Set 11 Launch Item Tier List by Rainplosion

Overview

Deciding which items to slam is a hard skill in TFT, and the correct item to slam varies wildly from game to game, depending on item economy, what comps you’re leaning towards, and what your win conditions are. However, here’s a list of items that are good flexible slams for every situation.

S Tier Items

Rabadon’s Deathcap - Great stats and good in the meta, Deathcap is simply mathematically more damage than other damage items such as Jeweled Gauntlet or Giant Slayer for most AP carries. Its only downside is that it takes up two Rods.

Ionic Spark - Ionic sparks holders are pretty plentiful this set - the variety of AP tanks/off-tanks, such as Neeko, Illaoi, Amumu, Annie, Sylas, and Rakan ensure that there’s almost always a good spark holder at every level.

Gargoyles Stoneplate - In Set 11 there’s a lot more tanks that prefer to be solo tanks, as they either have some sort of AOE or strong tanking ability. Good candidates for this item are Neeko, Illaoi, Annie, Ornn, etc.

Red Buff/Morello - Antiheal items continue to be a premium this set, and Morello and Red Buff are simply stronger items than Sunfire Cape, as they’re more easily applied and also provide a ton of great carry stats for their item holder.

A Tier Items

Shojin/Blue Buff/Adaptive - most AP casters have historically required a mana item to function well, and they continue to do so in this set, with the exception of 4 Invoker+ Lillia/Azir.

Shojin - good on casters with maximum mana values that are divisible by 15 (15, 30, 45, 60, 75, etc.)

Blue Buff - good on casters with 50 or less maximum mana.

Adaptive Helm - good on casters with lower attack speed, or without an attack speed increase from items/traits.

Guinsoos’ Rageblade - Rageblade is a very strong early slam, due to slower early game fights allowing you to reach high scaling. Lategame, the item is good on attack speed carries such as Ashe/Aphelios/Bard, and an acceptable item on high mana casters like Azir and Hwei. Rageblade is definitely not an premiere lategame item, however, and it’s most useful as an early game tempo slam.

Crownguard - Crownguard is good on AP tanks/off-tanks, of which there’s a lot more this set. Units like the aforementioned Neeko/Illaoi/Amumu/Sylas/Rakan are quite good with Crownguard.

Thief’s Gloves - The value of this item is highly dependent on what units you run on your board. If playing high verticals with many lower-cost units for their traits, thief’s gloves becomes much less valuable. When running legendary boards, however, the value of Thief’s Gloves becomes unlocked.

Steadfast Heart - A respectable tank item in almost any situation; you can always go for Chain Vest as a good tank component because of Steadfast and Crownguard.

Hextech Gunblade - There’s a lot of AOE and/or backline damage this set, whether from Trickshot bounces or Hwei/Lillia/Morgana AOE. Healing on backline is never a lackluster option, and Gunblade is the best healing item for backline carries.

B Tier Items

Hand of Justice/Titan’s Resolve/Bloodthirster - The value of items like these are really dependent on what’s meta. With Lee Sin as a weaker carry outside of vertical Duelists, and Kayn requiring specific setups to succeed, these items end up being very inflexible once slammed. In specific rerolls (Gnar, for example), these items are still quite powerful.

Warmogs/Sunfire - These tank items are still quite respectable, but rarely BIS on any specific tanks. Build them when it makes sense for your item economy, but don’t place heavy priority on them.

Deathblade/Last Whisperer/Runaans - Very high quality items when deciding to play AD. However, with the AD top-end units being slightly weaker than the AP top-end units, building AD often leads to struggles with capping your board out.

Giant Slayer/Guardbreaker - These damage amplification items are very strong on the right units (giant slayer being good on single target front-to-back carries, and guardbreaker being good on AOE carries). However, they tend to be weaker early game, and not very efficient as a first or second item on your carry.

Nashor’s Tooth/Statikk Shiv - Very good on the right units, but not all AP carries, such as Lillia and Syndra who do not want attack speed. Lillia often succeeds in 4 Invoker builds in which a large portion of her mana gain comes from her trait rather than her auto attacks. Syndra has long cast times, meaning that she only spends a short portion of her time auto-ing for mana.

C Tier Items

Bramble/Vow/Dragon’s Claw/Redemption - These items are far from bad, but AP tanks such as the likes of Illaoi tend to prefer item combinations like Crownguard/Steadfast. 

Infinity Edge - Many AD carries this set don’t necessarily desire spell crit. For units like Ashe/Aphelios/Irelia, a large portion of their damage comes from their autos rather than their spell, and some AD carries, such as the Reapers of Kha’zix/Yone/Kayn, already have innate spell-crit from their trait.

Evenshroud - Good with melee AD bruisers or burst AD casters. If you angle Reapers or Kai’sa/Xayah, Evenshroud is a high value item. Much less valuable in most other cases.

Jeweled Gauntlet - In most cases, without additional crit chance from items such as Guardbreaker, Jeweled gauntlet is less damage than Deathcap. Without additional crit chance, it takes 320 Bonus AP for Jeweled Gauntlet to do more damage than Deathcap.

Archangels - A good item when fully scaled up, but requires a lot of frontline for it to be efficient lategame.

D Tier Items

Quicksilver/Sterak’s/Edge of Night - These items are good in the right situations, but they aren’t particularly overpowered even for the units that do use them, and they heavily limit flexibility.

Closing Thoughts

As a closing note, be sure to only take this tier list as a suggestion. BIS for units can vary drastically by augments, by meta shifts, and even by things such as what other people are playing in your lobby. Additionally, this Tier list was created on the basis that you are trying to slam flexible items that are generically good. If you want to play Kayn 20/20, feel free to slam as much BT/Titans/Edge of Night as you please! If heavily leaning Ashe, items such as Last Whisper, Runaan’s, Red Buff, and Rageblade increase in priority.

Rainplosion streams regularly at: https://www.twitch.tv/rainplosion