Mercury Treads: Overrated?

Most boot choices are either heavily linked to your role or are clearly situational. AD carries build Furor-enchanted Berserker's Greaves, AP carries build Sorcerer’s Shoes, roamers build Boots of Mobility and so on. Mercury Treads have almost always been the most popular boot choice for any kind of tank or bruiser, largely because of their CC reduction. They’re something people buy without thinking now, almost ignoring enemy team composition.

But I’m not here to give a simple PSA about how you should choose more carefully; I have a much more radical claim: Mercury Treads are incredibly overrated and, in fact, should be a situational buy instead of a default one. I’m going to break this down into two parts: first, why Mercury Treads are not actually that great and, second, the competition and what your real default buy should be (spoiler: Ninja Tabi).

Mercury Treads: The Numbers

For 1,200 gold, Mercury Treads give you the regular movement speed bonus of tier 2 boots as well as 25 MR and 35% crowd control reduction (the unique passive “Tenacity”).

There are only two ways to get CC reduction in LoL: the Defense mastery “Tenacious” and the items Mercury Treads, Zephyr and Spirit of the Ancient Golem. Since Tenacity is a unique passive, CC reduction from multiple items does not stack. However, Tenacity does stack with the Tenacious mastery, giving you up to a total of 44.75% CC reduction (Tenacious gives 5/10/15%). The only way to get more is by playing a champion like Irelia who gains CC reduction from her kit.

Why only 44.75% and not 50%? CC reduction stacks multiplicatively instead of additively. When you have 35% reduction, 65% of the CC duration remains, and with 15%, 85%. Multiply those durations together as decimals (.65 * .85) and you get .5525, or 55.25%. This means that, combined, you would have 55.25% duration left, so you have 44.75% tenacity (100 - 55.25 = 44.75).

Listing the duration of every CC in LoL would take far too long. Suffice it to say that, in my study, it is safe to say that most hard CC effects (like stuns) fall in the 1-2 second range. Anything longer is an exceptional case and is easily recognizable in a team comp.

So to get a good overall view, here’s what we’ll use:

- “Standard” CC: Taric’s Dazzle (E) -- 1.2-1.6 seconds
- “Best Non-Ultimate” CC: Fiddlesticks’s Terrify (Q) -- 1-3 seconds
- “Best Non-Ultimate AoE” CC: Veigar’s Event Horizon (E) -- 1.5-2.5 seconds

For reduction, I’ll show you how much you get with only the Tenacious mastery (15%), only Mercury Treads (35%) and what you get with both (44.75%):

	Taric	Fiddlesticks	Veigar
Mastery	.18-.24	.15-.45	.225-.325
Mercs	.42-.56	.35-1.05	.525-.875
Both	.537-.716	.4475-1.3425	.67125-1.11875

 

 

 

So, on average, against a hard CC Mercury Treads buy you around half a second. That might save you, but is it worth what you give up? Does it have the same overall value as another boot effect?

Consider that you can avoid CCs and, unless you’re horribly out of position, it’s not likely an extra half second will change a whole lot. If that time appears make or break for you, consider that you’re likely squishy, and getting caught means that you’re going to die no matter what. Unless you’re against a monster like Fiddlesticks or Veigar (against whom Mercury Treads are a necessity for most, especially if you’re facing them in lane), Mercury Treads are not a huge game changer for the majority of CCs. This is why carries almost always, as I said earlier, get Berserker’s or Sorcerer’s: the persistent damage boost beats the reduction that will be unlikely to save you.

But what about tanks? Because this stat stacks multiplicatively, a champion with the Tenacious mastery gains less from buying Mercury Treads than a normal champion does. Look at the numbers for Taric: moving from the mastery to both only gives you .476 seconds whereas Mercury Treads and no mastery gives you .56. In other words, a tanky champion receives less added benefit by investing in these boots than squishy champions do. In addition, tanky champions are made to soak up damage, so you’re not always experiencing a game changing moment by shaving fractions of a second off of a CC. And as a tank you want to be focused!

Remember: other boots give persistent effects. Mercury Treads only really show their value when you are getting actively CCed. Other boots give you an effect that you can enjoy the benefit of all the time, and, in my opinion, that usually provides a far greater net benefit.

The Competition: Ninja Tabi

For someone considering tanky boots, Ninja Tabi is simply a superior choice to Mercury Treads. For 200 gold cheaper, you get, instead of Tenacity, a passive that blocks 10% of the damage from any basic attack that hits you. Not just a (small) reduction to something that deals no direct damage, but something that helps all the time in fights (and, as a tanky character, you’re more likely to be a secondary CC choice for the enemy).

Tabi reduces a lot of the damage you would receive during a CC effect AND outside of one. In other words, it is a universal reduction as opposed to Mercury Treads only situationally reducing when you may not even receive damage. Against many, if not most, team comps, it’s likely that Tabi will save you as effectively, if not more so, as Merc Treads, especially since you're probably making a run at the enemy AD carry.

So, unless you’re facing some high grade CC from the likes of Fiddlesticks and Veigar or a heavily AP team with CC, skip the Mercury Treads. A carry almost never needs them and a tank is usually better off without them. Season 3 has made boots a powerful part of your build, so try some new things instead of shackling yourself to those Mercs!