Why is the engage support from LoL more and more often reaching for Glacial Augment?

League of Legends

The Glacial Augment is becoming more and more popular among LoL supports.


Those who play tanker support heroes often choose the Aftershock rune to initiate fights. Fans of Leona and Nautilus know it very well. The rune not only increases the champion’s defense after immobilizing an enemy but also creates an explosion after a short time, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies.

Those who do not like Aftershock can use other runes from the Determination tree, but recently there has been a move away from it. It turns out that the rune from the path of Inspiration is gaining more and more popularity. What is it about?

The popularity of the Glacial Augment rune

During this year’s Demacia Cup 2021, Glacial Augment was much more popular than Aftershock. Players decided on this rune when picking supports such as Leona, Thresh, or Nautilus.

Perhaps those who were not interested in the Glacial Augment rune are unaware that in patch 11.23 this one was rebuilt with new effects. In addition, in subsequent updates, Riot introduced various corrections to it, including several buffs, such as increasing the conversion rate from healing and shielding.

How does the rune currently work?

Immobilizing an enemy champion will cause 3 glacial rays to emanate from them towards you and other nearby enemy champions, creating icy zones that slow enemies within by 30% (+ 3% per 100 AP) (+ 4% per 100 bonus AD) (+ 9% per 10% heal and shield power) and reducing their damage by 15% against your allies, excluding yourself, for 3 (+ 100% of the immobilizing effect’s duration) seconds.

As you can see, this inconspicuous rune from the Inspiration tree can do a lot.

Since the release of the Aftershock rune, Riot has experimented with it in various ways. Not every player liked this type of rework, and some just got bored of playing the same game in multiple matches. For such people, Glacial Augment comes in handy.

It is true that Glacial Augment will not make the hero particularly tanky, but it can be a great help in initiating fights and slowing down enemies. The operation of the rune can come in handy in many different situations, which makes it quite universal.

Preseason 2022 is currently ongoing, so now is a good time to test out new builds and game ideas. Players can see if they like picking the Glacial Augment and if they are satisfied with playing with ice rays and slowing down their enemies.

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