History RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap / LeagueOfLegends

* '''Aatrox''' had a rough run since he was fully reworked into a completely different champion compared to it's previous iteration, which turns him into an AD Caster specializing in airborne knockups and drain tanking. This would have turned him into a proper lane bully, but the general consensus sees his kit as [[MasterOfNone rather unfocused and has no late game impact whatsoever]], kicking him far back into the low tier for some time. Then patch 9.9 happened, ironing out most of his previous design cruft by simplifying his drain-tanking capabilities and removing some unnecessary parts like the mutilator debuff or the bonus AD from dashes, all while amplifying his previously lower numbers. The result? Aatrox quickly dominates the battlefield and set himself as the safest first pick in any team composition. While he's still [[CripplingOverspecialization held back by the presence of grievous wounds that effectively crippled his drain tanking capabilities]], it wasn't enough to shut him down as he still remain highly positioned in the general top lane tier list. It takes multiple direct nerfs, the durability update in mid season 12, and indirect nerfs from his primary item that he finally got dethroned way back to mid-to-low tier, but even longtime players still churning a good chunk of his potential to this day.

* Also as a product from the Mid-Season 6 Mage Update,'''Malzahar''' was not only improved from being a fairly bog-standard caster mage into a much more versatile MinionMaster, but he has actually been salvaged by ''professional'' players. While he was functional before his rework, he was considered pretty boring and uninteresting to play, especially to professionals [[OvershadowedByAwesome who preferred more specialized picks for their compositions,]] with his main uniqueness factor being his infamous ultimate, [[AwesomeButImpractical which while it has a powerful suppression, had a few weaknesses that didn't warrant that much interest.]] Post-rework, he was revamped to be a more consistently harassing MinionMaster mage, and even after being repeatedly nerfed after [[GameBreaker his infamous launch where he was so powerful he required a hotfix]], he still became a pick/ban subject throughout the entire season even up to Worlds, and may continue to be a viable professional pick in the future. Hell, since he finally had better reason to be played, his ultimate was bumped up from being AwesomeButImpractical to a power-move ''that could decide games.''

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[[folder:Champions]]

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[[folder:Items]]
* The humble '''Death's Dance''' was a pretty impractical damaging + sustain hybrid weapon that's considered way too costy even in the most optimal build, as it doesn't grant any stat other than attack damage and small cooldown reduction, especially since it's Ignore Pain passive is too wonky to use with its all-out offensive statline and then now-known-as Omnivamp effect wasn't worth the price. Even after several buffs, DD is seen as niche item at best, usually bought for fourth or fifth item by champions like Riven. Come Patch 10.6, the item was reworked into a proper bruiser item that replaces the Pickaxe with Aegis of the Legion, which grant the item a decent defensive stat and shows the Ignore Pain power as a easy second purchase to a lot of bruisers in the game at a cost of less damaging power. DD was later reworked into a purely AD centric bruiser item that removes its MR stat along with the item shop rework in Season 11, where it's Omnivamp-like stat were removed after the term was introduced and implemented into the game to several items and champion skills, but it was given a new passive; Defy, which replenishes the user's health based on a percentage of user's max HP upon takedown. It singlehandedly becomes a must buy for Bruisers season 11 onwards. It takes several nerfs to downplay it's power play across all ranks, but nevertheless it's still a powerful second buy for all AD-centric bruisers.
* '''Maw of Malmoritus''' is considered [[ScrappyWeapon an unfavorite]] among lifeline items as not only the shield can only protect you from magic damage, it only triggers when you 'hit' by magic damage, and the amount of shield you get is based on your max HP, the stat that doesn't even supplemented by the item, and essentially forces you to build health items to make the best out of it, especially frustrating if you're not a tank. It's generally seen as inferior to Sterak's as it triggers and protects you from all kinds of damage (including true damage) and having the stat that actually synergizes with the passive. Worse yet, the Lifegrip passive, the only reason why people picking the item in the first place, was removed in the Item Shop rework, which also makes the Lifeline passive an unique property that prevents user from buying other lifeline items. It doesn't help that the ideal counters for this item (like Gwen and Mordekaiser) is way too powerful for the shield passive, killing the item's viability from the start. Patches after patches tried to salvage the item to viability, if not putting them back into the meta, like buffing it's shield power and making it cheaper, but the update that salvages it to viability is on patch 12.3, which not only return it's Lifegrip passive back (albeit weakened only giving extra omnivamp for a short period of time), but it also makes it scale based on your bonus AD instead of max health. Combined with the relatively decent stat and low price point compared to the other lifeline items like Sterak's or the ever strong Shieldbow, it becomes a viable alternative when fighting against mages and AP bruisers, if not a powerhouse against magic damage.
* Even after the item shop rework in Season 11 that makes buying Tiamat much easier and replaces the lifesteal with the more powerful Omnivamp, '''Ravenous Hydra''' is seen as lacking compared to it's Titanic counterpart. The reason being a stat-stick that doesn't contribute much outside of minor waveclear and the sustain that isn't worth the price. Titanic on the other hand grants massive bulk, sync with every other tank items with health, and the item components are way cheaper than Ravenous', allowing you to benefit from it before completing the item. Patch 12.22 buffed it by readjusting its stats and adding a snowballing mechanic, where you will gain extra AD and Omnivamp stack per minion kills (doubles for large monsters, champions, and large minions) at a cost of losing 50% of the stacks at death. The buff alone managed to turn the previously mediocre item into a nigh unstoppable snowballing machine, with many champs even assassins starts using it. It's so powerful that i was predictably nerfed in the next patch, removing the Omnivamp stacks, reducing the waveclear damage ratio, penalizes the stack loss on death even further by increasing the amount lost to 60%, and replacing the Omnivamp back to Lifesteal during the bruiser itemization update. The item is not as powerful as before, but still more welcomed than it's previous iteration.
* '''Spear of Shojin''' is a special case where the weapon itself is actually pretty bonkers when first released in Summoner's Rift at patch 9.3; it basically has the old Essence Reaver passive where upon activating your ultimate, you gain a special buff that gives you bonus attack speed and refund your other non-ultimate abilities on basic attack. This was alright (if not overtuned) in Essence Reaver since the stat it gives including the price point is generally too high and requires good investment since it gives you nothing but AD, Mana, and a decent chunk of cooldown reduction, something that most bruisers and marksman didn't need. However, Shojin gives you slightly lower AD, HP instead of MP, and buffed it's passive a bit, resulting in a weapon that's must buy for plenty of auto attack bruisers like Jax and Riven and turn them into highly stun-spamming murder machine. Needless to say, Riot decided it was too much and removed in at the end of Season 9. While the item itself has fans, the consensus is that the item itself is too powerful on it's previous incarnation, and constant tweaking and rework had to be done if they wanted to reintroduce the item. Eventually they re-added Shojin back into the game with a little tweak; the passive now has a scaling property that grants them extra ability haste based on how much AD you have instead, while also grantin the user extra movement speed when they're not at full health, which you can get the benefit right away as it maintains it's respectable base stats from the old Shojin with few tweaks. The item itself is far from the broken state of it's season 9 incarnation, but the community is much more welcoming to the item's inclusion, especially after season 13 nerfed a lot of bruiser itemizations by taking away a lot of ability haste and healing option from multiple items, like Death's Dance and Eclipse.
* Speaking of '''Navori Quickblades''', the item itself is a way from Riot to reintroduce Shojin old passive into more balanced state. It basically refunds your ''current'' basic ability cooldown if you score a critical hit, which you'll more likely to proc as a marksman since you're building crit items anyway. Thing is, the passive itself has a steep requirement of 60% required crit chances just for it to start functioning, which doesn't help as the stat it provides doesn't help the class it intends to provide help with, and buying it means [[AwesomeButImpractical you can't purchase Infinity Edge or Guinsoo Rageblade either as it belongs to the same item group]], two items that are essential in many mid-late game marksman composition. Champions that can cheat the requirement out like Yasuo and Yone doesn't need it's cooldown refunding passive as they have other ways to reduce their ability cooldown on top of not benefitting from it in any other meaningful way. The result? The item becomes so unpopular that only selective champions like Xayah, Lucian, and Tryndamere who builds it. Eventually the item was buffed along with other crit items in patch [=13.1b=], which lower the requirement to only needing 40% critical chance, making it a viable second purchase for the aforementioned three champions and a good supplementary item for marksman who doesn't need Infinity Edge's power... Maybe [[GoneHorriblyRight way too good]] because of the synergy with other items means that every other marksman now just straight up benefitted from the item more and quickly dominated that patch with little competition, the most deadly example being Xayah and Zeri.
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[[folder:Runes]]
* The previous Rune and Mastery system was met with controversial reception over the course of the years it's been in the game. For Rune system, many find the stat gain from it are rather minuscule for what they basically going to spend their Influence Points on, thanks to the constant nerfs it gets. The Mastery system were considered way too complicated to use even on it's latest incarnation and requires player to have at least level 30 to fully access a Keystone, not to mention several Masteries and Keystones are way more powerful and splashable than others.
* The '''Lethal Tempo''' Keystone is previously seen as underwhelming in comparison to other Precision Keystones, as the bonus it provides scales based on user's itemization and that small burst of AS is generally seen as weak and highly situational at best, with champions best using it would rather pick other Keystones like Press the Attack. Near the end of Season 11, the keystone were reworked into a mini-Jax passive that boost their attack speed and it stacks per basic attack hit, with at max stacks removes the user's AS cap and increases basic attack range, turning the keystone into the go-to sustain damage dealer and significantly turn several ADCs (and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Jax, and Yasuo]], and [[RuleOfThree Yone]], and [[OverlyLongGag Tryndamere, and Irelia]]) into an unstoppable killing machine when decently fed, and turn those melee sustain bruisers like shown above into monsters that can easily stat stick into every trade, even at early game. Needless to say, the Keystone receive constant nerfs to this day.
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