League of Legends Tells Players to Use Loot Shards Before Preseason

Riot Games is encouraging League of Legends players to make use of their loot shards before preseason begins to get the most out of them that they can.

The words of wisdom come from Riot Cactopus and Bubobubo on Friday when a series of major announcements regarding the upcoming preseason were shared. Upcoming changes include plans for reimbursing players' rune purchases over the years along with the removal of the level cap and the merging of IP and Blue Essence. If you missed the initial announcements, it'll make much more sense to catch up on the news first that can be found here.

With IP being converted into Blue Essence and more loot shards being pumped in from the new leveling format, the amount of Blue Essence that players will receive from disenchanting their shards will be reduced. Since players will be able to purchase every item that's currently available for IP with Blue Essence soon, having so many shards to disenchant would lead to tons of Blue Essence being racked up, so that Essence gain is being toned down a bit.

The announcement went into detail about how much Blue Essence players will receive compared to the current conversion rate by explaining that players typically get roughly a third of the Blue Essence that it'd cost to upgrade a champion shard to a permanent addition. Starting with the new system, the value will only net players 20 percent of the shard's total value.

Rerolling champion shards into permanent champions is also going away since there will be so many shards floating around soon. The announcement specifically mentions rerolling champion shards and says that mystery champions will occasionally be sold for Blue Essence, so it seems that rerolling skins and ward skins will remain.

"For these reasons, you should go ahead and reroll or disenchant any shards you don't want to upgrade before preseason hits so you can get the most essence possible out of them," the post says. "We'll add reminders to the client as preseason approaches so y'all don't forget."

Loot chests are also receiving changes to improve the rewards inside by adding "bad luck protection" that'll prevent players from opening tons of chests without receiving a skin shard or a gemstone. You'll also have the chance to receive two drops from each chest, and the announcement tells players to get ready for "chests inside of your chests."

The conversion from IP to Blue Essence is scheduled to occur in November, so players still have plenty of time to take care of their loot shard needs before the transition time arrives.