Since Brutalizer and Black Cleaver are meant to be offensive-ish...

Nin10do0014·Apr 30, 2015·6 votes·943 views

Wouldn't it make better sense to have The Black Cleaver build out of Brutilizer + Phage rather than Phage + Kindlegem?

13 Comments

AyRe CoNteMpTApr 30, 20154 votes

cleaver isnt offensive, its a tank/bruiserish item with ad-supportive capabilities. the pure damage amplification it gives to a single champ is VERY neglectible. say, you are vi and you are going cinderhulk build, you can go black cleaver second to stay a bit on the offensive side as long as you got some good physical damage from your laners. its no damage item now, tho.

Nin10do0014Apr 30, 20154 votes

I see where you're coming from. The black Cleaver isn;t entirely offensive, but it is an offensive utility item that combats enemy resistances. Having said that, I think it would make more sense to have the item build out of The Brutilizer, which combats enemy resistances rather than Kindlegem and Phage, neither of which combat enemy resistances.

67chromeApr 30, 20152 votes

I think it would make more sense to have the item build out of The Brutilizer, which combats enemy resistances

Brutalizer doesn't combat enemy resistances though.

Against an opponent with 10 armor, it lets you deal true damage. Against an opponent with 50 armor...it doesn't.

Flat pen is anti-squish, not anti-armor.

HYPERBOLOCOMay 1, 20153 votes

It ignores armor ergo it combats enemy resistances.........especially early game were everyone is squishy.

AyRe CoNteMpTApr 30, 20152 votes

that is correct, but the black cleaver is made for tanky/bruisery champions who are less reliant on shredding the armor for THEMSELVES rather than assisting their teammates with it while still being usefull damage+cc machines. thats why the health and especially cooldown reduction is very important. for those champs, it OFTEN wouldnt make sense to even get the brutalizer since it only benefits themselves by boosting their damage slightly, which they dont need. for example, olaf can get the black cleaver, an item that actually brings him more towards viability, but he cant build brutalizer or at least its not what he prefers.

also, there is almost no champion in the game who wants brutalizers aswell as the black cleaver. maybe jarvan, vi and rexai, but i cant think of any laner. maybe garen. but i dont even think he does, since he also really likes building last whisper and building both of those items is so contradictionary and gold-waste that well, you see, you dont do that.

HYPERBOLOCOMay 1, 20153 votes

Olaf doesn't want brutalizer? Bruisers/off-tanks only use items to benefit their team mates? WHAT planet are you living on. Have you never heard of early game? what about laning phase? is that not a concept you understand?

Early game is the exact point when you build something like a brutalizer on a RIVEN/JAYCE/PANTHEON/DARIUS/RENEKTON/ETC. Any AD bruiser/caster/off-tank who is played in the top lane is looking to get kills, push their opponent out of lane, and kill their turret so they can start roaming and putting pressure on other lanes.

To that effect brutalizer is the go to item to for completing said task unless you are Jax/Irelia. As it is early game everyone is "squishy" so flat pen/AD/CDR is especially effective when one is trying to get the advantage in trades. It is the bruiser equivalent of a Large Rod/BF Sword.

If you cant grasp that concept then you have no understanding of how to play a bruiser top lane.

Phage on the other hand is of most benefit to a Jungler/post-lane phase bruiser who is ganking/lanes and cleaning up team fights were the bonus movement speed allows you to run down enemies.

AyRe CoNteMpTMay 1, 20151 votes

man, are you gold 3 or why dont you get the point? riven/jayce/pantheon/renekton WOULD indeed enjoy brutalizer (darius not so much) but none of them except MAYBE renekton would also want the black cleaver. even if it gave little flat armor penetration, the DAMAGE AMPLIFICATION you get for that amount of money is SO LOW that none of those champions has any use for it. also, riven/jayce/pantheon are not bruisers, they are ad-caster fighters/assassins.

also, thats absolutely not what phage is for, lol. phage is only built on very few toplaners and basically no junglers except some of them when snowballing super hard.

the only champion who will most likely always build phage first/second is irelia, since it allows her to Q a minion and then Q you/walk to you, trade with stun and 1-2 autos and Q away/walk away very fast. its called TRADING. also, i hear jax will usually get phage sooner or later, depending on what his first item will be and on his lane opponent. also i guess jax enjoys sheen a bit more first.

PS: also, its pretty sad that you dont understand the "benefitting your teammates" part. you must be really inexperienced at the game. a black cleaver is an item that makes you deal less damage and also deal it SLOWER with the benefit of enabling your teammates to also deal bonus damage. an ASSASSIN/Fighter/ad-caster(except maybe renekton)/marksman will NOT want that. they want to deal maximum damage RIGHT NOW and burst people. they are most likely not tanky, they want the damage QUICK. last whisper gives you more damage than black cleaver, its alot cheaper and it gives you full damage from the first strike. its just BETTER for dealing damage.

so, the only champion classes that are not about dealing their maximum damage in a short time but about staying in the fight, assisting their teammates with peeling and locking down enemies are bruisers and tanks. they are about constant fighting, being in the frontlines. also, their damage is usually not high enough/suffers because they build tanky so that a last whisper would just be not worth it, or barely, while the new black cleaver BENEFITS their tanky role by giving them more hp and also BENEFITS THEIR TEAMMATES by giving THEM more damage. also, 20% cdr is really nice on most tanks/bruisers since, as i said, their damage isnt super high, they rely on abilities for cc and support.

enjoy free lesson. the next one will be 20$

djjomonApr 30, 20151 votes

I thought that too. But Riot said that Cleaver benefitted more as a %shred item, than flat. So it can't build from Brutalizer.

Nin10do0014Apr 30, 20154 votes

But it doesn't seem to make sense as to why it doesn't build from Brutilizer, an item which is intended to combat resistances.

djjomonApr 30, 20151 votes

It's the difference between flat penetration, and %penetration.

Brutalizer has a flat 10 ArPen. As in, no matter how much armor you have, it reduces it by 10. If your opponent has 100 Armor, you penetrate 10 = 90 armor. (Not really, but simplified like hell). If they have 200 armor, with Brutalizer, they might as well have 190.

Cleaver, on the other hand, has 5% ArPen (stacking 6 times up to 30%). That means if they have 100 armor, you penetrate 5% of it for the first stack. 95 armor. Up to 30%, 70 armor. But if they have 200 armor, and 6 cleaver stacks on them, they lose 60 armor. Not the same 30.

Now what this have to do with the new build path? Flat penetration and %pen work differently, and are optimized for different results. Less armor, you want flat pen. More armor, you want %pen. So having a flat pen item build into a percent pen item, just doesn't work.

In order to build out of Brut again, BC would need to remain flat pen. But that was either OP, or too weak. Now Cleaver can be strong, and do what it wants to do (an alternative to LW for bruisers essentially). At the cost of losing Brut.

We now just need a new flat pen item, that would build from Brut.

HYPERBOLOCOMay 1, 20153 votes

Your logic is flawed on many levels. Thematic coherence is irrelevant to riot in terms of item build paths. Their primary concern is with the practicality of build paths.

regardless ALL the bruisers who would build the new or old BC benefit from flat armor pen and % armor pen.

flat armor pen = early game power % armor pen = late game power

Traditionally champions (in particular off-tanks) building black cleaver rush an early brutalizer as there power spike damage item and only complete the full item latter in the game when percentage armor pen is useful.

The fact that brutalizer no longer builds into black cleaver is forcing these champions to choose between wasting gold or delaying/loosing their early trading potential.

Z StatisticMay 1, 20151 votes

No.

5.7 BC was not an anti tank item. It was simply an AD caster item. It had health. It had AD. It had flat pen. It have % reduction. By themselves flat pen and % pen have clearly defined roles. There was pretty much no reason NOT to buy it. The reason you would get Hydra first would be that you needed wave clear. You could get maw first for the shield. But you pretty much always got BC on a bruiser top.

BC was good against BOTH squishies and tanks. That's the horror. % pen multiplies the effect of flat pen on damage.

But here's the funny thing: on a LOT of AD casters, you never really built just straight BC if you completed it first. No, you'd build a nice chunk of health or armor or finish your boots to tide you over then build BC. The thing is, BC now gives so much hp, that if you build brut then just straight BC, you're now in a BETTER position than before. The main drawback is that you are delaying your second completed item, not your first, and that is heavily dependent on who you are playing. Some might care (Pantheon) and some might not gives two fucks (Talon).

Riot's change might have actually done something really weird to AD casters mid game but not early game as intended.

djjomonMay 3, 20151 votes

Everyone is missing the point. The point is not the early game power of cleaver vs late game power that it has now. The point is that cleaver was re-identified as a late-game, armor shredding item. That's what Riot intended it to do, but it couldn't function as that with flat pen/Brutalizer build path.

And it still some early game power, but you're right, a lot less. And losing flat arpen early is a nerf to bruisers in lane. But that's not at all what I said...