Staff of Flowing Water

In the past, Staff's unique effect granted ability haste, and then we changed that to move speed, and then we removed the move speed. We are re-adding the ability haste, as we believe only granting ability power has made the item too narrow and granting move speed made it too generic.

It's important that shield and heal based buffs last long enough so that they can be strong on many supports, not just ones with short cooldowns like Sona. We're lightly buffing Staff of Flowing Water to have the same 6 second buff duration as Ardent Censer so that it's better on enchanters with longer cooldowns.

Staff of Flowing Water will always be niche: After all, it's there to make AP carries stronger and there just aren't that many in bot lane. You can certainly buy it later as well and simply buff Viktor mid or something, but plenty of players skip over that. The nice thing is that many enchanter items have been made cheaper, so the ability to opt into Staff second is a bit more available. Anyways, the point of this change is to remove dangling move speed that was generally hard to appreciate and instead play up its primary purpose, which is to raise Karthus Bot's win rate. It's not 60% yet, but you can do it, Nami!

Like Ardent Censer, we’re putting more power into the passive and adding movement speed so that it’s easier to keep up with the teammates you’ll be supporting.

Staff of Flowing Water’s 11.8 nerf left it in a weak state in comparison to its competitors, and it could use some oomph. We’re putting power into its shared AP buff to ensure that it’s succeeding in situations where it’s the right item for the job (you know, when you actually have a strong AP teammate to buff).

Staff of Flowing Water added to League of Legends

Buff spellcasters