League of Legends Item Rework: Everything You Need to Know

League of Legends item rework will be coming in the preseason and shaking up itemization across all roles. While some items are in a good place, several champions have extremely static build paths and almost no variations in their build from game to game. Additionally, some items are being left out of the meta, as certain stats are just not as valuable as Riot intended for them to be. As a result, Riot is looking to overhaul the shop and change up a lot of the items currently in the game. Let's take a look at what changes Riot is eyeing for the preseason.

League of Legends Item Rework: Everything You Need to Know

Changes to CDR, Healing Reduction, and Tenacity

In a recent blog post, Riot announced plans to remove CDR and replace it with a new stat called Ability Haste. The two stats are similar besides the fact that CDR scales exponentially, while Ability Haste stacks linearly. As Riot explains, "10% CDR is 11% more casts, while 40% CDR is 66% more casts, and 50% CDR is 100% more casts. Ability Haste will provide a linear power scaling model for more ability casts. So 10 Ability Haste = 10% more abilities cast, 20 = 20% more, 30 = 30% more." Since you needed a good amount of CDR to make buying CDR worthwhile, Riot is attempting to make Ability Haste be more flexible and able to be worked into almost any build path.

The post also details the current issues with Healing Reduction in the game. Riot feels that healing reduction should be a situational choice instead of a mainstay in several champion's builds. Currently, ADCs build Mortal Reminder in almost every game as well as mages opting for Morellonomicon. To change this, Riot is looking to add some healing reduction runes and champion abilities in order to make buying healing reduction not feel mandatory. Additionally, they are trying to make grievous wounds have a "sharper" effect in order to better counter healing champions such as Soraka.

Finally, the blog post talks about Riot's intention to expand the role that Tenacity plays in the current meta. The stat is currently confusing and widely ignored by most players. Instead, Riot wants to stat to be a viable build path against teams that feature a lot of crowd control. As the post puts it, "Ideally we want a player to ask the question 'is there a lot of hard CC in this game?' and know that tenacity will be an effective counter." In order to further increase the role that Tenacity plays in the game, Riot will also make it reduce the duration of knock-ups.

New Shop Interface

In a blog post from June, Riot announced plans to overhaul the shop interface and create a less confusing system for players. For new or low-rank players, learning the itemization system in League of Legends can be daunting. In order to remedy this, Riot is adding a feature that will allow the shop to effectively suggest items for you. This new system will suggest items while also explaining which champions are countered by specific items and explaining what the items do. This should allow newer players to improve their choices in the shop and have a more optimized build when they reach the late game.

Riot's planned changes for the shop are certainly exciting. Many champions have identical builds in almost all of their games which takes one of the most important elements of League of Legends away. The game is meant to reward players who make intelligent item choices rather than those who copy a build they found online. Expect extensive beta testing of these new systems later this year. We can expect to see these changes go live after the season ends in December.