The Power of Locket of the Iron Solari

Greetings Summoners!
As you may know, the most important thing about LoL is farming – or denying farm from your enemy. One of the ways to deny farm is to keep your team alive. A big role in that part play shields. A well timed shield can prevent death or force your enemy to stop focusing you, breaking apart their initiation of an attack.

Shields can ensure towerdives, protect warding or counterwarding situations and give you the edge over battles. However, we won't go into the details of the shield mechanism itself on this particular article. We will take a closer look into the Locket of the Iron Solari.

LoLKing statistics inform us that this item is used in only 1% of total games on average. However, the win ratio with this item in those 1% is on average 70%. Why do we see such a low value of usage? Is there something players are overlooking? Or is the item worthless?

Let us see what the actual shield amount of champions is and let us find out what the average shield that all those heroes can produce is.

 

Now we see that our item is giving a better shield capacity than the average number from all champions in the game. This applies over the whole game as well as on the max level. The only negative thing is the cooldown of the item. However this has its reason – let us not forget that this item applies the shield to everyone around you – the maximum 230 suddenly becomes a 1150 dmg shield. This is a huge number and can prevent a whole AoE casted spell.

On its own the item raises the basic 18 cloth armor to a 35 armor. A basic 180 hp to 300 hp bonus. A basic 8 hp regen to 15 hp. In other words for the 500 gold recipe this item doubles almost all its statistics which would otherwise cost another 1025 gold and gives you a new unique aura – the shield.

So, who buys this item?

The only roles that should carry it are supports and junglers. Its a rare thing to see on top lane champions as they usually need more hybrid items – tanky but with damage. In that case you won't see it up there on soloQ, but who knows – maybe some team strategies could focus on rushing it on their top lane champion for various pushing strategies.

So, when do you want to buy this item?

As you may have noticed the overall attitude is that everyone should buy a Heart of gold before Philosopher stone – it gives more survivability and in that sense tankiness. However, this depends usually on your playstyle – are u passive or aggressive? What opponent are you facing? Do you need poke consistency? Reality is, you probably won't rush the Locket itself. But let us find one when you actually should.

Supports will usually build up at least 2 gpm items and should ward hard or focus on getting their boots afterwards. So, you have now a philosopher stone, heart of gold, boots and wards in you backpack. Around this time you should consider getting the Locket or another item. Now, this depends highly on your champion and your AD partner.

 

Let us see which support champion can build the Locket as their first complete item

The natural suggestion here is Leona – she is all about going in, disabling the opponent, taking lost of damage and forcing a teamfight.

The next champ is Sona – she has a heal of her own, a slow/speed burst and AoE cc – as Leona she plays pretty much the same role in the mid/late game phases. After initiating or disabling an enemy initiation, you would want to activate the Locket and turn the battle to your advantage.

Soraka is the next option. As she is highly passive, rushing Shurelya's may not be always the best thing. Think about it – you will avoid fights or want to be tanky. The extra armor, hp aura and shield will add up greatly to your ability to not only keep yourself alive, but ur AD as well.

Lulu is another champion that can use an early Locket. With her high poke damage and brilliant disables, Lulu can easily force a fight. This often means that she will have to overextend and the Locket will help here more often than Shurelya's.

And the last champion – Blitz. As most fights on bottom lane begin with your hook there usually is no need to have an early Shurelya's. You have your own movement buff and you pull the enemy towards your AD anyways. Besides, having 2 shields is better than one.

The other supports can't really make use of a rushed Locket. They either lack the ability to hard initiate, or simply need Shurelya's over the Locket – not only because of the regeneration stats but simply to add another useful ability to their skillset. However, they should build it as their 2nd or 3rd complete item.

There aren't many junglers who can make proper use of the Locket

Amumu, Alistar and Malphite are the only champions that could build the Locket and use it after initiating a teamfight. Their playstyle makes most use of the item and makes sure the Aura stays on till the very end.

What about Champions who are not the usual kind of support, but can act as one?

Well, mostly any champion that needs at least some items to make any use of their skillset – such as Lux, Fiddle, Kayle, Morgana, Nidalee, Zyra – should avoid the Locket completely. Their playstyle has no use of the item.

Well, there you have it Summoners. Now you have a better feeling of why and when you should rush the Locket in SoloQ, on which Champions you should use it and why the item itself is great. Teams may want to try cheese tactics with the item – hard push strats, early teamfights and getting the edge over capturing early objectives. Maybe you want the item so early that you would even consider having your top lane rush it? Who knows what works. The statistics however suggest that this item brings victories.