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Let's give Magus the Cinderhulk treatment

omegaLULW··40 votes·5,337 views
Let's give Magus the Cinderhulk treatment * /r/leagueoflegends

Jungle Diversity

I just want to state right off the bat as a diamond level jungler the latest changes in 5.5 have been great for jungle diversity and I have seen more off-meta/experimental picks in ranked then I have seen in a long time.

Why were the cinderhulk changes so effective?

Obviously this boon in jungle diversity is largely a result of the release of cinderhulk and what it did to solve problems that tank junglers had at various stages of the game. It gave them the early to mid game clear they needed to stay relevant in farm with bruiser junglers and it gave them the late game scaling they needed to truly be a tanky frontline in teamfights.

Lets look at Magus and AP junglers on patch 5.5

Most people will probably agree that Warrior and Cinderhulk are in a pretty healthy spot right now but I believe Magus is really is starting to pale in comparison. Let's look at Diana for example, a champion who has been surfacing in the meta as of late. Diana has a shield for sustain, a strong camp clearing passive and strong ganks at 6, on paper she should be a viable jungler. If you've ever tried Diana in the jungle you will notice right off the bat she feels very good early, your first clears will be relatively painless and very fast, your gank pressure is a little underwhelming but you can make up for it by powerfarming to 6. However after your first clear and your blue buff runs out you will start to understand why you never see AP champions in the jungle.

Ap junglers like Diana suffer from brutal mana-gating without blue buff, while they clear fast with blue buff as soon as it runs out their mana pool is gone after one or two camps and their ability to farm or gank is completely non-existent. You are forced to run trailblazers and steal every blue from your mid-laner to stay relevant and even then you still face crippling mana problems during blue buff downtime.

The issue with Magus

Magus is a great item; it grants 80 ability power and 20% CDR which is a fantastic powerspike for the price but it has one glaring weakness; it does absolutely nothing to prevent AP junglers from simply going OOM and becoming useless until they base. As it stands right now the only viable way to play Ap junglers is to go RoA/Tear/morellonomicon out of the jungle all of which have particularly bad and awkward build paths for a jungler and also delay your core item build even further.

Junglers also want early power spikes to have an impact early in the game where they are the most relevant and building mana heavily delays that. From a counter-gank or 1 v 1 perspective the jungler who brings combat stats to a fight is going to win every time over a jungler who brings mana; it is simply wasted gold that brings nothing to a fight.

How do we fix Magus?

Honestly just revert it to the old spectral wraith that gave it mana vamp - it was perfectly healthy on mages back then the only ones who abused the spirit stone passive were primarily AD bruisers. The cinderhulk enchantment afterall was more or less simply a reversion to the old juggernaut which had the 25% max hp passive with thorns to return damage to the mobs (essentially the same dps to mos as immolate on cinderhulk).

Magus's powerspike might be a bit loaded with a mana vamp passive so perhaps just bring back the old stacking mechanism (similar to seeker's armguard but on jungle mobs) or nerf the CDR/AP on it slightly to compensate. Changes to Magus would not only help AP mages in the jungle but also AP off-tanks like Amumu, Maokai, Cho'gath and others who suffer from mana issues. Also for clarity sake make the mana leech only proc on neutral monsters so midlaners can't use it obviously.

TL:DR AP junglers suffer from being mana-gated in the same way tank junglers were being DPS-gated when it came to competing with the clear speed of warrior enchant bruisers. Give magus it's old mana-vamp passive back.

EDIT: As cost-effective as Magnus may be over warrior; Warrior gives flat AD which boosts both abilities AND auto attacks while AP simply only boosts ability damage. This is why warrior has a stronger clear unless AP champions have more liberty to spam their spells when clearing.

Edit(2): Someone has suggested adding a % of your ap to auto-attacks when upgrades to prevent junglers like Fiddlesticks from abusing the mana-vamp

Edit(3): Another suggestion was adding a flat amount of mana refunded when killing a large jungle mob (think swain passive). This flat amount could scale with levels and would prevent junglers like fiddle/Elise/Nidalee from getting too out of hand with a damage to mana conversion passive.

69 Comments

ModAcademy Kayn13 votes

Nice post. Mana always seems to be the one thing I'm always lacking while Diana Jungle. Magus provides damage, but overall it doesn't do much for the jungler themselves. Sure, you can cast abilities more often...to run out of mana faster.

You can hog blue buff, but then other champs (mana hungry mages or tops, I.E Jayce, Orianna, Etc) are kinda blown over. You start to seem more like your own lane in jungle then someone who ganks. Countless times, I've been unabled to gank since I don't have any mana to do so, and then people die and you get raged at for "No ganks from jungler GG".

Would gladly sacrifice CD to get some Mana regen. 10/10

The5lacker5 votes

I feel like just granting bonus Mana Regen would be simple enough. Toss a few Faerie Charms into the build path. Can't squeeze in a Forbidden Idol sadly.

omegaLULW2 votes

I would be more in favor of just adding in the mana regen or mana vamp on the completed item, similarly to how tank junglers need to farm the 1000g sunfire item before they can reap the benefits of powerfarming and sustained clears.

4nth0l0gy5 votes

Yes, thank you! I've been meaning to make a thread about this. Very well stated, I totally agree. It's the reason (or one of them) Warrior has been so dominant for so long: AP champs just have NO sustain whatsoever! For whatever useful stats Magus gives (many), they're completely negligible without sustain. And don't tell me 5 mana per second is helpful when you're spamming spells against creeps; it's no more rewarding than it is for a Pantheon with Warrior, and his autoattacks actually do damage then. How the hell is a Diana or a Fiddlesticks or a Karthus supposed to compete? How are any of them supposed to do ANYTHING without a blue buff?

The ONLY reason Nidalee can work with it is because she has 3 (damage; technically 5 total) spells THAT DON'T USE MANA! And she can still go low!

This thread is very important, please upvote friends.

Abyssphere3 votes

Agreed so much with this. I don't struggle too much with Elise because half of her abilities cost no mana and you get to the point where Skittering Frenzy puts in the vast majority of the work with clearing but people like Diana and Fiddle really have it hard. IMO they should cut the CDR to 10% and give 50% mana regen.

flibitydoo3 votes

I like the idea, but they should probably nerf Nidalee before instituting this change.

omegaLULW2 votes

Possibly, it would make her even more ridiculous if she was able to sustain her mana

Dengeden3 votes

Nidalee yes please

Visigoth3 votes

As a jungle main who plays Diana, Karthus, and Fiddle, I fully agree. While 20% cdr is lovely to have it feels almost like too much to the point where mana management is very important.

jv21blU7oD3 votes

100% agree and yes this is the main reason I just don't play something like Diana jungle.

B1GbabieJESUS2 votes

Or perhaps some MPen on the item to allow it to scale into later game. Champs like Elise would benefit significantly from this ;)

omegaLULW3 votes

I think flat magic pen would be too powerful as well as not really resolve the mana issues they have. It would really only benefit a handful of junglers (Elise, Nidalee, Fizz) and potentially make them even harder to deal with early game while still leaving the rest in a bad spot.

Axrios2 votes

yes i can pray ap amumu if des change happen ;)

ModKnightsKemplar2 votes

I completely agree. The mana issue for junglers is a huge one. Just a mundane comment to help visibility. Nice post and good job!

Pointy Rock2 votes

This is an amazing thread. Please upvote it.

Celeste Benal2 votes

I, too, find jungling with an AP champ often results in me being oom very quickly. If Magus returned while in combat with monsters I would not complain if it lost some AP or CDR to compensate.

Migrañaboy2 votes

I prefer the solution stated in the 3rd edit: give some flat or % mana back when killing big jungle monsters.

omegaLULW1 votes

It was a bit ridiculous when fiddle drain could restore like 300 mana per use..

NorthernDruid1 votes

I'd rather they add a better earlygame mana item than tack it onto magus. Especially if they're gonna touch the price or stats of the item to compensate the mana power you're getting, I don't need to pay for more mana I don't need on jungle Akali, and besides, there's more champions than junglers who need more item choices to handle mana issues early game.

I'd love to see magus spruced up to be something interesting, but I'd rather see it through Unique passives or some kind of active, like an empower to your next spell.

One thing that would be a great alteration to the Chalice line, would be if it greatly increased it's mana regen over time after not spending mana for a little while.

4nth0l0gy3 votes

See, junglers that rely on spells for damage HAVE to spam their spells to clear early. You aren't forced into that in lane, you have to make choices based on your champ and your opponent. It's nice that jungle Akali isn't mana dependent, but she's the exception to the rule.

Maybe laners do need a little more mana, but I think they're doing okay right now.

NorthernDruid3 votes

Again, I'd rather have that void be filled by something else, and leave room on Magus for other, actually interesting stuff.

Not that I'd complain about Magus, since it's not an item I'm reliant on when jungling Akali, if it's AP is nerfed or it's cost is increased, that'll just put it further down on the priority list. If it starts not being worth it i'll get another enchant.

But if it's likened to what cinderhulk did for tank junglers, especially what Bami's Cinder does, and at what price it does it, then really what we want is an offensive-minded chalice item now isn't it?

And really, until you finish morello or chalice in lane, you're having a pretty hard time with your mana regen, simply because there's no AP+mana regen item to land on (and I think the only AP+mana item to land on is item 3057, but i could be wrong there).

At least junglers have the blue buff for their really early game, if you're having trouble conserving your mana enough to gank then there are multiple ways around that problem, runes/masteries can help you regen, while if you're a true mage then you'll probably want a proper mana regen item anyway ('cause if the mana regen on the jungle item is too good then mid laners would just start picking smite). Some cases like Diana would probably want an item with AP+mana regen+CDR around the 900-1300 gold price level, as would every mana using midlaner.

The real issue is the lack of diversity in high offensive AP+mana regen items, since there's really just Morello and Archangel's there. There's no item between the extreme mana focus of AA's and the heavy offensive AP+CDR+Grievous wounds of Morellonomicon, Athene's falls somewhere off to the side, being a middling AP+CDR+MR+mana regen item, which doesn't get you enough of any one thing to feel compelling, and which still doesn't let you have both mana regen and AP on one item in it's build path.

That's the real issue here in my opinion, the fact that there's no unfinished item with mana regen and AP, and that the only unfinished item with mana and AP is Sheen.

A more meta-level what-if discussion on the topic, is that if Riot ties mana (an attribute not actually used by quite a number of champions) to the only AP jungle item, they effectively block themselves out of later introducing an AP jungler who doesn't use mana, without building them around the fact that they're expected to waste resources.

There's already quite a few off-meta niche pick junglers (or whatever term you'd use to describe not a widespread thing) out there who uses AP but not mana.

Heck, AP Rek'Sai was (and still might be for all i know, I don't really play that much pvp yet) a thing, should the players who lowes that and makes it work even if it's not optimal any longer be forced out because of a need to rework Magus?

I mean, the answer could be yes, but it could also be to make an item which is a good alternative to all mana hungry ability reliant champions who can't really sacrifice AP for mana early and also have to make constant use of their abilities.

And then give Magus something really interesting, which benefits all users of it.

I mean that's what made Cinderhulk kinda cool, and forgives the fact that they removed an alternative for Tenacity from the game, that it doesn't matter what kind of tanky jungler you are, your clears WILL be faster, bonus health from your tanky items will help you later on, And hey, you could even get Bami's Cinder and then sell it when your clears are good enough if that's a viable strategy.

Cinderhulk doesn't just solve a specific problem, it gets you two kinds of unique utility which anyone can benefit from.

Mana regen of any kind fixes one problem alone, running out of mana. And the only ones who can benefit from that, are the ones who get in trouble because they run out of mana and can't afford to fix it in any of the mundane ways (backing, getting mana pots, getting a mana regen item, getting a proper mana item, getting blue buff).

It is of my belief that a mana regen+AP item to be part of a build path to a full item with really good mana regen and AP would make life so much easier for both mana hungry AP junglers, and mana hungry AP mid-laners. Whereas a buff/change to Magus to incorporate some cooler aspects to it (like an active to empower the next ability used, or anything else cool and useful and interesting that riot comes up with) would be a cool change for AP Junglers, mana hungry or not.

P.S. sorry for the wall of text, i'm writing in the middle of the night and they tend to just happen T.T

omegaLULW3 votes

This is.. a lot to reply to, I'll try to hit your main points

  • In regards to chalice - not really, you cant compare laning vs jungling on mages. In the jungle you need to be able to spam your spells to clear effectively in lane you can conserve mana and last hit with autos, the dynamic is completely different. Whatever form of mana regen this item gives need to A) Be very high to sustain the mana cost of spell spamming B) Only be active when you are fighting jungle mobs for the sake of balance. I.e. ganking and roaming will not grant any mana regen at all, only fighting mobs. This will it is still possible to go oom pressuring lanes but you should be able to sustain fighting the jungle, also make it useless on laners. Also Chalice cost too much.. its 1000g.

I really dont think you should balance anything around AP Reksai.. you should focus on what benefits the majority even if it means hurting the very small minority. Manaless AP champions who want to jungle can just skip the jungle item and get on with their core build anyways, it's not that big of a detriment.

I dont know all this business about altering spells seems like it would be a lot of work and specific to each champion.. you could add like %AP DoT damage to mobs on auto attacks or spell casts like the one that machete already has but additionally based on AP but outside of that I can't see it working.

Again I think you should just cater to what the majority of AP jungles need; and that is mana. Make the jungle item only activate when fighting jungle mobs and therefore its useless on mid-laners. Problem solved.

NorthernDruid1 votes

Well, if you want something exclusively for jungle clearing, then the thing would be to buff the mana regen of the machete/upgrades. Not the full Magus enchant.

Cinderhulk is something which grants you extra HP, always, and an AoE dot combat passive, always. Giving the same treatment to Magus would not be to give it something for clearing only.

And I do think manaless AP junglers should be considered, both because all those niche picks, things that you wouldn't do in ranked but you might wanna do for fun (whether in normals or bots) will be even less relevant if they get denied at such a basic level, and because Riot'd block themselves out of creating a dedicated manaless AP jungler in the future.

The game thrives on diversity, that's what Cinderhulk was about, creating scaling for the tank junglers who struggled scaling beyond really good first ganks (at least as i gather).

A full enchant change is geared towards the mid game more so than the early game, and by the mid game you should have no more trouble than mana hungry AP casters in the mid lane who by then are expected to use their abilities for clearing.

Again, the real issue for the early game is that there's no good mana/mana regen+AP item to hold onto while you finish your full mana/mana regen+AP item.

The issue for later in the game is that the only strong, pure AP+mana regen item is Morellonomicon (or AA's, but AA's has the problem of lacking CDR so there's that).

And neither Morello, Archangel's, or Rod of Ages if you wanna really go the heavy mana route, has any component item with mana/regen and AP.

So if we get an item with mana regen and AP, which builds into something with high AP and good mana regen, then that should solve a lot of it for both midlaners and mana hungry AP junglers.

And then Magus can get something interesting instead of being a Morellonomicon sans-mana regen and Grievous wounds.

Also, just to pull out a scruffy strawman, if your clears are lacking because of health problems, speed problems, or mana problems... get item 3713, that's what it's there for.

As for an empower active, I don't see how this would be any tricky to make (or why it would be tuned per champion, it's not like spellblade, statikk shiv, or Luden's Echo needs individual tuning), you take Luden's Echo passive, tie it to an active on a decent cooldown, scale it up a bit and make it afftect all targets hit by the spell/ability, and give AoEs the spellvamp treatment.

Or you're just lazy and give a retuned Luden's echo passive.

omegaLULW1 votes

This is trying to create an item that caters to magnus users only not every jungler. As I've already stated it isn't an early game problem but rather a mid-game problem, you need the changes on Magus itself you can't buff base machete that much.

Look at what each item does to help junglers WITHOUT the use of abilities (IE. you are trying to conserve mana)

Warrior: Higher AD = stronger auto attacks Cinderhulk: Immolate = passive damage aura Magus: NOTHING = Without using abilities this item does literally nothing to help your clear speed.

You complain so much about manaless junglers being hurt by these changes when really the item is plenty strong as it is even without the mana regen incorporated in it. Champions like Shyvana can get trinity force even if they don't use the mana, Magus would still be a strong item for a manaless ap junglers.

Im trying to create an item here that benefits junglers while they are clearing not create a new go-to-item passive regen item for mid laners. These are two separate issues I do not know why you are arguing this point.

As much as making magnus "cool" and "unique" it's much easier from a design and balance standpoint to just keep the item simple and simple - Just give it raw stats like the other two enchants. This way it is equally powerful on everyone and certain champions wouldn't benefit more from whatever "unique" passive you could put on it.

Also Rangers doesn't give enough mana and the cooldown is too long to provide any proper means of sustain.

NorthernDruid1 votes

Ok, so I had written a semi-large wall of text despite trying not to.

And the forums decided to eat it.

So i'll try and rewrite my conclusion.

I feel like both Warrior and Magus are just ball of stats, and doesn't impact your game the way Devourer or Cinderhulk does. And I don't think adding monster-fighting-only mana regen would fix that for Magus.

I'd like to write more in-depth about this, and I had, but the forum ate it.

omegaLULW2 votes

I replied to it, I will reiterate; yes both are balls of stats. However during ability downtime (conserving mana) Warrior = stronger auto attacks Magus = No benefit

This is why I think Magus needs to regen mana, it 100% relies on abilities, warrior relies 50% on abilities 50% AA's

NorthernDruid1 votes

Fair enough.

I'd rather see them make something that makes Magus help you use fewer abilities (=less mana expenditure) per camp though.

They need to do something about Magus though, at least that we agree on.

4nth0l0gy2 votes

Dude...okay. simply put: let's deal with jungle problems separately from lane problems.

shalexade1 votes

Love the idea, would just need to be careful to ensure that it didn't become the mana-regen staple for mid laners instead of the morellonomicon.

(vale Chalice)

omegaLULW1 votes

You can't build magus unless you are running smite ;)

shalexade2 votes

ignite: 50 + (20 x lvl) on a 210 second cooldown

Skirmishers blade: 54 + (6 × level) on a 75 second cooldown (15 seconds with the stack system) PLUS 20% damage reduction PLUS additional objective control.

I'll tell you which one I take if I can replace the nomicon with a magus for my mana regen needs :D

Hard4Hamsters2 votes

Apply the mana regen to only occur during a fight with monsters.

shalexade1 votes

And there's the easy solution (Which technically was in the OP :D)

Good show fellas, lets make this a real thing.

TheI3igDaddy1 votes

Cho'gath has no mana issues in the jungle; you just level his E first and you can clear camps just from AA'ing.

omegaLULW1 votes

Yes, but if you want to play Cho as pure ap or tanky AP you need to max W or Q first to have burst damage. Maxing E relegates you into a tanky role because you need to be tanky enough to enter melee range and beat people down.

TheI3igDaddy1 votes

I generally play Cho as tanky AP when I go mid, and I play him as a tank when I go jungle. I haven't done AP jung Cho, so that's something to try out.

omegaLULW1 votes

{quoted}

I generally play Cho as tanky AP when I go mid, and I play him as a tank when I go jungle. I haven't done AP jung Cho, so that's something to try out.

I think Cho is very good out of the jungle with Magus, RoA and Frozen heart. The rest is situational more Ap or tank.

TheI3igDaddy1 votes

What runes do you use then, for AP jung Cho? I tend to use AS marks and MS quints for the tank version, but do you swap out for Magic Pen reds / AP Quints?

Varkrey1 votes

Unique Passive: Recovers 50/100/150 (1-5/6-10/11-18) mana every time a large neutral monster is killed.

Problem solved.

omegaLULW1 votes

Yeah seems like a simple fix

Commando Yi1 votes

grab some mana pots

magus is broken as is and the last thing it needs is buffs

you must reduce the cdr to at least 10% and i'd be on board with any mana regen attributes

omegaLULW1 votes

Mana pots are horribly ineffecient.. 100 mana over 15 seconds is basically only one additional spellcast. At that point you are basically halving the money you make on each camp if you are chugging mana potions the whole time. Just bring back the old stacking mechanism (Just like seekers armguard but jungle mobs) to balance this power spike and stop it from being overwhelming out of the gate

bunies1 votes

Fix wall of text, need nice easy to read summary what you want the new item to be

omegaLULW1 votes

There is a TL:DR for a reason..

SmokingPuffin1 votes

Magus is a great item; it grants 80 ability power and 20% CDR which is a fantastic powerspike for the price but it has one glaring weakness; it does absolutely nothing to prevent AP junglers from simply going OOM and becoming useless until they base.

This is a really great take. Well played sir.

Lobode1 votes

The down period between blue buffs needs to stay. If I didn't run out of mana on fiddle in the jungle it would be way to OP. You could gank bot, go back into jungle and heal to full hp and then gank mid and so on and so on and never need to back. Kind of like nunu except with much better ganks. Right now the only thing that stops me from doing that is blue buff running out. I feel its better for the game if champs can't stay in jungle and ganking when ever they want with out needing to back. That works for champs like nunu and ww because they aren't ganking machines, well atleast nunu isn't and ww isn't until he hits 6. Sure, just like most junglers, they can do successful ganks but they don't have the mobility, cc, or damage that other champs have. I think if someone is going to have dianas mobility, cc, and damage she needs a tradeoff. If Diana didn't have to back every now and then, her win % would skyrocket kind of how sejuani's did.

NeoKira1 votes

My biggest problem ends up being a mixture of this + the fact that any ap jg without good sustain just loses health. They're not ad junglers, which just clear the camps so quickly that they take no damage anyway, and they're not tank junglers, who take so much less damage from the jungle that it's less relevant. So what ends up happening is that they just get to about 1/2 hp after a 2 or so camps, which means that ganking is suddenly probably going to get you killed. This is also the problem i have when I play ADC junglers these days. I used to love playing twitch jungle with wriggles into feral flare, but twitch can't hope to have a stable time in the new jg. He not only takes too long to clear camps at the start, but the damage they do to him is so much that he can't actually hope to deal with it.

omegaLULW1 votes

Ap champions are typically ranged so you can kite and cc mobs to clear it Ex. on brand/syndra I can kite camps around with taking many hits at all when I have blue buff. Also rangers does a pretty good job at keeping your HP up its more the mana I find I have problems with

TenSlashTen1 votes

What is magus? Is that the 80 ap and 20% cdr item? Im not good with item names unless they're like super old items...lol

I still buy it on my AP tank eve (frozen heart + randuims+ bv+ rylias+ armor/merc treads boots)

anyway its a good item but I'd give up 10-5% cdr if it gave spell vamp/mana vamp. idc either way tbh. eve's passive is just a shitty veigar passive so its not like its really gonna solve her problems when its her over nerfed kit that doesn't help her clears rather than the items themselves.

omegaLULW1 votes

bump

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