Warmog’s Armor holds an odd place in the heart of most veteran players. On the one hand, the item has been weak enough to be practically useless anywhere but ARAM, where it’s instead completely broken. On the other, anyone who was around back in Season 2 knows exactly why Warmog’s is in the state that it’s been for the last few years. Back then, Warmog’s used to be a stacking item that rewarded players for farming minions by giving them a tremendous boost in health and regeneration after they managed to kill 100 minions with it equipped. While that might not seem like much, it had wonderful synergy with another item that has since been removed from the game outright, Atma’s Impaler, which granted attack damage based on the HP of its wielder. The result of the synergy between these two items was the rather infamous “metagolem” meta, where every top laner purchased the same six items game in and game out. Back then, a full build top laner would be impossible to kill, while also having enough damage to instantly kill the enemy ADC — though many ADC players would argue that this is still the case today.
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Well, I’m here to tell you that Warmog’s Armor is about to come back, and in a big way. We’ve already seen some of the best players in the game pick the item up in recent games. Both Kuro and Faker have used the item on mid lane Galio, and to brutal affect. Furthermore, Warmog’s Armor has become the trademark item for two of the most powerful junglers in the game at the moment, Zac and Sejuani. Thanks to the changes in 7.10, Warmog’s Armor is in the best spot it’s been in years, and it’s an item that any tank or bruiser player should be taking very, very seriously.
So what changed? Simple. The fundamental flaw that has always dogged Warmog’s Armor is that it “only” gave a crap ton of HP. As stacking a crap ton of HP isn’t exactly the best way to itemized defensively, it’s always been a somewhat ignored item. Warmog’s Armor might give more HP than Randuin’s Omen ever did, but the armor from Randuin’s made it a better defensive item than Warmog’s despite that. The big change now is simply that HP is suddenly a far more valuable stat. It used to be that a combination of Randuin’s and Spirit Visage would give all the HP a tank would ever need, but the tank itemization changes from patch 7.10 slashed the HP numbers on every defensive item, all save the humble Warmog’s Armor. That, combined with the recent change to make Warmog’s Heart extremely easy to activate for most tanks, has made it a staple defensive items on champions that already get mitigation stats from other sources, or who just flat out scale off HP.
So the next time you find yourself taking to the rift as Sion, Sejuani, or Zac, take a serious look at Warmog’s Armor. It won’t disappoint you.
