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physical vs magic damage

M00ndanc3·8/2/2017, 4:57:55 PM·63 votes·4,178 views

Over the last couple of months ive noticed there has been this trend in overpowered physical damage items with little to nothing on the magical item side.

for reference there have been a good couple of patches in which a ad item has been considered overpowered such as with BotRK, death dance and most recently Duskblade as well as the minor constant changes to some other ad items such as when they add 5ad to a handfull of lifesteal items or reduced the cost on IE without changeing its stats. another example is with lethality and how its constantly bungying between too strong or just subpar and with the addition and buffs to addaptive helm it feels like magic damage is being nerfed down in favor of ad.

like even mundo just got tweaked to be more anti mage with his passive magic resistance buff and the only thing ive noticed that has helped mages is by removing the mr on edge of night

(this is all based on what ive seen and appolagize ahead of time if ive forgotten to mention and or have missed some thing or have false information or interpretation of the patches over the last 3-6months, and im free to any comments or ideas that you believed ive missed)

119 Comments

EkyonKun8/2/2017, 6:29:19 PM29 votes

I may regret posting this, since this may be stemming from some bias, but I've noticed that while AD, AP and Tank CHAMPIONS have been receiving a fair and equal amount of buffs and nerfs, everything else has been so....Anti-AP. I mean, its not like these AD item buffs (necessarily) stick around foreveritem 3153 item 3147item 3814 , but when is the last time a SINGLE AP item got buffed in any way shape or form? Except for a 100 gold price decrease. item 3136 item 3151 And at the same time, the items have been getting nerfed in terms of slot efficiency since the MYMU. item 3027 item 3116 item 1056 item 3157 item 3152 Will of the Ancients got straight up removed item 3174 (Unless you're Karma or Lux) and if you were close ranged, 10% more magic damageitem 3001. Meanwhile... item 3065 buffed item 3194 Added, buffed item 3814 Added, buffed, nerfed, then gave HP instead of MR (Thank god) item 3193 Added. Though this one at LEAST also gives armor and is only broken on Chogath item 3812 Passive buffed. Now you have to burst even harder to get the same stuff done. Kassadin Buffed (Yay)

And now ALL champions, regardless of them being ranged, having an anti-mage passive, or having a windwall, have scaling MR.

But at least we have item 3165 so that's cool

Divewing8/2/2017, 7:20:23 PM19 votes

This is mainly because the fix for this isn't as simple as: "Here's a new item that makes APs great again, go nuts guys!".

It's an overarching issue with AP itemisation in that for the most part, it's incredibly binary. Stack AP, buy Void Staff.

invisiblecat18/2/2017, 8:57:32 PM17 votes

This is how it has been for eternity The last time magic damage items were stronger than physical damage items was was on patch 4.19, the patch before DFG was removed And since then mages only really got item 3285 as a new item, which is basically just a crappier version of item 3087

Squidward Dab8/2/2017, 10:48:11 PM15 votes

All I want is for more 100-120 ap items again. I've also felt and I feel like this is just me but when AP champs don't go magic pen boots they just lose out on so much damage where as AD champs can choose more defensive boots and still dish out damage

deadlychuck8/3/2017, 4:00:58 AM13 votes

it's amazing people are just noticing this.

This is a trend which has been going on for years now. Which is made all the more concerning when AD has more multiplicative, utilitarian, and natural scaling to it. Just as a primary stat, objectively better.

Crit and Atk Spd, well now you just do a ton more damage. Lifesteal, well now all that offensive power is also defensive power. Natural scaling, well yeah you've got auto attacks, but what if you also had full AD scaling? Ehh? Eh?

Then you look at the distribution of AD to AP champions, the number of AD items vs AP items, and the absolute premium uniques that some of these AD items have, it's painfully obvious that riot has a massive bias towards AD as a stat option.

Maybe not a preference, but as a stat it can more easily influence the length of a game. Via how it naturally snowballs and it's the preferable objective killing stat.

AHScoven8/3/2017, 12:14:56 AM10 votes

AP items have been constantly nerfed since the removal of DFG...and I just can't understand why lol

Skorch8/2/2017, 9:19:28 PM8 votes

Is it possible that its not that AP is underpowered, and its that Riot views AP as in a decent spot. Where as they are unhappy with ADs balance, so they are having a harder time getting AD right?

I dont know all these changes to ME make me feel like they like mage itemization and think they are in a good spot (bland as they are yes)

EDIT: And is it possible that all these mages saying all mages except the strong ones are weak and itemization is bland and bad is just a perpetuating rumor?

Painted Celt8/2/2017, 10:49:47 PM8 votes

Interestingly, the top 5 average total damage dealt champions are all magic. Karthus Ziggs Xerath Velkoz Heimerdinger A lot of it is damage from waveclearing in the cases above, but that's still an important strength which magic is clearly excelling at. Also, top 5 average number of kills are Katarina Fizz Talon Akali Twitch, which is 3/5 primarily magic damage.

I think they're pretty balanced on the whole. I will say that I don't like how ADC is still mandatory. I also don't like how full AD teams still shred armor-stacking tanks super quickly. It feels like 3 AP champs on a team isn't enough AD in a comp, but 4 AD with 1 APC is just fine (and maybe ideal), which seems unfair to me.

Hexs Fortune8/2/2017, 10:15:42 PM4 votes

Before the Juggernaut update AP had the market on dmg + health items, but the health + AD items filled the void.

AD now has options for both dmg + health and dmg + resistances.

FilDaFunk8/2/2017, 11:07:53 PM3 votes

It's mostly because rito keeps changing the abilities, their ratios and base damage, so they needn't bother with the items whereas AD champs all auto attack, which can't really be changed on a per-champ basis.

PePsiLemoNN8/3/2017, 2:25:05 PM1 votes

Mage main btw

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/middle/by-winrate AD champs completely dominating rn