League of Legends: Top 5 Removed Items Riot Should Bring Back
By Josh Tyler
Here are five removed items that should come back to League of Legends.
2. Deathfire Grasp
Stats: 120 AP, 10% CDR
Build path: Fiendish Codex + Needlessly Large Rod
Total cost: 3000g
What it did: Deals 15% of the target champion’s maximum health in magic damage and increases all subsequent magic damage taken by the target by 20% for 4 seconds.
Why it should come back: This used to be the go-to item for burst mages like Leblanc, Ahri, and Syndra. It gave these champions the ability to basically one-shot any squishy carry, but it also gave them the ability to deal with tanks thanks to the max health damage.
Today, we don’t really have any items that do either of these exceptionally well. Haunting Guise has the percent max HP damage, but it does it over time, making it less ideal on those bursty champions and better on battle mages like Vladimir and Cassiopeia.
The high-burst fantasy has been shifted to Luden’s Echo and Hextech Gunblade, but neither item really packs the “oomph” that DFG once did. In fact, both items should really be more focused on their core identities, Luden’s being for AoE and waveclear, and Gunblade being for sustained healing.
What would have to change: I would make one critical change to DFG, and that is making it an active item. Basically, you would have to activate the item, then giving you a brief window (I would cut the 4 seconds it previously had to 2 seconds to start) where your next burst combo will do that amplified damage.
Making it an active item also could allow Riot to add a channel time so that players have to plan on using DFG in their fights, rather than just getting the extra burst out of nowhere. It would also make the item a bit fairer to play against because you can burst down the user before they press the active, or kite out the DFG’s window once activated.