Lets talk about Weird AP ratios on champions.

Darkloore·Aug 29, 2018·2 votes·4,107 views

Personally, I don't understand why Riot gives some of these random ratios to champions that they will never use in a normal game.

Examples of ones that are "OK" in a sense because of their potential (cooldowns will be max rank of the ability): Jinx E: 270 Magic Damage+ 100% AP Ratio, 10 second cooldown (with some cdr this can go down to 6 or 5.5 with runes.) (if they step on it they are severely punished.) Vi E: bonus 90 Physical Damage + 70% AP Ratio, 8 recharge cooldown (2 total charges) (Hit opponents with 2 E's in short succession for 140% AP.) Sivir Q: 115 Physical Damage + 50% AP Ratio, 7 second cooldown (very unlikely in laning phase to do its high damage to champions because of minions, with some cd this ability can reach close to 3.5 second, where if the enemy is the only target this can hit them for 92.5% of her AP)

If you notice the only reasons why these ones make some sense is just because of how often they can be used with there high scaling.

Examples of ones that are nonsense (cooldowns will be max rank of the ability): Quinn Q: 120 Physical Damage + 50% AP Ratio, 9 second cooldown (similar to sivir's AP ratio, but heavily lacking in the power department due to its singe hit. But, has a short cooldown with cdr, around 5 seconds) Ashe R: 600 Magic Damage + 100% AP Ratio, 80 second cooldown (With cdr can go down to 48 or 37.4 with runes) Ornn R: 225-450 Magic Damage + 20%-40% AP Ratio, 100 second cooldown (With cdr can go down to 60 or 46.75 with runes)

With these ones it is easier to see why these ones are completely useless. Quinn Q: not high enough AP ratio to complement the cooldown. Ashe R: Amazing AP ratio, but way to long of a cooldown. Ornn R: Kinda a double whammy, Not a high AP ratio and a very long cooldown.

I feel like Riot adds some of these ratios to let players try and play a champion differently, however most of the time it ends up with the ratios only becoming viable in URF mode.

I am not implying that yes, you should play these champions in your ranked games with full AP builds, i'm just showing the potential that some have compared to ones Riot released with very little effect.

11 Comments

ParoeAug 29, 20182 votes

You seem to not understand that ability power is for abilities. Some designers still hold to that idea... And all tanks have AP scaling or tank scaling.

QmegaSquadVeigarAug 29, 20182 votes

I still remember Riot adding random AP ratios so you could troll around in normals, and when they were overperfoming they were nerfed (Rek'sai's Q used to have 100% AP ratio but because of how safe her poke was, how short the cd was on that thing and how much dmg it did and that it also did magic damage so you could build pen, they decided to nerf it down to 0.6). It's fine as long as it's not strong enough to be better than original design (AP Cho'gath).

Frosted TipsAug 29, 20181 votes

Yeah tanks shouldn't have as many AP scaling it causes so many problems for items in the game.

DarklooreAug 29, 20181 votes

I think i understand where you are coming from. Where some tanks like Volibear the W has Physical damage because it is a bite while his ult is that he summons magical lightning and his autos hit multiple targets with magical lightning so it does Magic damage and should scale with AP, makes sense. But then there are cases like Warwick, his Q which does have both scalings and is him physically biting his target does magic damage, and in Ashe's case her W fires 9 arrows which has to be done magically, only has AD scaling, but at the same time is an ability.

I the case of Tanks it makes sense cause if tanks were all just HP scaling they would be busted cause they would be tanky and deal a bunch of damage through abilities and when you look at it between the choice of AP items and AD items you have a bit more utility in AP items. The HP/AD items only really boost your auto attacks damage with 1 giving armor pierce, 1 giving armor shred, and 1 gicing a slow on your AA. The HP/AP Items focus more on you abilities or overall utility, 1 giving a MS boost to your team, 1 giving you a short dash, 1 giving you a slow on abilities hit. 1 that gives you more and more HP/Mana/AP over time, 1 that applies grievous wounds, and 1 that applies a burn over time and make you deal up to 10% more damage over time in a fight.

Also, when they made it to where building enough AP turns you AA damage from physical damage to magical damage, it kinda weakens your first statement.

Now, yes it does make sense that some designers keep to the original idea of magical ability = AP scaling.

However what i'm bringing up is not, why do these champions have AP scalings? Rather, that some of these scalings are so small that there is no point in even having them. Ornn will never build AP because of his poor scaling ult and how easy it can be for an entire enemy team to avoid it, so why even have have the scaling at all? If people started playing AP Ornn his win rate would plummet. Removing it would not change his win rate at all.

AbiwonKenabiAug 29, 20182 votes

I think often an AP ratio is there so that it doesn't feel bad to build an item that has some AP on it, like Guinsoo or formerly Triforce. Tanks also tend to use magic damage/scale off of AP somewhat for damage. Sometimes an AP ratio does seem a little out of place even with that in mind.

DarklooreAug 29, 20181 votes

the AP scaling on tanks makes sense because HP/AP items give more utility rather than HP/AD items, which focus more on you dealing more damage

HotarµAug 29, 20182 votes

Most of the time an AP ratio is there for people who build Guinsoo's. Namely Jax, Nocturne, Shyvana, etc. However, I think the reason some other people have AP scaling was to try and increase build diversity.

It doesn't really work most of the time because why would you ever build Sivir AP when AD gives you so many more benefits? Same with Vi.

I used to play a ton of AP Varus on a different account and I feel like that was the best version of a champ that could build either or. Building AD makes you a standard ADC/Caster champion, but building AP forces you to patiently stack your W and get resets off with your ult. It turned him into a burst mage of sorts and it's still pretty fun to this day. :^)

DarklooreAug 29, 20181 votes

All of the champions I've listed here are examples of what i am talking about. Champions with a singular AP scaling. Obviously Jax, Shyvana, and Varus don't really fit into what i am talking about since they have multiple abilities that scale with either AP or AD. However Nocturne is one to bring up. It makes no sense to have an AP scaling on his E. I never see Nocturnes build a Guinsoo's I always see them go Leathality or fighter, due to his play style of flying right to the enemy backline and nuking their carry. Even if they did build guinsoo's its not for its AP, all it would do is increase the E damage by like 28. its for the AD increase, which they had nerfed massively in 8.13 along with the AP increase

And yes, the fact that the characters i have listed do have an AP scaling does not mean you should build them AP. What i'm stating is some AP scalings and cooldowns that champs have on a singular ability compared to others who also have it on one singular ability as well don't get similar treatment. For example lets say Vi and Ornn build 1000 AP, Vi will dish out 140% of that AP in a little over a second because of her E charges. However Ornn will only deal 40% (20% if they dodge one of the ult AOE's hit) and then you compare there time between being able to do this again. Vi will be able to achieve this again in 16 seconds but Ornn will have to wait a minimum of 46.75 seconds. So why even have the scaling?

DuskDaUmbreonAug 29, 20182 votes

Most of the time it's so they can get a Guinsoo's or Banshee's or Gunblade or a Zhonya's (or any other item that they might want that had AP in the past) for the passive and not feel so bad about the AP being wasted.

That, or because Riot wants it to have some kind of scaling (Simply because damage abilities with no stat scaling are weird to see), but don't want it to be their primary scaling type because they don't want it to be too high-damage.

Luigi TortelliniAug 29, 20181 votes

Once upon a time League was a game about innovating and experimentation. A beautiful time where Riot didn't force whatever meta they wanted to see in LCS, nor hand pick builds for every champ in your class you must follow every game regardless of situation to be competitive. Then sometime around the end of Season 4 Ghostcrawler got finished ruining wow (apparently, I don't play Blizzard games) and moved on to League. And that is how we got the league we all know and love to hate today.

DarklooreAug 29, 20181 votes

Amen