How Kleptomancy is Actually Hurting Ezreal (and direction to move for a fixed)

Smooth Gunshot·1/12/2018, 2:52:53 AM·3 votes·1,457 views

Kleptomancy is an extremely unhealthy rune in the way that it effects how champions like Ezreal Ezreal and Gangplank Gangplank are played. Instead of giving them new options it has crowded out all other options. This is to the point that an Ezreal player without Klepto has an avg. winrate around 46% and with Klepto has an avg. winrate above 53%. I haven't heard any talk about this by riot or the community so I will explain my thoughts. Note this is not about the RNG of Klepto.

Klepto is designed to offer someone the option to be rewarded in terms of gold and consumables, at the cost of a combat related keystone. It is supposed to reward more risky or aggressive play, which we can see due to the requirements of an auto attack. I would like to compare this to something very similar and yet healthy for the game: Spell Thief's Edge item 3303. Spell Thief's Edge also rewards for aggressive play, but has shown effective on many champions, and even in a variety of roles such as mid and jungle. It is versatile because it (1) gives gold over time, and (2) only requires ability hits to proc the passive. Klepto, on the other hand, has only shown to be popular on champs that can abuse it in a way where they take the benefits without the risks (Ezreal, Gangplank) and champs that don't have any other keystones that fit well (bruisers).

Bruisers just need better keystones, that's not what this is about. Because Ezreal and GP CAN use Klepto so well they are now all but required to. Ez has received 2 or 3 nerfs in a row, and while GP hasn't been nerfed yet he has grown extremely popular and his winrate has jumped a couple % (He was a bit weak before, and his high skill cap makes nerfs less necessary).

What would be healthy would be a rune that had similar potential on many champions that allows for increased income as a result of playing better/more aggressively/other criteria. In it's current state however, requiring an ability and auto attack to proc, it can't be balanced without being too strong on some champions or being too weak on most.

TlDR: Kleptomancy Functionality has to be changed to be similarly accessible by many champs to improve game health

2 Comments

LordGeovanni1/12/2018, 3:45:53 AM2 votes

You cant really use kelpto to say ezreal without klepto is bad.

item 3303 rewards what agressive play you gonna be throwing out spells anyway getting speed boost on what you already doing isnt rewarding agressive play and not to mention it takes away coins neiche.

Shatter the Sun1/14/2018, 4:17:05 AM1 votes

If ezreal is a problem with klepto then just change his interaction with it. Klepto can only really be used by a few champions. To say those champions are abusing it is false imo. They are using it very efficiently like you should be if you were using a RNG rune. There would be no point in taking klepto if you couldnt reliably proc it.