Doran’s Blade is perhaps an item that is too familiar to League of Legends players as it is a favorite starting item for many marksman and fighter champions. In the Season 11 update, this item had its effects slightly altered, increasing its lifesteal from 3% to 2.5%. This change by Riot has made marksmen dealing significant skill damage much stronger in the early game.
However, this item has proven to be far from perfect as players discovered its quite strange interaction. Specifically, the full lifesteal effect of Doran’s Blade does not interact with the Superior Healing rune in the Precision tree. The noteworthy point here is that this rune still generates shields when you heal from the item Eclipse (which also has full lifesteal stats). Therefore, players were genuinely shocked to learn about this “hidden nerf” from Riot.
The Superior Healing rune does not interact with Doran’s Blade.
Even if I attack minions 100 times with full health, the champion does not receive any shield from the Superior Healing rune. If you buy Eclipse (an item that also provides full lifesteal stats) or the Scythe, this rune works normally. Is this a game bug or an interaction that I am not aware of?
To clarify, Doran’s Blade and the Superior Healing rune interacted normally in Season 10.
Oh wow, is it really true? I’ve been wondering for a long time why I don’t get shields while having Doran’s Blade.
This leads me to believe that there are still many bugs affecting the balance of League of Legends that have yet to be discovered.
This bug probably exists because they changed lifesteal to full lifesteal. Perhaps it stems from the terrible code mess by Riot.
The fact that Doran’s Blade does not interact with the Superior Healing rune has completely rendered this rune “useless” in the early game, when you don’t have other sources of lifesteal. Clearly, this situation puts players using the Superior Healing rune at a disadvantage compared to others. The loss of that shield can sometimes lead to being taken down and consequently losing lane in early skirmishes.
Hopefully, Riot Games will quickly recognize and fix the interaction between Doran’s Blade and the Superior Healing rune. In the meantime, the advice is not to take this rune if you intend to use Doran’s Blade as a starting item.