There should be more AP items that offer 120

I think it would make more sense to give some AP to Ludens. It's been feeling pretty lacking recently. 3200 gold is not a fair price to pay for just 100 ap and a bit of movespeed. The passive isn't enough to make up the difference either IMO. Liandry's just feels better to buy for the same price in just about every scenario -- furthering the gap in AP between ludens and Liandry's would solidify ludens purpose.

Ludens should be the squishy-bursting item, and Liandry's the tank busting item. But as it stands now, Liandry's feels like it's better at doing both.

That would work as a temporary fix but I'm not sure overloading Dcap's bonus is a good idea for the long run.

I think the thing Mage players want isn't to be absolutely required to get Deathcap if they want any significant value of AP. What about a return of Deathfire Grasp, but instead of increasing your up front damage instead applies a 3 second debuff that makes them take an additional 20% damage as a bleed for all the magic damage they took FROM JUST THAT CHAMPION over say 10 seconds, on an item that gives 120 AP with 10% CDR just as spitballed numbers.

This makes it have the same overall impact as the old DFG, but backloads it's damage so that it is actually possible to react to the incoming damage rather than just go "Welp I got DFG-ulted, I'm now at a grey screen." It gives you and your team the chance to try and shield and heal you up to negate the DoT. Second, it removes the "abuse" case of where one person DFGs an enemy and everyone else gets their magic damage increased on them (Hidden impact increasing it's power). Finally, it's following the idea of allowing more counterplay to the mage, as it's an expensive item where most of the power/gold effeciency can be tied up in the active, and yet feel good to have in the inventory slot even lategame unlike a lot of other actives even on CD. Gold effecient? No. But still slot efficient at least.

i really dont want mages popping up with 800+ AP and full CDR though

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Could also just possibly increase the AP bonus on Deathcap if the feeling was that there's not enough AP in an AP-heavy build. Seems like a reasonable approach since the suggestion being given isn't to offer a new unique to the game.

The buildpath is also just painful and terrible and counter-intuitive. The passive means you want to build other AP items first and then get Deathcap to increase its efficiency. But then you find yourself without room for three items losing up on AP and it takes a long time to get the gold for the combined cost. So getting Deathcap is a lose-lose situation. Buy it early and its passive isn't worth it, buy it late and you won't be able to finish it and fall off and lose the teamfights/game. My suggestion would be to change the recipe to 2 Needlessly Large Rod + gold.

I'd rather like to complete/combine without spending more than it costs for a second Needlessly Large Rod. When you combine the gold cost with the 3 inventory spots you need to use, it's pretty annoying to work towards, particularly if your team is falling behind.

I'd much rather see another item that builds out of added to the game.

I don't think it's a lack of AP in an "AP-heavy build" that's the issue. It's a lack of AP in any build without Deathcap.

Building Deathcap sucks. The build path sucks. The amount of sitting on large sums of gold you have to do sucks. The difference in AP between any reasonable build without Dcap and one with Dcap is too big already. The more I think about it the more I'm starting to feel like Dcap shouldn't even exist. It creates too many game health issues to justify its "go big" fun.

This is exactly the opposite of what we want. No other class of champion is required to pay 3800g to deal damage ON TOP OF: Void Staff for pen, T2 boots, Zhonya's to not explode, and a mana/cdr item.

I think this is a big reason AP vs AD feels so awful right now. They build a hexdrinker and can 1v1 you for 20 more minutes until you get a deathcap and void staff.

I would actually decrease the cost on rabaddons. Building rabaddons just doesn't even feel worth anymore since you have to gamble taht you're going to make enough gold to do it. It's so much easier to just build magic pen, but then you don't do enough damage... as a result mages just have to wait a super long time to hit power spikes only for it not to be guaranteed since it's easier for tanks to build MR. Why not lower the cost?

I think the better approach would be reduceing the combine cost of deathcap and maybe buffing tear in some way. The issue is less that it's not possible to reach high ap numbers, but that the two items that really help with that feel bad in most cases . Gives a shitload of AP, but tear feels to punishing early on for most. buffing tear by either reduceing the cost or atleast increasing the initial mana it gives so it can compete with lost chapter at solveing mana issues. It doesn't give any ap after all, so it should atleast solve mana issues.

Rabbadons gives certainly enough ap, but nothing of the other things a mage would want(mana, cdr and pen(so morello+void) while beeing not great without other ap and haveing a really shitty buildpath later on, especially as a last item where you sit on a large rod and wait for 2.6k gold. I think a better buildpath for a 5th or 6th item and ~200 less gold costs would make rabandons and with that high ap builts more attractive.

At least we still have and .

That's currently my favorite Taliyah build. Additionally and /

Liandry's hasn't lost any AP though

How has Banshee's lost AP when it didn't give AP at all before this patch?

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Then you have to remove CDR options. You either get to use high burst high cooldown, or burst on mid cooldown.

Then take them, we never asked for this much CDR anyway. We want max scaling, not items that force us into DPS oriented builds.