Why are boots so necessary on champs who dont seem to need them?

Savva·3/23/2018, 7:21:01 PM·2 votes·1,748 views

If you play champion who is essentially a glass cannon but also has high mobility based on skills, then why would you build boots? Especially in this meta where carries and assassins seem to burst or get bursted.

Example: When I play Draven I aim to chunk the enemy carry (assuming the tanks are not the problem) and often my W is enough to catch up to them. When it comes to running away, its all about position for Draven. If Draven is caught out, then boots wont really save him.

Another Example is Zoe: I dont play Zoe myself but she seems to always be a stay back champion and whenever she gets caught it wouldn't be a situation where boots would save her, so why do Zoe players always get boots?

Just want to hear thoughts and examples. Hopefully, some statistics behind why its useful rather than mindless "Well MS is required because it helps you run faster".

13 Comments

nm10103/23/2018, 7:30:41 PM3 votes

You literally get everywhere faster throughout the entire game for having boots. Without them you are rotating slower, getting to lane slower, repositioning slower, etc.

Oh and they are some of the most cost effective items in the game, so they are worth more than their cost in stats given.

ZaneShadow3/23/2018, 7:26:46 PM1 votes

Eh, it comes to crowd control. If they hit you with it, you might still be able to catch/escape them with some ally help and/or the combination of mobility abilities AND boots. On the reverse, if your ally hits them with it, it becomes significantly easier tonget into position using mobility ability and then stay there by using the boots you purchased.

Does that answer it? Also, I get a kick out of writing mobility ability for some reason:)

NocturnalSheild3/23/2018, 7:27:37 PM1 votes

Well MS is required because it helps you run faster"

Ya answered it already.

Boots give 40-50+ ms once you start adding in the % items. Its simply too much not to get.

Meowgin3/23/2018, 7:50:33 PM1 votes

You can read lol fanwikia articles about boots, champs, strategies etc. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Berserker%27s_Greaves In short, each boots are different, and some of them add some valuable stats other than just passive movement.

For example, Draven's Berserker's Greaves item 3006 (if this his boots, I don't play him) add +35% attack speed. Lee Sin's Mercury's Treads item 3111 add +25 magic resistance, Ryze's Ionian Boots of Lucidity item 3158 ------ +10% cooldown reduction, Lux's Sorcerer's Shoes item 3020 ------- +18 magic penetration and so on.

Azadethe3/23/2018, 8:05:49 PM1 votes

I'm someone who often doesn't use boots, but I can tell you this: WIthout boots, Draven's slow/displacement isn't enough to escape. WIth boots, it is.

The same applies for Zoe. If she has boots, her sleep will allow her to get away.

But there's a far more important reason to have boots:

To be exposed to more fights. Having ~ 400 move speed in a 500 move speed game is VERY bad, because every time you recall, your team will be prone to start fights before you arrive, and you will get to cs waves slower.

The main exceptions to the move speed rules are champions like Nami or MissFortune who add flat amounts of move speed to themselves (and possibly others) in large amounts. However, even is prone to throwing a game without boots, because often, her E isn't enough to get away if her W is down, and she's recently been "in combat." With boots, her slow is enough to get away to start proccing her W again.

Nami on the other hand has a dominant cc presence, that can stun chasers, and her best builds give her and her allies +120-150 base move speed every time she self skills. Coupled with items like item 3504 item 2065 item 3907 , she can pretty much get intermittent 600-700 move speed wihout shoes.

You can do the same with champs like Sona or Janna , but the key difference is: They give % based move speed, so adding boots to the equation make them even faster by raising the base move speed, so if you don't want to start a game with 0/6 Sona just to provide her agency.

I even get boots sometimes on Nami , simply because the other team is going to be an AP nuke team with CC, and I need item 3111 . Or if they are assassins based on auto attacks like Zed , item 3047 helps a ton at keeping my deaths low and possibly wasting their ults.

FYI: I average 61% Kill participation rates. That means.... generally I am exceptional about getting around the map and into the fights all over it. Sometimes that's because of things like item 3117

(Boots are the only defense to a Nasus btw)

BobaFlautist3/23/2018, 8:09:44 PM1 votes

One thing to keep in mind: most movespeed buffs are %, boots are flat. Boots make your other movespeed skills significantly more effective.

So Draven W will actually scale with any boots he buys.