Athene's got completely gutted

Estrogen Rider··2 votes·1,070 views

Here's the new stats for Athene's Unholy Grail:

2700 gold 60 AP 25 MR 20% CDR 50% mana regen Increases mana regen by 1.5% of your missing mana.

Now let's compare it to Morellonomicon:

2100 gold 80 AP 20% CDR 100% mana regen (WOW)

I did the math, and I came to three conclusions:

  1. After the 4.20 patch, the way that mana and mana regen works is such that mana scales harder than mana regen. What I mean is, when compared between a champion's level 18 and level 1 stats, their mana difference will be greater than the mana regen difference. Morellonomicon scales with mana regen, whereas Athene's Unholy Grail scales with both mana regen and mana. The problem with this is that Athene only provides 50% of base mana, whereas Morellonomicon provides 100% of base mana. The rest of the mana regen from Athene comes from mana font, but how good is it exactly? I think it's worse than the previous mana font in all aspects. At 1000 mana, you get 15 mana regen, which is fine, but this is true when a) you're at level 18 and/or started with a tear, and b) you're very close to being OOM. And by the time you are close to being OOM, it doesn't really matter anyways because you won't be able to spam spells even with your Athene's. On the other hand, when your mana is at a respectable level, Morellonomicon is the better choice.

  2. Given that Morellonomicon = Athene's with regards to mana regen in most cases, what about the other stats? You pay 600 more gold (don't forget they decreased the cost of Morellonomicon and increased the cost of Athene's) and sacrifice 20 AP just for 25 magic resist and a mana restoration after a kill or assist (making it a more of a snowball-y item). Is it worth it? If you badly need the magic resist, maybe, but if you're a long ranged spammer, a few measly MR won't make much of a difference.

  3. A Morellonomicon + a Tear of the Goddess now costs 2850 gold. This is only 150 more than Athene's. If you want to go for the mana regen route, this may be a far better choice, because you get a total of 150% mana regen and 1000 mana. Meanwhile you still get more AP than Athene's.

6 Comments

SmokingPuffin2 votes

Athene's was nerfed hard. Justifiably. Chalice was the "I can ignore mana mechanics" item tree.

Drunk Rummate2 votes

Athene's was nerfed hard. Justifiably. Chalice was the "I can ignore mana mechanics" item tree.

Except ap mages have been balanced around mostly ignoring mana mechanics already, and I don't see any damage buffs in the patch notes to compensate.

SmokingPuffin3 votes

Except ap mages have been balanced around mostly ignoring mana mechanics already, and I don't see any damage buffs in the patch notes to compensate.

The game's balance will be in a pretty awful state for the next 3 months anyway. No point in trying to guess who needs buffs of what size. Just make the change you know needs to happen, then sort out the downstream effects you see in your data analysis in following patches.

killd0zer1 votes

Good. This is the first step in making mana matter again. Vel Koz is just hilarious you can spam his abilities for hours without anything, heaven forbid he had a chalice before

AnomalousChimera1 votes

It has already been mentioned by Devi how much better Morellonomicon is now. I believe he/she mentioned that Athene's works better when you use more than one item with mana regen, but I think Morello is still superior unless you really need the MR from Athene's.

Tsunday1 votes

I actually always bought Athene's on my Lulu mid because Lulu mid works really well against AP Assassins like Kat and Akali and on those champions playing someone who can not only CC them but build Abyssal/Chalice first and not care worked really well. I completely wrecked a Veigar the other day because by the time I got my Sorc boots (after Abyssal/Chalice) I had good damage on top of more than enough MR to live through his stun and turn around and kill him. I wouldn't want to turn Chalice into Crucible late game as a midlaner, and I could easily go Tear for a late game item if I wanted something with good AP.

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