History GameBreaker / LeagueOfLegends

* Spear of Shojin (and to an extent, the old Essence Reaver passive that eventually got moved to Shojin in patch [=9.3=]) was one of the items introduced alongside Nexus Blitz in Season 9. Initially, the item was meant to be a tank item that reduces damage dealt towards the user on teamfights. However, Riot reworked the item by moving the old Essence Reaver's passive onto this item, resulting in the item becoming a go-to item for almost every on-hit bruisers that allows them to swiftly replenishes their ability cooldowns by 20% on basic attacks simply by activating their ultimate. Combined with the item being a powerful stat-stick that provides 60 attack damage and rather generous 20% cooldown reduction, it basically allows champs like Jax and Riven to be a pain in the ass to fight against, as they were able to gain sustained damage and tankiness by simply rushing on their first or second buy. It was later removed from the game at the end of the season 9, then re-added again in the refurbished Nexus Blitz using it's old stats and eventually removed from the game for good. The Awakened Dragon passive was later reintroduced in the new item for Season 11 item "Navori Quickblades", except that outside of being active all the time instead of being tied with your ultimate, now it requires you to critically strikes using basic attack or abilities that does proc critical strikes (like Yasuo's Q), and it's now a crit item that does no longer provide additional attack damage, which considering the change of critical formula in Season 11 itemization, it pretty much neutered it's power play by a lot.
* The newly revised item shop and itemization for Season 11 completely reworked almost every items in the game. The biggest changes came with the introduction of the keystone Mythic items [[MutuallyExclusivePowerups that you can't have more that one of in your inventory at a time]]. With such an enormous paradigm shift, it's not surprising that many of them were deemed way too powerful on launch, with several of them sharing a time in the spotlight as the singular "correct" choice before they eventually nerfed or readjusted soon after.
** '''Eclipse''' started off exceptionally strong, giving assassins a powerful percent-health damage as well as safety on a relatively modest cooldown that was just way too powerful for its own good. Combined with the bonus armor penetration from its mythic passive, as well as [[LifeDrain omnivamp]] as an icing at the top of the cake, it became a must-buy for not just assassins, but even some bruisers and marksmen too (like Pantheon, Jhin and Graves) due to its utility being so useful. It was eventually brought more in line by lowering the percent-health damage and movement speed bonuses, as well as halving the effectiveness on ranged champions [[ObviousRulePatch to make them buy the weapons actually intended for them.]]
** After being time-tested for several nerfs and rule patches, many sees '''Goredrinker''' as the de-facto strongest Mythic item in the game prior to it's removal for just how very useful it is. It's essentially inflicts moderate damage to the user's surrounding, but hitting champions with it heals a good percentage of the user's health that multiplies for each champion hit, allowing users to instantly heal from 1% to full health if they managed to hit 5 champions all at once, essentially making them unkillable as long as you can hit more than 2 champions with it. It gets so annoying that Riot nerfed it several times starting by making it no longer multiplies per heal and counts each champion hits sequentially while also lowering it's healing power, to just straight up removing it's regenerative power in favor of basic omnivamp, but the item still saw massive presence over the metagame, where even Assassins like Blue Kayn and Talon purchases it over the super powerful lethality mythics because it's just that good of a weapon. Eventually, Riot gave up on the item (and the mythic system in general) and just removed the item for season 14 onwards (along with the mythic system itself) altogether with no new substitute counterparts, citing the item as the primary problem child of the incredibly flawed Mythic system as a whole.
** By far the biggest contender of the most broken Mythic items in the game has to be the '''Sunfire Aegis''', which replaced the Sunfire Cape from the last patch. It removes the special passive that explodes upon immobilizing an enemy unit, but instead it accumulates damage over-time that stacks up to six times every time it hits an enemy champion or epic monster before empowering your next basic attack that explodes and immolates the target. It immediately turns tanks into a walking fireball that outdamage even ''mages'' and ''assassins'' [=1v1=] while they can still maintain good chunk of their health. It's so powerful that champions like Amumu and Cho'gath were able to solo Baron Nashor using it with the assistance of "Demonic Embrace", and an entire team building it would be able to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IZAwiYu5gk microwave Baron Nashor by simply standing near it]]. Needless to say, it got nerfed for the entirety of the preseason, targeting its natural bulkiness and base damage, before being gutted back into a Legendary Item by season 12 and removing it's searing passive per every strike.
** '''Divine Sunderer''' stood out as being one of the most powerful (if not the most powerful) mythic item ever released in the game for just how consistent it is. It simply empowers your next attack after casting an ability a la Spellblade items, but the extra damage dealt is based on the percentage of target's max health, and heal a small percentage amount from the damage dealt. Through designed for bruisers to fight off tanks in mind, the item ended up being very effective against all targets simply because it grants them extra sustain and a guaranteed percent health damage dealt, as many champions like Jax and Illaoi loves to abuse it's killing power. But the primary abuser of the item comes from Camille, because thanks to Precision Protocol, every single Spellblade proc with her Q inflicts percent health ''true'' damage instead of the usual percent health physical damage Divine Sunderer does. This cemented Camille (and the other two) position in the top tier during the remainder of the mythic items era, forcing developers to balance Divine Sunderer for those three champions alone, before the item was removed along with the mythic systems, which ended up gutting all three primary abuser of the item, though less so for Jax because having the old Titanic Hydra's AA reset back for him to use.
** An oversight during the reworking of '''Muramana''' in the Preseason 11 causes it to trigger it's bonus physical damage based on a percentage of your maximum mana on any abilities, resulting in builds like AD Kassadin, Ryze, and Cassiopeia dealing hybrid damage from their skills and further empowering all champions that commonly build them like Kai'sa and Ezreal. Made even worse that '''Tear of the Goddess''' is now a starting item that you can build right off the bat alongside two potions instead of a Doran's item, allowing these champions to get their powerspike and essentially removing the need of mana management right at the start of the game. It eventually got patched so that it only triggers on basic attacks and abilities that deal physical damage, rendering the hybrid mage build moot, then re-added again with reduced scaling since it cripples all the champions that purchases it as a core item, like Ezreal, Kassadin, and Kai'sa.
** '''The Collector''' is just a hybrid Critical chance and Lethality item that doesn't stand out on it's own have it's not because of it's passive, which allows the user to execute any target below 5% health on their next attack and grant extra 25 gold per kill that just so happens to work against a lane minion, allowing the user to reach their third item much easier. It syncs well with AD carries that doesn't always had to resort on critical chance like Jhin, Samira, Miss Fortune, and even Gankplank. It was eventually nerfed and no longer be able to execute minions and only work against champions, but the execute damage is still a welcomed addition to secure kills, even against tanks.

** The rework done to Garen's kit later in season 9 makes his strength even stronger thanks to no part of turning his Q into a proper AA reset that does work with Spellblade passive, giving him shield based on bonus HP for casting W and extra 10% resistances at max level, gain one extra spin on his E for every 20% of his bonus attack speed from items as well as being able to proc Conqueror stacks when hitting an enemy champion, and remove his Villain passive and turn his R into a proper execute that inflicts extra true damage based on how low the target's current health is. This may not completely mitigate let alone erases his primary weakness on his kit (being easily kiteable and can't outrun the enemy unit because of not having proper mobility and crowd control), but it does help him climb from a niche SkillGateCharacter that obliterates low ELO but weak otherwise into a proper juggernaut that fares well even in higher ELO like diamond or master, able to be oppressive in lane like Illaoi does. Naturally, he was nerfed and readjusted several times to make sure that he isn't any busted than his initial release, but he still going strong to this day. The new season 11 itemization and the introduction of Stridebreaker to his kit also doesn't help matters.

** Both of the '''Ironspike Whip'''-based Mythic items turned out to be incredibly wild on juggernauts:
*** '''Goredrinker''' first gained traction as the more powerful of the two as its ability to let juggernauts instantly heal based on the amount of surrounding enemies was extremely potent, pretty much ''rewarding'' ridiculous aggro magnets to [[LeeroyJenkins dive recklessly into enemy teams]] as the instant healing burst made them deceptively durable and able to easily destroy teams from the inside out, especially if they were built with health modification tools like Spirit Visage. Riot quickly nerfed the scaling as well as its damaging ability (which also gave them unnecessarily powerful waveclear), meaning the instant life-drain now has to be used more carefully.
*** Once Goredrinker fell by the wayside, '''Stridebreaker''' then took the crown as it came packaged with a short, but notable dash ability, ''and'' a bonus speed boost ''and'' the ability to slow nearby enemies hit, completely curbing the usual weaknesses of juggernauts' [[MightyGlacier lack of mobility]] by making engagement a no-brainer. This overly-loaded ability singlehandedly turned the likes of Garen and Darius into unstoppable freight trains that could outspeed even ranged lane bullies like Vayne or Teemo. Riot eventually realized their mistake and completely rid of the dash, reworking Stridebreaker more around its [=AoE=] slow as an [[AntiEscapeMechanism anti-enemy mobility tool]].
** By far the biggest contender of the most broken Mythic items in the game has to be the '''Sunfire Aegis''', which replaced the Sunfire Cape from the last patch. It removes the special passive that explodes upon immobilizing an enemy unit, but instead it accumulates damage over-time that stacks up to six times every time it hits an enemy champion or epic monster before empowering your next basic attack that explodes and immolates the target. It immediately turns tanks into a walking fireball that outdamage even ''mages'' and ''assassins'' [=1v1=] while they can still maintain good chunk of their health. It's so powerful that champions like Amumu and Cho'gath were able to solo Baron Nashor using it with the assistance of "Demonic Embrace", and an entire team building it would be able to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IZAwiYu5gk microwave Baron Nashor by simply standing near it]]. Needless to say, it got nerfed for the entirety of the preseason, targeting its natural bulkiness and base damage, before slowly lowering its damage accumulation as for patch 10.25.
** '''Sheen''' no longer builds from Sapphire Crystal and can be bought at measly 700 gold. At a tradeoff of no longer gaining bonus mana, it becomes an optimal first return purchase for champions like Jax, Camille, Fiora, Hecarim, Ezreal, and many more. The two mythic item it builts into (Trinity Force and Divine Sunderer) were no slouch either.
*** Trinity Force is largely identical to its previous iteration, except now it grants you a damage amplifier that stacks everytime you hit your basic attack to an enemy champion. Combined with the triple damage burst and champs that can freely proc spellblade with it's ability, you can easily outdamages anyone that isn't buying the aforementioned Sunfire Aegis in a longer trades and sustained fights.
*** Divine Sunderer trades off the triple attack damage proc with the target's percentage health bonus physical damage on proc with a ''minimum'' damage of ''a hundred fifty percent'' attack damage, as well as a spell vamp that heals melee champs that procs it for fifty percent of the pre-mitigation bonus damage dealt. It suddenly turns champions with normally sustained trade to longer engages like Jax and Hecarim into a powerful burst machine that can easily outdone any tanks and squishies alike much quicker while can also sustain themselves with moderate healing if you so proc it on an enemy champion. The Target percentage health bonus damage [[GoodBadBugs also procs on turrets for some reason]], making it a powerful splitpush machine until it's fixed a patch after.

* '''Conqueror''' rune keystone is a go-to keystone for most top-laners alike thanks for being able to help them on a sustained fights, granting them bonus true damage at maximum stacks. However, the rework done in season 9 turns it into this, where it now grants adaptive damage instead of just physical damage and grant pre-mitigation healing from it that syncs well with each other. This makes the rune viable for mages that can go on a sustained fights with multiple burst like Cassiopeia, Ryze, and Kassadin, and it also syncs well with the newly reworked Mordekaiser and Akali, the former being an AP bruiser that inflicts magic damage and outscale most of his competition before his nerfs, while Akali benefitted greatly from it's sustain and for being an AP melee assassin that she still has a respectable power despite the nerfs that hit her prior. It eventually got nerfed so ranged champs stacks longer per-hit than melee champs, then got reworked again that it no longer converts a percentage amount of the damage dealt into true damage and turns it into a post-mitigation healing instead, then nerfed again so that the healing amount is reduced for ranged champs, and then nerfed again so the amount of stacks needed for maximum stack is increased to 12 from 10, then eventually readjusted again so that the healing amount is reduced for both melee and ranged champs as well as increasing it's adaptive power per stack to match with the changes done for preseason 11.

It is inevitable, given the competition-oriented gameplay. ''League of Legends'' always slightly favors one particular strategy over another, but not too much to render any other strategy impossible, which prevents the game from getting old and repetitive as the balance shifts between different strategies.

* '''Statikk Shiv''' is a classic crit/attack speed item most known for its ChainLightning effect -- making it a solid pick for marksmen and assassins to assist with [[HerdHittingAttack waveclear]], and after being removed in preseason 11, it was reinstated in midseason 13 with one significant change: rather than dealing a flat rate of damage, the damage of the ChainLightning became scaled to the user's ability power. The main result: [[NotTheIntendedUse mage champions who normally wouldn't have anything to do with on-hit stats building Statikk Shiv due to its extreme waveclear potential]], where even though the bulk of the item itself was suboptimal, the intense AP ratios alone more than made up for the loss, offering a level of poke and push power many mages otherwise lacked ([=LeBlanc=] and Veigar became especially infamous for abusing the hell out of the item as it covers their infamously mediocre waveclear, one of their biggest weaknesses amidst their otherwise strong kits loaded with high raw AP). Not only was this use of Statikk Shiv greatly unintended, it was making Lichbane -- the ''actual'' AP/on-hit hybrid item -- completely redundant. It took Riot a while to realize just how severe the ChainLightning effect power was following this change, gradually nerfing its damage (especially against minions) in order to preserve its use as a situational weapon for modest waveclear, rather than a meta-defining staple.