Ancient Coin seems a little underwhelming

DrProfVibeCheck·3/25/2016, 6:02:37 PM·60 votes·4,171 views

Compared to the other support items, it's measly 35.71% gold efficiency doesn't even come close to Relics 57.14% or Spellthiefs 66.79%. The stats Coin brings is already given by Spellthiefs, and Spellthiefs gives more.

The only champions who would buy Ancient Coin is Janna and Soraka, and even then, both of them can work better with Spellthiefs.

Sure, Coin upgrades into Talisman and that active is nice for engages and disengages, but Frost Queen's Claim can boast the same. FQC can also make picks, scout an area, and provide the support with a decent amount of punching power.

Maybe there should be some changes to the Ancient Coin support path. Right now, it's the weakest of the three.

62 Comments

Ravenhale3/25/2016, 6:21:40 PM22 votes

Coin is a Sustain item. Just stand close enough to the minion wave and watch it die while you recover 30 health. Upgrade it to Nomad and you get twice the minion death sustain along with 50% HP Regen. It's not a bad item to grab on any support that has lackluster poke. If the Support can't safely and reliably proc the three tributes in the 30 second window Thief allows, I'll run Coin. This is sometimes dependent on the lane matchup. Sometimes my poke support will get counterpicked so hard that its best to run the passive coin route.

SleepyLionCub3/25/2016, 6:11:41 PM16 votes

they need to give its passive movespeed back.

Droogzy3/25/2016, 8:04:43 PM8 votes

I mean it sorta makes sense that it sits under Relic Shield and Spell Thief. They both require at least SOME form of interaction whereas the coin requires zero.

It's a low risk - low reward item. Makes sense to me. And the two top users of it are Janna and Soraka, both low risk support champions. Again, it makes sense to me.

WolfBV3/26/2016, 6:08:32 AM5 votes

Restore item 3301 gp5 and ms. Make Coin great again. (actually disregard this I forgot Hide and Seek isn't a thing anymore)

Gare Jordans3/26/2016, 4:52:41 AM5 votes

You forgot to mention that it's the least risky support item. All you have to do is be near dying minions and you're rewarded HP and gold.

forresto3/25/2016, 8:14:52 PM4 votes

I think there's something to be said for strategic niches here. The coin has a bit less combat stats, but it fits a passive play style a lot better.

Frost queen requires you to get in an enemies face in order to generate gold. If you're losing the lane this could be very dangerous, meaning you might not be able to do that. Then you're not generating gold which makes things worse. It also does nothing for health sustain. The active is great, but more focused around creating picks than the coins general purpose active.

Face of the mountain similarly puts you in danger every time you want to use it. In order to get the gold, you have to get close enough to execute a minion, giving the enemy a chance to poke you. It comes with some healing, but only enough to offset some of the potential poke that comes from getting close to enemies. It also does nothing for mana regen, so depending on who you play you have a decent chance of running out of mana fast. The active fills such a different strategic role it's like comparing apples to oranges.

The coin fills the 3rd niche which involves sitting back, and helping your adc if they get into trouble. You don't need to do anything dangerous to generate gold, gold just happens to you. At the same time, if you do get into a fight it sustains both your health and mana, allowing you to stay in the lane a lot longer/indefinitely. In addition the active is great for team fights giving an instant speed boost to everyone nearby. Since the kind of champs that take coin are focused on engage/disengage, this active is heavily beneficial to those champs.

Tbh I've always found gold efficiency to be a bad metric because you don't just need raw stats. You need the stats/effects that benefit the champ you play, and the things you want to do with them.

Saianna3/26/2016, 2:04:21 AM4 votes

At first I was sceptical about spellthief..

But now when I grew accustomed to this item I just have to buy it on everyone. It's simply too good.

small mana regen damage boost bonus gold gp5 usefull active for both escaping and chasing cheap at start CDR AP

And what Ancient coin gives you? hp5 mana regen ... ee.. active sivirs ultimate and.. lame amount of gold/hp per mobs killed in vicinity..?

Just simply meh

ModKnightsKemplar3/26/2016, 3:19:07 AM3 votes

A lot of people missing the point here. I think you're right, it's a little undertuned. I think Riot has overvalued the active effect on Talisman because it was so popular on Righteous Glory. In reality, it was the stats WITH that active that made RG great, and Talisman hasn't caught on because it just isn't.

Dingding1233/25/2016, 9:12:07 PM2 votes

Taric likes ancient coin a lot as well. But of course like Soraka and Janna, he also likes sitting on his butt and healing his carry for the first few levels. It's nice for him to not have to run up and whack things later on in the game for money/healing. The mana regen is nice, too.

That being said... its first upgrade gives him nothing he can possibly care about (for 500 more gold, +2 gold per ambient minion kill, and, hmm...50% regen, yeah okay), I never upgrade it into anything, not until I've completely built at least 3 other items. He might even want to sell it and just get item 2045 , no lie.

And as for item 3069 ,the adc meta isn't slow-paced enough to where saving people who get caught is worth it, so every support champion is hard-pressed to find a good use for it. And for initiating, item 3800 offers a slow, 500 hp and the same amount of regen as Talisman. Talisman is one of the worst items in the game right now.

Coming from a Taric main.

Athenes Lulu3/25/2016, 6:10:45 PM2 votes

Tfw people forgot the original intent of the coin. It is supposed to be the low-risk, low-reward kind of thing...

But I guess season 4 was 2 years ago, so maybe it's not so surprising that many people don't remember. [zombie-brand-facepalm]

FantasySniper3/25/2016, 11:06:20 PM2 votes

Give it the health regen aura they removed from Aegis.

Draqone3/25/2016, 11:13:56 PM2 votes

The coin also provides benefits for the entire game whereas lategame when your carries are waveclearing it's near impossible to use Targons passive.

Xosra3/26/2016, 2:25:48 PM1 votes

One thing they need to do is returen the gold per seconds to it. All the sup items should have this passive to keep supports up in gold. Also the passive on coin only provides a fraction of the gold off of the minions killed so gold per seconds would not break it.

kaltenashes3/26/2016, 5:01:28 PM1 votes

when i was lvl 20 in this account i used to play nasus top and start ancient coin, good times

Krys Star3/26/2016, 8:59:38 PM1 votes

I miss when tier 2 gave 10 movement, and tier 3 gave 20 movement on top of having a 40s cooldown. =\

MLDzXnRRR3/25/2016, 6:06:59 PM1 votes

I get it on Taric to spam heals and upgrade for the speed active.

ImmortalBloodCY3/26/2016, 10:09:30 PM1 votes

You are going to buy a Spellthiefs on Soraka?......................................................................................................................................................

God....... I have no words....

Soraka needs a huge HP sustain in order to spam her W to heal up people.. Ancient Coin does that work perfectly.

Spanked eGirl3/25/2016, 6:10:45 PM1 votes

Well you get gold from just standing around, its the easiest/simplest bonus gold generator for supports, it shouldnt earn the same amount as ones that you have to work for

SylvanasWrunner3/25/2016, 6:13:42 PM1 votes

I was an avid Ancient Coin user because when upgraded to Talisman, it used to provide a passive movement speed + the active Now that it was removed, I was thinking about switching to FrostQueen, but then it's for Janna so I'm not really triggering spells to harass so the passive's kind of meh for me.

Hopefully they will return the movement speed again.

Miror B3/25/2016, 6:14:15 PM1 votes

I actually run coin on support shen when I play him. The passive cash you can get from roaming around with your ulti stacks up quite a bit, and once you upgrade it the first time the hp regen makes up for the 75 less HP you get from targon's.

SanKakU3/25/2016, 7:47:04 PM1 votes

I never even bother upgrading it. If anything, it's a bit OP rather than underwhelming. IMHO though all the upgraded gold income items are a bit pricey for what they give you.

RedCyclone3/25/2016, 8:00:33 PM1 votes

Why the heck did they pull that one buff they had planned for it? you know, the whole item giving you 20% cdr

Seemed like a great way to buff it

forresto3/25/2016, 8:21:06 PM1 votes

You forgot zilean. He can do great with a coin if you're building him for utility. "How much speed boost is too much? The world will never know."

HayRoss3/25/2016, 9:56:50 PM1 votes

Rammus Actually pretty good on him, if you enjoy playing him as a support

HI IM DAISY 833/26/2016, 1:34:14 AM1 votes

Just buy one of the other GP5 items early on, upgrade it once, then when it comes time for the third upgrade sell it off and buy the coin upgrade instead.

Other two gold options are only good early on when you can poke people or always have a person nearby, so after laning is done selling off your GP5 and picking up a coin instead will probably net you more gold and sustain in the mid game

Shinirup3/26/2016, 4:46:44 AM1 votes

It can also be useful on ARAM (though items are not meant to be balanced around such). On tanks who are too lazy for Relics Shield, or if you have a team who does not care if you have Relics/ has no interest in letting you ever execute a minion.

Baron Perenolde3/26/2016, 4:57:56 AM1 votes

Give back the passive movespeed and it'll be fine.

dunkeroni3/26/2016, 5:03:01 AM1 votes

The health regen on it is great for soraka and other squishy supports.