About buffs
Positive effects you can stack on your own units. Each entry below links to the mechanic page where every Set 17 champion, trait, item, and augment that grants the effect is enumerated.
See also: Debuffs — negative effects you can apply to enemies — and Economy for player-side resource mechanics.
Defenses
Keep your units alive. From outright damage avoidance (Untargetable, Invulnerable, CC Immune) through HP buffers (Shield, Heal, Health Regen, Max Health) to flat damage mitigation (Armor, Magic Resist, Durability).
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Protective state where the unit cannot be selected by enemy basic attacks or ability targeting. Distinct from invulnerability (which blocks damage but still allows targeting); often triggered by HP-threshold trait passives or item effects.
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State that prevents all incoming damage for a duration; the unit can still be targeted and attacked, but takes no damage. Distinct from Untargetable, which prevents the unit from being targeted at all.
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Protective state where the unit ignores incoming crowd control (stuns, slows, knock-ups) for a duration. The unit can still be targeted and damaged. Distinct from Untargetable (cannot be hit) and Invulnerable (takes no damage).
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Grants temporary HP that absorbs damage before the unit's real Health is touched.
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Restores Health to a unit, capped at maximum HP.
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Passive Health restoration per second, typically as a percentage of max Health. Independent of healing procs (Heal) and damage-scaled sustain (Omnivamp); the wearer just regenerates over time.
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Grants the unit additional maximum HP, either flat (like +150 Health) or percentage (like +6% max Health). It comes up whenever you stack Giant's Belt items, pick health-boost augments such as Yasuo's Golden Hex or Giant and Mighty, or play Cho'Gath, whose cast permanently raises his own max Health every time he eats an enemy. For the cross-round permanent stat-stacks angle specifically, see the dedicated permanent stat-stacks page.
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The physical-defense stat that reduces incoming AD damage. Tank items, the Bastion trait, and champions or items that grant flat Armor all feed into this mechanic, alongside the handful of effects that scale a bonus off a unit's Armor value. Sunder is its inverse — a debuff that reduces enemy Armor.
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The magic-defense stat that reduces incoming AP damage. Many sustain items, the Bastion frontline trait, and "Gain X Armor and Magic Resist" effects grant or scale off it; Shred is its inverse.
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Reduces incoming damage by a percentage damage reduction that stacks multiplicatively after Armor and Magic Resist. Sources include the Vanguard trait, Stargazer constellations (Mountain, Serpent), Steadfast Heart, and augments like Evelynn's Boon and Cursed Crown.
Offense
Combat-stat boosts that increase the damage your units deal — auto-attack speed, ability power, percent damage amp, omni-vamp sustain, and crit.
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Bonus Attack Speed makes a unit attack more often per second, which means more auto-attack damage and faster mana generation toward the next ability cast. Some carries scale beyond that — their ability itself fires more hits when they have more Attack Speed (e.g., Bel'Veth's slash count, Jinx's rocket count). Stacking AS items and traits on these units compounds: faster autos, faster casts, and bigger casts.
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Scales with Ability Power (AP). Champions and effects flagged as AP-scaling get bigger damage, healing, or shield values when the holder stacks AP from items like Jeweled Gauntlet, Rabadon's Deathcap, and Nashor's Tooth, or from trait bonuses.
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Multiplicative bonus to all damage dealt — distinct from raw AD/AP because it applies after the type-specific scaling.
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Heals the source for a percentage of damage dealt (any type).
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Scales with crit chance and crit damage from items like Infinity Edge and Jeweled Gauntlet. By default abilities cannot crit — the sibling Precision mechanic is what lets spell damage roll crits, so crit-on-spell builds need a Precision source before crit chance and crit damage actually apply to abilities.
Movement
Repositioning effects that relocate a unit during combat. Dash is self-movement; Pull drags a target toward the source. The mechanic pages enumerate every ability that triggers each.
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Repositioning movement that breaks normal movement — either a telegraphed dash across hexes or an instant blink/teleport to a new position. In Set 17, the Challenger trait dashes its champions to a new target when their current one dies, and several abilities blink or teleport behind enemies for setup or escape.
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Forced horizontal displacement that moves a target toward the source. Distinct from Knock Up (vertical airborne) and Dash (self-movement); the pulled unit is moved by another's effect.