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Mages itemization feels extremely bad

Best princess EU··7 votes·1,057 views

Disclamer: i'm not saying that mages are weak, but just want to criticize riot's balance/design towards the items i play 2 mages a lot (orianna and ahri+some other mages sometimes) and i just want to say the choise of items is extremely non-strategic

so here is what every mages build right now: item 3020 item 3165 item 3135 item 3089 as first items if you don't believe me look at pro build, there is a little amount of time where luden is bought to roam but those items shows up a lot of time on any mages as 3 first items

item 3165 busted piece of **** that should be built 200% of the time, there isn't a single situation where you don't buy it and it doesn't make sens, you should only buy it against healing

item 3135 total magic penetration, built 200% of the time works against everyone, abyssal scepter was nerfed because it brought squishies from 30 mr to 20 mr, but void staff can do the same and is still relevant when mr is high item 3040 who the fuck needs mana anymore? no really tell me, except ryze who scales with mana, karthus who needs a lot of mana, i don't see any other mage going oom. i guess it has a niche for those who spends 2000 mana item 3089 too much AP concentrated on a single item item 3136 109% gold efficient+gives you a total of 37 magic pen with runes and boots without counting void staff magic pen and champions don't have a lot of mr generally. i feel like this item should remain like this

Great designed items that have niches: item 3100 strong pushing power on every mages except karthus due to his AA item 3157 great to shut down debuffs item 3001 gives 60 mr which is a lot honestly, it's great against a lot of magic damage+if you have a lot of magic damage in your team item 3285 +10% ms, great for roaming

on the other hand: item 3115 completly useless except on azir who needs attack speed for his kit to work, the item was made for champions that use AA like TF orianna or Ekko but no one builds it item 3116 i no longer build this item, i understand that it was broken before but there should be a middle between damage AND utility the build path is so bad riot nerfed the 3 things that made people buying rylai -utility with slow -defense against assassins with 400 hp -damage with 100 AP this item no longer feels good to use, the slow is pathetic and the damage it brings is laughable why would you nerf the 2 strengths of an item?

i would be happy if riot fixes the current situation, but with MYTU incomming and other problems league has with lethality and assassins i think it won't be fixed item 3165 item 3135 supreme king of AP items fixed item 3089 i don't think anything can be done for this, it will always be core in late game item 3116 not trash anymore item 3115 no clue for this

5 Comments

Chaos Milk Tea3 votes

Mage itemization has never been better. As a player builds their champion, they can ask themself if they need to boost defense/utility, or raw damage with their next item. item 3135 / item 3089 : Raw damage no utility / defense items. Yes, its a lot of power in 1 item but it's a dedicated investment to not have more CDR or a way to protect yourself/allies. item 3285 / item 3100 : Great way to let you decide how to bump your burst combo. item 3115 It just exists to make certain champions function properly. Can't fault Kayle and Azir for the way they work. Remember, if it was too good some mages would start putting out dps comparable to adcs and that's not what they are meant to do. item 3116 This item is probably in the place it is meant to be now: A tough choice between raw damage and utility/survivability. item 3157 / item 3001 : I don't think abyssal should give pen, and should rather just be the MR counterpart to Zhonyas. That said, they give further trade offs during builds where you put off damage for a defensive boost.

Notice most of my analysis is based not on the merits of the single item, but on the TRADE OFF for building it. Your build order matters a lot. If I build void staff but they have a Khazix, I am asking to die. If I build Rylais but our team is all tanks, I'm really not helping our damage output. If we're losing and my dumbass mid thinks a deathcap rush is going to help they clearly don't understand the point of the item or that they won't finish building it.

That said, some of them that need a lot of work. item 3165 : It's in a bad state. There are't enough good mana items so we have one item doing everything. item 3040 Yeah, this item is dumb. I wrote a whole article on why it is dumb. It shouldn't exist in it's current state. item 3151 At a glance you'd think it was an anti HP tank item. It's more of a "lolol sustain damage" item.

D2Vincent1 votes

I do sort of agree with Morello's being one of the only good Mage mana items besides AAS and maybe Mejai's if you're ballsy enough, and a while ago I suggested that as a solution, we bring back Pox Arcana (with of course some changes to better reflect it as a mage item), with instead of CDR and GW, we have it have 500 total mana since it's ability is good enough to not need Grievous wounds

For those who don't know: Pox Arcana has a Passive and an Active:

UNIQUE – POX: Applies a stack of Pox for 10 seconds whenever you deal ability damage, stacking up to 5 times.

UNIQUE – DISEASE HARVEST: Deals 100 magic damage plus 20 (+5% AP) per stack of Pox (maximum of 200 (+25% AP)) to all nearby enemies affected by Pox, and restores 5% of your maximum mana for every Pox stack harvested. 60 second cooldown.

Ahristocats2 votes

Rylai should be bought for defensive purposes, to survive against as an assassin like you said+slow them It became gamebreaking since riot made it 100 ap+400 hp leading mages to do tons of damage with morello+rylai

they should buff the hp to 400 change item 1028 with item 1011 also make the slow 40% for melee champions wtf except on damage/sec

Sir Poodle1 votes

You forgot Anivia for item 3040, but yeah.

I feel item 3089 is in a mostly good state, actually- it could maybe be nerfed, but the build path is slightly awkward without being stupidly so, it's built at different times depending on priorities of a champion and of a player, ect. I do think if there were nerfs, that it would be appropriate to make it weaker for champions with poor scaling, but not so much for good scaling (I have no idea how to do that, but throwing it out there.)

I feel item 3115 could use some slight expansion of its niche, but again, I don't feel its terrible.

item 3116 just needs some clearer focus- it can't seem to decide if you buy it for the slow on abilities that don't normally do that, the defense, should it even have notable AP at all, ect. Right now it offers too many things when strong- like Azir and Kalista, but in item form. Until that happens, it's going to be at best slightly viable in some scenarios.

Most of what's needed to fix item 3165, in my opinion, is to have item 3802 build into something else- right now, the very early mana regen items are item 3802, item 3028, item 3070, and item 3010. Because selling is so inefficient, item 3028 only building into item 3174 and item 3222 pretty makes it only useful for mid-lane Karma and Lulu. item 3070 and item 3003 are too late game for most mages, meaning that it only appears on late game mages who have scaling with mana, severe mana problems, and/or continuously activating abilities (Anivia R, ect.). And item 3010 is only one competitor, that's almost only useful on battle mages (item 3027 isn't quite only for battle mages, but most non-battle mages building it are doing it for the synergy with item 3003).

I don't know about item 3135, I haven't considered it much.

NotCounter1 votes

give nashor's either health or something like deaths dance/phantom dancer passives to make it more appealing for champions like assassins or bruisers since it doesn't make sense to give a sustained damage item no defense. remove half or all CDR to compensate and shift it to a new 20% CDR item to compete with morellos (which riot said was coming during the mage update)

for rylai's since you use it mostly on control mages who are also immobile maybe movement speed or movement sap (obviously not the full amount of the slow though) and also remove the health in favor of making it a high AP item once again. it shouldnt be the god trio of damage, defense, and utility

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