Riot Games has detailed some of the improvements coming to League Patch 12.6. And when it comes to items, several of the game’s most efficient lifesteal items are expected to be heavily nerfed
Riot intends to make it more difficult for players to recover themselves with lifesteal in the coming days, making the playstyle harder to sustain—an effort that will begin with a storm of nerfs in Patch 12.6.
The most noticeable lifesteal item to be nerfed in Patch 12.6 will probably be the Mythic item Immortal Shieldbow, which lifesteal effect will be lowered from 10% to 8% in the next patch. To compensate, the item’s passive will grant greater max HP and its shield bonus will be raised by 50 health in the late game. Bloodward, the Ornn-enhanced variant of Shieldbow, has likewise had its lifesteal benefit decreased from 12% to 10%.
Similar to Immortal Shieldbow, additional lifesteal-focused items like Blade of the Ruined King and Vampiric Scepter will have their lifesteal bonuses lowered by 2%, from 10% to 8%. Except that these are straight-up nerfs to these two items, with no compensating benefit.
The healing effect of the keystone Fleet Footwork, which is essentially another version of lifesteal, is also being nerfed in order to minimize the amount of sustain that champions receive both throughout the laning phase and in the late game. Fleet Footwork’s scaling will be lowered by 10% for both base AD and AP damage types, from 40% bAD and 30% AP to 30% bAD and 20% AP.
Legend: Bloodline will also be nerfed down to 4% Lifesteal per stack (Max 6%), and it will include a new effect which will increase your max Health to 100 if reach max Legend Stacks.
Players should see fewer Lifesteal items in their games as Patch 12.6 will go live on March 30, according to the game’s official patch schedule.