One of the major issues in League of Legends before Season 10 was that champions could easily obtain strong healing abilities. To address this issue, Riot Games introduced many items with healing reduction effects in Season 11. However, a new problem that Riot faces is that the ability to create shields is becoming too popular and powerful, yet there is only one counter item available.
When talking about the ability to create shields, we must mention Sterak’s Gage. The absurdity of this item is that it creates a shield for champions based on the maximum health of the champion, while Sterak’s Gage itself already provides a significant amount of health. Not to mention that this item also has a passive that provides healing when dealing damage to champions. So, just by purchasing Sterak’s Gage, you gain more health, attack damage, healing ability, and a substantial shield.
Even when you purchase healing reduction items early, the durability of champions like Lee Sin, Sett, Camille, Nocturne… remains too strong due to the enormous shields they possess. This imbalance has made Fighters extremely powerful. The fact that 4 out of the 5 strongest champions in the Top Lane are characters who utilize Sterak’s Gage is the clearest evidence.
Moreover, the ability to create shields has become so powerful that champions like Karma and Lulu are gradually returning to the Mid Lane meta in professional tournaments. If you recall the match between T1 and KT Rolster a few days ago, the effective shield buffing ability of Karma in Faker’s hands helped this team secure victory in a critical 4v5 situation at the 21st minute.
As for Support champions, those with strong crowd control and tankiness are also highly favored in the current meta. The only suitable Mythic item for tanky Supports is the Iron Solari’s Pendant, which also provides a significant shield. This makes the ability to create shields even more prevalent in League of Legends.
This situation has made the Blade of the Ruined King an increasingly crucial item at present, as players have too few options to counter shield creation. Even if you don’t need lethality stats, this item is still essential in the late game. A clear example is Game 3 of the match between Suning and Royal Never Give Up last night – July 4. Despite Huanfeng’s Jhin having 4 critical strike items, he still had to buy the Blade of the Ruined King to counter the shields of his opponents.
This highlights that the League of Legends shop is severely lacking in items that provide shield countering abilities alongside the Blade of the Ruined King. This item can only be purchased by a few champions that can utilize lethality stats. If you are a Mage, Support, or Tank champion, players have no way to counter the dominance of shield-creating items and abilities.
Essentially, Riot Games has created a series of healing reduction items in Season 11 that have helped players counter excessively strong healing effects. Therefore, as the shield creation ability is currently out of control, Riot also needs to introduce more items with effects similar to the Blade of the Ruined King for Mages, Marksmen, Tanks, Supports… in the future.
