Two New Items on the PBE for Patch 4.10!

Check out the newest in the line of items on the PBE! While the Essence Reaver seems mildly interesting, I think it's the new support item Ardent Censer that's going to to create the most uproar! Check out the tentative stats below:

Ardent Censer
+30 Ability Power
+10 Mana Regen per 5 seconds
+10% Cooldown Reduction
+8% Movement Speed

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Your direct heals and shields on another champion grant them 25% attack speed for 6 seconds.

Essence Reaver

+50 Attack Damage

+10% Life Steal

+10% Cooldown Reduction

UNIQUE PASSIVE: You gain 2% to 8% of the damage dealt by basic attacks as Mana. This effect increases based on how much Mana you are missing.

Meanwhile, Riot's also released a full list of proposed upcoming changes to items in Patch 4.10 which leads to a much more offensive based playstyle. Kayle and Fiora may be hit hard and AD carries may soon rule again...

Check out the full list below!

[Planned 4.10] Item Changes (Attack Damage / Attack Speed / Warden's Mail / Support Itemization)

Note: These are not on the PBE yet. Unsure when we're promoting these to the environment as there's still a lot of polish left on these items - however, it is a heads up to our plans as to what we intend to do in the near future in this space.

BFS / Attack Damage Items

 B.F. Sword

• Attack Damage: 45 --> 50

 Infinity Edge

• Attack Damage: 70 --> 80

 Mercurial Scimitar

• Total Cost: 3700 --> 3800
• Attack Damage: 60 --> 80
• Active: Now also gives the Movement Speed to ranged characters.

Notes: We've generally liked the fact that AP items have three distinct tiers of AP, 60 / 80 and 120 for major Ability Power items. We're taking some steps to get Attack Damage into similar tiers for the major Attack Damage items with 80 as our high-end point.

 Youmu's Ghostblade

• Active: Now lasts 6 seconds on ranged characters.

Notes: We've tried to remove ranged/melee splits on most of the locations on which they didn't seem to make sense anymore in the modern game.

...Yeah, we'll probably have to nerf Heal. Stop looking at me like that.

Attack Speed

 Dagger

• Total Cost: 400 --> 450
• Attack Speed: 12% --> 15%

 Zeal

• Total Cost: 1175 --> 1100
• Attack Speed: 18% --> 20%

Notes: Attack Speed is a hard stat to commit to - mostly because it's very trivial to overcommit to the stat - as by the end-game, you have a healthy amount of Attack Speed. What we're doing here is making the build up to a complete Attack Speed grant more Attack Speed along the way and be smoother on the way there.

 Berzerker Greaves

• Total Cost: 950 --> 1000
• Attack Speed: 20% --> 25%

Notes: This is more tier 2 boot consolidation into the 1000 gold range - while keeping the deviations from the 1000 gold range intentional and part of that specific boots' strength or weakness.

Life Steal

 Doran's Blade

• Health: 80 --> 70
• Attack Damage: 8 --> 7
• Removed: Life on Hit Passive
• (NEW) Life Steal: 0% --> 3%

Explanation: Yes, this is essentially a directional revert to S2 days of Doran's Blade. Basically, we tried to phase out Life Steal as an early game statistic in the transition from S2 to S3 - as Life Steal should feel compelling or expensive.

However, in that environment, sustain or defensive supports were at an all time high. A carry character didn't need much in the way of life steal early because there was a reliable source of sustain in their lane (the support.)

With the addition of offensive supports and the continuing rise of non-sustain supports, the limited amount of life steal options essentially forced all carries down a single path - Vampiric Scepter - as the sustain factor required in lane wasn't being provided from either the support or their Doran's Blade.

With only a single large source of life steal - carry players only had two options for life steal - Either stay at 4.5% from quints or dramatically overshoot and get 14.5% from Vampiric Scepter - which kind of makes sustain supports redundant to begin with.

I'm retuning life steal as a more expensive stat that is highly accessible in many different sources rather than it being more concentrated power because the reality of the situation is that there isn't a single life steal value that is correct if you cannot rely on a surplus of sustain from your support pick.

Hence, AD carry players need a wider array of smaller more flexible options that can build up to their ideal amount of life steal - based on the needs of the lane, their opponents and who their support is. In a high sustain lane, you might be able to get away with a Doran's Blade into an infinity edge, for example - whereas in a low sustain lane, you might need a couple of blades and a vampiric scepter - but the lack of offense on your side is compensated by the fact that you hav an offensive support.

TL;DR - A wider amount of smaller life steal options will make ADC builds more flexible because they'll be able to tailor the right amount of life steal for the situation - rather than be railroaded down one path if they need any amount of sustain.

 Vampiric Scepter

• Life Steal: 10% --> 8%

 Bilgewater Cutlass

• Life Steal: 12% --> 8%

 Blade of the Ruined King

• Life Steal: 15% --> 10%
• Proc Damage: 5% Current Health --> 8% Current Health
• Active Nuke Damage: 15% Maximum Health --> 10% Maximum Health
• Active Movement Speed Slow: 30% Movement Speed Steal --> 25% Movement Speed Steal

Notes: Shifting this item to be a little more about the proc damage and less about the active nuke - which will shift it a bit more towards the sustained damage space rather than the burst space. This item looks nerfed - but only because so many things are changing around it - which you'll see in the followup posts - mostly Dagger becoming a better value in the build up to the item as well as Warden's Mail and Randuin's Omen which heavily impact this item more than any of the other items listed here.

 Bloodthirster

• Combine Cost: 850 --> 1100
• Total Cost: 3250 --> 3500
• Base Attack Damage: 70 --> 80
• Base Life Steal: 12% --> 15%
• Removed: Attack Damage / Life Steal - Stacking Passive
• New Passive: "Your life steal can now overheal you, granting a shield that can block from 50 to 410 damage, based on champion level. This shield decays rapidly if you have not taken or dealt damage in the last 15 seconds."
• Note: Passive is heavily non-linear scaling. At level 6, the shield is around 100. At level 16, the shield is around 330 - to give you an idea of how far up it scales.

Notes: Bloodthirster is kind of the ultimate snowball item design. If you rush it first, you get sustain and an AD advantage - that then keeps growing as you stay in lane for longer.

However - it was kept down by the fact that it was relative poor scaling compared to other options - an I.E. for example would dramatically outclass its damage mid game when combined with a multiplier item.

However, with the rise of ratio driven carries being the default rather than the exception - coupled with the sustain issues that made Vampiric Scepter the default rather than the exception - Bloodthirster proves to be a fairly unhealthy item in its current stacking iteration.

We've retuned Bloodthirster to be a heavy life steal / defensive option.

Notes: In the short term, we are aware that this leaves stacking Attack Damage builds in a bit of a pinch as there won't be an option for something like triple Bloodthirster heavy stack - it'll be something we'll be trying to figure out how to better support without running straight into Caster / Ratio driven carries dominating lane and suppressing traditional Attack Speed carries and then falling completely off the map - causing the entire carry role to feel somewhat anemic.

(NEW) Essence Reaver

• RECIPE: Vampiric Scepter + Pickaxe + 950 Gold = 2650 Total Gold Cost
• Attack Damage: 50
• Life Steal: 10%
• Cooldown Reduction: 10%
• UNIQUE Passive: You gain 2 to 8% of the damage dealt by basic attacks as Mana. Mana drain increases based on how much Mana you are missing.

Notes: While iterating with life steal slots - we realized that caster based carries are split into two camps: One that needs mana - and one that wants ratios. While we were iterating, we stumbled across this item that seemed to allow for a really intensive mana spam/attack combat pattern that seemed fun especially on Ezreal (Q) /Graves (Q) / Corki / Draven (W) / Sivir (W).

Support Items

 Mikael's Crucible

• New Recipe: Chalice of Harmony + Forbidden Idol + 870 G = 2450 Gold Total
• Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds: 10 --> 20
• Cooldown Reduction: 0% --> 10%

Notes: Mikael's Crucible is dominant in competitive play and shuts down the value of our utility focused carries (Varus/Ashe) while being fairly ineffective against the more spammy pick patterns of everyone else (Elise 'E' for example). While we like what Crucible brings to the table - we'd like to shift it towards our more mana hungry supports (who tend to be more defensive) rather than being a generically good pickup for everyone.

(NEW) Ardent Censer

• Recipe: Forbidden Idol + Aether Wisp + 250 G = 1900 Total Cost
• 30 Ability Power
• 10 Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds
• 10% Cooldown Reduction
• 8% Movement Speed
• Unique Passive: Whenever you heal or shield another champion, they gain 25% Attack Speed for 6 seconds.

Notes: We wanted to create a mid-tier support item for supports now that Mikael's sits at a higher price point. We also want to see how you guys respond to this particular trigger effect as it has interesting interactions across supports. Thresh, for example, has an AoE AS boost from this item - while Janna and Lulu both offer attack steroids that synergize well with the Attack Speed.

And it's probably overkill on Nidalee.

Note this is your heals and shields on other champions - so self-healing is right out. When we tested it, there was a lot of weird rules cases and edge cases that seemed to make very little sense - how would you expect Malphite's passive to interact with this, for example?

 Athene's Unholy Grail

• Magic Resist: 40 --> 25
• Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds: 15 --> 10
• Mana Restoration on kill or assist: 12% --> 15%

Notes: Now that we have two Chalice of Harmony upgrades in a very similar price range, we wanted to do a pass on Athene's Unholy Grail (currently a very cost-efficient purchase) to make sure this item wasn't crowding out other items in the 'Mp5 + CDR' family. With Mikael's Crucible decisively taking the 'the defensive path' from Chalice, we choose to preserve Athene's offensive power. This meant reducing the item's Magic Resist and taking this as an opportunity to increase strength of the kill/assist passive. Those changes combined with a small adjustment to Morellonomicon should shore up the stat lines of these items.

 Morellonomicon

• Ability Power: 75 --> 80
• Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds: 12 --> 10

Notes: Small stat adjustment as mentioned above. Though minor, this should help make Morellonomicon feel a bit better in terms of item slot efficiency as the game goes on.

 Forbidden Idol

• Cost: 750 Gold --> 700 Gold

Notes: Small cost adjustment. All items that use Forbidden Idol as a component will have the same overall cost (e.g., Morellonomicon will still cost 2200 Gold).

 Locket of the Iron Solari

• Unique Active will now use a recipient's level to calculate shield strength if the recipient's level is higher than the item owner's level.

Notes: This change should give a small boost to defensive support players that like to purchase Locket of the Iron Solari for their team.

Defensive Items

 Warden's Mail

• Attack Speed Slow: 15% --> 10%

 Randuin's Omen

• Attack Speed Slow: 15% --> 10%
• Movement Speed Slow (On Being Hit): 10% --> 0%

Notes: This change will have heavy ramifications in the fighter space as Randuin's Omen effectively gave non gap-closing fighters a way into fights. However, this came at a significant expense to ADC kite patterns and general ADC power.

This also made carries with innate gap closing powers much more powerful in comparison to ADCs that didn't have gap closers as those abilities were unaffected by the slow of Omen.

We're aware that with the recent Heal changes, this move will probably tip the scales much in favor of the kite based ADC patterns - but we want to evaluate on live for a while before deciding just how much to scale back ADC kiting or scale up defensive itemization.

Final Notes

As usual, these numbers are aren't final and hence the forecast + these specific PBE notes. To the best of my knowledge, you'll be able to play with these tomorrow - (Although there will be still some temp assets in that build.)

ricklessabandon / FeralPony and I will be around in the next couple of hours to field any initial set of questions - and I think rickless has some other support item changes (numerical tweaks) that he'll be updating this post with.

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