Before starting every new League season, the think tanks at Riot Games do a lot of brainstorming to improve the League experience as much as possible. This usually includes new items, new champions, and at times, new game modes as well.
Rarely though do we see such a significant change in how the game is to be played as before season 11 with the introduction (or re-introduction) of Omnivamp. Omnivamp may well prove to be a sea change in the way League has been played for so many years with a host of new items and the expected change in gameplay style for a wide variety of champions.
Riot has once again overhauled our favorite game, so to speak.
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What is Omnivamp?
To put it simply, Omnivamp is a healing stat that lets your champion heal when dealing damage. The type of damage doesn’t matter. The damage could be due to basic attacks, ability power, or true damage. For an area of effect damage, the Omnivamp stat is capped at 33%. For other types of damages, it stacks.
The best part is that there are multiple items that, when bought together, combine to add up the Omnivamp effect making your champion all but invincible during team fights. A 38.5% Omnivamp effect means that when you deal 1000 ability power damage, your champion will then heal for 385 Hp. If used the right way, this effect, when stacked, can turn the tide of any team fight. Tanks and fighters will be critical.
It’s essential to keep in mind that the Omnivamp effect applies after considering Armor and magic resistance etc. This means that your champion gets the amount of heal calculated for the damage taken that’s reduced by armor or magic resistance effects. Nevertheless, Omnivamp can prove to be a game-changer if you know how to play your champion right.
The patch notes for patch 10.23 define Omnivamp as follows:
“OMNIVAMP Heal from all sources and types of damage (still 33% effective for AoE and pet damage.”
Omnivamp vs Lifesteal and Spellvamp
The key difference between lifestyle and Omnivamp is that Omnivamp heals you when you take damage, but lifesteal heals you when you damage the enemy champions or minions with physical attacks, i.e., basic attacks. It goes without saying that Omnivamp won’t come into effect when you get hit by minions.
Omnivamp is different from Spellvamp in a similar way. Spell vamp heals you for a percentage of the damage you deal with your spells. It comes in handy with magic damage. So Spellvamp is basically lifesteal for magic damage. Spell vamp used to be part of the League of Legends game, but it was cut out midway through 2016. Lifesteal, as we know, is still there and helps squishy ADC’s build a lot of resilience, especially mid to late game.
Spell vamp may be brought back sometime in the future as the patch notes from Riot Games themselves say so for thepatch 10.23: “The big change here is that life steal now counts physical damage dealt by on-hit effects-since the idea is to heal from your attacks, it’s more understandable if we include the whole attack. “
The other note is the addition of “physical vamp,” (which currently exists just on Sanguine Blade) so its sustain can apply to assassins’ abilities too. If you’re curious whether that means we’ll eventually bring back spell vamp, the answer is “maybe!”
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Omnivamp in the Jungle:
Omnivamp was introduced initially to help a few Jungle champions who didn’t already have a way to sustain their HP early in the game. The Hail Blade is part of the standard Jungle starter pack now after patch 10.23 has a 12% Omnivamp against monsters.
Ember Knife also has 12% Omnivamp against Monsters. The key here is to help junglers not get executed in the Jungle camp and put Junglers on a somewhat level playing field as the other four players on the team.
If you are a Fiddlesticks fiddling through the Jungle, the Omnivamp effect will further help you heal while you suck away that life from monsters in the Jungle. Otherwise, it’ll help you stay alive long enough to build other items for sustaining HP in combat.
Champions that can make the most out of Omnivamp
With any new defensive item, the most obvious winners are tanks, first of all. Patch 10.23 represents an item overhaul in League of Legends. Some new items have been introduced that have the Omnivamp stat, and a few old ones (such as Ravenous Hydra) have been modified to include the Omnivamp effect.
It’s not hard to imagine Darius swinging his axe around in team fights and gaining a good chunk of his health back when enemies try to attack him. Vladimir is a champ that could make excellent use of Omnivamp stacks as he Transfuses his way back to full health in the laning phase as well as team fights.
Fighters can probably impact teamfights or in 1v1 combats with the Omnivamp effect stacked up coupled with other healing effects such as lifesteal and physical vamp. Physical vamp is the same as Omnivamp but for physical attacks. In other words, you heal for damage taken via basic attacks. The Umbral Dash of Atrox, in combination with the Omnivamp stat, can also be put to good use to sustain HP while in combat.
AP Assassins such as Akali can probably make life difficult during the laning phase thanks to the Omnivamp stat. As with League of Legends more generally, the key to any successful fight, Omnivamp or no Omnivamp, is positioning and timing.
Usually, you want your tanks to stand closer to the enemy in team fights to try and lure them in for a battle to absorb their damage and Omnivamp your health back to normal. Then fighters can jump in and engage the enemy team’s tanks while trying to box in the ADC.
It would also be wise to keep one eye on the enemy team’s Item sets as well. You don’t want to gang up on someone with Omnivamp stacked up high. You just might use all your abilities, and the enemy champ would just heal right back up.
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Items with Omnivamp
- The starter item Doran’s blade also has a 2.5% Omnivamp, but the effect goes away when you sell the item.
- Eclipse, which is quite handy for duels, also has a 10% Omnivamp stat.
- The Riftmaker, any mage assassin’s favorite, has an Omnivamp stat at 15%.
- Ravenous Hydra no longer gives you life-steal. Instead, it gives you Omnivamp, which was reduced to 10% from 15% in patch 11.3.
- Death’s Dance used to have Omnivamp, but it was replaced with Bleed Cleanse.
- The Jungle Items Hail Blade and Ember Knife both give an Omnivamp stat of 12% each.
- The Leeching Leer gives an Omnivamp effect of 5%.
- The Sanguine blade gives a physical vamp of 12%.
- The Icathia’s curse gives an Omnivamp effect of 10%. And Syzygy increases Eclipse’s stats by 2% Omnivamp.
- Finally, the Ravenous Hunter rune also gives an Omnivamp effect of 1%.
Will Riot Nerf Omnivamp?
That depends on how well League players can use the Omnivamp stat to their advantage. The good thing (or bad thing, depending upon your pov) about Riot is that they never stop tinkering with the game and keep a watchful eye over Item usage, champion usage and then buff or nerf items and champions accordingly.
With so many items on offer that could stack up the Omnivamp effect, it is entirely possible that Riot may nerf the Omnivamp effect even more. Already some items have had their Omnivamp reduced in the most recent patches.
