So Tear of the Goddess...

TyrekGoldenspear·Nov 27, 2016·1 votes·907 views

Now hear me out here.

is a really good item because you can essentially never run out of mana, especially if you don't spam too much.

But it falls short in the sense that

it delays your build because of the price tag.
It's rather expensive during laning because you're not building damage, so you can be out-traded.
If you're not a spam mage you may not run out of mana for a while but you also won't be able to stack it quickly, thus defeating the tear's actual purpose.

But what about mages that don't need as much AP so soon? Mages like that have good base damage but poor scalings or mages with really high mana costs like ? Do you guys think delaying my build for a tear is worth the extra harrass?

5 Comments

dakota saturnNov 27, 20161 votes

99% of the time, no, unless it's core and you're playing something like Ryze.

Whenever my opponent comes back with an early tear, I jump up and down because they just basically guaranteed they will lose the lane. Who cares if you can harass more, when you will be outtraded every single time?

Expect this to be relevant in higher ranks, where people generally don't let you walk up to them and use spells on them without any retaliation at all

TyrekGoldenspearNov 27, 20161 votes

Noted. Thanks for the answer. I plan on playing in Plat+ level eventually, so it will be good not to start a bad habit.

Guess it's back to rationing out my mana.

Right now what I do on Brand is back and buy item 3802 , then rush item 3116 and then finish item 3165 .

If I want to keep a full mana pool, my lost chapter approach is better because the item will build into something I'm going to buy later anyway right?

dakota saturnNov 27, 20161 votes

Lost chapter is much better - it gives AP and builds into a staple AP item useful on every mage.

If you're struggling with survivability, buy a 2nd doran's ring, and then get Fiendish Codex. 2 Doran rings doubles your base mana regen & gives back 8 mana per cs, it's excellent. Another option is refillable potion / corrupting potion. For LeBlanc, for example, 2 doran rings means I never run out of mana for the rest of laning phase, and I can focus on pure AP and CDR.

TyrekGoldenspearNov 27, 20161 votes

Thanks for the tip!

morris1Nov 27, 20161 votes

At least on those you mentioned, no. Brand is very reliant on the item 3116 item 3151 combo and Viktor needs the core upgrades as early as possible. The mages that can use Tear are Anivia Cassiopeia Karthus Kassadin (not that good anymore, but not terrible either) Orianna (there are better items for mana now, but again it's doable) Ryze Veigar Xerath (for Xerath it's rather risky so jump over it in harder matchups).