We have entered the pre-season for League of Legends. With previous changes being seen as over-tuned (most notably the item overhaul), I see it as a breath of fresh air that the newest additions have been scaled back to be buffed in future updates as people come to terms with all the changes.
Pre-Season. It’s a scary and exciting time. As per normal, we get to see the expectations Riot Games has for its’ next season of League of Legends with teasers for new champs and events, but most notably major changes to items and Summoner’s Rift itself. This season is of course, no exception. Riot has added a handful of new items as well as two new drakes to the rift all targeted to change the constancy of pro-play meta. The only major difference between this pre-season and most others is I feel the changes are actually underwhelming (except for champion tweaking which is a whole thing in itself) comparatively to that of other seasons where the changes were so impactful that the new items or item reworks required constant nerfs or would define the meta from the onset of implementation (Ardent Censer meta anyone?).
I’m honestly happy that items aren’t busted out the gate because this means Riot is listening to its community who have been complaining about balance issues and have been erring on the side of caution. Just because they aren’t currently busted, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare for when they get buffed back into line with the rest of the items. Let’s hop into it shall we?
Crown of The Shattered Queen is the first item on the list on one of the best items added. Having come out of the Assassin/DPS meta last season, we have an influx of damage reduction items that are hoping to bring the game into a tank meta with this AP item being no different. It gives a modest 70 AP with 250 health, 600 mana, and 20 Ability Haste, which is pretty strong for most AP Mythics in terms of base stats. It’s the Safeguard/Poise passive that makes it one of the best AP items currently. You take 75% reduced damage for the first 1.5 seconds of combat then gain 10-40 AP (based on champ level) during this passive and for 3 seconds after. This is crucial for any mage into a burst team comp. For only 2800 gold, you deny any assassin the chance to 100 to 0 you because they just can’t physically put out enough damage to break through that 75% damage reduction.
I’ve been using this specifically when fighting against a burst champ in mid lane (I.e. Talon, Veigar, even Gangplank). This item is great because for a lot of control mages who would get blown up before the fight even truly started, I now have the time to use a full rotation of my spells and abilities to fight back, instead of as Riot put it, “hide on the far side of teamfights”. This opens the meta to battle mages and control mages like Lissandra and Swain to be played in the Midlane again where, before late game, they were underwhelming if fully engaged on by the enemy laner.
I think this might err to the side of overpowered (it removes a mage’s one counter), but I also want to see if this means I will finally see more than just Yone, Zoe, and Vex on repeat in Midlane; for that reason, I think this item is in a healthy place and should be picked up by a mid who is worried about getting picked off faster than they can react.
This is the support item that brings dying for your sins to a new level. Instead of the normal “protect the ADC so they can do more damage” plan for Support items, this instead has everyone take more damage when you CC them or get CC’ed. The stats, like most support items, are weak (200 health, 20 Ability Haste, 30 Armor, 30 Magic Resist), but Riot is banking on the 12% increased damage to all enemies around you being a huge advantage for engaging tanks to have.
This item is extremely niche in that it can only be used against teams that are already extremely tanky or maybe if you are a full AD team and all it takes is one Armor item to counter the whole team. Neither of these scenarios are realistic, at least in the current meta. If you go all of one damage type, you aren’t building a good team comp, if you are facing a full tank team... well that just doesn’t happen as Tanks for the most part are in a horrible position as they can neither soak damage nor deal damage. This item is looking to counter a tank meta that doesn’t exist… yet. Not to mention the 12% increased damage outside of fighting tanks looks great, it is worthless as the damage output by the ADC/APC that can be achieved through the increased survivability of Locket of the Iron Solari is much more than this item can achieve.
In its current state, Evenshroud shouldn’t be bought unless for some reason, the whole enemy team is a tank, and even then, sustain would still be the better option. This item is in need of heavy buffs or maybe it will gather dust until the meta swings for the tank finally.
When this item showed up on the patch notes, I immediately had flashbacks to playing Urf against Assassins who would ult multiple times a team fight like they were an AD Lux. The 25% CDR on the passive for having damaged an enemy within 3 seconds of their death sounded terrifying to deal with, but either it isn’t as strong as I thought, or no one is building it. I thought it would turn any champ that built lethality into a nightmare, but when I tried it out on Talon, I didn’t even feel like it was worth having purchased. The biggest benefit is the 10 lethality you get from the item itself, which isn’t saying much.
I saw this item as a way to use my ulti multiple times a fight, but it just is on the edge of that currently. Most of the time you will get ulti back up after a fight ends. But the 15 or even 20 seconds you get back from having this item is negligible at the speed the game takes. When you have a major team fight, everyone fights and either your team loses and backs off/ dies or the enemy team does. This means you won’t even be trying to go back in for at least another 30 seconds to a minute. For assassins that are meant to build this item (as that is who the item is intended for) the 10-15 seconds refund on ulti is useless as the time it takes for you to have another fight or pick means the normal CD would have elapsed by then as well.
This is the only item that I feel should still be better than I make it out to be; so I want your feedback on any games you’ve played with it to see if we all have come to the same conclusion, but as of right now, only build this if you have a huge ulti CD like Pantheon or maybe Kha’zix, otherwise your gold is better spent on other lethality items like Collector.
Shadowflame is an almost paradoxical item. It seems like an item that would be great to use against tanks where you gain Magic Pen based on the target's current health, but it works like Veigar ulti where the lower they get the more Magic Pen you get. This item is meant to counter shields and champs that shield often, or enough to be annoying. On those grounds, this item fits that area perfectly as it works just as well as its’ AD equivalent Shield Breaker.
100 AP and 200 Health is nothing to laugh at either, but because it has such a specific use (countering shields) it isn’t worth it unless the enemy team has constant shielding or the shields they have are huge. Although this item is niche like Evenshroud, the purpose of this item is well implemented and probably the most balanced item for AP champs as it counters the next item on the list (also, it looks like PentaKill has a new song name).
This Item is the tank’s version of Manamune/Archangel's Staff. This item sounds underwhelming and honestly the idea of tanks needing more mana wasn’t enough for me to even bat an eye as Frozen Heart was always an amazing item to build for that issue. It wasn’t until I built this item on Ryze of all champs that I realized why so many items were counter tank oriented. The shielding on this is absurd in team fights, and all the more absurd on champions that already get tanky and can use this time and time again during a fight. 100-200 (+5% current mana) is such a huge shield for a tank that normally wouldn't get shields or maybe a support that engages often.
It is so close to being broken, that I believe that if it gets buffed (which it will because the tradeoff for a shield is 0 resistances on the item) would make it a must have for all tanks. As it stands now, you have to be playing a champ that naturally has high base resistances (Orn, Garen, Leona, etc...) Otherwise, the missing resistances you could get from other items doesn’t make the shield worth it.
This isn’t to say this item is bad in anyway, I just think players need to think outside the box for the champs played top and with Riot implementing a lot of items to counter tanks and shields, they must know this item is going to be powerful and as such, is definitely worth trying on tanks even with low resistances as it may work better than intended if no one tries to counter it thinking it to be weak much like I did.
I started doing testing for this article thinking these items were underpowered and needed buffs which is only the case if Winter’s Approach or tanks as a class get buffed. The items overall (except for Evenshroud) all feel somewhere between busted and not which is exactly how items should feel. If the item feels both strong and weak it must mean you are walking the line of being balanced.
We as the community give Riot and their balance team a lot of flak for dropping updates that seem to not have even been given a thought to why they were implemented; These items being balanced even leaning towards weak means they listened to us, so we should give them praise for trying to appeal to us.
Could these items use a buff? Sure, but this is better than watching the meta be only 3 items because they were so overpowered that to not play a champ with them would be suicide. Because there has been obvious consideration for the community’s reaction by giving these items a slightly below balanced release, I like to think that we are walking into a new age of League of Legends and should give thanks to Riot for trying it our way for once.
