enemies while outputting the highest damage possible. In the supportive role as Janna, your aim is to be effecient in keeping your allies alive while helping them adjust their movement correctly to be safe while killing their enemy. The captain enchatment enhances that aim with the stats it adds to Janna's already existing selfless movement aura.

 Nunu

The obnoxious king of the jungle who aims to make the enemy jungler's life a complete misery. Counter jungling his opponent, placing aggressive wards and just making their life hell so their impact on the lanes is practically nil. One of the flaws to Nunu is that he has no late game scaling as an individual. He works to buff up his ADC with "Blood Boil" (or APC if you're talking about Azir) and make that champion do the late game damage for him, by buffing and peeling with all of Nunu's pretentious slows and attack speed debuffs. While he is pretty potent in the early game, his late game only sees fruition if played around the ADC and works to support them. He needs his carries to survive so by adding an aura speed up when in approach, Nunu can keep them alive for longer. With the boot adjustment, Nunu can optimize his allies potential and add to the existing buffs he already gives to his team in the late game.

The selfless buy in the captain enchantment can still have great effect when used in the right situations. When playing a comp like the "Juggermaw", you need Kog'Maw to be outputting the most damage possible while kiting around the tanks and assassins that are going for his head on the back line. While it isnt a Lulu "Whimsy" or Zilean "Time Warp", the small boost from the enchantment's stats means that carries can walk near their support and have an extra buff. Purchasing it for champions who aim to buff their allies like Janna and Nunu, there is no harm in adding an aura to their already existing buff list.

Distortion grants 2 stats that work in unison to make the purchase worthy. It adds a base 20% CDR to the cooldowns of the 3 summoners; Teleport, Ghost and most importantly, Flash. In addition, each spell is enhanced in its effect with movement buffs. Flash and Teleport after use get a percentage movement speed buff while Ghost has its movement speed bonus increased to 40% from 28%. Champions that rely on these summoner spells can see the biggest profit with the purchase. Annie and Twisted Fate are apt choices for this item in their build route.

 Annie

Annie plays in 2 different styles depending on the lane you put her in. As a mid lane mage, she wrecks her opponents with nearly unavoidable burst and cc that wrecks their health bar from 100-0. While in the support role, Annie plays as the heavy engage support who locks up multiple or priority targets for a quick collapse by her team. Mainly the latter is seen competitively and the former is mainly a soloQ pick with one of the highest win rates. In either role, Annie uses her flash summoner to be more effective as it makes her AOE stuns much more sudden and unreactable. With this, you see Annie players, especially in the support role, actually rush their boots to get the enchantment so engages are more frequent from her. As a mage, you can jump on the enemies with higher consistency and destroy the priorities like an assassin. As a versatile champion, Annie is dependant on the summoner so by decreasing it's cooldown, Annie has a larger impact on games.

 Twisted Fate

Twisted Fate is an interesting champion who has seen multiple entrances into the meta as the game evolved. He can take multiple summoners with the stable choice of Flash; Ignite, Teleport, Exhaust or Ghost are all impactful summoners for him. Twisted Fate plays for the roaming and excels in ganking other lanes with his ultimate "Destiny" and joining fights to unexpecting enemies. Through that, he can use the extra gold to have that advantage against his lane opponent. He relies on his summoner spells to be aggressive, defensive and tactical. With ghost and flash, he can catch up to opponents and stun them with the yellow card to keep them locked down. Using teleport, he can use one of the globals to gank a lane then use the other to get right back. The Distortion enchantment grants the ability to be aggressive or defensive more often. Adding cooldown components to Twisted Fate is never a bad option as his kit is so unique in the middle lane. Playing around his summoners to enhance the peculiar objectives the champion brings gives the champion more accessibility for success.

The 3 summoner spells that the Distortion enchantment buffs, are essential on some champions, especially in the case of Flash. With no mobility tools or lack of escape, the cooldown of your Flash can be exceptionally important. Twisted Fate or Cassiopeia are examples where that summoner is important for not only their survival, but overall impact in team fights and ganks. There's also examples in champions like Annie who rely on thier flash for other reasons, by using the lowered cooldown of Flash to engage for the team. Where reliance of summoner spells is integral, the lowering of it's cooldown can have exponential benefit.

Like all item choices in the game, you need to be building to multiple factors. Your specific champion's needs, your lane opponent, your allied team, your enemy team, your role in the team, how ahead/behind are you, what type of composition you have. There are a ton of factors for you to think about when choosing any item in the game. This rule still applies to your 475g/600g purchase in the boot enchantments. Look at all the components and relate these to your role in the game. These enchantments are only a small addition to your potential, but that small buff or aura can mean a lot for the outcome of the game.

Thanks for reading and see you next time!

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