Line #52 GameBreaker/LeagueOfLegends


1	[[GameBreaker Game-breaking]] in League of Legends is inevitable, given the competition-oriented gameplay. The game 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.
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5	[[folder:Champions]]
6	* As a general rule of thumb, [[MightyGlacier Juggernauts]] are prone to being this, as they're designed to be capable of wiping out multiple enemies at once at the cost of mobility. As such, if they're overpowered, they're ''really'' overpowered, being veritable [[OneManArmy One-Man Armies]] capable of annihilating entire teams on their own while still having the survivability of a tank. It's something of a trend for modern Juggernauts (i.e. Illaoi, Sett, the reworks for Aatrox and Mordekaiser) to be completely broken on release and gutted immediately.
7	** Darius has split the community into the group that thinks he's just mediocre and the group that thinks he's a kill-stealing bastard that's just toxic to the game. To truly understand how bad this case is, one must understand that Darius's kit is built around his ultimate that instantly refreshes on a killing blow, and because it inflicts true damage, no amount of armor or magic resist can protect an enemy from him. At release Darius was far worse, with his passive stacks dealing absurd damage even at level 1, having mixed damage on his autoattacks making him hard to counter, and his ultimate originally had a half-second grace period after the dunk where if the victim died it would still refresh. This meant that the three or four sequential ults that were supposed to happen once in a blue moon if you were doing amazing were commonplace. It's not as bad anymore since Darius no longer does so much damage in multiple shots on the get-go via his most Juggernaut rework, but he's still a bit difficult to face in lane for some champions or in the late game if he applies his passive stacks fast enough.
8	** Skarner has had his ups and downs throughout his four-year history, but after the Juggernaut update, he became STUPID. A new passive that gives him absurdly fast and safe jungle clears and makes 1v1ing him absolutely suicidal (allowing him to invade with impunity and making his own jungle virtually impossible to safely invade without multiple teammates) mixed with great ratios and his already-high natural stats and growths and excellent scaling has turned him into the undisputed god of the jungle who starts off ridiculous (negating his historically unsafe early jungle) and quickly turns into an inexorable terror who spends the rest of the game running around and tearing everything that he can catch to bits. Riot made efforts to tone him down ''very'' quickly.
9	** 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 {{Skill Gate Character\|s}} 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.
10	** Sett is seen to the a refreshing take of recent champion releases and reworks with incredibly complicated kit (especially Aphelios) that Riot has been pumping on recently, as his kit is simple and easy to take and learn, at a tradeoff he shares with every other juggernaut in the game (i.e. being easy to kite and have no mobility outside of movement speed increase). What makes Sett the boss during his early reign is the fact that he can go all out even at Level 3 and run down the enemy by simply building health items like Sterak's and Dead Man's, since he relies solely on base damage and percentage bonus damage based on target's max health, especially egregious since his kit also makes him an effective anti-tank that can easily run down on full armor Malphite with only one dedicated offensive item (Blade of the Ruined King). Naturally, barrage of nerfs starts pelting him down to unviability until he got reworked into a proper fighter with proper AD scaling and relies less on bulky itemizations thanks to nerf on his W bonus true damage on his max grit, forcing Sett players to be more creative than just buying tank items.
11	* Twisted Fate, whose most notable abilities are an extra effect added to his next auto-attack (but is highly unique in that it swaps between 3 options continuously in a pattern, requiring one to be chosen by the player when it pops up. Or you can miss the one you wanted entirely), and a teleport that reveals ''every player on the map''. Considered to be useless by many people, and there were large numbers of threads asking that he be buffed. Then he ''single-handedly'' won a match against one of the best teams on Earth, since that said teleport is very good for catching people out and applying map pressure, ''and'' that said auto-attack boost had an option that possessed ''very solid'' crowd control (a stun). While he was somewhat easy to catch out due to his lack of dashing mobility, a fed Twisted Fate doesn't need to last long in a fight if he can end it as quickly as he needs/wants to.
12	** That said, current TF is considered a pretty balanced champion due to his very high skill cap. On the other side, beta Twisted Fate was the '''most broken champion to ever set its foot on Summoner's Rift'''. Why? Because his abilities, which are powerful enough to get him in this page on their current state, were ridiculously overloaded and made TF too threatening to the opposing team just for ''existing''. His Gold Card used to have the same [=AoE=] that his Red Card currently has, his passive gave everyone on his team a small critical chance, Destiny and Gate were two separate skills, Destiny slowed the enemy team globally, and Gate was global and accessible at level 1. Twisted Fate wasn't just overpowered, he was also frustrating due to his potential of cheesing an easy first blood through a surprise critical or just Gating to any point in the map, placing a ward and have his allies teleport to the ward for an ambush before the clock strikes the first minute.
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14	* Kassadin was one of the very first [[LightningBruiser assassins]] ever added to the game, and he's had some very distinct points of being a total terror:
15	** The first time was at his very introduction, back when [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness many champions seriously lacked the flexibility and counterplay opportunities seen today]], and given how he had immense tools for the time like [[MagikarpPower his snowball potential]] and [[WeaponisedTeleportation point-and-click teleport/nuke]], as well as tools that were gradually phased out like a hard silence and ManaDrain, it shouldn't have been a surprise that it was a total mess for his opponents. He was immediately nerfed to the point of almost being a joke due to how hard he became countered by certain picks (as a MageKiller champion, these were mostly AD carries), but the need to see him buffed and adjusted led to...
16	** Midseason 3 Kassadin, whose scaling was adjusted across the board, with crucial buffs being given towards ''Null Sphere''[='=]s early-game scaling and ''[[WeaponisedTeleportation Riftwalk]]''[='=]s late-game scaling. [[GoneHorriblyWrong This quickly turned out to be a huge mistake]], as not only did it make his late game obscenely more powerful, having a 1.5-second silence at level 1 made his early trading ability that much easier, making him almost completely unstoppable across the board. This cascaded into making him statistically ''the most relevant champion ever'' in both solo queue and pro play, with him a pick/ban presence in 95% of all games, earning him a dubious reputation of a character so powerful that virtually nobody was allowed to play him. Riot finally reworked him in early season 4 and significantly overhauled his abilities (namely replacing his silence with a short disrupt and a magic shield, reworking his ''Nether Blade'', and greatly toning down his ''Riftwalk''), which to this day has since put him at a surprisingly stable and decently balanced place, where he's still known as [[MagikarpPower a late-game monster]], but is significantly more manageable.
17	* Kog'Maw was considered pretty weak when he came out, but when play shifted towards really tough characters, Kog turned out to be the best tank-killer in the game. He's even been reworked once and had that rework undone.
18	* Vayne was ''disgustingly'' overpowered on release, easily on the same level as release Xin or beta Twisted Fate. A ranged carry with some assassin traits, her main claim to fame was being able to chase down single targets, immobilize them, and fill them full of bolts, and her ability to do percentage-based true damage was more than likely intended to make her the bane of everything tanky (she was released in May of 2011, when the Tanky DPS meta was still very much in effect). Unfortunately, she was the bane of everything. Impossible to escape thanks to her passive, annoyingly good at juking and unreasonably hard to lock down thanks to her Q, unreasonably dangerous to trade with in lane due to her burst and her E, which had situational hard CC that was very easy to pull off if the Vayne player was worth a damn, and possessed an ult that was essentially a "fuck you, your team dies now" button thanks to ridiculous stat buffs all around, Vayne was an unholy terror at all stages of the game that had players wondering whether Riot even looked at her power level before releasing her. It's no surprise that she's mostly seen nerfs for the entirety of her existence.
19	* Graves, while not as bad as Vayne, was still far too strong on release. A ranged carry who incentivized getting up close and personal, he wound up being really good at that and way too good at everything else. His Q, the main thing that made getting in close desirable, wound up being ridiculously powerful from all ranges; up close, it was easily capable of blowing off close to half of another champ's life into midgame, while it also wound up being a surprisingly powerful and dependable poke from afar. He also had a dash that doubled as an attack speed boost with a cooldown that could be refreshed with auto-attacks, a passive that gave him free armor and magic resist if he was attacking or being attacked, and a utility move that acted as both a slow and a situational version of Nocturne's ultimate; his ultimate, while devastating in teamfights and early skirmishes, was honestly the most balanced thing about him. Everything else made him into a burst machine that was overly mobile and deceptively bulky, especially for a carry, and his tendency to not scale as well into late-game as other carries was more than made up for by how brutal he was early and midgame. Like Vayne, most of the changes that he's seen in his four years of existence have been nerfs.
20	** Then came his rework with the preseason of season 6, where he was changed on his auto-attacks to make them function more like a faster and smaller ranged version his original Q, which was replaced. Of course, as soon as he got Infinity Edge, Graves' case with the item was unique in that it made him fire more shots in the spread. Couple that with the newly infamous Warlord's Bloodlust keystone mastery which allows a successful crit to heal a percentage of damage and grant a brief attack speed boost, Graves was considered broken enough for hotfixes to both him and the said mastery.
21	** Something else worth noting is that around the end of season 5 and the beginning of season 6, his effective burst with his auto-attacks, Q and relatively-short-cooldown ultimate, his utility blind with his W and tankiness and mobility with his E, were all found to be great tools to make Graves an [[NotTheIntendedUse incredibly effective jungle bully.]] Around patch 6.2, he had the highest win rate, around 57%, in bot, top, and jungle, simultaneously. He received a few nerfs as of 6.3, and his win rate has dropped down, but time will tell if he'll stay there.
22	* After the order of effects upon death were patched, Maokai gained the unique ability to combine the Guardian Angel with his Vengeful Maelstrom to do this quite literally. This bug breaking the game is itself a Game Breaker, meaning Maokai could never lose.
23	* Ryze is more likely to get hit with this charge than most champions. Extremely short cooldowns, high damage output over a long period of time, and tank-like durability make him extremely effective in almost any situation. He's also one of the least expensive champions in the game. And his rather simple play style (amounting to memorizing two completely targeted combos--you don't even have to click on targets if you use smartcasting) leads to [[ItsEasySoItSucks the backlash you'd expect]].
24	** Season 5 had Riot reworking Ryze and trying to balance him around the concept of "windows of power", where Ryze had a specific moment to deal a lot of damage, but was weaker out of that window. His passive could be triggered to give him quickly-reseting cooldowns, and his ult had atrocious 30% of free passive cooldown reduction at max level. While this made Ryze ''a bit'' easier to deal with, he was still an insane spell-spamming machine that could solo carry games. And every time Riot tried to nerf the champion, he would die down a bit only for people to discover that he was still broken. This led to Riot throwing the entire concept of a champion that can reset all of his cooldowns to the window and rework him again in season 6, this time focusing him on his combos.
25	* Xin Zhao, as released, was a LeeroyJenkins... who won battles single-handedly. Then he got nerfed, started riding a very unsteady nerf/buff wave that constantly left his viability in question, and then eventually became a full-on JokeCharacter who was completely worthless against anyone even slightly decent until he got remade and became a decent, if not spectacular choice; though he still has his ups-and-downs for "not standing out".
26	* They're still trying to figure out how to balance [[BoringButPractical healing spells]] properly. Taric and Janna haven't got messed with much, but Alistar's was reworked entirely, Soraka (as of late August '11) has been re-specced as TheRedMage, and Sona's, well, [[ItsEasySoItSucks Sona]]. It's interesting to note that the latter two have some of the highest win-loss ratios ''as champions''.
27	* Many of the champs with high learning curves have eventually become this once people get the hang of them. Lee Sin? Underpowered on release, buffed massively, then people began to realize that the sheer strength of his kit coupled with his new numbers was simply too much. Orianna? Took a bit for people to get the hang of her, but it soon became clear that she was ''staggeringly'' overpowered by way of being able to do the vast majority of tasks in the game far better than the champs dedicated to them. And Rumble? Initially thought to be worthless, then people noticed how he was the strongest pusher in the game and had some of the highest, most consistent damage in the game coupled with a terrifying ultimate that could annihilate entire teams when placed right. This is a common theme in ''League of Legends'': champ with a heavy learning curve is released, people slowly learn what said champ can do, people realize that Riot underestimated just how much a master of said champ could pull off and realize that the champ is extremely overpowered, champ gets nerfed.
28	** And that happened THRICE in a row with Gnar, Azir and Kalista. Gnar's rage control skills, once learned, turn him into a terrifying crowd control machine with a lot of damage, Azir's [=AoE=] long-ranged damage with hyperscaling makes him one of the most powerful champions ever when mastered, and a good Kalista is simply uncatchable and unkillable due to a kiting passive and building a lot of life steal.
29	* Pre-nerf Rengar was this. One Savagery/Empowered Savagery combo was enough to bring a vast majority of champions, squishy or not, down to half health or lower. Getting away from him was nigh impossible due to his high mobility around brush and movement speed boost from his ultimate. He's since been toned down to a reasonable level.
30	** Then the Rengar after said nerfs still ended up being this, in the sense that his "triple Q" exploit (involving ulting, readying Savagery, then using Empowered Savagery JUST as Savagery comes off cooldown then using Savagery again for massive damage and attack speed to follow up) is quite capable of outright eviscerating a squishy champion. Cue him being part of the preseason 7 assassin reworks, and people are still complaining about Rengar's power, though at this point he may be much easier to balance.
31	* Post-Rework Master Yi. His E ability (Wuju Style) now makes his basic attacks hit for added true damage upon activation, and the amount scales with his attack damage. As a melee assassin, he'll be building a lot of attack damage. His ultimate (Highlander) adds 40% attack speed, gives the same amount in movement speed, and makes him immune to slowing effects. If he wants you dead, you're not going to do much to stop him. So long as he can make it to the late game, he'll become a walking blender that hits for high amounts of true damage every auto-attack that you can't escape from. On the other hand though, his paper-thin defense means all it takes to bring him down is stunning him and have your entire team nuke him with extreme prejudice.
32	** Pre-Rework Yi, while being considered a competent but easily-countered AD assassin, had a second configuration based on AP due to his Q being AP rather than AD scaling (a very unusual early game holdover, and it was even 100% AP scaling). By building lots of AP, his Q could become ''incredibly'' powerful, and also scaled up his W, which not only healed him, but upped his Armor and Magic Resist considerably. This essentially meant AP Yi could Alpha Strike his opponent (a near instant untargetable close move) and then immediately use his W to essentially become immune to damage from his target (unless being interrupted by CC). Worse, when his Ultimate is active, any kills used to completely reset his cooldowns, so he could spam his Q over and over again. It was quite common to see Yi Penta kill entire teams easily if they were all grouped up close together (since his Q damages up to 4 enemies at once). The only weakness in this playstyle was that he ONLY relied on his Alpha Strike most of the time (especially late game where his AD starts getting obsolete if not built that way, so Lich Bane was a must to build) for his damage output, meaning he was very team comp-based for higher ELO-teams and Q'ing at the wrong time would lead to retaliation if he didn't get a kill from it for another shot, and he needed to make sure his ult was active to even get the reset. Plus, just spamming his Alpha Strike (like with his overall playstyles) would drain a ton of mana from him if not managed properly.
33	** Riot eventually nerfed his ultimate just as Master Yi got reworked, since even when his Alpha Strike needs much more to achieve the AP Yi level damage from before, it still had a problem; thus due to the 70% cooldown refresh slapped onto him as opposed to the previous 100% refresh or the flat 18 second reset, this makes it so that Yi can no longer chain-spam his Alpha Strike to remain invincible at any given time just after a kill from an auto-attack or Alpha Strike alike, which would allow for more gaps for counterplay against Yi on a killing spree. Needless to say however, Yi's still a pubstomper, but prepared teams in higher elo can easily mess up his early game and prevent him from getting enough items.
34	* Warwick emerged as THE strongest jungler after the season 5 jungle overhaul, no competition. Not only does his sustain make him insanely safe, one of the newer jungle items, Skirmisher's Sabre, allows you to deal true damage for a few seconds and it counts as an on-hit effect. Couple this with the Devourer enchantment, which gives infinitely scaling on-hit magic damage. All Warwick has to do is walk up, smite a carry and use his ultimate, which applies on-hit effects, repeatedly. That carry is now dead. Period. This turned out to be so broken that within 2 weeks Warwick went from a champion people left games over because he was TheLoad, to a champion with a ''92% ban rate''. Riot started rolling out hefty nerfs on his ultimate VERY quickly.
35	* Since his release, Azir has had a number of notable bugs that frequently had to be fixed (which did make him a GameBreaker in [[GameBreakingBug the literal sense]]). But as soon as people got past the said bugs and realized his potential, he THEN got nerfed so many times that one can't count in both hands. His kit revolves around summoning Sand Soldiers, untargetable units that may auto-attack for Azir, dealing magic damage per attack. Since it scales with attack speed, a fed Azir can and will deal lots of damage per second on late game from far away. His ultimate also gives him a second chance if he fails to keep someone away, pushing enemies back and creating a wall on the location. With everything, Azir has a lot of play potential, either closing the door whenever his team is being chased, either Insec'ing the entire opposing team, either just dealing slow and damage thanks to Rylai's Crystal Scepter being ridiculously good on him. It's no hyperbole to say that every single skill of him has already been nerfed and this fails to stop Azir from being an amazing champion in the hands of any good player. Keep in mind: Riot usually nerfs champions that sit on winrates around 55% or higher. Before Azir's latest nerfs, his winrate was so low as 42%. And he was still broken enough for him to deserve the nerfs. That's to say something.
36	* An oversight on Zoe's release allowed her passive (which lets her collect a third summoner spell from the ground at random if she kills a minion with a balloon) to have a chance to give her Teleport. Teleport can be difficult enough to deal with without getting it with no consequences and it being very difficult for one's opponents to predict. Once this was realized by the community Riot quickly patched it out.
37	* Pre-Rework Poppy was half- GameBreaker, half JokeCharacter. Her farming was terrible and her early game pathetic- but if she managed to get herself some items, she became a hammer-wielding murder machine with her ridiculous passive and ult. Her passive made her incredibly tanky, and her ultimate made her immune to ''everything'' except one enemy champion. If she attacked any other champions, they were basically helpless for 8 seconds (the idea was that Poppy would force herself into a one-on-one fight with another champion, but failed to specify that Poppy had to attack the champion she targeted). She ended up completely reworked, with her kit stabilized so Poppy isn't so divided between completely useless and completely overpowered.
38	* Champions that played [[NotTheIntendedUse not in the way they are meant to be designed as]] were eventually bound to be this, but special notion goes to these two:
39	** Soraka became one in a very bizarre way during early 2020 (circa patch 10.2-3) as ''[[NotTheIntendedUse a solo top laner]]''. Around the time, it was found that [[WhiteMage Soraka]] (and also Sona to a degree) was able to keep pace with most toplaners thanks to her poke/self-sustaining kit (the top early-game was noted to be especially sluggish at that point in time), meaning that even if she was unlikely to kill opponents and "win" lane, [[WhyWontYouDie her survivability and utility ensured the same could also be said for her opposition]], and that [[TheMedic her healing]] by the teamfight phases would become even more powerful than if she was just a bot support. What makes this development interesting is how it wasn't born out of any single balance changes (her last prior buff was in ''July'' 2019) -- players in solo queue simply noticed how good she was in toplane, and once pros noticed the strategy, it caught on like wildfire and play/win/ban-rates skyrocketed until Riot finally took action and began nerfing the crap out of it.
40	** On the other side of the spectrum, Pantheon, normally a toplaner (or midlaner if playing against another assassin), finds himself in the similar case with Soraka in a rather comfortable spot as an ''[[NotTheIntendedUse engage support]]''. Aside of his early game mana issue, players find out that his point-and-click stun makes an excellent engage and strong counter against engage skillshot supports like Pyke, Leona, and Thresh. Combined with his high early damage and pressure on his Comet Spear and a his Aegis Assault, Pantheon can easily towerdive and secure kills for his botlane marksman or himself, while still retain high survivability and can NoSell turret shots. It takes Riot almost the entire year to figure out that he's way too oppressive while can still be played safe and had him finally readjusted to fit more as a solo laner again, namely by removing his Q Slow and the ability to deflect turret shot with his E and make him riskier to play aggressively. Despite this, Pantheon is actually stronger as now what makes him strong in such lanes is made stronger in that lane in a tradeoff for being slightly riskier to play, making him a meta defining pick in all three lanes.
41	* An [[GameBreakingBug unintentional programming quirk]] turns '''Viego''' into this, by simply casting your E on a player generated terrain (like Anivia's Wall or Trundle's Pillar), the game engine simply couldn't handle it and it will automatically crashes the system and causes the game to remove itself as if the game never happened. Players discovered this by accident and some have used this "exploit" to bail out from [[CurbStompBattle an unwinnable game where the team feeds the enemy team too much]] as a free get-out-of-the-jail card, before Riot eventually fixed the bug...
42	** ...before the same thing can be triggered once again by landing his W on champions that uses the Ruined skins (Shyvana, Karma, Draven) and overloaded the engine once again. Riot fixed the bug again, but everyone laid their eyes on Viego ever since thanks to how [[ObviousBeta unstable]] he is even at the current state.
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45	[[folder:Items]]
46	* [[http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Innervating_Locket Innervating Locket]] + [[http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Udyr Udyr]] was a combination so overpowered that it lead to Innervating Locket being removed from the game. To put it simply, the Locket gave heals when you used abilities, and Udyr is a melee fighter who uses his abilities a a lot. Udyr plus the Locket meant a powerful bruiser who also healed himself every few seconds and was nearly impossible to kill even if he wasn't building any tank items other than Innervating Locket.
47	* The remade Black Cleaver at the start of the Season 3 preseason period was arguably the most overpowered item in the history of the game. Giving huge damage, HP, cooldown reduction, armor penetration AND armor shred, Riot made it worse by inexplicably not making any of its stats Unique, meaning they could be stacked. It was not uncommon to see physical damage dealers buying boots and 4 Black Cleavers and wiping the floor with everyone else.
48	** Worse was that if combined with the % Armor Pen mastery and the Last Whisper, which also gives % Armor Pen, certain characters could buy a Black Cleaver and Last Whisper then run around dealing [[UnblockableAttack true damage]] to everything for most of the game. The irony was that not only was the Black Cleaver too good in terms of damage and armor pen, its intention of shredding armor became overshadowed by everything else (along with a subpar HP stat for bruisers) before it was remade in Season 5.
49	* The release of the Sated Devourer enchantment, which applies on-hit effects twice every other autoattack (later nerfed to every 4 autoattacks for ranged champions) made champions that had on-hit effects that dealt damage in a way (i.e. Vayne, Gnar, Corki, Ekko) has made those champions more viable for the jungle, or they're made more considerate of taking Smite as opposed to another summoner spell.
50	* Guinsoo's Rageblade also got a rework...instantly making Jax batshit insane and any autoattack-reliant champion very powerful. The catch of the new rework is that melee autoattacks (on anything - the item would be balanced was this only valid against champions) give 2 of 8 stacks to the item. Coupled with Sated Devourer and its attack speed, it took just three attacks to reach max stacks. ButWaitTheresMore. As the new Guinsoo reaches 8 stacks, it starts to deal [=AoE=] damage scaling with both AD and AP, a thing that most of the champions that benefit of the item lacked (making it akin to Ravenous Hydra's passive). ButWaitTheresMore Also slightly reworked, Hextech Gunblade heals for 15% of ALL damage dealt, allowing for insane healing in teamfights while dealing tons of [=AoE=] damage. [[OverlyLongGag But Wait, There's Even More!]] The last mastery of the Ferocity tree is Fervor of Battle, which, [[RuleOfThree just like Warlord's Bloodlust and Guinsoo's Rageblade]], stacks when autoattacking anything, ramping even more damage over the already huge benefits. This combination allowed for some unbelievable things that made most of the involved items and masteries get hit by the nerf hammer.
51	* Before it was changed heavily, the AP jungler item, Runeglaive, was insane on Ezreal. What the item did at the time was it gave you a Sheen style proc (an item that was already amazing on Ezreal) with a slightly lower AP ratio but with a small [=AoE=] slapped on. What resulted from this? Ezreal's running smite, granting their team a bunch of extra control on dragon and baron, an earlier power-spike due to it being cheaper than Lich Bane, and unprecedented wave clear, the major weakness AP Ezreal had over AD Ezreal. Oh, and it also restored missing mana.
52	* Rylai's Crystal Scepter from patch 5.13. The item was formely a niche pick and core only in certain champions such as Rumble. Then the slow values on the item and the slow mechanics of the game were reworked, and Rylai became the best item on AP champions, bar none. Not only the stats the item provides are godly for the squishy AP carries, its slow helps them to kite or catch threats easily. Champions that can abuse the item such as Azir, Viktor and Brand became way more powerful than before the patch just because Rylai was that ridiculous, and nowadays even champions with solid crowd control options on their kit, such as Syndra and Vel'Koz, are buying the item. It finally got nerfed on patch 6.23, bringing down many champions that relied on the item, and changing build paths for the ones who didn't.
53	* 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 to the Nexus Blitz gamemode as an event-exclusive item, before being re-added back to Season 13 with a different passive altogether. 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.
54	* '''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]]. Then they just gave up on tailoring the item for Assassins and just remove the omnivamp and lethality altogether and retool it into a proper AD engage-centric item, the change that was carried over all the way after the Mythic Items were removed from the game.
55	* 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.
56	* 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.
57	* '''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 ''[[AntiArmor 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. However the development team didn't give up on the item yet, so they 'reintroduced' the item under the name "Sundered Sky", which replaced the Spellblade properties with the periodical mechanic (inflict percent health physical damage + heal on next auto attack every 8 seconds or longer), which players find more balanced compared to the Sunderer.
58	* '''Duskblade of Draktharr''' fourth and fifth incarnation is possibly the weapon's most powerful incarnation to date. Already a very solid initiator item for Assassins in general, the Nightstalker passive now also grants 1.5 invisibility on takedown, which grants the user partial untargetability and in essence a get-out-of-jail free mechanic under a very generous cooldown, allowing them to more likely escape from a dive. The problem rises when certain champions starts to exploit it, namely Master Yi and Samira (ironically none of them were Assassins or tailored for this item), who uses it's newfound passive as an extra safety mechanic to basically take out someone then escape unscathed. This cheese strategy has become so prevalent with these two champions that it singlehandedly derailed their general gameplay into a pseudo-Assassin with really safe gameplan. Naturally, Riot decided not to take chances and quickly nerf Draktharr and readjust the corresponding champions to make sure that this strategy no longer works, but the item is still a really common purchase and the general consensus for it is that the item is really powerful and overloaded with what you can get from it's simple package. Not helping their case is that Riot decided to curb these strategies once and for all by reworking the Passive again, [[IdiotBall by making the partial untargetability into an outright invulnerability]] in ([[DamnedByFaintPraise admittedly]]) longer downtime, which not only makes the item even more a must buy for Assassins, but also singlehandedly [[HistoryRepeats revives the cheese strat back into viability]] in probably one of Riot's most infamous case of DidntThinkThisThrough that they will never live down. After several nerfs and inability to keep the item in balanced state, Riot decided to gave up on the item and pulled the plug, being one of the items that didn't make it out in the Mythic Item purge.
59	* 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.
60	* '''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 (due to it being seen as redundant due to [[{{Multishot}} Runaan's Hurricane]]), it was reinstated in midseason 13 with one significant change: rather than dealing a flat rate of damage per level, 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.
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64	* Preseason 6 can easily be called "The Game Breaker Showdown" due to a LOT of overpowered champions, masteries and items:
65	** Remember what we said about Graves above? Riot reworked him along with other marksmen to give him a real unique identity as the [[ItMakesSenseInContext short-ranged marksman]]. They managed to do that - but at the same time they brought back EVERY problem that Graves had in his first release: his new Q dealt way too much damage, his E allowed him to stack his resistance passive way more effectively (while giving more resists!), not to mention it resetting too easily, and his autoattacks, which were supposed to deal more damage at point-blank range in a spread like his old Q, could KO an opponent with two or three attacks, with every other skill helping him to catch the opponent if fleeing (remember when we brought up Infinity Edge powering it up to more shots fired, folks?). Riot had to issue a hotfix for this one week after the Preseason started.
66	** Miss Fortune is right behind Graves as the most powerful marksman (or markswoman) after the reworks. She used to have a kit with weird scalings and one of the worst passives of the game, which gave her movement speed if she took no damage for a while. After the rework, she got an actually useful and powerful passive that deals extra damage on autoattacks, her W got her old passive added to its effects, and both her Q and ultimate got critical-related buffs which allow MF to deal a lot of damage to her opponents while farming AND insane wombo-comboing in teamfights. Guess how many patches after that she was nerfed.
67	** However, the "most broken thing in Preseason 6" trophy goes to Warlord's Bloodlust, a new offensive mastery from the Ferocity tree that heals for 15% of the damage done by critical strikes. What does it mean? Literally, Warlord's made Life Steal completely obsolete for carries, because all they needed was to rush critical chance items (which were also reworked so that ADC's could have higher critical chance) and heal any damage dealt to them with huge ease. And let's not get started on what champions like [[CriticalHitClass Yasuo, Master Yi and Tryndamere]] looked with this... Let's just say that every player rejoiced as Riot hotfixed the mastery so it only works on champions.
68	** Also from the Ferocity tree, the Deathfire Touch mastery seemed underwhelming at first. It gave damage per second on champions after they took damage from skills, but it was halved for area of effect skills, which basically every caster in the game has. Then people noticed how insane it was on DPS mages like Malzahar and ESPECIALLY Brand, since those skills will keep refreshing Deathfire Touch. Malzahar has three DPS skills that deal good damage and can sustain his mana without items thanks to one of them, Malefic Visions. Brand has his DPS damage coming from his passive, which not only deals max life % damage, but lasts 4 seconds and can be used to trigger a 2-second stun at LEVEL 2. Add Rylai's Crystal Scepter's slow and Liandry's Torment extra DPS (which Rylai amplifies) and it became very common to see those guys dealing two-thirds of anyone's life with a single skill.
69	* '''Kleptomancy''' is a special rune keystone that enchants your next two basic attack upon casting an ability that allows you to gain bonus gold and gain a random pilfered potion from it. The pilfered potions in question are just heavily neutered version of various consumable item you can purchase like the red potions and the elixir. However, one item among them stands out; the '''Pilfered Potion of Rouge''', which is essentially a dreaded Elixir of Fortitude in small packet minus the HP bonus. It grants you 10 adaptive power for 45 second on use and you can randomly get it as early as level 1, essentially granting you a temporary early game powerspike equivalent of a basic item. This turns champions that usually poke-heavy like Ezreal into a dangerous initiator that can easily curbstomps you early game, so much so that Kleptomancy needs to be balanced solely around Ezreal and Ezreal alone, before eventually removed near the end of season 9.
70	* Generally, the Precision rune keystones slowly accumulates this reputation for just how [[BoringButPractical directly useful]] it is, not having to rely on specific conditions to be useful. Even weaker keystones like Fleet Footwork finds use with champions that loves to move around, but these two keystones stands out:
71	** '''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.
72	** Prior to the Season 12 Rework, '''Lethal Tempo''' is a niche keystone used by AD Carries to boost their DPS even further for a short time, but is seen by others as highly conditional because it didn't last long and relies too much on the itemization to work. Because of this, the keystone sees little use even among AD Carries who prefer Press The Attack for extra DPS. This was changed during Preseason 12, where the keystone gets reworked into basically becoming Conqueror but accumulates attack speed instead, which culminates with extended attack range at maximum stacks and being able to exceed the AS cap by 10 that can be indefinitely maintained as long as you were able to keep hitting enemy champions. The results are predictable, as now the keystone becomes one of the most popular keystone in the game just shy behind Conqueror, with skirmishers like Jax, Tryndamere, Kayle and the Windbros abusing this keystones the most. Because of how bonkers these champions become after the Lethal Tempo rework, the keystone receives several nerfs just around them to make sure it won't go haywire.
73	* Pre-season 12 introduced two new dragon types to the Rift, and while the Hextech Drake was generally accepted by the community as a fair addition, the '''Chemtech Drake'''... was not. Its respective {{Geo Effect\|s}} -- shrouding the jungle in clouds of fog to near-permanently camoflage enemies ''and'' grant bonus damage to champions while fighting against enemies with higher health -- was considered enormously overpowered as it negated proper vision control, [[UnstableEquilibrium making it even harder for already-losing teams to regain control of their own side of the map]] (Riot attempted to remedy this by spawning more Scryer's Bloom plants to grant vision, but this was mainly seen as just a solution in search of a problem). The respective Chemtech Soul was also seen as pretty extreme, granting whoever owned it [[AutoRevive a temporary life upon death]], which was also seen as disproportionately powerful even to other Dragon Souls as teams with them were already generally harder to kill; [[TakingYouWithMe giving them a free means to finish off their opponents]] on top of the other benefits was seen as overkill. Once season 12 and the professional scene launched, the Chemtech Drake was quickly deemed an unstable terror, and so busted that Riot opted to disable it entirely during the middle of patch 12.2 to undergo significant tweaking, not showing up in any further capacity until season ''13'' with completely different terrain and dragon soul effects.

Context GameBreaker / LeagueOfLegends