Runeglaive Changes
Well, I was an avid supporter of the old runeglaive, as it made a lot of AP bursters want to jungle to be able to get that item, but because the item is being changed to only deal AoE against Monsters and the damage is becoming a complete on-hit (Not making the initial hit do magic anymore)...
There's honestly almost no point in finishing this completely garbage item. Magus was horrible, and we all knew it was horrible. It was a stat steroid early on, giving a huge early game spike, but dying off in the mid game if you couldn't get anything extra added on it, much like an early Needlessly. Now Runeglaive is getting the one thing that actually made it unique, nerfed. The AoE is what made it good in team fights, better than Lichbane in most cases. The CDR was wonderful as well, so was the mana regen. HOWEVER. With the change to items, why even finish it now? The junglers that used it before have absolutely NO issues clearing the jungle at all, which is Nidalee and Diana, plus the rare AP jungle Fizz. The whole point they liked it though was because it was AoE to champions and was a good change up from Lichbane. Now what is it? A LB that costs 750 less gold and makes your 2s clear 'slightly' faster?
Honestly. What is this item going to be useful for now? Before, it helped by turning your AA into magic on top of it all, making your AA ignore armor, which is what made it better as a Jungler since you lack in levels and those mids and tops have scaling armor. It helped increase your burst to make up for your gold deficiency and such. What's it worth now though? You get a 'tiny' bit of burst and some mana back? Better off buying a 60 AP Needlessly and going straight into a Luden's or Zhonya's now. Diana grew in strength because it was AoE. Nidalee became burstier because it was an early Lichbane. Fizz became possible because it increased his lacking early game burst dramatically.
Unless we see this item get even more AP, up to 60 or the ratio on it buffed, it seems like it's going to be just another garbage item that can't compare. Cinderhulk is unique in that it gives more health based on your bonus. Devourer is becoming unique with how it adds in the second AA. Warrior was just a strong steroid like Magus and now it's being changed to give a unique Burn effect. What makes Runeglaive unique? It's a cheap knock off of Lichbane that adds 'some' AoE to kits that have tons of AoE. You won't find a mage using this item, only Assassins and the odd cases like Ezreal wanted this item.
And to top all of this off... By the time you finish this as Diana, Fizz, or Nidalee, you're at the point where your simple AoE abilities kill the side minions and your bursty single target can take out the main target. Better off rushing a Luden's since that'd give more actual damage. Sure, it isn't 1450 after your jungle item upgrade that you need, but even just the initial Needless, which is 1250, will be barely any less damage early on.
Just to prove my damn point, I'll even run the numbers with a standard AP build. 21 in Offense, meaning at level 6, she'd have 11 from masteries plus 5%. Most AP's run flat AP Quints and glyphs with MPen Marks. That's 26 AP. So we have 37 AP from runes and masteries, now we add in 50 from Runeglaive. That's 87, the 5%, about 91 AP. Since we're looking at the damage difference, I'll be ignoring Diana's bases so we can go over actual damage differences. We all know her bases are usually enough to murder most anyways. Without Runeglaive, with a needless, she simply has 60 AP, which is 97, totaling about 102.
Now, Q has a 70% ratio, W is 60%, R is 60%. That's about 1.9x her AP. That's 172 damage from the Runeglaive in her ratios, 193.8 from the Needless in ratios. This means we just gotta add in the AP ratio and AD ratio of Runeglaive. At 6, she has 65 AD, so that's 65+30% of 91. So she'll do 92 with it. That's a total of 264 in comparison to 193.8, which we may as well round up to 194 for easier math. So she does 70 more damage with a Runeglaive. 70. At level 6. When most have about 1k, that's about 7% of their health, which can be considered a lot then, but at the same time, that's all before MR is taken!
Let's have fun with MR numbers and since our targets are the mid laners who like to run flat MR glyphs so they don't get rekt in lane, we'll go with them! At this point, all we got is the jungle item or a needless, no boots, so we ignore 8 Magic Resist. The ranged mids have 30 MR plus the 12 flat. So we take into consideration 34 of that. 34/134 (MR/(100+MR) is the formula for that) is 25% reduction. So 25% of the 70 is gone, making the total difference 52.5 damage. Runeglaive gives 52.5 more damage early on and is seen as relatively worthless later on. It does help with mana, which isn't much of an issue for Nidalee after the first clear and Diana usually doesn't have much of an issue because of her passive and Q.
Soooooooo... Since this item has absolutely no late or mid game potential and has negligible help since the only magic damage champs who clear slow are TANKS THAT BUY CINDERHULK, this item is near worthless. Diana is better off with a Devourer to make use of her passive, we can all live with Nidalee getting the short end of the stick, and Fiddlesticks is sitting there going 'CINDERHULK TIME?' Especially so since Liandry's and Rylai's on him are actually wonderful items that help his damage incredibly because of the new items giving much more AP and Rylai's have an improved effect.
What do you guys think? Agree with me? Disagree with me? Toss your thoughts on it all. I hated Magus, but this item went from Redemption to sadness.
