Boards›Gameplay

Is Swiftness really ALWAYS better than Legendary Guardian?

atomicwit·2/22/2016, 1:40:59 PM·23 votes·12,778 views

Literally every pro player I see takes Swiftness, even on champions like Gragas who often engage fights and are in the thick of things. I can understand that Swiftness is useful for making plays but someone like Gragas with Runic Echoes isn't even that kiteable. He can gap close with E, use R to bring his target closer and then Q to slow them. Swiftness seems much stronger on someone like Volibear who has only his Q as a gap closer and is naturally tankier too. It makes a lot of sense on Shyvana as well because the only weakness of her kit is the lack of CC to stick to targets. However, I simply have not seen a single jungler take Legendary Guardian over Swiftness. Even Nunu, who really doesn't have great ganks or damage and also shouldn't care too much if CC is used (wasted) on him still takes Swiftness every time.

Am I just prioritizing things wrong? Legendary Guardian gives up to 30 bonus resists when near 5 enemies and it also helps you in early game duels a tiny bit. It's just seems shocking to me that pro players don't consider it worthwhile on any champion and in any situation. I scrolled through the histories of some pros. thinking that they might switch to it when their comps. have heavy CC or wombo combos but nope, it's always Swiftness.

70 Comments

Morbazan2/22/2016, 2:34:39 PM13 votes

Being CC'd is bad, it usually means you die or lose a chunk of your health vs a coordinated team, or are not capable of keeping the enemy off of your teammates, and then they die. There is a lot of CC out there these days. Being Slowed is bad, it usually means the enemy will land their CC shortly after (or just a lot of damage and kill you). There are a lot of slows, some of which can be obtained outside of champions kits fairly easily (Red Buff, Items). Also Kiting is a thing. The Tenacity and Slow Resist also synergize against Slows, Reducing effectiveness and duration both by 15%. Armor and MR can be Reduced or Penetrated. Tenacity and Slow Resist cannot be reduced by anything. It applies fully or it doesn't apply at all. The Armor and MR is situational, the Tenacity and Slow Resist are not, and always work at their maximum. Armor and MR is FAR more available through items than Tenacity or Slow Resistance.

I honestly wouldn't see me ever taking Legendary Guardian over Swiftness, except in the case where the enemy team has absolutely no CC where Tenacity or Slow Resist would apply (which is rather unlikely to happen).

The Governer2/22/2016, 2:05:03 PM6 votes

In the League of Slows (Where almost every champion has a slow in his/her kit), Swiftness will be very important for reducing both the duration and effectiveness of slows. Almost every champion has slows and even some items and red buff have slow easily attainable. Enemies can keep piling up slows and chaining cc on you after slowing you. Tenacity and slow resist are also rare so it is better off with Swiftness. Tenacity and slow resist are also statistics that cannot be reduced or penetrated making it more desirable.

Legendary Guardian is also useful but 15 (not 30) armor and 15 magic resist at maximum does not seem to be that desirable as a tier 5 mastery.

ZT Xperimentor2/22/2016, 3:58:14 PM3 votes

It's a couple of issues;

  • Mercury treads got nerfed hard (35% ->20% tenacity), ontop of some commonly played champions having popups (yasou, alistar, xinzhao, ext) which is the only crowd control NOT reduced by tenacity.
  • Other popular picks have plenty of or spam-able slows (malphite, ashe, gragas, ext) which swiftness boots reduce the effectiveness by 25% and have a higher movement speed than mercury treads.
  • Some other champions are so painful to fight because of their kit/item synergy, mercury treads didn't help anyway (udyr, jax, ext).
  • The other boots have been nearly entirely unchanged for several seasons!
PrometheS2/22/2016, 2:07:45 PM3 votes

It's indeed 30 resists: 15 bonus armor and 15 bonus mr (3x5x2).

And yeah, every champion tends to have some CC but they aren't very long. I don't even know if there are any 3 second CCs left. Even vs a 3 sec CC though, you only save `half a second. Idk what to think about it but it's definitely not bad.

If you ever had 100% CC reduction, it would be obviously completely broken so it's an important stat. and you can't really itemize for it well like for magic resist or armor. Still though, is it really so bad for a frontline tank to "tank" CC for the full duration? It seems like Swiftness is more suited to agile and relatively squishy champions.

ChaoticPinecone2/22/2016, 7:55:34 PM2 votes

The problem with flat resists is that they dont scale into lategame. +15 armor and magic resists is beautiful if you get into a 5v5 level 1, but arent very useful in lane - especially in a 1v1 lane, where you only get +3. Aside from that unless the team runs a zero cc comp the 15% tenacity is better. Being locked down for 15% less time, especially since few people get mercs, will mitigate more damage than the 15 armor and magic resist. This is made worse since nobody buys tenacity anymore and there could be 3 FQCs on the enemy team.

The only champions I would even potentially think about using Legendary Guardian on are the ones who would die if they get caught no matter how much tenacity they have. But then I have to ask - why am i going down a defensive tree on such a squishy champion?

LankPants2/22/2016, 3:14:04 PM2 votes

Personally I'm a fan of Legendary Guardian on champs who already have tenacity or slow resist in their kits like Irelia and Sejuani since the multiplicative stacking makes Swiftness a little bit worse on these champs. Since all I play in ranked is Sejuani and I don't normally bother editing my pages for normals I rarely end up running Swiftness though.

Dreadlocks2/22/2016, 8:55:34 PM2 votes

I get Legendary Guardian on Rengar. I don't think having slow res/tenacity is going to help me survive much after i jump in.. If im slowed, stunned, snared w.o i'm probably dead, but with Legendary Guardian, Unyielding, and my W active, i feel like i have a better chance of surviving. =D Plus i usually get a steraks in my build and so the amount of Res with the HP shield is pretty valuable to me.

I think after Merc treads get buffed next patch tho, i'll resort back to swiftness + mercs.

Twitch Chat2/22/2016, 11:53:23 PM2 votes

legendary guardian has a very small radius. if it was a very large radius like wukong passive i think it would be worth a look but that combined with the fact that slow resist/tenacity are much more difficult stats to acquire than raw armor/MR swiftness is much better overall right now.

Sammystorm2/23/2016, 12:18:27 AM2 votes

the tenacity is basically a must now that mercury threads are bad. There are a huge amount of options for resists in items but very very few options with tenacity. So unless you are buying one of those two items you will have 0 tenacity. which is really rough being a tank. When you see a heavy cc team you usually see pros take swiftness and merc threads. Legendary guardian would be taken more if it wasn't paired with 1 of 3 options for tenacity.

item 3111 item 2138

PDE5 Inhib2/22/2016, 4:14:13 PM2 votes

If by Swiftness you mean resembling Taylor Swift, then yes, it is always better than everything.

DarkfireAM2/23/2016, 4:34:50 PM1 votes

I have been playing this game for 2 years...Is it bad that I have no Idea what Legendary Guardian is? -.-

Aeszarck2/22/2016, 8:11:17 PM1 votes

Wait, have I been doing things wrong? All of my pages with eighteen points in Resolve has Legendary Guardian except for my Irelia page, I think. I love tenacity, but I don't find it that valuable.

Spoofghoul2/22/2016, 8:27:59 PM1 votes

whats the 15 armor gonna do anyways if ur building tanky, reduce theri 1500 crit by an extra 5 damage much wow

dunkeroni2/22/2016, 10:26:10 PM1 votes

Pros can dodge, and dodging is easier with swiftness. Legendary Guardian is more like a Karthus passive: only useful if you've already screwed up.

DarthSpectrum2/23/2016, 1:18:25 AM1 votes

In this meta, everyone has some sort of CC or slow. But at most 4/5 enemies have damage.

The choice is obvious.

In all seriousness, Legendary Guardian only comes into play late game in team fights. Its bonus in lane is laughable. Swiftness on the other hand is helpful in lane and in the jungle from the start. When ganking a lane, it is better to have slightly more slow resist and tenacity than to have 0.6 to 3 armor + MR.

RisenDarkKnight2/23/2016, 5:01:39 AM1 votes

I like legendary guardian on supports. It gives you 6 armor and MR at lvl 1 and it goes up in teamfights. Supports are usually too squishy to make good use of the tenacity since they have lower income than top or jg tanks, and they tend to build mostly health instead of resistances early game (face of the mountain + sighstone + boots of mobility/swiftness). This makes the resistances more effective.

I almost always do take swiftness on junglers though, since they usually can build more resitances if they need them, while tenacity is less effective from items since the merc treads nerf.