'League of Legends' Designer Proposes "Adventurous" Item Changes

Riot Games is considering changing some of League of Legends’ crit items in early 2019 with some [...]

Riot Games is considering changing some of League of Legends' crit items in early 2019 with some of the plans being tamer and others regarded as "adventurous."

Plans for some of the game's items that deal with critical hit damage and chance were revealed on the League of Legends boards where Riot PhRoXz0n shared some thoughts and potential build path changes for items like Infinity Edge and others. None of the changes are guaranteed to ship to live servers and can't be tested yet since they're not on the PBE, but the game designer said Riot Games is considering several potential directions for the items.

"Direction 1 is more known, direction 2 is a bit more adventurous and at the end, there are a few ideas that can go in either pitch," the Rioter said.

Infinity Edge, for example, had two different build paths proposed for it, the first being one that'll look more familiar to players and the second one a path that looks quite different compared to what's available now. The first would revert some Infinity Edge changes and give it back its flat 40 percent critical chance stat while increasing crit damage by an undisclosed number. The second, however, bumps up the price of the item tremendously to make it cost 5,000 gold with the build path changing to two B.F. Swords and a Zeal. It would inherit stats from the Zeal item to give the Infinity Edge user 30 percent more attack speed and 5 percent more movement speed. The crit strike chance would also be raised by 50 percent.

Other changes would lower the crit chance on Zeal items like Rapid Firecannon and Statikk Shiv to 25 percent. One of the more interesting changes would see the Phantom Dancer become more of a defensive item with Hexdrinker building into it alongside a Zeal with a Stopwatch building into that Hexdrinker. Instead of granting a damage reduction buff against an enemy someone's doing battle with, the Phantom Dancer would then grant them the same type of buff that Hexdrinker and its Maw upgrade provide, the only different being that the Phantom Dancer shield would absorb any damage, not just magic attacks. Maw of Malmortius would similarly be redesigned to be built from the new Hexdrinker, the same Caulfield's Warhammer, and a Negatron Cloak.

Those potential item changes are part of Riot Games' effort to achieve three goals for the offensive items project that include the ones listed below by the Rioter:

  • Crit users have an item path they are excited about.
  • Crit users have defensive options that aren't way off curve.
  • Crit users are more satisfying in solo queue for all levels of play

These new League of Legends item builds are currently being discussed internally and aren't guaranteed to ship to live servers. The full list of items Riot Games is exploring changes for can be seen here.

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