MOBAFire News

Summoners!

In the next patch you’ll be seeing a new aura item making its way into the item shop on the Fields of Justice alongside with a couple of remakes for old classics. In addition to a new spin on Emblem of Valor and Stark’s Fervor, you’ll now have the option to purchase the Locket of the Iron Solari to round out your arsenal. These remade aura items, along with the new one, should bring you more options throughout the early and mid game.

The Item Formerly Known as Stark’s Fervor

The base stats of Stark’s Fervor grant a substantial Attack Speed bonus, a stat that primarily benefits a team’s Attack Damage carry. In addition to its base stats, however, Stark’s Fervor also grants additional Attack Speed and Lifesteal as an aura. And while these stats are shared to the rest of the team, the primary beneficiary is still the Attack Damage carry.

To combat this, we decided to rebuild Stark’s Fervor into an item that would be more beneficial to a champion who would typically purchase an aura item, such as a tank or support. Since these champions usually aren’t the ones you typically see racking up gold, however, an expensive component item like the Recurve Bow needed to be removed from the recipe. Moreover, champions in these roles benefit much more from Cooldown Reduction and durability stats than they do from an aggressive stat like Lifesteal or Attack Speed. In the end, we decided to change the root item to Kindle Gem, letting the aura carry the aggressive bonuses.

• +250 Health
• UNIQUE Passive: +15% Cooldown Reduction
• UNIQUE Aura: Grants nearby allied champions 12% Life Steal and 20% Attack Speed.

These new base stats make Stark’s Fervor a much more viable purchase for any tank or support player looking to give Attack Damage champions a boost while still enhancing their own effectiveness and survivability.

Also, while we were revisiting this item, we wanted to take the opportunity to honor one of the top contributors to our Refer-a-Friend program. So we decided to rename the new Stark’s Fervor to Zeke’s Herald in honor of the efforts of this summoner. Congratulations Zeke, and thank you for introducing more players to League of Legends!

Emblem of Valor Now a More Viable Option

Another item that we wanted to revisit was the Emblem of Valor. In its initial incarnation, this item offered players two disparate methods of restoring health: Health Regen and Lifesteal. While both of these are viable methods of keeping your champion healthy, Lifesteal is most effective on hard-hitting champions like Attack Damage carries, while Health Regen is a more effective choice for a fighter or tank that can absorb a ton of damage on his own.

Rather than splitting the utility between these two demographics, we decided to remake Emblem of Valor as an item with higher utility for players in either a support or tank role. Since these roles tend toward cost-effective durability items early, we changed Emblem of Valor to build from both Cloth Armor and Rejuvenation Bead, providing both Health Regen and Armor as base stats and maintaining its standard Health Regeneration aura. This both re-focused the statistics provided by Emblem of Valor and gave players in the support and tank role an additional upgrade option from the popular Cloth Armor.

• +25 Armor
• UNIQUE Aura: Nearby allied Champions gain 10 Health Regen per 5 seconds.

Introducing the Locket of the Iron Solari

Naturally, with Stark’s Fervor now building from the Kindle Gem, we wanted to create a new mid game upgrade for the Emblem of Valor. Since we had just remade this item with support and tank champions in mind, we also wanted to make sure this new item was tailored to these roles. Thus, the Locket of the Iron Solari was born.

For the components of this new item we selected the Emblem of Valor along with another durability item popular amongst tank and support champions: the Heart of Gold. Providing additional Health, Armor and Health Regen along with an upgraded Health Regeneration aura, the Locket of the Iron Solari is a cost-effective way to keep your Emblem of Valor viable as the game wears on. And to top it all off, you’ll also be able to activate the item to give your team a brief damage shield nearby allies under attack by area of effect damage!

• +300 Health
• +35 Armor
• UNIQUE Aura: Nearby allied Champions gain 15 Health Regen per 5 seconds.
• UNIQUE Active: Shield yourself and nearby allies for 5 seconds, absorbing up to 50 (+10 per level) damage (60 second cooldown).

The Bottom Line

These new upgrade options for the popular early game items Cloth Armor, Heart of Gold and Kindle Gem should provide those of you in the support or tank roles with more options. With these new aura items, we hope to see players employing even more diverse builds through the early and mid game.