After 2 days of competition in the Play-In Stage of Worlds 2021, we can see that Bloodthirster is still an extremely hot item. From traditional champions like Lee Sin, Xin Zhao, and Aatrox to assassins like Talon and Qiyana, these champions all use Bloodthirster as an essential item. The “versatility” in providing high amounts of health, attack damage, and strong healing in fights has led to excessive abuse of Bloodthirster at Worlds 2021.
Of course, when an item becomes so unbalanced, Riot must make balancing adjustments. Early this morning – October 7 (Vietnam time), the PBE server was updated to version 11.21 with some notable adjustments to Bloodthirster. This change promises to end the situation where assassins build Bloodthirster in League of Legends. Details of the changes to Bloodthirster:
Bloodthirster
Removed the stat that increased basic healing by 150%.
New: Increased overall lifesteal by 8%.
The damage dealt by the Bloodthirster activation changes from 100% total AD to 175% base AD.
Removed the Furious passive which increased AD based on lost health.
One of the dominant points of Bloodthirster that allowed many non-fighter champions to use it is that this item provides too much damage without giving any lethality or armor penetration. With the Furious passive, champions with Bloodthirster received a significant boost in health and AD right at the first item threshold. This passive even increased the damage for the Bloodthirster activation itself, pushing the output damage of heroes who owned it to a very high level.
However, when the Furious passive is removed in patch 11.21, this item no longer provides the outstanding AD it once did. Furthermore, changing the damage calculation to be based on base AD (which depends on champion level) has eliminated the opportunity for assassins to build this item. With the new damage calculation, the damage dealt from Bloodthirster will not scale based on the amount of items a champion possesses. Therefore, this item will no longer fit the snowball playstyle of assassins.
These changes from Riot are necessary to prevent assassins from abusing Bloodthirster in the future. It would be unreasonable for a class of champions with a risky playstyle like assassins to become both durable and deal significant damage when holding Bloodthirster. Perhaps starting from patch 11.21 onwards, Bloodthirster will return to its role of serving a few fighters in need of recovery rather than being the excessively abused item it is now.