Talk:Relic Shield/@comment-25122281-20140923201722/@comment-8506165-20150116140458

"Were you not around for it's release? When it wasn't melee only, it was a must buy on all supports and ADCs. Sometimes people would ditch the jungle and go double targon's top. Even with the mini-rework since then, reverting the range restriction would just turn it back into a must buy (at least in bot lane)."

I think the problem was more that going double Targon's actually massively increased the amount of available gold because it gave extra gold to the person it was shared with. So not only were you doubling the value of some creeps by giving both champions the gold for them, but you were also adding gold so double Targon's became stupidly snowbally. Every 30 seconds, you gave your lane partner an extra 10 gold which added up to an extra 200 per 10 minutes per champion. So a duo got 400 extra gold for just last-hitting with a pair of Targon's. 300 if one didn't upgrade Relic Shield.

That combined with the heal, cheap price, early push power and high stat value made it stupidly strong on duo laners. Didn't help that Spellthief's Edge and Coin were both kind of bad, as well. Riot threw out the "melee only" hotfix in a bit of a panic (along with nerfing the charge refresh time on the Relic Shield), but I don't think it's necessary now that you can't abuse it for an early level 2 and get extra gold and have awesome start stats. I mean hell, the melee only requirement doesn't even affect most of the game's bruisers and you don't see double Targon's top any more. Or double Targon's botlane assassins, or any of the other preseason 4 cheese.

Riot's justification for keeping it is that it's easier for ranged supports to last-hit (especially Thresh, its main ranged buyer, with his E passive) as they don't have to expose themselves to as much harass as a melee, which is true but it is frustrating having to fight your ADC for CS when they've got a BF Sword and you don't get the execute damage.