AP vs AD with a side order of tank itemization: why AD must always remain "superior."

Hello friends, I'm back with another shitpost. Fuck the cops.

AD vs AP is always a pretty hot topic. Typically the argument goes that AD is superior to AP itemization because AD itemization has an array of items that offers high scaling defense and offense while AP really only has zhonyas hourglass and banshees veil. There are a plethora of HP/AP combos at their disposal but purely from a resists point of view, there's really only two. AD also has access to high HP itemization.

In a vacuum, it is true: AD itemization is superior and quite frankly, it should be. However, I use the word superior in quotations because the reality is, you can't really compare AD and AP because they do different things. And then you have tank itemization, which is totally different in itself but is directly impacted by the balance of AD and AP itemization.

The reason why you can't compare AD and AP is because they scale in entirely different ways. The obvious point is damage types, one is magic and the other is physical (although there are duo scaling spells that offer the opposite form of damage compared to the type of damage it scales with but that's not worth mentioning in this case). AD scales attack damage on auto attacks and AD spells, lifesteal and a few unique cases with shields and that's as far as it goes. It's main purpose is to do damage. Whether it be sustained, burst, low-end but in combination with beefiness, ADs focus to do damage should always be better than APs ability to do damage. That's because ability power doesn't just scale damage, it scales utility. And it can often be utility that is used on ally champions whereas AD is purely selfish.

Here's a complete list of champions with AP scaling shields or heals:

Note: I'm sure I've missed some. In Morgana's case, I'm referring to her passive spell vamp.

Here are a list of AD champions who can innately heal with AD scaling (lifesteal) or have AD scaling shields:

I've excluded Akali and Morde because they typically build Gunblade and in Akalis case, she scales with both in terms of healing. I've also not mentioned people who can build lifesteal because that requires an investment into lifesteal itself. I'm speaking strictly of champions who have innate healing that scale with AD like innate lifesteal. I did not include Illaoi or Darius despite them building AD because their heals scale more with missing their HP (though I'm not sure if they actually have AD based healing scaling so please correct me if I'm wrong).

In the case of the AD champions, all of their healing and shielding that scale with AD are completely selfish and do not work with allies. However, many of the AP champions with AP scaling shields or heals can also use them on allies. This is why ADs focus is primarily on damage and is allowed to also scale auto attacks because ADs primary focus is damage with this type also scaling sustained damage. Yes, AP can scale damage in many cases does but the champions that primarily use it are designed to have weaknesses between spells while also being ranged. In the case of bruisers or assassins using AD, they're almost all exclusively melee, which is why its completely acceptable for the AD they build to scale both spells and attack damage on AAs.

Ranged AD carries are the outliers here. They have a mixture of scaling spells and obviously auto attacks. In today's game, many ADCs do have some utility, some of it is pretty damn good. However, they still require an entire team to protect them. Mages are typically far more self-sufficient, as are AP bruisers. This is why AD carries are the premier class because AD is designed to be the DPS stat and ranged ADCs execute it the best. They have the least overall utility of any class, moderate attack range so they always have to attack within engage range of the enemy and as a result, they are self sufficient at all. Its why traditional DPS mages of "machine gun" mages have been unbalanced as fuck. They have way more utility, are typically much longer ranged and have are far more self sufficient. Because of these varying instances and usages of AD vs AP and considering how kits are balanced around them, this is why from a damage/durability stand point, attack damage should absolutely be far better overall because it's the only thing attack damage excels at: damage.

This also impact tanks though. In the past, tanks weren't always innately durable the way they are now through spells. Most tanks depended on runes/masteries for the early game and itemization for the mid/late game. Resistance values used to be absurdly high because of this and as a result, you didn't really have true tanks using tank items. You had bruisers acting as tanks and abusing their base damaged while being just as durable as tanks. In season 3, there legitimately wasn't a single tank that was viable. Even the champions we consider traditional tanks these days were awful. This was because resist values were overtuned to deal with high AD and AP values.

Since then, the game has changed quite a bit. Values on AD, AP and resistances have gone down across the board. Instead, champions innately have durability to define them as tanks and depend less on itemization. Tank itemization enhances their durability, they don't live or die on it. This is what allows AP/AD to do the things they do and as long as one stat scales damage and the safety to do damage harder (AD) than the other stat while that other stat scales some damage and safety to do damage while scaling utility for allies and themselves (AP), you'll have variety in this game. Changing this balance disrupts the game ridiculously and that's why there doesn't need to be another AP/armor item or AP/QSS item: you start getting into territories where you're removing significant intended weaknesses of AP champions and potentially skewing the game on their favor, resulting in a fuck-fiesta of imbalance from the likes you've never seen before.

Keystones and masteries have skewed and enhanced some of these things, too. Fervor and Thunderlords are constant problem Childs of balance. Warlords is pretty silly in its own right and this does further skew the favor of damage in AD. But the answer isn't to overbuff AP itemization, it's to get rid of keystones like Riot will basically be doing at the beginning of next preseason. And frankly, it's not worth speculating past that point because there's too many unknown variables.

Tl;DR: AD has to be better than AP. It scales damage only and as a result, the safety to do AD damage is more important and that's why AD has and should have access to more offense/defense combos because AP scales both damage and utility while often being casted from a much safer range. Any change to this balance threatens to render total chaos to tanks and bruisers, something we can ill afford to fuck up again.