League of Legends Brings Warmog's Back to ARAM

After it disappeared from ARAM for a short while, League of Legends' health-regenerating Warmog's Armor item is coming back to the Howling Abyss.

Back in May, Riot Games announced that a special ARAM event would be taking place to coincide with the release of Pyke. The Howling Abyss became Butcher's Bridge, new items were added, health relics became AOE heals, and players bid goodbye to Warmog's. All of these changes were experimental though with no guarantee that they'd become permanent, and now that the event is over, Riot Games says that Warmog's is here to stay, though it's certainly on the table for changes to make it a better fit in ARAM.

"We still believe that Warmog's Armor in its current state does not belong in ARAM, but it's become clear that we should change it or replace it with a new anti-poke item rather than simply removing it," Riot Games said in a roundup of all the new and reverted ARAM changes. "In the meantime, Warmog's will return."

When Warmog's was removed, Riot Games said that a difference was noticed in terms of mages' winrates. Teams composed of champions without any poke abilities will know the pain of getting whittled down by Lux, Ziggs, Karma, and other mages, but Warmog's gave them a way to counter the strategy so long as you could amass health quick enough to activate its health regen effect. With Warmog's gone, the poke champions became even stronger, if only by a small percentage.

"There was a lot of discussion about this item in the wake of its removal for the event, both supporting and opposing its absence. Many of you raised the valid concern that poke is still a very dominant strategy in ARAM, and that Warmog's Armor was one of the few ways to itemize against it. In an environment without Warmog's, we did in fact see win rates for mages go up, by about 2 percentage points across the board."

The champion select changes that let players choose from rerolled champions are also staying, so you won't have to worry about your team rerolling your go-to ARAM champ any more. All the new items like Ghostwalkers and Spectral Cutless are being removed, though assassins might get some type of compensation in the future. Health relics with the AOE power are remaining as well, so they'll be both a boon to your team as well as another minigame for players to take part in while securing the heal and keeping opponents out of the AOE.