The League of Legends devs have explained the reasoning behind the major boots changes that will shake up the MOBA in Patch 14.15, including several nerfs across the board for the unique items.
League of Legends devs have announced that huge changes are coming to boots in Patch 14.15. These new changes will significantly impact the power of these items because they are currently in line for heavy nerfs across the board in terms of cost and effectiveness.
Boots are a vital item in League of Legends, with almost every champion in the game wanting to purchase one throughout a match. Not only does it provide movement speed, which is great for dodging abilities and moving around the map, but the second upgrade grants a unique bonus that can be catered to your matchups.
With such major changes lined up for the next patch, the devs have come forward to explain their reasoning behind the balancing, listing out several goals that they hope to achieve.
Patch 14.15Boots– For a long time, defensive boots have been too good in high levels of play (especially) while being unattractive in lowers levels– This often results in mirror matchup defensive boot laning phases in midlane where neither player is able to die and they opt… pic.twitter.com/CjKb5dUXVe
— Matt Leung-Harrison (@RiotPhroxzon) July 23, 2024
Lead gameplay designer Riot Phroxzon took to Twitter to explain why these changes were being made.
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Phroxzon explained that defensive boots have been far too powerful, especially in high levels of play, resulting in boring matchups if both players grab them early. Similarly, because of how powerful boots are, they lead to “unintuitive optimizations” where players prioritize them over epic components.
Mercury Treads in particular was called out by the dev, which is “disproportionately strong” when compared to other options. As a result, the devs will be buffing other MR components early, to compensate for the changes.
The changes are currently on the PBE, meaning that there’s still a chance some of the changes will be reverted or adjusted before they hit the live servers on 31 July 2024. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on all the latest.