An In-Depth Discussion on the Tentative AP Item Changes

For those who have not seen the changes: http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/06/red-post-collection-core-ap-item-pass.html

I will discussing each change individually below.

1. Blasting Wand Cost: 860 G --> 850 G

Just 10 gold. Not a big deal.

2. Needlessly Large Rod Cost: 1600 G --> 1250 G Ability Power: 80 AP --> 60 AP

The effects of this change are going to be primarily concerned with snowballing. Often when a game devolves into aggressive fighting, which is often, the losing party is unable to build up enough gold to afford the NLR. With the item decreasing to by 20 AP and the cost going down, the losing party is significantly more capable of keeping up in AP gains, which has significant ramifications on the ability for the winning party to out stat the opponent.

3. Rabadon's Deathcap Recipe Change: NLR + Blasting Wand + Amplifying Tome Total Cost: 3300 G --> 3500 G UNIQUE Passive: 30% Ability Power Amp --> 35% Ability Power Amp

Here, Xypherous claims that the intended effect is "keeping total final AP of the damage build the same." However, I believe that the change in build recipe combined with the cost increase will introduce several problems. The first issue to consider is that the more AP purchased, the more effective AP Deathcap grants. Suppose that a player is stuck unable to afford the expensive cost of Deathcap while sitting on at least 3 of these items. This is an issue that already occurs in the current game state. Although I mentioned that the decrease of NLR's cost makes snowballing more difficult, this has the opposite effect. By boosting the total cost and unloading more power into this item, and also turning it into a 3 item-build, Deathcap becomes harder than ever to complete. You can no longer sit on 80 AP while you wait for the 1700 completion gold, as now you can only sit on 60 and wait for 2250 completion gold, a very difficult number to wait on as it nears the current Void Staff cost. With such a powerful item, there are very few mages that do not build this item, and this difficulty in build path may mean that Deathcap must be completed 2nd, lest you get left behind stuck in a power trough from not doing so.

4. Zhonya's Hourglass Total Cost: 3300 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 120 Ability Power --> 100 Ability Power

This change could be considered a buff, despite the decrease in AP efficiency. When a mage wants to complete Zhonya's, it is usually due to a powerful kill threat such as Zed and Vi, or to allow champions to go hard like Twisted Fate and Karthus and buy time for cooldowns. The active is the most crucial portion of the item, with the convenient Seeker's Armguard item as the next reason. Since Armguard is not getting touched, it would be reasonable to consider this a buff.

On another hand, with this reduction in AP, as I mentioned, it does bring into question the viability of completing any more than one item before Deathcap.

5. Luden's Echo (Summoner's Rift) Total Cost: 3100 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 120 Ablity Power --> 100 Ability Power Movement Speed: 7% Movement Speed --> 10% Movement Speed

The 100 gold reduction is fairly negligible. Unlike with Zhonya's however, this change in 20 AP is a bigger concern. With the recent nerf to Luden's, the item has been pushed further into the niche of increasing poke damage. This change of 20 AP for 100 nerfs the item even further in terms of that role, while the 3% movement speed is at best a 12 unit increase, which is only conditionally good at best.

6. Archangel's Staff (Summoner's Rift) Recipe Change: NLR + Tear of the Goddess + 1030 G Total Cost: 2700 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 60 Base AP --> 80 Base AP

Archangel's Staff is a very good niche item on champions who can utilize Tear of the Goddess. This change nerfs the build path significantly due to the higher barrier of entry while rewarding 20 AP for being able to do so. For players who are skilled enough to maintain constant gold flow, this will likely be a nice buff considering the length of games in the current meta. For players who are not, this can be a punishing buff that prevents them from getting the Seraph's transform earlier. Overall, an interesting change.

7. Rod of Ages (Summoner's Rift) Total Cost: 2800 G --> 2700 G Health: 450 Base Health --> 300 Base Health Mana: 450 Base Mana --> 400 Base Mana Passive: 20 Mana Growth / 200 Maximum Mana --> 40 Mana Growth / 400 Maximum Mana Passive: 2 Ability Power / 20 Maximum Ability Power --> 4 Ability Power / 40 Maximum Ability Power

When we think of champions that build Rod of Ages, it will likely be along the lines of Kassadin, Ryze, Cho'Gath, Karthus, Anivia, and Swain. These champions all want to enjoy some form of minor tankiness combined with an ability power and mana type item. With this change, the item becomes more mana and damage focused and significantly less useful for survivability.

I am not sure this change is targeted in the right direction. These changes will not make Rod of Ages a more attractive item on its own because the changes are primarily beneficial to the ones that like to build Tear of the Goddess as well. Mages with mana problems that do not need the HP will still build Morellonomicon, or Athene's in the case of extreme problems like Orianna.

8. Nashor's Tooth Total Cost: 2920 G --> 3000 G Attack Speed: 50% Attack Speed --> 40% Attack Speed Ability Power: 60 Ability Power --> 80 Ability Power

Minor buff to Kayle? Otherwise, I do not see this opening up any new options anytime soon.

9. Rylai's Crystal Scepter Recipe Change: NLR + Amplifying Tome + Giant's Belt Total Cost: 2900 G --> 3000 G Passive Single Target: 35% Slow for 1.5 seconds --> 40% Single Target Slow for 1.5 seconds Passive AoE: 15% Slow for 1.5 seconds --> 40% Slow for 1 second Passive DoT: 15% slow for 1.5 seconds --> 20% Slow for 1 second

Note: If a spell is both an AoE and a DoT - they use the DoT value.

The change from Blasting Wand to NLR is likely a buff, as Giant's Belt was already a similarly priced item in the build and NLR will make sitting on the AP more attractive and flexible. It is fairly obvious that this is a huge buff to Rylai's, as tagging someone with an AoE slow is going to cripple them enough for you to get in range, even if the duration is a half second less. With just a 100 gold increase for such a big power change, I think this is probably far too powerful for the likes of Xerath, Azir, and AP Kog'Maw. I highly recommend that this change to slow power not go through.

10. Haunting Guise Total Cost: 1485G --> 1500 G

15g increase, not a big deal (according to the lolwiki, the cost of Haunting Guise is 5 gold more than what was posted by Xypherous).

11. Liandry's Torment Recipe Change: Haunting Guise + Blasting Wand Total Cost: 2900 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 50 Base AP --> 80 Base AP

A massive buff to Liandry's. As of now, the item is on the weak side despite its convenient build path with Haunting Guise, but an increase of 30 AP for just 100 gold immediately makes it a viable late game item. And considering the current Cinderhulk meta, the passive health shred on Liandry's is quite powerful.

I am extremely concerned, however, because of this passive Magic Penetration. As Riot has previously mentioned, flat penetration is most effective as an assassination stat, not a tank shredding stat. It means that champions like Leblanc and Katarina can easily purchase Haunting Guise and sit on it for the penetration and survivability while still having a viable completion item. This would not be such a big deal to me if it were for the fact that Liandry's is not targeted towards assassins, just like how Morellonomicon was not targeted towards... everyone. It would be a shame if everyone was just burning tanks down all of a sudden just because they're a mage, like how its a shame that mages right now just apply grievous wounds.... just cause. I think the flat penetration should be looked at as a stat first and perhaps changed to something like "Bonus Magic Penetration".

12. Will of the Ancients Spell Vamp 20% Spell Vamp --> 0% Spell Vamp New Passive: Your spells and abilities heal you for 15% of the damage dealt, calculated BEFORE your opponent's resistances. 33% effect for AoE Spells.

This could be a good change, as it makes healing from minions 25% less effective while healing from tanks... really, really good. Overall however, I think I am going to despise this change, because... god damn it, Vlad. Playing tanks against Vlad will probably get a lot more frustrating, while in lane this is roughly a small nerf. In late game team fights however, this would be a big buff to doing damage to the tank, and Vlad will get all his health back right when his ult pops. Please, Riot, don't do this to me.

13. Morellonomicon Recipe Change: Codex + Idol + Amplifying Tome Total Cost Unchanged

A small buff to allow players to build Amplifying Tome along the way. Grants more build flexibility, which can go a long way, but people will still probably sit on Idol and Codex for the 20% CDR as the primary benefit before returning with 880.

14. Athene's Unholy Grail Recipe Change: Codex + Chalice + Amplifying Tome Total Cost Unchanged

Same as Morellonomicon.

15. Void Staff Total Cost: 2295 G --> 2500 G Ability Power: 70 Ability Power --> 80 Ability Power

This is roughly a nerf to Void Staff as a 3rd item buy. Percentage penetration is highly valuable for punching through tanks and Aegis. This will not change that and probably will just reinforce Deathcap as an earlier buy.

Summary of Thoughts The catalyst for these changes is that "if you want a relatively high amount of AP - you were constrained to a fixed set of items that greatly synergize with each other due to the high amounts of base AP on them (Zhonya's, Ludens, Deathcap)." It is true that ideally you would like to have all 3 items. In terms of reducing the AP on Hourglass and Luden's, this does damage the synergy of the items, while pushing Deathcap as an even higher priority buy. I would consider this an overall nerf to the mage role.

When we consider champions that use other items, we see Twisted Fate and Viktor still use Lich Bane as an early buy, Ryze and Cassiopeia buy tear based items, and Vlad buys WotA. Looking at the list of AP items, there really is not much flexibility beyond that besides Rylai's and Liandry's, which accounts for the buffs in these changes. Those two items likely need some love, though the current buffs may be a bit much. I would not be surprised if the next meta of champions were those that benefit highly from build Deathcap second.

In terms of AP Itemization, I think that what we are truly lacking on is 10% CDR items. There is no middle ground between buying Morellonomicon/Athene's and no CDR at all. In the future, I would like to see more 10% CDR items with interesting, offensive effects, and for Morellonomicon to become less of a catch-all.

So what do you guys think about these changes?