TL;DR summary

These two items, the Elixirs of Brilliance and Fortitude, really need an update.
They're not getting used and that's because they shouldn't be used.

Let's start by examining the heuristic reason you want these items...

The Ideal

At 250 gold, the Elixirs grants you a temporary but powerful buff that 'dramatically' increase your power. This bonus scales with level. Elixirs can be an important purchase if a critical moment is definitely coming up and you need a cheap boost to hang on, or take control.


The Reality

The bonuses granted by the Elixirs are neither strong nor long-lasting enough to make them worth purchasing. A 4 minute duration will be useful for 3 fights tops, and at worst, 1.

Let's compare them to other items. We'll use the Gold Values from the Wiki:
Accepting the following general standards.

2.5g per HP value
35g per AD value
20g per AP value
33g per CDR% value.
2g per MP value

Note these are the values for PERMANENT increase.


The Elixir of Fortitude grants 115 Flat health and 6.5 HP per level.
It also grants 15 Attack Power.
The value at level 1 in perma-stats is about 550g, and at level 18, about 800g.
It costs 250g.


The Elixir of Brilliance grants 25 Flat AP and less than 1 AP per level.
It also grants 10% CDR.
That means it's maybe worth 350g at level 1, 600g at level 18.
It costs 250g.

There are certain analogs to these values... HP has less value later, CDR is more valuable the more you have... but these I think are reasonable estimates.
The Elixir of Fortitude is maybe 50% to 33% the cost of permanent stats.
The Elixir of Brilliance is from 70% to 40% the cost of permanent stats.

Is it cheaper than buying permanent items? Yes. But is it worth it?

The buff from Elixirs only last 4 minutes, an average game runs 20-60 minutes. So you get from 1/5th to 1/15th the potential effectiveness. A good average is 1/10th. That's expensive for what you get, and how long you get it. (33 to 70% the cost of full items, for 1/10th the effectiveness)


A basic health potion is worth 150HP. If it were permanent that's 375g, but it's one-time and it takes time to recover, and can be hampered by Grievous Wounds. It costs just 35g. It is 10 times as cost effective, but you will probably fight more than 10 times in a game. I consider it a fairly well balanced item.


The Crystalline Flask grants a total of 300 HP and 120 MP over time.
That's worth 1000G if it were permanent - and you DO get to use the items again every time you recall. That's kind of permanent!
It's 225G for this item.



So here's the big question.
WHO is going to buy these Elixirs?

The Elixir of Fortitude grants temporary health and yeah, there's a Hat Trick where you can 'fool' your opponent into thinking you have less health than you do; you can use it once because the boost doesn't stack.

HP is most important in the early game - and in the early game, is when blowing your gold on a temporary, expensive 4 minute buff is going to burn the most.


The Elixir of Brilliance is even worse. You get a surge in AP, but it's tiny and it doesn't scale well. The only thing the Elixir is worth, is cooldown reduction. But there's Blue Buff if you need cooldown that badly - it grants MORE cooldown, for up to 3 minutes, and it doesn't cost anything. It also fixes the real problem some champs have early on - MANA REGEN.


It's true you can buy these items at the end of a game, with a full build and nothing else to do with your gold. But that's 250 gold, after 50-60 MINUTES. Is the use of an item after sixty minutes going to completely remove its worth for the HOUR before then?

These Elixirs really need a looking at. Riot, can you do something?

(transplanted from G.D.)

You left the other thread before I could show you the evidence that you were spamming the board asking for.

Look at ZionSpartan.

I'd say the reason mostly has to do with what happens in LoL when you win fights. Sure it may only be 1/3 the cost of permanent boosts that last 10 times as long, but LoL is a game were 1 fight can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Even winning one lane can make a pretty substantial difference in the flow of a game, and Elixirs can help you accomplish that relatively effectively.

I can't agree.
They absolutely shoot you in the foot.

The main problem with the Elixir of Fortitude is, it's just not cost effective for what you get. Four minutes with 1-2 additional bars of health is nothing to cheer about. Nobody suddenly started using Revive when this extra health was available and nobody uses Fortitudes either.

The 15 damage isn't as powerful in the early game, and in the midgame, it's very rare for someone to use it - because it hampers build speed by about half an item.

As for Elixir of Brilliance - it doesn't add much AP and the cooldown is wasteful since you get 20% from Ancient Golem.




So after reviewing the footage from the field, it is confirmed that Rumble did buy an Elixir of Brilliance around the 18 minute mark. With about 7000 gold, he completes Sorcerer's Shoes, Haunting Guise and Rylai's Crystal scepter, buys a ward and 3 potions and since none of his items give CDR - he picks up Elixir of Brilliance. There's no way he bought that for AP growth. He spent gold on a mini-bluebuff to close the game because his particular Magic Pen. build, had no CDR on it, and if you look at the map all the blue buffs are down.

That's really niche. It's too niche, in my opinion.

It's the kind of extreme situational that you would never expect a normal player to play - "Hey, I'm on Rumble who times his abilities so I've been running 0-CDR Spell Penetration, but now I'm 7-1 so I really need to be casting fast and furious, and there's no blue for me, so I'm gonna get 10% from Elixir to end the game". A normal player maybe wouldn't have bought the ward, probably wouldn't be counting potions off, and probably would have just bought an Amplifying Tome thinking "Hey, I'm way out in front, let's get ready for Liandry's Torment" but no, this pro needs his ward to stop down jukes from other pros, he needs those health pots to edge out fights with HP regen, and he decides to spend on 10% CDR because he's 7-1.

That's like lane Trundle starting the game with Elixir of Fortitude and a stack of reds, to catch top lane with their pants down by hitting 110 in the first minute. Nobody's gonna do that, because nobody's gonna think of it and it's NOT cost effective. You kill or you go home and write to mom about your bad strategy.

If Rumble wasn't sure the game was about to be over he would have probably worked on Liandry's or maybe started on a Kindlegem. But the game was bagged up.

I'd also like to note there are 5 crystal flasks and 3 health pots on the field in that screenshot, and many more health pots are spammed throughout the game.

Can you find any more? I'd be fascinated to know how extreme a situation has to be, before someone buys one of these Elixirs.

Situations cannot be merely "extreme" for one of these elixirs to be worthwhile, the situation has to be XTREME, like this XTREME FIRST BLOOD!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...1kQ70#t=14840s

I think I remember a long long long time ago when buying an elixir as your first item was like, a thing, which people actually considered doing, because if you could make use of the five-minute benefits (now three minutes, because whatever), and get a kill or two out of it, then it would be worth it. I might just be misremembering and being stupid though.

I do think that they should be looked at, maybe even overhauled, but they've been nerfed repeatedly over the years, and based on their popularity as potential starter items in the past, maybe they just need a few of their nerfs tastefully reverted to make them more widely attractive again at more points in the game.

After reviewing the footage from the field,
Arthelon bought an Elixir of Fortitude and redpots as a game opener, on Katarina.

He then proceeded to hold those items, completely not using them, until he towerdove panth. Moments after picking up first blood under the turret he swigs the Fortitude elixir to keep the turret from killing.


So, he wasn't using it for the power increase at all, he actually just drank it for an instant extra bar of HP. This is the "hat trick" I mentioned earlier, deceiving an enemy into thinking you don't have the HP, you can't do it, and then chugging the potion at the last moment to change the outcome.

So we have a second example, this time a brief showing of "the Hat Trick".
Now we have 1 Elixir use of each type.

Any others?

Current tourney happening right now, both teams bought several elixirs before they finished their builds, and rebought them several times.

Shy -started- with a red elixir on Kha'Zix.

Here are screenshots:
When AZF won, 3 of their membmers had elixirs, but not a full build.

MF has double elixir in one, and a red elixir in another. She bought elixirs at least twice throughout the game, I wasn't really counting. Worth noting that she bought the BLUE elixir before selling her Doran's blade for a real item. She could have saved up to sell the Doran's blade for a real item. but instead she got a blue elixir. Which gives her nearly no extra damage, just the CDR, she gets about half of the benefit.

Ocelote has a blue elixir, and bought at least 3 throughout the game.

Kevin bought at least one Red Elixir.