League of Legends Designers Discuss Plans for Ohmwrecker

Ohmwrecker isn't an item that's purchased often in League of Legends, a fact that both players and Riot Games designers have noticed.

The item has a very specific purpose when it comes to diving and preventing towers from bombarding your team, but as Riot Sotere points out in a recent Ask Riot post, it's drastically overshadowed by other anti-turret items like Banner of Command and ZZ'Rot Portal. Coordinating with your team that you have the item and are about to use it to temporarily deactivate turrets requires more communication than using either of the other two items, and with how short of a window you have to complete a dive after using it, it's often left in the shop.

As for the occasionally suggested idea to rework the item, Riot Sotere says that they've considered changes.

"It's no secret that Ohmwrecker is unpopular, but there's a kernel of excitement there to build upon," Riot Sotere said. "Some of us have looked in this design space before, but we haven't landed on an idea that was both exciting enough and maintained a similar design to justify corralling up the resources for an update."

Referencing the similarities between the three items mentioned previously, Sotere added that Ohmwrecker is purchased 10 times less than Banner of Command, an item that's still behind ZZ'Rot Portal in terms of popularity. But though ideas have been considered for the item, Riot says that fixing Ohmwrecker just isn't a priority when it comes to other problematic items or features that are already more impactful and require attention.

"We do take on projects that are largely opportunity based—meaning they're not addressing a prevalent pain point—but they tend to be in the minority. There are a lot of areas we can constantly improve on in League, so we're often trying to address significant pain points when we take on a project. This means that an inoffensive item is going to fall to the bottom of the priority list, especially if the item is unpopular but not really a "trap" to purchase (like Sword of the Divine was in most situations)."