Starting Support Items No Longer Available for Non-Support Champions in League of Legends Patch 8.5
In the latest PBE update, it has been announced that starting support items such as the Relic Shield, Ancient Coin, and Spellthief’s Edge will no longer be functional for non-support champions in Patch 8.5.
Support items in League of Legends were initially designed to provide a slight boost in income to support players, who typically generate less gold. The idea behind these items was to help supports afford the necessary items to effectively save their team and make impactful plays.
However, these support items have been misused by other roles, particularly to secure a steady stream of income even when falling behind or to snowball a gold advantage. Examples of this abuse include Gangplank utilizing the Relic Shield strategy and junglers like Elise and Evelynn using Spellthief’s Edge to enhance their ganks while maintaining a consistent gold flow. Marksmen also began purchasing Relic Shields due to the safety and sustainability it provided in lane.
Starting from Patch 8.5, any minion or monster kill will temporarily halt all gold generation from these items for 12 seconds. The only exception is Relic Shield, which will cease gold generation if a minion or monster is killed without an ally nearby to take the charge. This includes both the passive abilities and the gold per second income of each item.
As a result of these changes, junglers will no longer receive the small on-hit damage boost when ganking with Spellthief’s Edge. They will be required to wait 12 seconds between farming and ganking.
These adjustments are expected to be implemented with the patch release on March 7, following the standard schedule.
League of Legends, starting support items, non-support champions, Patch 8.5, Relic Shield, Ancient Coin, Spellthief’s Edge, gold generation, support players, gold abuse, Gangplank, Elise, Evelynn, junglers, marksmen, minion kills, monster kills, passive abilities, gold per second, ganking, adjustments, March 7