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Someone Explain Trinity Force

HokagesDisciple·11/5/2015, 9:15:19 AM·1 votes·648 views

I've been playing League for about a year and a half now, and I love the amount of strategy created by the diversity of champions and item builds. I genuinely get more excited to read the patch notes then I am to play on the patch. That being said, with all the reading I've done, Youtube video's watched, and talks I've had with friends, I still don't get trinity force. Like at all. I read the stats on the item and it's pretty much "I kind of do everything". Because of my lack of understanding of the item itself I also don't understand why it's good on some champions (kog'mah, yasuo), what advantage it gives to the owner (since it's so general), or when its a strong or weak item in game. For a while I thought it was useful on champions that can used both the AD and AP sides of it, such as Corki, Kog, and sometimes Ezreal, but then why does Yasuo build it? Also, its a popular item on many bruiser top laners (irelia, GP?), is that simply because of the health it gives in addition to the AD stats? Why not build a different item that gives both AD and HP (black cleaver, Hydra, etc.)?

2 Comments

Kouga11/5/2015, 9:33:58 AM3 votes

There are two main draws for TriForce and Champs tend to buy them for one or both.

TF is a bundle of stats. A little AD, a little AP, etc. So Champions who use most or all of those stats will buy it just to get that scatter of stats. Certain marksmen such as Ezreal and Corki deal mixed damage with AD/AP ratios so they enjoy having the split stats. Others like Jax or Nidalee also like it as a hybrid item. But usually they want the 2nd main piece:
Spellblade.

After using an ability, your next basic attack (on-hit) deals 200% base attack damage as bonus physical damage (1.5 second cooldown)

The important things to note here:

You need to use an ability
Hit with a Basic Attack or On-Hit ability
deals off base attack damage
has low cooldown

So Champions who really want to use this have low cooldown, spammable abilities and can either weave in their basic attacks or can proc on-hit effects to stack the Spellblade damage. It is also off base AD, so it still tends to lean towards AD Champions since they'll have a higher base damage (Lich Bane does better for mages or AP Champions, as it does the same thing except it scales with AP instead of your AD)

It is a core item for Ezreal because his Q is very low CD and it procs on-hit effects, so he can add the Spellblade damage to his Q damage (which itself scales with both AD and AP) for a very potent harassment/sniping tool. Yasuo, even though he doesn't have mana, still uses most of the stats (since TF has so many relatively small stats, you don't feel too bad if you only "waste" one stat) and he can use his Q very quickly - and it procs on-hit effects so it makes his Q strong. In addition, as a melee Champion he can also use the other passive "Rage" effectively (Rage gives you a brief Movement Speed boost when you hit, but is much stronger for melee champs).

Gangplank, like Yasuo, also scales well with crit and his Q procs on-hit effects and it can crit. So he likes the stats (Ezreal, on the other hand, doesn't use the crit stats as often and his Q can't crit).

Basically anyone with very short CD spells and some way to AA or on-hit will like TF. If they can utilize all of the stats (if they have both some AP and AD scaling, etc) then they'll really like it.

Myrddin11/5/2015, 9:18:39 AM1 votes

tons of damage