Though the item system can help a lot when it comes to build variety and strategizing, I think it has problems. They get reworked through the year and at the end of each year, so a lot of people already know how problematic they can be.

There are tons of champions around who build literally the exact same thing as well. They might change an item or two depending on the circumstance, but it just ends up being the same build essentially.

There are also champions who you look at and say, “I don’t have any good items to buy right now,” both while playing them and against them. For example, we all know that there were times when there weren’t any good MR items or there were items that were simply too good that your champion was invalidated by 1000 gold.

So… why don’t we remove it? I don’t know how many of you played HOTS, but it was a rather fun game. A lot of people complained that the more “team-based” part of it made it not competitive enough and therefore not fun, but we aren’t going to talk about that. Also, a side note: I didn’t get to play HOTS for years or something. I just played it for a good amount of time.

Anyways, I had three fascinations with HOTS; one of those was “talents.” Essentially, the game made you pick from usually 2 or 3 talents at each level. I can’t remember the exact numbers, though.

These talents had several categories, essentially

1. Talents that changed your abilities and how they work. usually buffing them in one way or another.

2. Talents that gave you extra abilities. Think of summoner spells.

3. Talents that gave you just different passives, and so on.

4. Your ultimate ability. Every hero had to choose one of two ultimate abilities.

These talents sometimes came with quests too. Think about the augments with quests we have in Arena in PBE right now.

For example, here are some talents of Ragnaros.

His starting talents were

https://imgur.com/a/loTqLed

And here are some others, such as Ultimate or other buffs.

https://imgur.com/a/e35yM6z

Now, what does this system have over items?

1. They are personalized for every character, meaning that “buffing or nerfing this item will cause some characters to lose a lot of playability” isn’t going to be a thing.

2. Unlike items, which just grant stats half the time, these are generally more engaging. granting actual things you can see and feel.

3. This is going to mostly remove the need to make characters fit into the item archetypes for the design team.

And what does the item system have over the talents?

Well, the main thing with the item system is, honestly, the “strategy” part and the extreme flexibility in some cases. It isn’t the most common thing, but sometimes there ends up being a time where a character builds something that they shouldn’t and does well.

Another thing is the whole strategy part. building certain items against certain competitors or champions. Rushing a certain boot or maybe one of the grievous wound items This would essentially be all removed, making the game more focused on what you can make with your champion and your talents against the enemies instead of how you can build to minimize your weakness against them.

This is a bit of a give-or-take, but honestly, after playing league for so long, I wanted to just have a way of removing the items and runes and just focusing on the champion. I mean, I find it relieving that I don’t need to pick runes while playing Arena right now.

The talent system also has problems, of course, but I think it would be generally more fun and easier to tweak.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Do you like items, or do you think we should go for something more personalized?