Possible item changes for marksmen will make the class rely less on critical strike

Over the past few years, marksmen have been in a bit of a weird spot in League of Legends. They never really had a definitive identity and it always seemed like only two or three could really be good at a time. Thankfully, Riot’s current project involves updating the class into something more defined, and hopefully opening up the AD carry role to more than one kind of champion at a time.

According to game system designer Riot Axes, who made a long post on the forum to explain the changes, the first thing that Riot hoped to do with this upcoming marksmen update was to move the role away from the crit-based scaling that has been its defining feature over the last year or so. In order to move the role away from this gameplay pattern, Riot is taking away some of the power of the Infinity Edge and Zeal items to help nerf the two-item power spike on AD carries.

But Riot isn’t just satisfied with nerfing what’s already a little too strong — they’re also hoping to give some of the struggling marksmen a boost with buffs to Blade of the Ruined King and Bloodthirster. This also includes a brand new B.F. Sword item called Stormrazor and even a rework to Essence Reaver that should be make it a little less crit-reliant.

Riot Games

Last Whisper and the items it upgrades to (Lord Dominik’s Regards and Moral Reminder) are getting switched back to flat penetration, instead of scaling, which should help them take down squishier targets like mages. Riot thinks this should make AD assassins pretty happy as well. As for tanks, marksmen will likely be relying on the new version of Infinity Edge that will translate part of damage done into true damage, rather than crit, making it a perfect tank busting tool.

Like most changes that get pushed to the Public Beta Environment, all these changes are very tentative and are likely to change before they make it to live, especially since these won’t be on live for a while. But for now, at least we know what direction Riot plans to take marksmen in the future.