The Rift Herald
It’s no secret that players who depart for the top lane can end up feeling isolated without a dragon to contest. Rather than just flipping the map on its head, we’re exploring ways to bring some relevancy to the north so top laners can feel like they're interacting with their team before the 15 minute mark.
Details are still being sussed out, but expect to meet something new on Summoner’s Rift in the early phases of the game. Defeat it, and gain single target buff focused on early game power and pushing down the lane.
Starting Items
In-hand with our goal to offer a diverse preseason, we decided to take a gander at starting items. When there are standard starting item builds for every game of League, the end result is these builds tend to benefit (very slightly) certain champions over others. We’re taking a different approach this preseason by offering more clear opening ‘paths’ so that players can refine their playstyles with real choices, rather than just opting for a generally powerful start. You’ll see these changes reflected in two sets of items: starting power items, and sustain.
For items you’re bringing to lane, we’re using the Doran’s set (blade, ring, and shield) as a baseline “generalist” group that provide all the broad stats you want. From there, we expanded your options to provide a few more ‘specialized’ approaches, like Cull - a light skirmishing AD starting item that provides less defensive stats than Doran’s Blade, but gives bonus gold for killing a set number of minions.
As for sustain items: we first started with health and mana potions. Health pots are going up in price to better position them as a purchase for those who just need some sustain to get them past the early game. Any form of long-term sustain we folded into the refillable potions (and their subsequent upgrades) to really solidify their identity (because before, it was… flask and potions to be a ‘sustain’ build). Mana potions, on the other hand, are being removed. Our decision to remove mana pots goes along the same philosophy as starting items. 100 mana tends to benefit certain types of champions over others (with mana costs being balanced against individual champion kits) and can wildly shift from being a mediocre purchase to a very cost-efficient one. By removing mana pots, we can better balance champion ability costs with the mana regeneration stat while also streamlining the ‘sustain game’ of League.
The Rift Herald
It’s no secret that players who depart for the top lane can end up feeling isolated without a dragon to contest. Rather than just flipping the map on its head, we’re exploring ways to bring some relevancy to the north so top laners can feel like they're interacting with their team before the 15 minute mark.
Details are still being sussed out, but expect to meet something new on Summoner’s Rift in the early phases of the game. Defeat it, and gain single target buff focused on early game power and pushing down the lane.