In League of Legends, it is possible to slow down an enemy championโs movement. This can be achieved by using skills, item passives, and item actives as well as by using a specific summoner spell.
With these many different ways of slowing down an enemy, the mathematics of the effect gets a little complicated.
The biggest question regarding the different slow effects is if they stack or not. While some of the slowing effect sources can somehow -we will get to this- stack, some donโt. So letโs take a look and how they behave.ย
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Item Passives
This is the simplest category we will go through. Slow effects coming from item passives simply do not stack. Instead, only the item passive that provides the biggest slow effect will be active.
For example, if the Unique Passives of both the โDuskblade of Draktharrโ and โRylaiโs Crystal Scepterโ items are activated on an enemy champion, only the slowing effect of Duskblade of Draktharr will take effect.
This is because the Unique Passive of Duskblade of Draktharr provides a ninety nine percent slowing effect while the Rylaiโs Crystal Scepter only provides thirty percent.
This is the case even if both -or more- of these items are used by just one champion or two different ones.
Skills and Item Actives
The common thing Skills and Item Actives share is that they have to be used purposefully in order to affect a champion, so for the sake of simplicity we will call them โActivesโ.
The big news is that they stack! Well, not exactly thoughโฆ Remember when I said some slowing effects โsomehow stackโ? This is what I was talking about. The slowing effects of Actives stack but some of them will be reduced. Letโs get into the mathematics of it.
When multiple Active slowing effects are applied to a champion, only the strongest one will have its full effect. The others will be reduced by sixty-five percent, meaning they will only be thirty-five percent effective.
So, letโs say a champion was affected by both the slowing effect of โNasusโs โWitherโ ability and โRanduinโs Omenโs Unique Active. The Wither ability of Nasus provides a thirty-five percent slowing effect and the Unique Active of Randuinโs Omen provides slowing of a whopping ninety-nine percent.
Since the slowing effect of Randuinโs Omen would be the highest, it would apply completely. On top of that, thirty-five percent of the Witherโs thirty-five percent slowing effect would be applied to the champion too.
That is until the slowing effect of Randuinโs Omen wears off. Confusing, right?
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Crest of Cinders Buffย
One of the ways of applying slow on a champion is the Crest of Cinders buff which you probably know as the Red Buff or just Red.
Red Buff, among many of its effects, also has a slowing ((10 / 15 / 25% for melee attacks) ( 5 / 7.5 / 12.5% for ranged attacks) based on level) debuff that is applied after a basic attack for three seconds.
Although the slowing effect of the Red Buff stacks with other slowing effects, it does not stack on itself. If the effects of Red Buff are activated on an enemy two or more times in a row, the effect will just refresh and not stack.
The Exhaust Summonerโs Spellย ย
Exhaust is a that along with reducing the damage of a champion by forty percent, slows them by thirty percent for three seconds.
Exactly like the Crest of Cinders Buff, Exhaust only stacks with other slowing effects and only refreshes if cast on an enemy twice.
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Conclusion
There are multiple ways to apply the slow effect on an enemy and whether or not they will stack is decided by what their source is.
Only the slowing effects from Skills and Active Passives stack and even then, all of them besides the strongest one are heavily reduced.