Marksmen Item Rework Concept

People for a while have been complaining for a while that ADC itemization has problematic, overpowered, overloaded, abusive, and other buzzwords. You know what I like the most about it? Diversity. You know what I hate about it? It cheats. ADC itemization is basically cheating. Not in the current meta, but in other metas you'd build something to get a good early game, but unlike other classes, ADC gets to cheat the downside of having a good early game, a bad late game. The main offender to this is Infinity Edge and the nature of Critical Chance. In the current meta, we see the full force of the problem that Critical builds are too strong for more reasons than one.

As the major problem has been addressed, here is the rework of Critical Strike that would fix "cheating" and "too broken crit builds". Now, some ADCs seem problematic right, but personally all of the broken ones are broken based on items, rather than kit, except Twitch.

Critical Strike Rework: First off, people hate the RNG ascept of Crit. I do too. Some developers think it's fine because something about not fighting someone because they might out-luck you. I extremely disagree with that notion; I'm ahead; I should be able to beat the hell out of you if you overstep. Critical Strike Chance -> Critical Strength What is Critical Strength? Your auto attacks deal X% more of your AD as Critical Damage, where X is your percent of Critical Strength. Additionally, Critical Damage is affected by Critical Damage increases and decreases multiplicatively. For example: If you have 50% Critical Strength, then your autos deal 100% AD + 50% AD as Critical Damage. If You have 50% Critical Strength and Infinity Edge, then you deal 100% AD + 75% (50% CritStrength increased by 50%) AD as Critical Damage. If the opponent had Omen while you had 50% CritStrength and IE, then you deal 60% AD as Critical damage (50 x 1.5 x 0.8). You can still only have a maximum of 100% Critical Strength.

How does this compare to current ADC damage? If they both build Crit, then their damage is the same on average (assuming no lucky Crits). That's only because the current meta is a Crit based on. However, whoever doesn't build completely Crit (70%/80%) will miss out on damage, in-exchange for stronger early game. This also leaves room to buff BoRK for Fighter champions without it breaking on Marksmen, as they actually take a real sacrifice for buying it.

As a bonus, this also fixes Tryndamere being luck based, makes Gangplank much less luck based, and makes Statikk Shiv easier to balance. As a downside, this makes Jhin harder to adjust to this.

Infinity Edge Just as a reminder and for simple reading: Critical Damage boost only affects Critical Damage, rather than the whole attack. Example: Having purely IE gives you 20% CritStrength and increases CritDMG by 50%, thus your autos deal 100% AD + 30% Critical Damage. If you had 50% CritStrength and IE, then you deal 75% Critical Damage.

B. F. Sword This is the big change to the snowballing of bot lane. With the next change to Essence Reaver, IE rushing ADCs would have a huge advantage over Essence ADCs, but since Essence is supposed to be an early game item, BF Sword is being changed to be on par with the building of Essence's new components.

• AD reduced to 35, Cost reduced to 1150.
• All items it builds into (Except Essence Reaver) have combine cost changed accordingly.

Essence Reaver Essence is an odd item. Early game, CDR based, ADCs are supposed to build it, but the item is so focused on a two item spike that they take other items instead. Then you have two later game ADCs, Xayah and Sivir, who are a bit too strong with 30% CDR. To solve these issues, the item gets shifted to less CDR, better early game, and overall worse late game than current Essence Reaver.

• Buildpath changed: + + + 225g for a total of 3000 gold.
• 60 AD, 20% Critical Strength, Unique Passive: 20% CDR, Unique Passive: Restore 2% maximum mana every attack. (Mana regeneration may need adjustments.)

Rapid Firecannon I think we all know where I am going with this.

• Passive now disables the passive of Stattik Shiv, similar to if you had bought both Rav Hydra and Titanic Hydra.

Statikk Shiv Damage becomes consistent with the rest of the changes to Crit. Disables RFC.

• Passive now disables the passive of Rapid Firecannon, similar to if you had bought both Rav Hydra and Titanic Hydra.
• Passive damage works with Critical Strength the same as attacks. No more RNG based waveclear.

Phantom Dancer This item has been too strong for too long. Just because it's out of flavor right now doesn't fix the issues it has had.

• Passive movement speed reduced to +3% (total 8% MS). Passive damage reduction lowered to 8%.
• Attack speed reduced by 5%.

Runaan's Hurricane Just updating for Crit.

• Bolts damage with Critical Strength works similar with basic attacks. Example: Having 50% Crit + IE means the Bolt will deal it's 40% AD and then 75% of (40% of your AD) as Critical damage.

The Lightbringer/Wicked Hatchet Just updating. May need buffs.

• Bleed now deals whatever it's percent currently listed of the critical damage you dealt.

Death's Dance You're still a problem. Lifesteal items need clean-up too, and you're no exception.

• AD reduced to 70, damage converted to a DoT reduced to 20%, cost reduced by 200.

The Bloodthirster Never liked how this item was super expensive for a defensive purchase, nor did I like how it gives so much for completing it. A shield, 10% lifesteal, and 15 AD. Plus it's not exactly set to have a difference and trade off with Death's Dance, yet.

• AD reduced to 70, lifesteal reduced to 17%, shield reduced by 0-25, cost reduced by 400. (Only 100 more gold than DD, may need future changes.)

Guinsoo's Rageblade I think it's very problematic that Ardent Censer is completely broken by this item while also it makes BoRK impossible to balance as well and also makes Kog'Maw too good. Did I mention it's pretty bad on melee champions?

• Attack speed per stack reduced to 4%. Maximum stacks increased to 8. Melee champions gain 2 stacks per attack.
• Raw attack speed stat on the item increased by 5% (raw stat loss of 3%). (Might need to be potentially removed as a buff.)
• Cost reduced by 200.
• Guinsoo's Rage reworked: Basic attacks deal 5 (+15% bonus AD)(+7.5% bonus AP) as onhit magic damage in an AoE. (No longer Phantom Hit.)

Blade of the Ruined King At first I wanted to nerf it for marksmen, but with the change to how Crit works, I'm inclined to be a bit nicer to ADCs who builds into two Crit items. Just a bit. Also since melees would get Rageblade back, I'm unsure if buffing this specifically for melee champions would be too much (in the wrong direction). So, a tiny buff for both.

• Cost reduced by 100 gold.

Frozen Mallet Self explanatory.

• Melee only.

Berserker's Grieves I hate to do this. I like this item, but it's too good.

• Attack speed reduced to 30%.

Ninja Tabi This change is more geared to make it so non-full-crit ADCs aren't as hurt as much by these changes while also keeping full-crit in check. I'm unsure about this change due to how it affected top lane.

• Critical damage is unaffected by Ninja Tabi's AA damage reduction.
• Basic attack damage reduction reduced to 8%.
• Gains -5% damage taken from Critical Damage.

Modified Critical Strikes

• They now give Critical Strength equal to how much their modified Crit would deal. Basically the same damage unless you built more Crit.

Tryndamere

• Critical Strike Chance changed for Critical Strength. No longer RNG based and not required to build full Crit. Unsure how this will affect him.

Jhin This is the one I'm worried about, but it's more of a decent idea.

• 4th Shot increases Critical Strength to 100%. (Missing HP damage on 4th shot counts as Critical Damage)
• Gains movement speed (from his passive) whenever he uses his 4th shot and whenever he gets a takedown on a champion, large minion, large monster, or epic monster. (Unsure about this entirely.)

Ashe Just smoothing and adjusting.

• Basic attacks do not apply Critical Strength, but use her current bonus damage formula instead.
• Since her attacks cannot Crit anymore, her slow is now increased by Critical Strength (unsure about the numbers).

Yasuo Simple adjustment.

• Passive now grants doubled Critical Strength (Max is still 100%).

Abilities that can Critically Strike

• Use critical strength as a percent increase to the ability's damage like basic attacks.

Effects that give temporary 100% Critical Strike Chance

• Now give 100% Critical Strength for their effect.

Other Crit unlisted Crit effects do as they would depending on which catagory they fall into.

---

Not sure if I want to do Fighters, Supports+Junglers, or Mages next. Consider this part 1.