Some late changes to the Frost Queen’s Claim line of items were squeezed into the Patch 7.18 cycle to make it a more competitive option against the Ancient Coin items, changes that now have a bit more context from Riot Games.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Due to the popularity of the Coin items and the pretty obvious purchasing of Targon’s on tankier melee supports, the Frost Queen’s items have recently fallen out of favor in the bot lane. Even those who could easily use the AP support item often opted for the Coin due to the sheer amount of gold and mana that it offered while removing the need to trade with the enemy laners. But after the changes to the Frost Queen’s items, more supports will hopefully feel comfortable being more aggressive in lane.
“We want to put a bit of power into the FQ’s line of items, given they’re underperforming relative to Coin/Targon’s even on aggressive champs who should be much more drawn to FQs,” Riot Meddler said regarding the changes. “We also want to offer non direct damage power where possible, both to reduce creep on number of high threat damage dealers on a team and to allow differences in how champs play in different positions (mid versus support for a number of mages).”
These intentions meant that adding either AP or other forms of additional damage wasn’t a desired route, so more cooldown reduction seemed to be the most viable decision. As reported previously, the Frost Queen’s items have more CDR on the PBE, but even more changes have come through recently. After seeing mid laners opt for the higher-CDR items after the changes, the items were tweaked once again.
“We made some late changes to FQ’s as a result, uping the CD on minion kills by a couple of seconds and changing it so it gets extra CDR at T2 (now 10%), but doesn’t increase further at T3,” Meddler said. “Intent there is that it’s a better choice for supports building it and then going for other items, without pushing it to T3, without being too warping if picked up by others.”
Exact details on the items’ changes are expected to ship with the upcoming patch notes, where the buffs and tribute changes will be explained more thoroughly.
