Power creep through items - cdr and mana regen

A lot has been made about power creep in newer kits that have a lot of extra stats. A lot has been made about mobility in these new kits. I'm going to skip those for this topic.

An issue I've seen over the years is that something like cdr used to take item sacrifices to reach the 40% cap. You would have to get some edge item like the old Nashor's Tooth to get there. Mana regen was in a similar boat. Chalice used to have no build path beyond it. Therefore, to get the bonus you had to sacrifice a slot on a low tier item and just sell it end game.

As seasons went by, both stats became far easier to itemize for. 10% cdr at least feels like it's built into half the items in the game. Mana regen has one of two catch all items (which also add cdr I might add) where you just need to build either and forget about them.

What this led to was older champs occasionally becoming powerful as they were designed in an era when those stats didn't automatically come with their builds. In S3, was one who benefited from these changes as she used to have to sacrifice to reach the cdr cap and have mana regen to support herself.

More recently, has been a huge beneficiary of new items that give him cdr and mana sustain, along with damage on top of it.

When these cases bubble up, it doesn't mean that older champs have no issues competing with newer ones as people have cited. These cases are largely edge cases that can always be attributable to changes in the global game that impact them far better than newer predecessors who aren't as reliant on mana regen and cdr. The thing is that these outcomes are fairly predictable. It feels like not enough thought is put into how it impacts older champs when items are changed and you get an imbalance that didn't used to exist because the item and champ aren't patched at the same time. Riot ends up playing catch up when they really don't have to.