Does Item Haste Work on Passive Cooldowns? A Comprehensive Guide
Yes, item haste absolutely works on passive cooldowns in League of Legends. This often-overlooked mechanic can significantly impact gameplay by reducing the recharge times of item passives, leading to more frequent activations and enhanced effectiveness. Understanding how item haste interacts with both active and passive item effects is crucial for optimizing your build and playstyle. This article dives deep into the specifics of item haste, exploring its applications, limitations, and common questions players have.
Item Haste: The Basics
What is Item Haste?
Item haste is a stat that reduces the cooldown of item abilities – both actives and passives. It functions independently of ability haste, which affects champion abilities. Item haste is primarily acquired through specific items and runes, such as the Ingenious Hunter rune. It stacks additively, meaning that each additional source of item haste contributes directly to the overall reduction, but also subject to diminishing returns.
How Does it Work?
The effect of item haste is straightforward: it reduces the time it takes for an item’s effect, be it an active or a passive, to become usable again. This applies to a wide range of item effects, from the spellblade passives of items like Trinity Force, Divine Sunderer, and Essence Reaver, to the shielding passive of Sterak’s Gage and the invulnerability of Guardian Angel. By stacking item haste, you can potentially use these powerful effects more often, granting a considerable advantage in both skirmishes and large-scale team fights.
Passive Cooldowns and Item Haste
The Impact of Item Haste on Passives
Many items possess powerful passive effects that operate on a cooldown basis. These can significantly boost a champion’s damage, sustain, or defensive capabilities, but their effectiveness is limited by their recharge times. Item haste reduces the cooldowns of all such items, allowing for more frequent use of critical passive benefits.
Examples of Item Passives Affected by Haste:
- Spellblade passives (Trinity Force, Divine Sunderer, Essence Reaver): The burst damage from these on-hit effects is significantly boosted by reduced cooldowns, particularly for champions who weave in auto attacks between ability casts.
- Sterak’s Gage: The shield passive becomes available more often, improving survivability.
- Guardian Angel: The resurrection passive has its cooldown reduced, granting more opportunities to take risks.
- Edge of Night: The spell shield passive is available more frequently.
- Luden’s Echo: The magic damage passive triggers more often, contributing to increased overall damage output.
- Night Harvester: The burst damage passive has its cooldown reduced per unique enemy champion, allowing for more frequent damage spikes.
- Moonstone Renewer: The heal and shield power increase will proc more often and therefore stack faster.
Why Is This Important?
Understanding that item haste affects both active and passive cooldowns is crucial for several reasons. It allows players to:
- Optimize Builds: Players can create builds that focus on stacking item haste to maximize the uptime of crucial item effects.
- Enhance Playstyles: By reducing passive cooldowns, champions can more frequently leverage key item passives to fit their playstyle.
- Outplay Opponents: The reduced cooldowns can create opportunities for more frequent, unexpected power spikes, allowing for outplays.
- Gain a Competitive Edge: Utilizing item haste effectively grants a significant advantage over players that don’t optimize for it.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Does item haste work on trinkets?
Yes, item haste reduces the cooldowns of trinkets. Since trinkets are categorized as active items, they are also affected by item haste.
2. Are passives affected by ability haste?
No, passives are not directly affected by ability haste. Ability haste only affects champion ability cooldowns, whereas item haste specifically affects item cooldowns.
3. Does item haste apply to Luden’s Echo?
Yes, item haste directly applies to Luden’s Echo’s passive cooldown, reducing the time between bursts of magic damage.
4. Does ability haste apply to items?
No, ability haste does not apply to items. Only item haste affects item cooldowns. You can gain ability haste from items, runes, and the Blue Buff.
5. Does item haste work on Divine Sunderer?
Absolutely, item haste reduces the cooldown of the Spellblade passive on Divine Sunderer.
6. Does item haste work with Night Harvester?
Yes, item haste works with Night Harvester, reducing the cooldown of its damage passive.
7. Does item haste apply to Sheen?
Yes, item haste applies to Sheen and all items that are based on it, such as Trinity Force, Divine Sunderer, and Essence Reaver.
8. Does item haste affect Moonstone Renewer?
Yes, item haste affects Moonstone Renewer, increasing its rate of proccing the heal and shield power.
9. Can you get 100% ability haste?
No, it is impossible to reach 100% cooldown reduction due to the way the formula works. Values beyond ~100 ability haste provide less benefit, with a practical upper limit of around 50% cooldown reduction.
10. Does item haste work on Edge of Night?
Yes, item haste reduces the cooldown of Edge of Night’s spell shield passive.
11. Does the “Break” status disable item passives?
No, the “Break” status effect disables most passive champion abilities, but it does not disable item passives or talents.
12. Does cosmic insight work on Essence Reaver?
While Cosmic Insight offers a small amount of item haste, Ingenious Hunter is significantly more impactful. Cosmic Insight is generally considered ineffective for Essence Reaver compared to Ingenious Hunter.
13. Can you have 2 Spellblade items?
Yes, you can purchase multiple Spellblade items, but their passives will share a cooldown. Upon using an ability and attacking, all spellblade passives will be put on cooldown.
14. Is Trinity Force a mythic?
Yes, Trinity Force is a Mythic item which provides a variety of stats and passives suitable for many champions.
15. Is Night Harvester better than Luden’s Echo?
The choice between Night Harvester and Luden’s Echo depends on the situation. Night Harvester excels in providing burst damage, while Luden’s Echo has better scaling with ability power, a longer move speed passive, and a shorter cooldown. The best choice depends on the playstyle and champion you are using.
Conclusion
Item haste is a powerful, albeit frequently misunderstood, stat that can dramatically improve item effectiveness, particularly for passives. Mastering its application and its impact on passive item effects is essential for players looking to optimize their builds and gain an edge in League of Legends. By understanding how item haste works, players can maximize their potential by using items more frequently and in conjunction with their champion playstyles.