League of Legends is pretty notorious for making changes to its items during its annual preseason, and this year, players are holding their breath waiting for one of the game’s latest additions to the shop to get removed.
Statikk Shiv, an item that was re-added to the game after a two-year absence, is likely to be a candidate for removal next season, players believe. In a post to the League subreddit earlier today, players theorized that Statikk Shiv could be getting deleted from the game if its slippery slope of nerfs continue on their current track.
“They keep nerfing the only, and I mean ONLY reason people buy that item, which is its wave clear,” a Reddit user said in their post. “So when people stop buying the item because it’s no longer good at wave clear, Riot will remove it.”
Statikk Shiv had not been in League’s item shop for over two years, as it was deleted from the game in 2020 after being a staple item since its inception. It was reworked earlier this season upon its re-addition in order to emphasize magic damage and wave clear, with its trademark “Electroshock” passive dealing bonus AP damage, and its damage against minions scaling with AP, as well. This change made Statikk Shiv a must-buy for AP champions, as well as certain hybrid AD carries, and for a brief moment, it was one of the most overpowered items in League.
Since its re-addtion in Patch 13.10, though, Statikk Shiv has been nerfed immensely, with its ability power ratios and minion damage bonuses getting hamstrung by Riot in multiple patches since. Its 50 percent AP ratio has been reduced to 15 percent, while the AP scaling on minion damage has been removed completely. In Patch 13.18, the item will have its minion damage reduced from 250-350 to 200.
“People dont want to admit that bringing back Shiv was a mistake,” a Reddit user named TheCyrax1337 said in the comment section of the post.
In the past, Riot has removed items that were viewed as flops and lost resonance with the community after a series of nerfs. Items like Banner of Command, Feral Flare, and others all had their 15 minutes of fame before Riot nerfed them to a point of extinction, and it’s possible that Statikk Shiv meets a similar fate.
