You probably know: “The Sword of Vengeance has been significantly balanced by League of Legends developer Riot Games.” Since the launch of the Mythical/Legendary items, this item was not highly regarded and has been buffed several times.
Therefore, the Sword of Vengeance has gradually regained attention and has become the core item for many physical damage fighter champions. Now, the Sword of Vengeance is considered quite overpowered. Let’s take a look at the stats of the Sword of Vengeance:
The Sword of Vengeance provides 40 attack damage, 25% attack speed, 8% lifesteal, and a passive that deals 12%/8% damage based on current health as physical damage, with a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 60 against jungle monsters. If you hit enemy champions 3 times, the third hit will deal bonus damage and reduce the enemy’s movement speed by 25%.
First, the cost of the Sword of Vengeance is 3300 gold, which is not a small amount at all, while the basic stats according to Riot Games are valued at 2828.57 gold, not counting the percentage health effect and the movement speed reduction of the opponent. Therefore, the Sword of Vengeance has a very strong offensive tendency and almost no defensive stats at all. Thus, champions building the Sword of Vengeance tend to follow up with defensive items.
The Sword of Vengeance even has more attacking power than many mythic items, and players sometimes build it before even the mythic item for more aggression. Additionally, the lifesteal ability helps players sustain well in lane, giving an advantage in trades compared to opponents. As long as they don’t die, players with the Sword of Vengeance will create a significant advantage, especially in professional play where every little detail matters.
Due to its overwhelming attack capability but lack of defense, most players will build the Sunfire Aegis or Iceborn Gauntlet right after finishing the Sword of Vengeance. This item build style is prevalent across servers worldwide, ensuring a balance of offense and defense, providing attack power, health, armor, and magic resistance, enough for players to perform well with Irelia, Yasuo, Yone, etc. As the game progresses into the late stages, the Sword of Vengeance becomes even more valuable if paired with defensive items as opponents’ health increases over time.
These are both short-range and long-range champions that have very strong effects with the Sword of Vengeance. Even though the effect deals less damage compared to short-range champions, only reaching 8%, marksman champions with attack effects like Twitch, Varus, Kog’Maw, Vayne, etc., still thrive with the Sword of Vengeance when they are in a safer position and can deal sustained damage better than melee champions. Basically, the Sword of Vengeance works well with both short-range and long-range champions, whether built early or late, with very high-quality additional stats and effects.
Therefore, the community is recommending Riot Games to reduce the enemy health percentage-based attack effect to 10%/6%, which would be more reasonable. In our view, the Sword of Vengeance is quite powerful and may be adjusted in the near future, so everyone should take advantage of it while they can.