Riot is completely changing items for LoL preseason 2021

William Davis Published 07/08/2020

Riot Games has just announced its plans for the big preseason 2021 item overhaul, in which items for all roles will be adjusted.

Items in League of Legends have seen updates most every year, but this preseason seems to include the biggest item update in the history of the game. Riot is looking to target most roles in the game with this update, including reworks to specific in-game stats and effects. The changes are still in development, so there may be more changes added as we get closer to the preseason.

Cooldown reduction, healing, and tenacity see changes

Riot started out their preseason update by introducing the rework to cooldown reduction. From next season, the cooldown reduction stat will be renamed ability haste. The ability haste stat will stack linearly, in contrast to the current exponential cooldown reduction stack.

This means that ability haste will scale differently, making 10 ability haste equal to 10% reduced cooldown on abilities, and so on. The stat will be uncapped, which will enable builds that are heavily focused towards ability haste without any concern for reaching a cap after two or three items.

Riot will also be looking at the healing and tenacity stats. Healing will be toned down across all champions, runes, and items where Riot finds it necessary. Grievous wounds will also be buffed to make it feel more useful against heavy healing champions, though its effectiveness earlier in games may be diminished in return.

Tenacity will be changed into a stat that will reduce the duration of knock-ups, making it a more clear CC counter.

Jungle items to receive rework

Jungle items have been reworked several times throughout the years and this upcoming preseason won’t be an exception. Riot will be turning jungle items into starting items that won’t require any additional investment, similar to the support item rework in the last preseason.

Marksman and mage items will receive more diversity

The carry roles will also see a lot of item changes in the preseason. Both marksmen and mages can look forward to more viable build paths that prevent them from having to build the same items every game.

Riot is looking to give marksmen more agency options and to reduce the need to rely on their team as much as they currently do.

Mages will get more first item choices, which will prevent them from building the same items in every match-up. Riot believes that the late-game options for mages are currently solid, so we shouldn’t expect to see many changes in that department.

Riot is looking to add more role-specific items

Some roles are less common in League of Legends than others, such as AP fighters and assassins. These champions often have limited build paths and are forced to build items that were originally designed for other roles. Riot will change this by adding early-game items that match these roles’ desired stats.

Riot will also give more diversity to AD fighters so they don’t have to pick between either Black Cleaver or Trinity Force as their first item in every game. Fighters should also expect to see more defensive item options open up.

Tanks and enchanters will have more adaptable items

Tanks are often forced to fill in several functions for a team. Riot wants to provide tanks the build options necessary to support their team in the desired way while also giving them the required defensive stats. The changes will enable tanks to better adapt their builds to specific situations during games.

Finally, enchanters will get more viable build options and fewer active items to use. Enchanters are currently building a lot of active items, which can be difficult to navigate in the later stages of a game.

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