I doubt many will be surprised to hear that the League of Legends Blade of the Ruined King item was hotfixed last night and was given a couple swats with the ‘ol nerf bat. As nice as it is to have an item that effectively counters the current health stacking meta, the item honestly was too powerful, and only a few days ago my ADC and I had a conversation about how a nerf was likely coming soon. Riot has attempted to bring the item in-line, but they may have created other situations where the item is more useful against targets that it was not intended to counter.
Blade of the Ruined King Hotfix:
• Attack Damage reduced to 25 from 30
• Combine cost increased to 1000 gold from 650 (total cost increased to 3200 gold from 2850)
• Active heal amount is now reduced by the target’s Armor
• Maximum damage dealt to minions and monsters reduced to 60 from 90
Game Designer FeralPony took to the official League of Legends Forums to discuss the nerfs to the Blade of the Ruined King and said the following:
The item is too cost effective.
“We’ll be increasing the cost a bit and we’re shaving a few points off of the AD when you upgrade the item. BotRK is geared towards attack speed and making these changes helps bring it in line and keeps its intended purpose while keeping the unique elements of the item intact and powerful.
As yashinihao mentions earlier this thread a lot of high tier items are cost effective. This inherently isn’t a bad thing but in this case in particular due to the power of the unique effects we really want to keep the power of the item into its unique elements and not be just about the stat efficiency so we’re lowering the cost effectiveness overall a bit. It is currently too effective compared to comparable choices.”The active heal will apply post-mitigation instead of pre-mitigation.
“Currently Armor is the proper counter to this item and although many players have not made the transition to purchasing armor items we feel the active heal is too strong atm. This may not be the most elegant change to the problem as it does make the heal more effective against low armored targets instead of tanks and fighters due to their substantially higher armor values. We will however, continue to assess and test different approaches but we did not want to ignore this issue in the short term.”We’re reducing the damage cap of the item versus minions.
“This item’s identity is that of a counter to high health enemies, currently it is providing far too much power in securing global objectives (baron, dragon, spider boss) and almost trivializing these objectives. By reducing this element of the item we can focus on its core power as an item meant to counter high health enemies.”
The active heal is now hard-countered by stacking armor, making Blade of the Ruined King less effective against tanky targets with more natural and item-built armor mitigation, while leaving squishies such as mages who do not stack armor more vulnerable and perhaps the new primary target of the active ability. Xypherous admitted on the forums that this could be a potential issue, but that they would rather over-nerf the item and slowly bring it back into alignment than try to hack away at the item a piece at a time to take away some of its power.
From one of Xpherous’ League of Legends Forum posts:
“The heal is pre-mitigation - which is something we’re going to fix for the following patch/hotfix. I still believe in pre-mitigation healing on the item – but definitely not at 100% efficiency.”
“The reason why it is pre-mitigation is that if the item healed based on post-mitigation, armor values double counter the item, by both reducing the damage and reducing the amount healed – making it pretty pointless for damage or healing on high-armored targets – and making it ideal to burst squishies with.”
“(I think it overnerfs the item for it to be post-mitigation – I think the ideal fix is to heal for 50% or 66% of the pre-mitigation damage – but that’s something we can do later.)”
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