why are you nerfing swifties in the same patch youre buffing merc treads?

Critmaster Garen·Feb 17, 2016·2 votes·567 views

id think the main reason swifties started to get picked so much over merc treads was the price combined with the lower tenacity on the item.

well, youre buffing the tenacity back up to 30, and you increased the price on swifties. so why the extra nerf?

also, will get his taunt time increased again? as i recall officially it was nerfed, because merc treads lost tenacity, so his taunt duration could get pretty excessive even if you itemized against cc. now that merc treads get back to 30%, this shouldnt hold true anymore.

2 Comments

KiharonFeb 17, 20161 votes

I assume the nerf is to make them less generally appealing. Right now they seem to be very popular even for people that would generally be expected to build other boots.

In particular, the swifties vs mobis comparison seemed pretty in favor of swifties a few patches ago. These upcoming changes will make mobis "more better" out of combat and "less worse" in combat, which may incentivize heavy roamers to pick them up again. At least, that seems to be the theory.

AbyssphereFeb 17, 20161 votes

Swiftness Boots have been popular on more roles than people who would have bought Merc's, so I don't think the two are as related as you think. ADCs, supports and offensive junglers are buying Swiftness (even some mid laners) and none of those roles would have went for Merc's last season except tank supports. Really, the only people who swapped from Merc's to Swiftness were solo lane/jungle tanks and while I'm sure the tenacity nerf on Merc's was a big reason for that, overall the cheap massive MS boost on Swiftness is what's making it attractive.