Riot has confirmed massive itemization changes coming in this mid-season update.
During preseason, Riot makes significant changes to the game. These changes include system changes, mechanic changes, jungle changes, and many more. But one thing that Riot constantly changes is the items.
Items are the buffs that players can purchase using gold. These buffs could include stat changes to new active and passive abilities.
The significant change Riot made to items was in preseason 11 with the introduction of Mythic items. It completely changed the game as we knew it. These items were made as exclusive items designed to be purchased first. So overall, they were powerful.
But mythic items were a balance nightmare that Riot wasn’t prepared to deal with. Initially, they wanted certain classes to use certain items. For example, they wanted ADC to only use ADC mythic and bruisers to only use bruiser items. However, many bruisers started using ADC items like Kraken Slayer and Immortal Shieldbow instead of using bruiser items like Goredrinker and Trinity Force. Moreover, Immortal Shieldbow, particularly in the current meta, is rarely picked by ADC; instead, it is only picked by bruisers like Irelia, Yasuo, Yone, etc.
And most players realized the mythic items did not make the game better. So in the recent dev log, Riot has confirmed that they would be entirely reworking itemization in the upcoming mid-season update.
Read more: LoL Jax Visual Update Revealed.
Itemization Changes
Firstly, Riot Games will be changing its philosophy about mythic items. Initially, they were evaluating these items based on purchase rate. But they realized that it wasn’t the most important value. So now they are considering all the items based on high player satisfaction.
Here is a sneak peek of the list of items that are guaranteed to be changing:
- Immortal Shieldbow
- Mythic >>> Legendary
- Kraken Slayer
- Mythic >>> Legendary
- Navori Quickblades
- Legendary >>> Mythic
- Infinity Edge
- Legendary >>> Mythic
- Guinsoo’s Rageblade
- Legendary >>> Mythic
- It will be similar to the preseason 11 version
- Statikk Shiv
- Re-added
- Duskblade of Draktharr
- Reworked
- Prowler’s Claw
- Mythic >>> Legendary
- Dash removed
- Youmuu’s Ghostblade
- Legendary >>> Mythic
- Athene’s Unholy Grail
- Re-added
It should be noted that almost all the items will receive some change. It could be either minor stat tweaks, to massive overhauls. The items demoted from mythic will receive massive nerfs, while legendary items promoted to mythic will receive huge buffs, even a new passive.
Riot also confirmed that if this update failed to live up to expectations, they would be open to completely removing the category and reverting it to how it was back in season 10.
Release Date
There are currently no confirmed release dates. But Riot mentioned that the update will come out after MSI 2023. But usually, a mid-season update occurs on the 10th or 11th patch of the year. For this year, it could be either patch 13.10 or 13.11, which will release respectively on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, and Thursday, June 1, 2023.
