Investigating the ‘OP’ Trail

The most recent hotfix applied on the fifth of March had me thinking, how did the Blade of the Ruined King become such a popular item? I traced the trail from the nerfing of the BotRK to an increase in purchasing of Warmog’s Armor and Giant’s Belts. From there I found that those builds also stemmed from another item; the Black Cleaver.

Back in late 2012, The Black Cleaver became an incredibly strong item for AD bruisers and even some AD carries. It allowed them to shred through armor that an opponent might build which was the most straight forward way to reduce damage from something like a Kha’Zix Q or a Miss Fortune ult. The community wailed about the unfairness this item presented, and so in the Annie rework patch Riot nerfed the Black Cleaver and buffed health and health regeneration giving items like Spirit Stone/Elder Lizard/Ancient Golem and Warmogs.

By building a heavier health to armor ratio, the extra damage a Black Cleaver dealt through armor reduction was numbed and less effective. This led to the popular meta of building Warmogs in nearly every roll which would allow any champ to take more punishment than their average counterpart. Rather than splitting gold on armor or magic resist, the age of health dawned.

Realizing the imbalance that the health buffs presented, in mid-February Riot tried to smooth the issue out by slightly buffing BotRK’s attack damage and the percentage dealt to an opponent’s health. Seeing that this was not enough, they reworked BotRK entirely on the Quinn Patch by giving it 40% attack speed, 5% increased lifesteal, 5% bonus physical damage and an active that deals a percentage of health that heals equally and steals a percentage of movement speed for 4 seconds. It was this large buff that merited the most recent hotfix, as it rapidly became more popular than The Bloodthirster, a longtime staple for AD carries and occasional bruisers.

Within 4 days, it was clear that BotRK was too strong of an item and was tipping the balance of the game in favor of the offensive champions, earning the item its very own hotfix on the 5th of March.

 

With this latest patch, a couple of questions come up; “is the game balance ‘under control’ for now?” As well as “what’s the next ‘OP’ item?”. In order to find out more, I took to Summoner’s Rift to find out from the source; the players themselves.

 

Have you used Blade of the Ruined King in one of your games? If so, what champions do you use it on most?

"Actually yeah, I have used BotRK in games, as Caitlyn especially. I find  with BotRK and with Hurricane, you get rons of stacks on her passive and hit three targets with BorRK's on-hit effect."

 

Do these popular item fluxes caused by game fixes hurt game popularity or do you think it keeps people coming back, and why?

"I think it hurts the game in a competitive sense. Although changes to items and such can keep things fresh from a 'fun' standpoint."

 

What meta or item can you see rising up in popularity and becoming the next ‘OP’ thing?

"I think that we will start to see a lot more Randuin's Omens on bruisers and tanks. It is already a strong item but with BotRK as a key item now, armor is key."