Give Lethality Items the Old Ghostblade Treatment

Akali is SO HOT·Jul 18, 2017·12 votes·415 views

For anyone that may not know, Ghostblade's active used to have a shorter duration for ranged champions than it did for melee champions. Because Riot has a hardon for not making items melee only, instead they should at least make the actives/passives or maybe even the stats less effective on ranged champions.

That way ranged champions can still buy their beloved lethality items, but don't completely break them so melee champions can keep using them without having to worry about them getting gutted because of the ranged champions abusing the items.

8 Comments

Big LincolnJul 18, 20173 votes

inb4 people say "but muh band-aid"

Zero Skill TankJul 18, 20172 votes

No matter how much you riddicule it, slapping "melee only" tag on effects that do not interact with basic attacks directly and exclusively is exactly that - a band aid - and this is exactly why Riot avoids it outside of very specific cases.

But hey - whatever makes you feel better, I guess.

Big LincolnJul 18, 20172 votes

for the longest time flat armor pen was balanced around melee champs being better with it because it was geared for assassins and occasionally fighters, like hecarim and garen. wasn't a problem on ranged champs

and now it is. hmm

Zero Skill TankJul 18, 20171 votes

wasn't a problem on ranged champs

and now it is. hmm

Nonsense. Flat Armor pen is problematic since the day Riot decided that this stat needs to be common enough to build around it. It was not a problem before because it was pretty much inexistant.

But it is just as problematic on melee champions. We had MONTHS of Zed meta when duskblade was first introduced.

Sire HippingtonJul 18, 20171 votes

Back ins S3/S4, Assasins had a good time with BC+Ghostblade+penrunes, and ADC rarly used those items(Ghostblade for some like twitch as it granted crit aswell and synergiezed with their kit), mostly because the ghostblade active was weaker for ranged - but also because lategame scaleing was more relevant compared to early powerspikes than it is now so other builts where more promissing. And duskblade was not problematic because of flatpen, but because of the unique effect, just like now.

Zero Skill TankJul 18, 20171 votes

Because Riot has a hardon for not making items melee only

Riot has a hardon on not making effect melee only, because unless the effect interacts with basic attacks and basic attacks alone making it melee only usually means really bad design. Melee champions come in all shapes and sizes, and say Zed's playstyle is much, much closer to Ahri's or LeBlancs than to Garen's. Not all melee champions deserve the same kind of bonus power from items.

See Seju's stacks or Frozen Mallet. Basic attack range is the only thing that dictates power of the effect, so they could safely be range-restricted.

Now compare it to Sterak's. There is no version of Sterak's that would be strong enough for Darius, but weak enough to allow Rengar to build it, so it had to be restricted in a fancier way than "melee-only". It took time and pain, but eventually we got a good iteration of this item that fighters enjoy but neither assassin or marksmen abuse - while still retaining the option to situationally build it.

"Melee only" is the easiest and the worst way out.

JoxcabJul 18, 20172 votes

Uh yeah except the only intended users of flat armorpen originally were melees until Riot decided to be retarded and tried to pander and rebalance it to ADCs and now fucked it up for everyone.

Also Sterak's is still garbage tier at the moment.

AhristocatsJul 18, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=06Os6GVl,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-07-18T05:26:13.088+0000)

but don't completely break them

and who exactly "completly break them"?