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[Item Idea] Aero-Maul, a possible upgrade to Phage

Willahelm Fulber·8/16/2014, 10:45:17 PM·1 votes·1,067 views

I was brainstorming this after reading a few "why is there no other upgrade to phage like there are 2 for sheen and zeal?"

This takes a little bit of thinking from how the Sheen and Zeal alternative upgrades compare.

Several champions build Trinity Force to make more use of the application of the Rage passive from Phage, stacking it with the 8% bonus movespeed that comes from Zeal. Sheen, to them, is just for the bonus damage from Spellblade, not really about the bonus Mana or Ability power. For example: Lee Sin does not use the Mana, and Ability Power only scales with his W - Safeguard.

Taking this theme of movement speed and the application of Rage, as well as Riot's theme that continuously making good plays should allow you to win, I'm imagining this item being built out of the item 3096 Movement Speed + gold income item, making it much useful for champions who are behind to catch back up as they aren't selling it back to the store.

These stats and prices probably aren't the best, but that's why I'm posting it here, to see if we can get it into a balanced state for the game.

Aero-Maul = Phage + Nomad's Medallion + 800g

+10 HP/5 +15 Movement Speed +15 Mana/5 +25 Attack Damage +250 HP +3 Gold per 10 seconds

UNIQUE Passive - Rage: Basic attacks grant 25 Movement Speed for 2 seconds. Kills grant 80 Movement Speed instead. This Movement Speed bonus is halved for ranged champions.

UNIQUE Passive - Favor: Being near a minion death without granting the killing blow grants +5 Gold.

UNIQUE Passive - Gold Income: You may only be in possession of one Gold Income item.

I used the Gold Efficiency Page on the Wiki to attempt to sample the price. The stats on top of what Phage and Nomad's Medallion provide are worth an additional 690 gold, not counting the Unique passives or gold generation. Still not counting gold generation, the Rage passive must be valued at 89 gold for it to be Gold Efficient, for comparison the Rage passive on Phage must be valued at 77 gold for it to be gold efficient.

Please, discuss and help me balance / consider this item as to fine-tune it for the state of the league.

12 Comments

Dandere Express8/16/2014, 11:18:00 PM1 votes

hi

ShadowKnight12248/17/2014, 2:49:05 AM1 votes

There's a problem with this: you shouldn't build non-support items off support items. It screws up the gold balance in the team as it makes more mathematical sense to start with an ancient coin and then a nomad's medallion, so that you can get more gold generation, and then get a phage (which means delaying your damage and tanking capabilities). If you do this on a non-support, you are also wasting the item's passive, which gives you gold for nearby minions that die without you killing them. This makes the item horrendously useless and gold-inefficient on a solo lane or the jungle.

I would suggest making the item build off Aether Wisp if you want the %movespeed. It also makes for a low-cost hybrid item (providing both AD and AP, like Trinity, but far more easily accessible). Removing the mana regeneration also makes it useful for non-mana-based AD champs, such as Shen (who loves the Phage quite a bit, and has plenty of AP scaling on his abilities).

Pyrobob48/17/2014, 6:21:48 AM1 votes

This item has a bit of an identity crisis. Who exactly would buy it, when, and why? Is it a support item? Is it for ADCs? It has quite a few underwhelming or flat out wasted stats for both roles.

Supports and AP champs have almost no use for the rage passive, so an alternate phage path needs to be focused purely on AD. Maybe give it a more tanky upgrade (like frozen mallet was before), to give bruisers a more appealing alternative to trinity force.

To ShadowKnight's point, maybe it could build out of Phage, Null-Magic Mantle, and Cloth Armor. That way it provides HP, armor, MR, AD, and the rage passive. Then balance those stats to keep the upgraded item cheap, but highly gold efficient.

I also like this items potential to be an alternate option to Guardian Angel.

It would be nice to work in some CDR on the item, but I don't really see a way to do that without either jacking up the price (building from Brutalizer) or replacing the resistances for health (building from Kindlegem). That or just randomly tacking on 10% for no good reason other than it would be a nice stat to have. If only there were a basic item that granted CDR...