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Crit Item Explorations

RiotNot Surrendering·12/21/2018, 11:35:37 PM·1 votes·294,165 views

Hi everyone,

I’m here to talk a bit about crit items, bouncing some ideas and getting some discussion going. The exact details are still in flux; don’t want to get caught up on “this number is too big/small” (feedback is still welcome), but am curious to see what you all think and are excited about (either in this post or not) as well as general thoughts.

Note: None of these things are guaranteed to ship.

Our current goals for this project (which are subject to change):

  • Crit users have an item path they are excited about.
  • Crit users have defensive options that aren’t way off curve.
  • Crit users are more satisfying in solo queue for all levels of play.

We're considering some potential directions (see below). Direction 1 is more known, direction 2 is a bit more adventurous and at the end, there are a few ideas that can go in either pitch.

Let me know what you think either in thread or on twitter @RiotPhRoXzOn, I'll be around to answer questions and participate in discussion for a bit.

##IE Direction 1 - IE Reversion [IE Reversion] https://i.imgur.com/7Ea7lkjl.png

##IE Direction 2 - 5k Gold IE and Zeal upgrade changes, Energized Changes [5k Gold IE] https://i.imgur.com/uWDJlsWl.png

[25% Crit Zeal Items] https://i.imgur.com/JDqgQtbl.png

[25% Crit Zeal Items] https://i.imgur.com/Q5gR1OAl.png

##Flexible - (Can go in either pitch) [Hexdrinker] https://i.imgur.com/pyNGcMgl.png

[Defensive PD] https://i.imgur.com/8E15VBzl.png

[Essence Reaver Broadening] https://i.imgur.com/thvRieDl.png

[Energized Stormrazor] https://i.imgur.com/kaEXdrcl.png

[Multi proc Stormrazor] https://i.imgur.com/0nb8SwEl.png

[Buffed Last Whisper] https://i.imgur.com/2KlxUlAl.png

[New Maw] https://i.imgur.com/OlF5FANl.png

EDIT: Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Read all the comments so far.

1,115 Comments

Quality Content12/21/2018, 11:51:48 PM305 votes

Why does hexdrinker have stopwatch in it? Hexdrinker is usually a very quick and reactive purchase, you don't buy a component for it and sit on it. Losing the MR just nerfs the item.

420 grams12/22/2018, 12:05:35 AM99 votes

For 5000 gold, Yasuo will have 100% Crit, the bonus damage on crits, 80 ad, 30% attack speed, and 5% movespeed with the second reversion. For 5900 gold, item 3031 item 1053 will make him 1 v 5.

boricCentaur112/21/2018, 11:57:19 PM90 votes

Why not just revert essence Reaver or add crit since the new one just seems worst on the champions that use it and a bit better on adc's but there is better items for them since they need crit so why not add crit or just revert it and make this one into a new item.

Merrygate12/22/2018, 12:02:28 AM68 votes

Bring back Zephyr, but the old good one, not the bad new Nexus Blitz one

Wendígo12/22/2018, 12:07:24 AM68 votes

I despise the new Hexdrinker And how it builds into PD

Whulfmon12/22/2018, 12:06:43 AM60 votes

any change has to take to the fact how yasuo will just get stronger also hexdrinker not having the mr is pretty counter intuitive

PAiN KiLLERzz712/22/2018, 1:07:47 AM55 votes

Revert item 3031.

Daddy Ants12/22/2018, 1:29:18 AM53 votes

Please DO NOT change Phantom Dancer.

XIII Vanitas12/22/2018, 2:07:48 AM47 votes

I think Phreak hit the nail on the head with his latest video about the problem with dps marksmen. Some of their power budget needs to be redistributed from their aa to their abilities, because the current design philosophy (going through an absolutely miserable mid game in order to be a late game 1v9 carry) is inherently flawed. In my opinion most of these item changes aren't really addressing this underlying issue: more crit damage won't do, a more expensive IE will only further delay their key powerspike, PD protecting only against magic damage doesn't make any sense to me and I don't see the point in changing the build paths of Hexdrinker and Maw.

Ultîma12/22/2018, 2:36:20 AM45 votes

I don't understand how you're exploring a full IE revert but not for Essence Reaver? The old version of the item had a pretty clear userbase, powerspike potential vs. other item rushes bot lane whereas now it's used far less frequently and is often seen as a cheese item. What is the rationale here?

Hotarµ12/22/2018, 12:14:50 AM35 votes

#item 3031 Infinity Edge:

I personally like the idea of including Zeal into the build, but I'm not sure how I feel about making it 5k gold in total. I'd like to see something like (Zeal + Pickaxe + Pickaxe) or (Zeal + BF + Pickaxe) to increase viability. This way Zeal is a little more diverse with it's build paths but is still viable as a first item.

item 3086 Zeal Crit Items:

I think giving Zeal items a bit more upfront damage would reward DPS based ADCs and bring them up to par with burstier ones. Building a Zeal as a first item versus a BF Sword is a death sentence most of the time, it's just not worth it anymore. Giving a cheaper cost or some more upfront damage (like the proposed 80+ magic damage) would make it more viable in comparison.

item 3508 Essence Reaver:

Essence Reaver has always been a subject of debate for the ADC community. I'm not too sure how I feel about the item, I just know it could use some love taps for mana-hungry ADCs and casters. This suggestion is probably best left to people other than myself!

[sg-lulu]

item 3155 Hexdrinker:

Adding the Stasis ability from Stopwatch is a poor idea. It's already hard to land kills against AD champions who still gain decent damage from the item, but Stasis has always been the AP champion's niche/way of survival. I don't think spreading it across more items would be healthy for the game, especially for immobile, slow laners whose one engage can decide the rest of their laning phase. Also, Stopwatch on it's own is already infuriating to play against, making it more prevalent seems like a poor idea as well.

item 3046 Phantom Dancer:

I can't see Phantom Dancer granting AD in addition to it's current stats making the item any more desirable for any champions. All I can imagine is that adding more stats (at the cost of the % damage reduction) removes it's utility of a dueling item and would buff champions who already purchase it.

item 3095 Stormrazor:

I'm a little biased since Stormrazor is my most hated item in League. I dislike the free burst damage that synergizes too well with most ADCs, it's very strong with a good build path and I'd like to see it changed to be healthier.

I really like the idea of the Multi-Proc Stormrazor, though. It seems like a smart way to play harder lanes, taking good trades with full stacks of Storm's Edge would give weaker ADCs a chance to win fights while not being too overbearing (like it is now) on more commonly picked ADCs.

item 3035 Last Whisper:

With a bunch of the damage floating around + Conqueror, I think Last Whisper is better off untouched for the moment. If it had to be buffed, I'd say 15% armor penetration or 17.5% armor penetration would be alright.

item 3156 Maw of Malmortius

AFAIK Maw is already a very cost efficient item (even more so when it's passive is activated. Adding more flat danage in addition to the item's strong defensive passive seems overkill IMO. When an AD champion has a strong matchup, it's usually very good so I don't think buffing it is a good idea.

Disclaimer: I'm unranked, these are just my opinions based off of norms / watching high ELO gameplay

Umarhil12/22/2018, 12:03:12 AM29 votes

While I like the ideas here, I think the main issue with ADC itemization right now compared to every other role is the complete lack of HP. Resistances are great, but without even a decent option for HP, it makes dealing with some situations absolutely impossible. Also as a side effect, it makes Ignite absolutely ridiculous, since it will deal ~25% of your HP in the mid to late game while reducing your main defense (lifesteal).

Something designed kinda like Black Cleaver, but with stats more fit for ADC, that rewards a constant DPS, would be a huge step-up. Frozen Mallet is also an option, but it's too weak because of champions like Gnar abusing it. Even something that can be stacked through farming, would maybe be good for ADCs since it fits this scaling idea, but I'm throwing ideas at the wall right now.

Not having access to this stat for most of the Marksman cast makes it nearly impossible to deal with hybrid damage sources from the enemy team, due to the fact that you are limited in terms of slots (which I guess this would help fix, especially the 5k IE), but also because due to the multiplicative nature of ADCs damage, you can simply get something like early Tabi + early Hexdrinker without being as useful as dead. It gets even worse when you are vs champions that requires a QSS, it becomes finding the "less worse" options, and you feel really hopeless.

Other roles don't have this issue because they can get HP which will act as a bridge until they get the proper situational resistances items they need. The argument can be made that enchanters are there to provide some form of "pseudo-HP" through shield, but this doesn't fix the problem ADCs are facing right now, which is the accurate feeling that your personal choices and actions have a minimal impact on the outcome of the game.

Overall, glad that you're willing to take a good look at that. I have this belief that crit as a mechanic will always be problematic and that on-hit is easier to balance due to the lack of RNG and burst (both issues, one of them even leading to this 8.11 patch), even if Phantom Hit makes it volatile, but I guess at this point removing it would be a lot of work, so I just hope you can manage to fix it. Thanks for the insight.

sit kid12/22/2018, 2:34:50 AM27 votes

Honestly, what went through your heads when making stopwatch a component for hexdrinker and even introducing stopwatch in the first place?

KestrelGirl12/22/2018, 12:01:30 AM25 votes
  • Last Whisper buff looks good, the item was left pretty damn weak after its last big nerf. I feel like that should happen regardless of other changes.
  • ER buff looks really nice - but maybe TOO nice. That's a pretty low gate on Essence Flare. I can see Quinn abusing this. I would love it, but it wouldn't be fair because everyone who doesn't play Quinn hates her guts.
  • Hexdrinker changes are interesting. I'm not sure if I like those, tbh.
  • Energized Stormrazor is the way to go IMO. Lots of synergy with the other energized items - and Fleet?
  • 25% crit chance Zeal items sound good, round numbers are nice. 50% AS on Shiv may be too much - Tryndamere's busy nutting. Phantom rework is interesting but I think there will be at least a few champs who end up missing its consistent dueling power (Yasuo?).
  • 5k gold IE is a really, really fucking wild idea. I don't think it'd play out well because it's such a stat stick. Probably either revert or keep as is.
ModWulf Helhammer12/22/2018, 12:10:35 AM22 votes

I'm liking the look on most of these, particularly Energized Stormrazor (lol to "Increased crit damage a fair and balanced amount" on 5000g IE).

Still not the biggest fan of the Flare passive on Essence Reaver. As KestrelGirl points out, that's a huge advantage to Quinn (which, don't get me wrong, as a Quinn ADC main who still builds Essence Reaver, I'm salivating), to potentially an overpowered amount. Plus, I'm not the biggest fan of fighting against constant Dodge uptime Jax.

I am wondering if you think that Phantom Dancer could retain its "no unit collision" passive in some capacity? That's the iconic power of the item, even back to when it looked like a red Zeal, and even if I don't use the item much, I would be sad to see that aspect of it go.

Thanks in advance if you answer, and it's great to see you guys working on improving how ADC feels right now!

OtterlyLost12/22/2018, 12:03:31 AM20 votes

The idea of an all in one IE is interesting. I worry about the trough that puts ADCs in a bit; 5k is A LOT of gold and time. But at the same time, it would be nice to have everything you needed in one item. It would make build paths feel less constraining. And no one could say ADCs have the cheapest 1st item powerspike if they're shelling out 5k. I don't know if I'd personally want this to be the new IE but I think its interesting I'd just like to play with it on the PBE for shits and giggles.

Yes, please make Zeal items give 25% crit, particularly if IE is just going to continue to double critical strike chance. Please, for the love of god, so I'm not wasting a huge chunk of gold in stats that are already over capped.

PD is already pretty defensive. However, with it building out of Hexdrinker, would it give MR instead of just flat damage reduction instead...? And if it did, you would have to definitely change Storm Razor from what it is now to something different. There were so many changes to the current Razor to prevent assassins from using it; giving assassins a relatively good option to stat into some crit so that they can go back to abusing storm razor just sounds terrifying.

I'd rather avoid making Storm Razor energized as well. It already feels like you get shoe horned into RFC/Shiv a lot as a crit builder. :( If SR was also an energized attack, the best option for damage would always just go energizer.

Could you expound on what Multi Proc means on Stormrazor??? Like... a shiv multi proc or...? What I always thought would be cool for Stormrazor was if it ramped up the damage of your crits for each consecutive crit you made, starting at like... 100% and working its way up to a max of 250 or something. It would be rewarding for extended fights, which is what ADCs want, and it would make it still a viably good item in the late game.

Also, some expansion on what you mean with ER would also be nice; that just seems like the same build it currently has which is problematic since most of the ADCs that used it still also built crit; it still has no crit in that iteration, making it less viable on champs like Xayah(who really had old ER as the core of her build, maybe more than ANY other ADC), Crit MF, Ashe(who you guys have moved away from crit with changes to her passive but I still like crit best on her), Varus, etc. I honestly would just like to see ER reverted or for it to even build out of something like Caufields+Zeal+Mana Crystal; give it less AD in exchange for crit and CDR and some kind of mana regen.

Edit: I'm an idiot and just realized that not all of the picture is showing. Yes to the PD change; it sounds amazing. I don't care for either of those iterations of Stormrazor, however. And seeing what the passive of ER is, I'm a little more okay with that idea though I still want some crit in there.

Åtvid4Life12/22/2018, 12:30:20 PM13 votes

Hey Riot (PhRoXzOn) I like the ideas you're exploring here but as a Xayah Main Essence reaver is something that I desperately wanted to be changed from the horrendous 8.11 version. I agree with the popular consensus that a revert would most likely be the best option but if you're not willing to revert it I would like to give my two cents on how to change it for the better.

I like the Idea of reducing your cooldowns by auto attacking but I think it would be interesting if the WHOLE item revolved around it instead of it being a quirk of the item.

Let me give you an example to show more of what I mean

item 3508 Essence reaver

X thousand gold

X AD X AS

Unique passive: Auto attacking refunds a balanced amount of your basic abilities cooldown and mana Unique passive: Reduces Ult cooldown by X %

I hope you will see this and that maybe It'll give you some inspiration on where to go with the item

Sidenote: If you are going to change IE to give it a flat amount of crit again maybe reintroduce cloak of agility to it's recipe.

Xayah

Frosted Tips12/22/2018, 4:17:18 AM13 votes

So are you still working on AP Bruiser Itemization with Solcrushed?

F5371012/22/2018, 1:36:05 AM11 votes

I'm most curious about the philosophy behind those changes. Crit items were changed so they would be better against tanks and less volatile against squishies. With the consideration of reverting IE, has the crit item changes not panned out as Riot had hoped? What problems does reverting IE solve? Crit items were also changed because they were too strong in combination late game. Ad carries were considered mandatory because of the sheer power they brought later in the game. As a result, crit items were made more expensive so the power levels remained the same, but came online much later. The IE changes in direction two would make late game carries much stronger. Does Riot think mandatory ad carries are a problem, and if so, how would this IE change help or hinder the issue? Have you considered lowering the maximum possible power level of ad carries and putting that power somewhere else?

ƒrostγ12/22/2018, 12:25:36 AM9 votes

I wonder when can mages have a foolproof defensive item like hexdrinker, especially this updated version.

Yandere Carry12/22/2018, 6:46:38 AM9 votes

I think there is a massive problem with trying to frontload damage. The goal should be to make a viable ranged DPS champion not Draven-The-Burst-AD-Mage

DarkSpiritslayer12/21/2018, 11:41:58 PM2 votes

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