Liandry’s Anguish

Liandry’s Anguish was a Mythic Ability Power item costing 3200 gold providing +80 Ability Power, +20 Ability Haste, and +600 Mana. It had two unique passives and a mythic passive: TORMENT caused enemies to burn on ability damage — dealing 50 (+ 6% AP) (+ 4% target’s maximum health) total magic damage over 4 seconds, capped at 400 against monsters. AGONY dealt 0%-12% bonus magic damage based on target’s bonus health against enemy champions — scaling against HP-stacking opponents. The MYTHIC PASSIVE empowered each of the carrier’s other Legendary items with +5 Ability Haste, up to a maximum of +25 AH with 5 other Legendaries. TORMENT dealt default damage and did NOT trigger spell effects. TORMENT was NOT blocked by spell shields. TORMENT could be stacked by multiple users but did not refresh for subsequent applications. With AGONY, TORMENT’s maximum damage against a target with 1250 bonus health reached 67.2 (+ 6.72% AP) (+ 4.48% target’s max HP). Liandry’s Anguish was the Mythic-era sustained burn damage item — the standard choice for mages fighting tanks or HP-stacking opponents, with AGONY’s bonus health scaling and TORMENT’s max-HP burn creating compounding damage against the most durable targets in the game.

📋 Item Lineage — Liandry’s Archetype History

💡 Why the Mythic System Was Removed: Liandry’s Anguish existed during the Mythic item era in League of Legends — a system introduced in preseason 2021 that established a separate item tier (Mythic) above Legendary, with the restriction that players could only build one Mythic item per game. Mythic items provided empowering passives to the player’s Legendary items (in Liandry’s Anguish’s case, +5 AH per Legendary). The Mythic system was subsequently removed on patch V14.1, which also removed all Mythic items including Liandry’s Anguish. The successor Liandry’s Torment returned to the Legendary tier without the Mythic passive or the one-item restriction.

📊 Stats (As of Last Active Patch, Before V14.1 Removal)

🔨 Recipe & Build Path (Historical)

💡 Lost Chapter as the First-Back Component: Lost Chapter (1200g) was the standard first component. In the Mythic era, Lost Chapter’s additional passive restored a percentage of missing mana on level-up — making it particularly strong during the laning phase where leveling occurred frequently. The passive was lost on completion into Liandry’s Anguish, but provided critical mana sustain during the laning phase before completion. Fiendish Codex (850g) as the second component contributed additional AH and AP, with the 1150g combine completing the item.

⚡ Passive 1 — UNIQUE: TORMENT (Historical)

EFFECT: Dealing ability damage burns the enemy, causing them to take 50 (+ 6% AP) (+ 4% of target’s maximum health) total magic damage over 4 seconds. Capped at 400 against monsters. Default damage — does not trigger spell effects. TORMENT itself not blocked by spell shields. Multiple users can stack TORMENT on the same target, but subsequent applications do not refresh the existing debuff timer.

TORMENT Damage Reference Table (Historical)

💡 The Anti-Tank Design of TORMENT: TORMENT’s 4% of target’s maximum health component is the defining element that made Liandry’s Anguish the standard mage item against tank-heavy compositions in its era. Standard magic penetration counters high MR; TORMENT’s max-HP scaling countered high maximum HP — the two most common tank survivability strategies. A 5000 HP tank at 200 MR took significantly more TORMENT burn per 4-second window than a 2000 HP squish at low MR, because the HP itself directly fed the burn formula. Tanks couldn’t itemize away from TORMENT by building more HP — higher HP meant each TORMENT proc dealt more damage, creating an inherent anti-tank mechanic that persisted regardless of the tank’s defensive item choices.

⚠️ TORMENT Does NOT Trigger Spell Effects — Critical for Build Compatibility: TORMENT’s burn deals default damage — not ability damage, not spell damage, not area damage. All spell-effect-triggered passives (subsequent applications of other TORMENT sources in the era, Demonic Embrace DoT, future Liandry’s Torment) do NOT activate from TORMENT’s burn ticks. TORMENT’s burn is a standalone damage source that applies on top of ability damage but does not chain-trigger other passive effects. Building items specifically expecting TORMENT to amplify their spell-effect triggers was a build mistake in the Liandry’s Anguish era.

⚠️ TORMENT NOT Blocked by Spell Shield — The Subtle Distinction: TORMENT itself bypasses spell shields. However, TORMENT only applies when ability damage is dealt — if the triggering ability is absorbed by a spell shield (Banshee’s Veil absorbing the mage’s Q), that ability deals 0 damage and TORMENT does not apply. TORMENT fires from the damage event of the triggering ability. The distinction: TORMENT itself is not spell-shield-blocked, but it requires a successful ability damage trigger. After the shield is consumed, all subsequent abilities trigger TORMENT normally.

💡 Multi-User TORMENT Stacking: In team compositions with multiple Liandry’s Anguish users (each teammate who built Liandry’s Anguish in the same game), TORMENT could be stacked on the same target from multiple sources simultaneously. The key mechanic: multiple TORMENT applications from different users do not refresh the debuff timer of existing applications. Each application from a different source is an independent burn instance with its own 4-second duration, running simultaneously without extending each other’s duration. A target with 3 simultaneous TORMENT applications took 3× the burn DPS during the overlap window — a meaningful damage multiplication that required coordinated team ability usage.

⚡ Passive 2 — UNIQUE: AGONY (Historical)

EFFECT: Deal 0%-12% bonus magic damage against enemy champions based on the target’s bonus health (0% at 0 bonus HP, maximum 12% at 1250 bonus bonus HP).

💡 AGONY — The Anti-HP-Stacker Multiplier: AGONY’s 0%-12% bonus magic damage scales with bonus health — health granted by items and runes, not base level-based HP. Champions who built HP-stacking items (Warmog’s, Heartsteel, Sunfire Aegis, Iceborn Gauntlet) accumulated bonus health that scaled AGONY’s damage multiplier. At 1250 bonus HP (maximum AGONY): all magic damage from the carrier dealt 12% more to that target. AGONY combined with TORMENT against a 1250-bonus-HP target produced the combined ceiling formula of 67.2 (+ 6.72% AP) (+ 4.48% target’s max HP) total TORMENT burn over 4 seconds — incorporating both AGONY’s 12% multiplier on top of TORMENT’s base formula.

💡 AGONY vs TORMENT Together — The Anti-Tank Compound System: The two passives created a compound anti-tank system in Liandry’s Anguish. TORMENT targeted maximum health (4% max HP burn — countered high-HP tanks by making HP itself feed the damage). AGONY targeted bonus health (the item-granted portion of HP — countered tanks who specifically itemized HP for health-stacking builds). A tank who built both total max HP and bonus-HP items suffered from both mechanics simultaneously: more total HP made TORMENT burn harder; more bonus HP made AGONY amplify all magic damage. The two passives covered different dimensions of HP itemization, creating a redundant anti-tank system where tanks couldn’t escape both through different defensive strategies.

⚡ Mythic Passive — +5 AH per Legendary Item (Historical)

💡 The Mythic Passive’s Role in the Era: The Mythic Passive was the primary differentiation between Mythic and Legendary items beyond stat values — each Mythic item amplified the carrier’s Legendary items in a specific way. Liandry’s Anguish’s +5 AH per Legendary was the AH scaling Mythic passive — mages who needed maximum AH reduction for their ability cooldowns chose Liandry’s Anguish as their Mythic specifically for this passive, even when other Mythic items had higher raw AP. At 5 Legendary items (standard full-build endgame): Liandry’s Anguish Mythic Passive granted +25 bonus AH to the overall build, on top of the item’s own +20 AH — making Liandry’s Anguish responsible for up to +45 total AH in isolation at full build. For champions with 30-40 second base ability cooldowns, the Mythic Passive’s contribution of 25 AH reduced every ability’s cooldown by approximately 20% on top of the base item’s 20 AH.

🎯 Who Used Liandry’s Anguish (Historical Context)

Champion Archetypes in the Mythic Era

• AP Mages Facing Tank-Heavy Compositions: Liandry’s Anguish was the standard first Mythic for ability-damage mages in the Mythic era whenever the opponent team included 2+ HP-stacking tanks or frontliners. TORMENT’s max-HP burn + AGONY’s bonus-HP amplification meant that building tank items specifically to counter magic damage actually increased the damage taken from TORMENT and AGONY. Against traditional dive compositions (Malphite + frontline), Liandry’s Anguish was the counter-itemization choice that AP carries reached for.
• AoE AP Mages Who Could Apply TORMENT to Multiple Targets: TORMENT applied from any ability damage event — including AoE abilities that hit multiple targets. Champions with wide AoE abilities (Amumu R, Rumble Equalizer R, Katarina Death Lotus, Kennen Slicing Maelstrom R) could apply TORMENT to every enemy simultaneously, generating simultaneous burns on the entire opponent team. The sustained DPS from multiple simultaneous TORMENT burns on multiple targets was the highest total damage output from a single item in the era for AoE-oriented mages.
• Champions Who Needed AH More Than Raw AP — Mythic Passive Build Optimization: The Mythic Passive’s +5 AH per Legendary (up to +25) made Liandry’s Anguish the AH-farming Mythic choice for mages whose abilities had long base cooldowns and needed maximum AH to reach the effective cooldowns that made their kit function. Champions like Viktor (Death Ray E + Chaos Storm R on long CDs), Ryze (needing AH for ability-spam rotations), and Cassiopeia (needing maximum AH for Noxious Blast Q spam) specifically chose Liandry’s Anguish over higher-AP Mythics like Luden’s Tempest or Hextech Rocketbelt because the Mythic Passive’s AH amplification provided more total value to their kit.

Champions Who Particularly Benefited (Historical)

📊 Liandry’s Anguish vs Mythic-Era Competitors (Historical)

🔄 The Successor — Liandry’s Torment (Current)

When patch V14.1 removed the Mythic item system, Liandry’s Anguish was succeeded by Liandry’s Torment — a Legendary-tier item (no longer Mythic) that retained the TORMENT burn mechanic in a modified form without the Mythic Passive. The current Liandry’s Torment’s passive and stats differ from Liandry’s Anguish’s triple-passive system. If you are looking for the current Liandry’s item, consult the Liandry’s Torment guide for current stats, passive mechanics, and build recommendations applicable on the current patch.

📜 Historical Context — The Mythic Item Era

Liandry’s Anguish existed during Seasons 11 through 13 and into early Season 14 (approximately 2021-2024), when the Mythic item system was live on Summoner’s Rift. The Mythic tier was introduced in Preseason 2021 (V10.23) as a dedicated item tier above Legendary, with the mechanic that each Mythic item empowered every other Legendary in the build through its Mythic Passive. The intent was to create build identity around the chosen Mythic — different mages would have different power profiles based on whether they chose Liandry’s (AH + burn), Luden’s (magic pen + burst), or Crown (survivability), with the Mythic Passive bonuses cascading through the entire build.

The system was removed on patch V14.1 (January 2024) due to design concerns about the Mythic restriction’s impact on build diversity — players often felt locked into specific Mythics for their champions with little flexibility, and the Mythic Passive amplification created difficulty balancing item power across different combinations. Post-V14.1, all items returned to the Legendary tier with revised stats and passives designed to function without the Mythic empowerment framework.

❌ Common Build Mistakes in the Liandry’s Anguish Era (Historical)

• Building Liandry’s Anguish as a second item after another Mythic: During the Mythic era, players could only build one Mythic item per game. Attempting to build Liandry’s Anguish after already completing a different Mythic (Luden’s Tempest, Hextech Rocketbelt) was impossible — the shop would not allow a second Mythic. This restriction is the primary reason Mythic item choice at the start of the game was highly consequential in the era — the first Mythic locked the player’s build direction for the entire game
• Expecting TORMENT to trigger spell effects: TORMENT dealt default damage. Liandry’s Anguish did NOT generate secondary spell-effect triggers — items or runes that activated on spell damage did not proc from TORMENT’s burn ticks. Building Demonic Embrace alongside Liandry’s Anguish in the same era specifically expecting TORMENT to trigger Demonic’s % HP burn was a documented error — TORMENT ticks were invisible to the spell-effect detection system. Only the triggering ability’s initial damage activated Demonic Embrace’s burn; TORMENT’s subsequent ticks did not.
• Overvaluing AGONY against non-HP-stacking opponents: AGONY provided 0%-12% bonus magic damage based on bonus health (item-granted HP) — not total health. Against squishy mages or ADCs who built no HP items, AGONY’s contribution was near-zero (0% bonus damage at 0 bonus HP). Building Liandry’s Anguish specifically for AGONY against squish-heavy compositions (5 fragile carries) underutilized both AGONY and TORMENT relative to pure-AP Mythics like Luden’s Tempest that dealt higher immediate burst against low-HP targets without relying on sustained burn value.
• Not refreshing TORMENT through sustained ability damage: TORMENT’s 4-second burn began from the last ability damage application. Against long fights where the mage stopped casting abilities for more than 4 seconds (repositioning, channeling, waiting for cooldowns), the TORMENT burn would expire between damage windows — breaks in ability damage output caused TORMENT to fall off. For champions with sustained AoE ability pressure (Amumu Despair W, Singed Poison Trail Q, Rumble Flamespitter W), TORMENT was effectively permanent during combat because the low-CD persistent AoE constantly refreshed the burn. Champions with high single-ability burst but long cooldowns (Syndra, Lux) had naturally intermittent TORMENT uptime between ability rotations.

FAQ

Q: Could two players on the same team both build Liandry’s Anguish?

A: Yes — the one-Mythic restriction was per player, not per team. Two teammates could each independently choose Liandry’s Anguish as their respective Mythics. If both applied TORMENT to the same enemy target, both TORMENT instances ran simultaneously on that target (as documented in the stacking mechanic) — though neither refreshed the other’s burn timer. In coordinated team compositions where both the support (AP support) and the AP carry both built Liandry’s Anguish, stacking TORMENT on priority targets during engages was a deliberate strategy.

Q: Did AGONY increase the damage of TORMENT’s burn ticks?

A: The exact interaction between AGONY and TORMENT’s default-damage burn ticks depends on the implementation specifics at the time. AGONY’s documented effect was bonus magic damage against champions based on bonus health — typically a multiplier applied to magic damage dealt. Whether this multiplier applied to TORMENT’s default-damage burn (which dealt magic damage but was classified as default damage) was a mechanical nuance. The documented combined maximum formula of 67.2 (+ 6.72% AP) (+ 4.48% target’s max HP) for TORMENT at 1250 bonus HP suggests AGONY’s 12% multiplier was incorporated into the combined formula, implying AGONY did amplify TORMENT’s magic damage ticks at maximum bonus HP. The combined formula represents the true ceiling of damage from both passives against an optimally stacked target.

Q: Was Liandry’s Anguish available in Arena (the rotating game mode)?A: According to its availability data, Liandry’s Anguish was available on SR 5v5, HA ARAM, Nexus Blitz, and Arena during its active lifespan. Arena mode items had separate availability tracking, and Liandry’s Anguish was obtainable in Arena’s shop while it was active. The Arena version may have had different parameters or availability windows compared to SR — Arena frequently had mode-specific item adjustments. With V14.1 removing the item from all modes, it is no longer obtainable in any format including Arena.