LoL players just went through the Midseason Update with a multitude of changes to some of their favorite items. Many of these changes have come from a change in mythic item philosophy.
Riot just released a Quick Gameplay Thoughts blog in which the balance team went over their ideas and thoughts on the specific item categories that were adjusted and updated during LoL Patch 13.10 with the Midseason update.
The team had specific ideas for all the items, especially the way mythic items have been handled throughout the last few years, even expanding on the change of philosophies that have come with time for mythic items.
LoL Midseason Update: New Mythic Strategy
Originally, Riot wanted to make mythic items feel like meaningful and special power spikes, as well as add some form of build-diversity to the game. Has that happened? Not really. Certain champions just worked better with some items and vice versa. Champions would go for one mythic every single time without a second thought of another being there.
Check out Quick Gameplay Thoughts 13.10 for more information on how we cooked up the Midseason update https://t.co/0CGfagF8S5 pic.twitter.com/Wqql0XXHei
— League of Legends Dev Team (@LoLDev) May 30, 2023
Another thing the devs have wanted to move away from was the fact that mythic items had to be the first item bought. By including items like Infinity Edge or Ghostblade, they have also added items that can be bought as a second or third item to be the mythic of choice.
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Tuning certain items to be mythic items and demoting some to legendary items for bot laners, wasn't too difficult either according to the balance team.
Demoting the former mythic items to Legendary was just a matter of trimming down their stat profiles [...] and pulling their gold efficiency down to the level of Legendary items.
Making Assassin Items Easier To Balance Was Key
For assassin items, the team wanted to give the class as a whole an upgrade. Since the Midseason update in LoL Patch 12.10 last year, with every champion gaining more durability, assassins have been suffering.
The fact that items like Duskblade and Prowler's Claw were also hard to balance due to their strong actives, meant that the items couldn't be balanced properly for assassin's, since other champions would also build them for their dashes and their stealth.
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That's why Riot made some more changes, with Eclipse going unchanged. Prowler's Claw had its active removed and the item was demoted to legendary, with Duskblade now being the prime assassin item used to "seek out low health enemies and executing them".
Ghostblade has been added instead, and it's been quite the success, with the item already receiving a nerf in LoL Patch 13.11.
Overall, Riot is looking to make some more changes to mythic items and there has also been talks of removing the current item system and classification system behind come LoL Preseason 2024.
For now, the balance team will continue to monitor the newly added items, before they make any big decisions though. It was also acknowledged that there would be changes for mages and top laners at some point, but those changes would require more work than just a few item adjustments.
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