With the beginning of season 3 Riot made a great deal of changes to the items in League of Legends. The introduction of a great variety of new items and changes or removals of the current items were all geared toward a few key objectives, foremost being stale and rote itemizations that had developed for certain champions and roles. The intention was to make shopping another dynamic element of game, increasing the need for strategic purchasing decisions and adding variety to both builds and play styles.

This transition was far from perfect, as many players who experienced the rise and fall of the League of Black Cleaver and Warmogs can attest. Despite this, Riot definitely accomplished their goal. While certain items can be considered “necessary” or synergize well with certain character kits, a greater variety of items can now be used to conform to either individual play style or the fine art of counter-itemization.

While I think most people can agree that the transition was a great success, there are a few items that still see little use. Whether these have been looked over by a somewhat fickle player base, their unique mechanics still only pose a niche benefit, or they simply need a buff to see some use (Riot pls) presents a unique opportunity for discussion.

At its core, every aspect of League of Legends is an extremely strategic game from champion select to watching that Nexus explode. Although Runes and Masteries play a vital role, they are set once the game starts. How you spend your gold and choose to itemize your champion in response to the enemy teams play styles and strategies becomes a vital skill in making sure that the announcer isn’t shouting “defeat”.

With this in mind, I’m planning a multi-part series that seeks to discuss the merits, flaws, and strategies for some of the less used items in the League. In this first part, I’m going to analyze the Executioners Calling.

AD carries saw quite possibly the largest change in the beginning of season 3. Of all of the roles, theirs was likely the most stagnant and saw the most diversity resulting from the change. Before, differences involved little more than the necessity of tanky items if your team had insufficient peel or whether or not your champion could benefit from Trinity Force. Now we are seeing Miss Fortunes built as a hybrid AD carry/caster, front sustained damage builds vs front loaded harassment builds, and oddities like the infamous blue build.

Despite this, AD carries still represent an important role for their team. Applying large amounts of persistent damage to the enemy team. Ultimately the role is meant to eliminate priority targets on the other team and clean up the what’s left of the fight once everyone else has wasted all of their cooldowns or run out of mana. With this in mind, itemizing for damage is king. Since much of this damage will come in the form of auto attacks you will want high AD items for hard attacks as well as attack speed items to throw out more of those hard hits.

It is for this reason that I believe the Executioners Calling has been overlooked. Providing only a humble 25 AD and 20% crit chance, it doesn’t provide the same huge stat bonuses most endgame items do. At only 1900 gold, however, its values alone exceed its cost. The value is made even more efficient given that it builds from the most effective gold farming item in the game, Avarice Blade. The most important element, however, is Executioners Callings passive, Grievous Wounds.

Season 3 has brought about changes that have caused a massive rise in early game aggression. This has likely caused the increase in frequency with which ADCs pick up cleanse and barrier over ignite. Although ignite greatly increases kill potential, it also exposes the ADC to whatever burst or CC their team can’t protect them from. The idea is that continued survival equates to a greater amount of total damage. Although the true damage from ignite is tempting, late game ADC are able to generate a great deal more damage. This is an excellent trade off for Miss Fortune, Tristana, and Varus, who all have abilities that cause GW, but can pose problems for other AD carries facing enemies with healing effects.

Thanks in large to Diamondprox of Gambit Gaming, Volibear and Nasus have seen a huge increase in their amount of play in the jungle. In addition to each bringing powerful initiation and CC to the table, both have something in common. They can both heal tons of damage.

This is where Executioners Calling really shines. To see why, we can look at some math. I’m going to focus on some endgame values to dispel any illusions that Executioners Calling may not be an endgame item.

A very common jungle pick in season 3. Volibears passive makes him immensely hard to kill even in the early game.

Volibear at level 18 with a tanky build can expect to have around 4000 health and 200 armor. His passive heals 30% of his health over 6 seconds. Once his passive begins, this equates to a 1200 total heal or 200 health per second. If Voli has a Spirit Visage, this baloons to about 1440t/240ps.

Assuming you can keep GW on Voli for the duration then his heal is cut in half. Since this directly prevents healing and bypasses any of Volibears defensive values, this is the equivalent of inflicting 600 true damage over 6 seconds or 100 true damage a second. I call this Effective True Damage (ETD).

Starting to sound pretty good? Lets look at a few more examples.

Not as common as some of these other picks but a real monster when he reaches mid/late game. Mundo is the poster boy for unkillable tanks. Mundos ultimate heals 60% of his maximum health over 12 seconds. At 4k health that equates to 2400t/200ps. With GW thats 1200ETD/100ps.

With the 3.8 patch Nunu has likely become the strongest jungler in the game. His consume does more true damage at level 1 than smite and lets him easily steal enemy buffs, along with the massive amount of experience they now provide.

Nunus Consume at rank 5 inflicts 1000 true damage and heals 250 health +75% AP. For maximum effects, lets say it is an AP Nunu mid with 500AP and 20% spellvamp. 250+500(.75)+1000(.2)=825 healed. GW causes 412 ETD.

A less common pick, Soraka is rare to appear even in solo queue. Scaling very well off levels, she is the only support that can truly exert global pressure by turning ganks in any lane while contining to support her AD carry.

Soraka support with summoner heal is capable of giving an ADC quite a bit of sustain. Even assuming she has 0 AP at level 18 her Astral Blessing heals 350 base and Wish heals 440, along with a 345 heal from her summoner. 350+440+345=1135 extra health you have to burn through in a duel.

GW provides a 567 ETD burst the moment she uses her heals on them.

These are the more simple values to calculate but reading through champion abilities reveals a lot of subtle utility Executioners Calling brings against mids with spellvamp like Swain, Morgana, and Ahri. It almost always helps to take down massively farmed enemy ADCs who have been stacking lifesteal. It even reduces the effectiveness of an enemy teams Baron Buff.

Perhaps greatest among Executioners Callings advantages there is little a team can do to itemize against this effect. Traditional methods of stacking armor to prevent damage, which can be offset with a Last Whisper, are instead ignored. The purchase of Spirit Visage to maximize sustain effects provides a proportional increase in power from GW. Even items that slow attack speed such as Wardens Mail do nothing to prevent the GW effect so long as the ADC can perform one auto attack per second to refresh the effect.

Obviously, this item isn’t best in every situation. If the enemy team doesn’t have any champions with healing or regeneration abilities and they aren’t building lifesteal or spellvamp then Executioners Calling has considerably less effect. Additionally, if fights are extremely fast or your team is ahead, then you may get more out of building flat damage to end fights before sustaining effects can become a factor.

If, in the fields of justice, you find yourself up against an unkillable tank, a mage or ADC who sustains themselves up faster than you can kill them, or an annoying healing tank like Soraka; I hope you remember the humble Executioners Calling.