How One Item Broke League of Legends

league has a long history of incredibly overpowered items way too many to cover in one single video so this video is going to look at one specific item and the absolutely catastrophic effect it had on League this item was so busted that it is famously credited for single-handedly ruining a World's tournament it defined The Meta both in Solo quue and in competitive and is regarded as one of the worst in League's history this item was so ridiculously overtuned that the top priority of every team was to stack gold on their Port as fast as possible

the complete opposite of how the role is designed to operate not only that it was so important to get this item that ad carry players would start with the support item to funnel gold to the support anyone who played league in 2017 is already breaking into a cold sweat just at the thought of this meta this is the story of how Ardent sensor one of the most broken items in league history created one of the worst metas in league history and how Riot let it happen we do get art and sensor here from RNG the

for completing ardan sensor ardan sensor support rushing ardan sensor on the support you said the magic word Papa Smithy non- interactive and the Jana is locked in Ardent sensor was originally added in season 4 and you might think that this is the season where all of this happened it is not the item was pretty unpopular in season 4 it only granted attack speed to the Ally that you had buffed the version that existed for worlds 2017 granted allies attack speed on hit damage and on hit healing before we talk more more about the impact this

had on solo q and on competitive you need to understand the math behind this item to begin with the actual stats from the item itself had a value of about 2,100 gold the item actually cost 2,300 gold this seems pretty reasonable but you were building it for the effects that it gave your allies not the stats that it gave you these effects are not included in the 2,100 gold amount the 25% attack speed at granted and the 25 on hit damage at granted each provided your ally with 625 gold of stats and that's completely ignoring

the onhit healing of 25 per hit the math is a little trickier here but at level eight your 80 carry would have around 150 attack damage healing for 25 per hit is about the same as having 177% life steal at this point which is around 630 gold value the 80 carry is actually getting about 1,880 gold of bonus stats just from Ardent sensor Buffs this means that Ardent sensor provided about 3,980 gold of stats total for the 2,300 gold you spent on it keep in mind these effects could be applied to many champions at once

if saraka or Jana use their alt they could generate over 7,000 gold of stats to their team not including the value from the ability that is actually applying the Ardent sensor effect and all of this math is completely ignoring the 10% bonus healing and shielding also attached the item I want to be clear here if Jano clicked e on a carry a single time they would receive the following a 240 Health Shield increased by winds speaker's blessing and increased Again by Ardent sensor 40 ad from her e 25% attack speed from Ardent 25 damage on

hit from ardant 25 on hit heal from Ardent bonus armor and Magic resist from wind speakers blessing all of this combined means that Janna would be granting over 4,000 gold of stats to an ally every time she pressed e as long as she had Aran sensor and that's not even a late game example that is Janna on one item Jana with Ardent sensor would be giving her carry the equivalent of a full BF sword almost two Recurve Bows the life seal portion of 2 and A2 ampere acceptors and the equivalent health of basically two Ruby

crystals imagine how frustrating it would be to play as an 0 carry in Solo qu whose support is not building Ard sensor while the enemy is once their power spike is complete there's really no way you could hope to overcome the raw stat advantage that it would Grant they would just stat check you because of a point and click shield and there was really nothing you could do about it no matter which Forum you go on you can find plenty of posts from people discussing how strong Ardent sensor was at this point even Pro players

were calling it out as a problem it was very well known that ENT sensor was way too strong at this point it is true that players can sometimes exaggerate the overall strength of something so I went out of my way to look at the Historical win rates and ban rates we're going to play a game and I have a suspicion that you're going to have a very easy time with it this chart on the screen shows J an's win rate history with the ears blurred can you guess where on this chart corresponds to the Ardent

sensor meta give yourself a pat on the back it wasn't too hard was it if you got it wrong don't worry there's a part two so you can try again this one is even a bit easier this chart on the screen shows Janna's historical ban rate can you guess where on this chart corresponds to the ENT sensor meta you might think that this peak must have been exactly at the same time as worlds or else Riot would see something was up and maybe make some adjustments ahead of time right well the peak was actually in

August over a month before world started and even then her win rate had been ramping up since July this means that there were months of stats to pull from before worlds but ENT sensor was still not nerfed and this trend can be seen with other enchanters too it is definitely not Janna specific but there were no Nerfs leading up to Worlds 2017 speaking of Worlds 2017 the first 12 games of the tournament would see Ardent sensor built 24 times he's got an ARD sensor for perks to help his attack speed there Ard sensor from the

Ivan but so many tanks and AR sensor 8 car trying to get that AR sensor in there it wasn't just built in every game it was built on each team in every game right from the start the meta was apparent and this little lamp item would become the focal point of the tournament Players following the pro scene were not happy with this meta it led to a very dull viewing experience because of how it wored the entire game game and all Lanes around bot Lane many pro players really dislike this meta because it reduced the

other roles to being background characters for the bot laners and didn't give the others much time to shine SKT Teddy said the worst meta ever was Ardent sensor it's a radical meta where the performance on other lanes does not matter I mentioned that the first 12 matches saw Ardent sensor built 24 times Well in those 12 matches almost every single matchup in the Top Lane was double tank top lanee and this trend would continue throughout the entire tournament if you look at the overall stats for the main event the top 12 Champions overall for presents

were all either an 80 carry a tank or a supportive Champion even in mid lane Gallo had the overall highest presence chooth maai and Shen were the three big picks for Top Lane mid lane had rise cnra and Gallo it's worth noting here that the midlaners with the highest win rate and over 10 games played were Champions that could support their 80 carryin fights Galo had a 91% presence and a 67% win rate malahar had a 21% presence but a 90% win rate winning 9 out of 10 games where he was played in the support

role Ardent sensor itself was really the main character the main vessels for ardant were Jana and Lulu and Jana would have a 70% win rate over 44 matches and a 95% presence overall Lulu's presence was right next to hers at 93.8 it has to be mentioned here that kalista was the best ad8 carry at this point hands down no questions asked any 80 carry was very strong with ENT but kalista was insanely strong to begin with at the main event for worlds there was not one single game or kalista made it through the ban phase

she maintained a 100% ban rate for the full Main Event everything about the meta had warped around ardan sensor that much was clear but it wasn't quite that simple it was so important to get this item as soon as he possibly could that supports began running gold generation runes just for this purpose ADC would start the match with the Relic Shield item so they could share their gold with the support there was also another Factor here it gave a permanent Shield that regenerated while out of combat this made adcs even more durable contributing further to

the play around the ADC meta the support would start with ancient coin with the purpose of generating gold as fast as possible to build Ardent sensor it generated a lot of gold basically for free its impact on the meta wasn't quite as strong as Ardent sensor but that's not saying much as ENT sensor was so strong it warped the game around it before discussing the rest of the tournament we need to stop for a second what actually caused this tournament to play out like this how could Riot have not seen this coming freak even talked

about the situation in a patch note video in July 2017 over 2 months before worlds you have not realized how good ancient coin is that item gives you so much gold it's insane the ancient coin line is so good it's honestly incredibly stupidly strong be after the Gold Buffs in 713 I saw someone in chat earlier say LOL coin sucks and that dude is not good at League of Legends so I think coin actually needs to be nerfed now that the rewards feel good in terms of like picking up the coins cuz they're so powerful

honestly it probably should have had a weaker Quest reward and so it has another sort of semi- passive Quest reward which is uh your teammates basically you get a Janna passive anyway uh I think this actually Nerf's ancient coin line I would generally say the potion of skill well the potion of skill feels more visceral so I assume people are going to call it a Nerf um I'd be curious to see actual win rate data and see if Jana or you know whoever else gets stronger with coin before or after the Patch cuz I'm actually

uncertain if anyone really cares they can let go to like law otics and like look at the ancient coin win rate versus bel's win rate these clips were from July and freak was already mentioning that he felt Nerfs were needed and referenced win rates directly if you've been paying attention then you probably realize this was before or Janna's win rate actually peaked in August so Riot had plenty of information ahead of time that enchanters were overperforming due to ancient coin and ardan sensor and the problem had only gotten worse between then and worlds why is

it then that the tournament had been allowed to play out like this why were there no Nerfs ahead of time well it's true that solo Q win rate doesn't always correlate with Pro play while the Ardent meta was clearly dominated in Solo que how was it performing in Pro play leading up to Worlds well the lck spring promotion had finished one week before worlds and these were the results Janna was picked nine times and won eight of those games she was the most picked and contested support this is obviously a red flag but it was

also about one week before world started if you look at everything before then the meta had not quite been identified Rah Alistar and thresh were the most picked at most events and it really wasn't close with that said there was actually a match that was played on August 12th that had basically every everything we would see at Worlds it was game one of the lck summer playoffs SKT versus AFS Janice started with ancient coin and also ran gold generation seals and Quints this wasn't the first time this was seen ma had also done this for

example but it was becoming more and more common this game though did see twitch start with Relic Shield which was new to this meta so much so that even the casters missed it for the first few minutes we should mention something here Kramer's running Relic Shield uh Relic Shield twist you are correct so the theory here is that we're seeing gold seals be run by tcon gold Quint and actually the last hits from Kramer will also pass gold over to the J so what the reasoning is here is you want to rush the uh Arden

sensor as fast as possible and to the nth degree even Kramer is trying to rush the Arden sensor for the J because he actually opted into sharing gold as an ad carry this hasn't been seen since Relic Shield was released and you remember was very powerful on relas so pre-season a lot of Bot lanes are going double Relic Shield upgrading to targon and abusing that those days are gone but with how powerful as a one item Spike ardan sensor is on Jan it really does feel good as twitch you're basically a guard the moment that

item is completed Kramer is extra investing this is really Innovative from the side of arria and I love that they're throwing this in as a Gambit we wanted new Champions didn't quite get it the Jenna I guess kind of coming back in same with the Lulu being brought out by wolf those the odd ones but uh making up forward with the item build there by Kramer i' like to see how much gold this is of a difference this is creating between the likes of wolf and tucon as he takes quite a bit of damage feels

like also the smell Edge is outclassed by the ancient coin route with how much gold generation there is now if you can actually pick up the gold and here we go it's already 700ish gold between the coin and also the twitch AFS actually lost that match and both Jan and Lulu were not picked again for the rest of the playoffs interestingly because the strategy was new at the time there was a lot of feedback from the community even if it had been played more I think it's unlikely that Riot would have actually nerfed it because

of the world's 2015 incident see 2 years earlier Riot released the Juggernaut update that reworked a bunch of Champions just over one month before the start of Worlds notably Mizer and Gangplank were both played in four games and won all of them the reason that number is en higher is because for every other game in the tournament they were banned Gangplank had a 100% picker ban rate while Mor Kiser had a 99% pick or ban right there was one single game where he wasn't picked or banned the most picked top laner of the event Darius

was also part of this update I won't go into this any further now because honestly there's too much to dive into here and it really deserves its own video spoiler I'm already working on that video this does give some context as to why Riot was so scared to make balance changes so close to where 2017 all the signs were there that this was going to be a problem the community had even pointed it out and freak said it himself but by the time Ardent sensor could no longer be ignored worlds was basically starting and this

was the world's 2017 viewing experience and now I want to see if r& wants to play ardan sensor meta because Lulu Jenna are super super popular here among the pro teams go for Lake game and just rely on your Aid and carry to win the games it's something we will see very often we do get AR sensor here from RNG well I'm becoming incredibly familiar with gold generation in the bottom Lane once again we have double targon 0 carries double coin supports and I'm just going to assume that they've got gold generation uh runes as

well uh on those supports to really fund the art in sensors and now as well feels like we're set up for that passive back and forth farming bottom Lane if you watch those clips then you don't really have to watch any of the actual games because that was pretty much it when a champion gets locked in and the casters say the name of the item the champion is going to build instead of the actual champion's name you know something is wrong and also from a viewer perspective it isn't particularly interesting to watch two bot Lanes

refuse to interact in any way especially when the rest of the team is also probably drafted around that bot Lane and just waiting for their bot Lane to come online the most exciting game of the tournament was of course the last series specifically the third match SKT versus Samsung Galaxy SKT locked in Leona in an attempt to counter Lulu and it will be the Leona backs against the wall Warf learning from ignar if you're giving over Lulu here it's because you're ready to try and play something that can kill the Lulu now you might be

thinking that this is a cool Innovation a way to finally get away from ardan sensor well unfortunately not you could pick a support that wasn't going to build ardan sensor as long as someone else was going to build it people had problems with Faker on Gallo then they're definitely not going to like the elimination match of putting Faker onto Karma but you can see how much Faith they have in that team play and how important that sensor is in the meta currently and it's just it's so crazy that the best performing player during this tournament

the best player in the world is being put on a supportive Champion for this big game here SKT have relied so much on Faker being so strong in so many games and now it's not about Faker specifically it's about hon on trundle and bang and wolf in the bottom Lane Samsung have shown them the way we win as a team fakers bought in now it's up to the team SKT had a five kill and almost 3,000 gold lead in 12 minutes but just 3 minutes later their lead had shrunk all the way down to 1,000

at 24 minutes they had a 7,000 gold lead and you're probably thinking that that game must have been over it was Nott ended up losing their lead and Samsung Galaxy was actually slightly ahead this led to a standoff in mid over baren 36 minutes into the game the game would end in a way that perfectly represented the Ardent sensor meta ruler flashion on Faker landed Al and well see for yourself they've got the CC the mid later is down the unkillable Demon King has done as ruler stay in life stealing this was the first time

SKT had lost the world championship match and Samsung Galaxy became the 2017 world champions at this point Ardent sensor had already been nerfed in Solo que the Nerfs actually went live 4 days into Worlds they completely removed the onhit healing and made Ardent sensors other effects scale instead of being a flat percent it started weaker than it was and scaled to be stronger the same patch added 8 seconds to Jan e at rank one but also buffed other parts of her kit freak talked about the Nerf in his patch 7.19 Rundown video if you were

just getting 25 life back on hit you got a bloodthirster worth of regen and keep in mind like you got 25 attack damage too and 25 attack speed like this was the single best part of the item so even though the scaling comes back in and you know now it's you know all kinds of wonderful and fun and stuff like that you can have 35 attack speed and whatever else because it skills with the target level and no longer heals you an insane amount surely this was enough to balance the item right well of course

not less than one month after the first NERF Riot released a second round of Nerfs even after removing the onit healing completely the item was still just way too strong the second patch cut the starting strength of its attack speed buff by half and it cut the starting strength of the on hit damage by 75% making it scale further instead it's worth noting that both of these Nerfs happened while worlds was still ongoing so just imagine how strong the version of the item was that was actually played in Worlds I do understand why Riot were

hesitant to make changes before the tournament they were scared of repeating worlds 2015 that said there is a huge difference completely reworking a bunch of Champions all at once and slightly nerfing a couple of items I'm curious what do you think about all this did you play back then and what did you think about ENT sensor if you didn't play and this is the first time learning all this what are your thoughts should Riot have risked shaking up the meta right before worlds for the sake of avoiding a situation like this or did they do

the right thing by playing it safe and letting it unfold even when they knew that it was a potential problem honestly I'm surprised that the Victoria skin for the season wasn't just a new icon for Ardent sensor because it really would have been fit in the official League page even updated their icon to be Ardent sensor let me know what you think down below and again thanks for watching so good