How does League of Legends' previous CDR system compare with current ability haste?

Modified Dec 08, 2020 03:29 GMT

League of Legends recently saw a complete overhaul in its item store, transforming the game drastically.

Starting from the item shop UI change and new class items — mythic items have made their way into the game — several new core mechanics have been re-introduced. Cooldown reduction was one of the most crucial elements, replaced by ability haste in the PC and Wild Rift versions.

This change has been made to make the scaling of this cooldown reduction more linear and rewarding for players.

What is the new ability haste, and how does it compare with cooldown reduction in League of Legends?

For those unaware, cooldown reduction is a statistic found in several items to help players lower the cooldown of their abilities in League of Legends. Numerous champions like Wukong, Ryze, and Thresh love to build items with this stat and enjoy lower CDs and use their abilities more often.

But after this cooldown reduction was converted to ability haste, many gamers are terrified that the statistic is uncapped, and players can have significantly less cooldown on abilities.

However, with the help of some good old mathematics, a Redditor named johnvenz16 has showcased that the new mechanic-ability haste is not at all overpowered.

He has devised a formula comparing the scaling of the old cooldown reduction statistic and the newest ability haste. After analyzing the values, the new statistic provides a more linear approach to the CDR scaling component in-game. Players require an absurd amount of ability haste to gain a high cooldown reduction of their abilities.

As a result, the uncapped ability haste wouldn't be an issue. Moreover, as the new statistic is scaled linearly, it is straightforward to know the percentage of CDR in the game and use that information to buy new items.

The Redditor also confirmed that the highest ability haste per build would be between 100 to 150, with a compromise on many items. If players strictly focus on building high-ability haste items, they might do less damage altogether than an average build in League of Legends.