So with S14 approaching and people testing out items on the PBE (myself included), I’ve seen the sentiment quite a few times that the items have major problems because you’re not playing a champion, your items are doing all the work for you and your abilities don’t matter. I don’t think that’s true really, in most cases, but setting that aside.

Why is that a problem? Why is it a bad thing to have impactful items? Why can’t items be more than stat sticks?

I really like items like Zhonya’s, Hextech Rocketbelt, Galeforce because they are more than stat sticks. They give you something that creates an extra layer or interesting play in some regard.

I understand that there are balancing concerns, especially when items give powerful slows or dashes (even just short ranged ones). But I think that can always be balanced around and tuned.

I also say this as someone that plays Dota alongside League regularly. A big strength of Dota, imo, is that items are just a lot more interesting.

• Eul’s. Mana, mana regen, movespeed. Activate it on an allied or enemy hero to dispel debuffs and effectively stasis them for 3 seconds.
• Heaven’s Halberd. HP, evasion %. Activate it to disarm a target enemy hero for 5 seconds, rendering them unable to autoattack during that time.
• Black King Bar. HP, damage. Activate it to become debuff immune, rendering you immune to most disabling effects and reduce all magic damage taken by 50% for a few seconds, duration lowering as you use it.
• Solar Locket. Stats, armor. Activate it on an enemy hero to reduce their attack speed and armor for a few seconds. Activate it on an allied hero to increase their attack speed and armor. Activation removes the +armor until the buff/debuff wears off.
• Scythe of Vyse. Mana (a lot), mana regen, some stats. Activate to hex a target enemy hero, turning them into a chicken for 3 seconds making them unable to cast spells and use items and greatly reduce their movement speed.
• Force Staff. Mana, bit of HP. Activate it to force a target allied or enemy hero in the direction they’re currently facing by 600 units.
• Hurricane Pike (builds from Force Staff). Attack range, damage, agility. Activate it to push yourself and target enemy hero away from each other and gain 4 quick attacks that ignore attack range restrictions against that hero.
• Harpoon. Damage, mana, bit of attack speed, bit of HP. Activate to pull yourself to melee range of the target enemy hero.
• Ghost Scepter. Activate to turn yourself ethereal, disarming you but also making it unable to be attacked while increasing the magic damage you take.

There’s plenty of items I could go on for, but hopefully my point gets across. Granted, a majority of Dota’s items with interesting actives are more supportive in nature, but not all of them. And they always add an extra layer of strategical and tactical depth to the game that makes it more interesting to play.

What’s wrong with having interesting passives or actives? I know Riot has mentioned not wanting to design that way, which fine, it’s their game so fair enough. Wants champion power to be the most relevant. But why do players not want interesting items?