In the ever-shifting battlefield of League of Legends, surviving crowd control (CC) abilities often makes the difference between winning and losing a fight. That’s where tenacity — the stat that reduces the duration of most forms of CC — becomes a crucial part of champion builds, especially for frontliners and initiators.
What Exactly Is Tenacity?
Tenacity is a stat that reduces the duration of most crowd control effects, including:
- Stuns
- Snares (roots)
- Slows
- Fears
- Charms
- Silences
- Taunts
Knock-ups, knock-backs, displacements, and suppressions are immune to tenacity — they will always last their full duration regardless of your build.
How Do You Get Tenacity?
There are multiple sources of tenacity in the game:
- Items:
- Mercury’s Treads (30%)
- Sterak’s Gage (15% under specific conditions)
- Runes:
- Legend: Tenacity (up to 30% based on stacks)
- Summoner Spells:
- Cleanse removes current CC and grants 65% tenacity for 3 seconds
- Champion Abilities:
- Olaf’s ultimate grants immunity to CC
- Dr. Mundo gains tenacity passively through his kit
How Is Tenacity Calculated?
Tenacity sources do not stack additively, but rather multiplicatively. Here’s how it works:
If you have:
- Mercury’s Treads (30%)
- Legend: Tenacity at full stacks (30%)
- Elixir of Iron (25%)
You don’t get 85% total tenacity. Instead, the formula is:
Final Duration = Original Duration × (1 - Source 1) × (1 - Source 2) × (1 - Source 3)
So: = Original Duration × 0.7 × 0.7 × 0.75 ≈ 36.75% duration
This means crowd control would last roughly 37% of its usual time — a 63% reduction, which is close to the practical max tenacity.
When Is Tenacity Worth Building?
- If you’re facing heavy CC comps like Morgana, Leona, or Amumu.
- For bruisers and tanks who need to stay in the fight.
- On champions who already have healing/sustain and want to increase uptime.
Tenacity won’t make you invincible, but when used strategically, it can keep you active in teamfights where others would be immobilized.
Written by:
Christian