Riot Games has introduced LoL Patch 12.8 to the game and with this, it is making a game-changing update to the usage of Stopwatch and Zhonya’s Hourglass in quick succession. The Stopwatch is a defensive item in League of Legends that allows players to get through burst-heavy team fights and escape assassinations from champions that can essentially one-shot them. Even though the game had Zhonya’s Hourglass and Guardian’s Angel to be that protective source for players, they are mid to late-game items and took time to build as complete items. Riot Games introduced the Stopwatch as a stopgap, allowing players to invest steadily towards these long-term items.

How does the Stopwatch work?

Stopwatch is like Zhonya’s Hourglass but players can only use it once in-game. After it is activated, the Stopwatch turns into a Broken Stopwatch, and it cannot be activated anymore, but can still be upgraded into the other items, according to the item recipes. Once broken, all future Stopwatch purchases are also broken.

Stopwatch Unique - Stasis: Put yourself in stasis for 2.5 seconds, rendering yourself untargetable and invulnerable for the duration, but also unable to move, attack, cast spells, or use items during this time.

Stopwatch nerf in LoL Patch 12.8

If a player has not used the Stopwatch and has completed building Zhonya’s Hourglass, they were allowed to still buy a separate Stopwatch as an activable item. This allowed players to Zhonya's then instantly use Stopwatch, leading to 5 seconds of stasis in crucial team fights.

However, Riot Games has effectively put an end to this tactic. In the LoL Patch 12.8 notes, it wrote, “Being able to use Stopwatch in addition to having its terminal items can lead to some pretty jarring game states and all-around awkward moments, so we're removing that optimization.”

Starting in LoL Patch 12.8, players will no longer be able to buy a Stopwatch if they have completed building Zhonya’s Hourglass and Guardian Angel.

In a LoL Patch 12.8 rundown video, Nick "LS" De Cesare said, “I think this is totally fine. Generally, plays like these [Zhonya’s into Stopwatch] only happen when one team is really far ahead, so I am actually fine with the change here. Normally, when a player is really far ahead, they actually can’t get better power than having two stasis in a team fight and so that’s why they would do the double Zhonya’s or the GA plus the Stopwatch. So removing that as a possibility is fine.”

It will be interesting to see how this change impacts pro play and Solo Queue. Players will now be forced to use the Stopwatch effectively to make the best use of the time.