Some really dumb things I noticed about Blade of the Ruined King

TehNACHO··87 votes·28,775 views

Looking at the Blade of the Ruined King, the %Health Shred clearly screams that it is an item you invest into to combat opponents with high health, right? If this is the case, why is it so effective against enemies with low health?

Let's just say, as an example, you rush the Blade of the Ruined King as your first item. If you are primarily an auto attack based champion, the % health shred on hit might as well be AD in this specific example. The wiki page states that for the Blade of the Ruined King to be 100% gold efficient is if the active and passive effects have a gold value of 550 gold. % Shred might as well be AD for this example, AD has a gold value, let's figure this out. Basic math tells us that 550 gold worth of AD is about ~15 AD. Okay, how much health must your target have in order for the % shred to do 15 damage? Once again, basic math brings us to the answer: about ~191 Health.

I'd just like to point out at this point that the on hit % health shred calculates on current health. In other words, if you are to 100 to 0 somebody by auto attacking them over and over, on average the % current health shred would be calculating 50% of the enemy's total health. What this means is that the ~191 health thing is almost entirely inaccurate; we need to double that value to find out how much total health the opponent has for the Blade of the Ruined King to be gold efficient. In other words, we're actually looking at ~382 health. What this means is, if we treat the Blade of the Ruined King's passive as AD for auto attack based champions, your opponent only needs to have 382 health in order for the item to be 100% gold efficient.

...wait what. 382 health? Anivia doesn't even have that little health at level 1. Why is the health threshold to make the Blade of the Ruined King gold efficient so low?!

It's really dumb to be frank. If we're looking at the Blade of the Ruined King's combat stats all alone and remove the Life Steal from its gold value, the target only needs 764 health to make the Blade of the Ruined King gold efficient disregarding the Life Steal. That's right folks, the Blade of the Ruined King pays for itself as a combat item, and gives you Life Steal to top yourself off.

Now anybody who has a basic understanding how Auto Attack DPS really works will know something's totally off with these calculations: Critical Chance. The Blade of the Ruined King's passive does not interact with Critical Chance the same way that actual AD works. "Well looks like these calculations are pointless then, I'm an AD Carry, I'm going to be investing in a buttload of Crit Chance anyway". Well, let's stop to think about it for a moment. Let's just say, even though it's kind of unlikely to achieve this without the most skewed Crit Chance builds, you have 100% Critical Chance. What this means is that the value of AD essentially doubles. Remember how it took the target having ~382 health to make the passive worth 550 gold's worth of AD? Doubling this means that in order for the Blade of the Ruined King's passive to be gold efficient (based off AD) even when you're at 100% critical chance is that your target needs at least 764 health. Now, let's say you also have the Infinity Edge. Multiply ~382 by 2.5 to find out how much health the target needs to have to make the passive gold efficient, and you get a grand total of...~955 health.

What.

If you have 100% Crit Chance with the Infinity Edge's extra 50% modifier, your target only needs to have about 955 health in order for the Blade of the Ruined King to remain cost efficient. Dumbly enough, your opponent only needs 1910 health to make the item cost efficient if we disregard the lifesteal. That's right folks, by the late game, not only is your Blade of the Ruined King going to be cost efficient as fuck even if you have 100% Crit Chance and an Infinity Edge, but because many champions go well above 1910 health by level 18 without buying a single Health item, you also get 10% Life Steal essentially for free.

Ugh. Look, I understand the point of having an anti health item in general. It tones down the fabled League of Warmogs scenario I've been told about, it gives AD Carries something decisive to build in order to combat tanks, and in theory, it creates a niche pick item that invites strategic building. In execution though, this anti health item is gold efficient against targets who do not build health. No, wait, that's putting it too lightly. This anti health item is gold efficient against targets who aren't even anywhere near their maximum potential health, in some situations being super gold efficient even when champions aren't even level 1. All this does is phenomenally screw Tanks over the moment they do decide to invest into building health even harder than usual, and make a generic item with virtually no weaknesses and thus no reason not to buy it because it's still decidedly powerful even when it is at its weakest.

94 Comments

RiotRiot Reinboom31 votes

I'll bite! :D

An approximate level you might start to see BotrKs: 9 (usually) An approximate amount of HP you might generally see at this level: 1400

Damage on hit: 114.56 physical damage

(These are using the tables we use internally, I don't know what other people use) Value of 1 AD = 36 gold Value of 1% ASPD = 33 Value of 1% Lifesteal = 54

Properties of 1 AD versus 1 Physical on Hit: Can be crit (50% down) Can be applied to spells (50% down)

36 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 9 9 x 114.56 = 1031.04 gold value from the on hit at level 9 against approximately median health, no items. (AD) 36 x 25 = 900 (ASPD) = 1320 (Lifesteal) = 540

= 3791.04 total gold value (not counting active, those are hard to evaluate)

ceiling(3791.04) = 3792 gold Versus cost of 3200 = +18.50% efficient

So Blade of the Ruined King at level 9 against most champions who have not bought health has a +18.50% efficiency if you don't use its active.

Average efficiency percent for 2800+ gold items, using our stat values (approximate)** 34.26%**

Which means in order to reach value Blade of the Ruined King's active (at level 9, against champions who have not bought health) would need to be 504 gold.

Which it is not. Sometimes. Contextually.

Doing calculations to reach the stat value of items can tell you a lot about the ballpark strength of an item, but it can't give you contextual information. The actual value of a stat is hard to pin down: It's relative to the state of the game (the value of %pen increases with more opposing armor). It's relative to the opportunity cost (With IE, this calculation changes as you pointed out). It's relative to champion ranges and spell ranges (what damage can a champion actually apply).

Stat values also are relative to each other, not necessarily what's available at level 1. For example, we consider Boots of Speed and Health Crystal "slightly inefficient" .

Most places that try to make values of items base it off "earliest possible" for a stat and to that I present the following hypothetical scenario: Let's say we increase Long Sword to 600 gold with no other changes. All items that it builds into decreases by 240 gold. Does the value of AD increase to 60? Does this suddenly increase the value Bloodthirster by 1920 gold even though we actually effectively nerfed its build path?

Sneak Dog3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Reinboom,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AfHHG9mA,comment-id=001e,timestamp=2015-01-20T19:20:58.654+0000) Most places that try to make values of items base it off "earliest possible" for a stat and to that I present the following hypothetical scenario: Let's say we increase Long Sword to 600 gold with no other changes. All items that it builds into decreases by 240 gold. Does the value of AD increase to 60? Does this suddenly increase the value Bloodthirster by 1920 gold even though we actually effectively nerfed its build path?

Yes, it does. Please don't do that. The 40g reduction was awkward enough, lol.

Do your gold-efficiency calculations include the part where the 8% current health damage is also lifesteal (bit hard to calculate, so reasonable to leave it out)? Do the 34.26% efficiency ratings of the other items include passives? (PD unit collision, IE crit damage, Shiv shock) Is it ok for bork to be cost-efficient against squishies and veeery cost-efficient against tanks?

Awesome post Reinboom. Edit: 8% current health, not 5% -.-

RiotRiot Reinboom17 votes

So, I actually just calculated based on 8% maximum Health and I forgot to include a mention that it's 8% current. The value is even lower than 114.56 per hit in most cases. For current versus maximum, I tend to recommend putting it at somewhere like 65% value. So that would decrease the value per hit from 9 to 5.85.

For the active of 10% taken (the only place the life is leached from), I didn't explicitly include the lifesteal, mostly because actives of that nature are incredibly difficult to evaluate their real value and it's very judgmental. If we created a new item that is Blade of the Ruined King 2, that is exactly the same as Blade of the Ruined King except that it doesn't have its active and instead has a bunch of extra stats, what is the gold value of those stats before you would consider them balanced? (Also assuming you can only get one or the other) I would trade the active for 10 AD, easy (or about 360 gold). A lot of people would never do that. And it pretty fundamentally changes why the item is good or bad.

We do give values to those passive, but they are all ballpark values usually (or have large equations to get to them). We value the ghost on PD as 150 gold as an example. Again, just ballparky feels number.

Ryu the first2 votes

.......we need an ap PD just for Malz then. Imagine, Malz players, never being creep blocked and killed again, for only 150g! Riot pls

B1naryB0t6 votes

I'm a fan of all the statistics for these sorts of things, so I'm curious, is there anywhere I can find the "Riot Official Gold Efficiencies"? You know, like what 1 AP is as far as gold efficiency, or something like that?

TehNACHO4 votes

Hey cool, a red post.

As a disclaimer, I know that trying to derive gold values from items is usually...weird, so I actually do take the time to calculate these things via actual goals per gold. For example, I have a document for Tryndamere's late game DPS that I made public a long, long time ago to point out how silly Runaan's Hurricane is on a melee carry. I just used the wiki standard for calculating stat/gold efficiency because it's far easier for more people to understand. It's a sad world for mathematicians when most people aren't able to understand what you're talking about.

I'm just curious about one last thing then:

[{quoted}](name=Riot Reinboom,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AfHHG9mA,comment-id=001e,timestamp=2015-01-20T19:20:58.654+0000)

Which means in order to reach value Blade of the Ruined King's active (at level 9, against champions who have not bought health) would need to be 504 gold.

Crossing out the 504 gold thing for obvious reasons. I'm just really curious though, what would the standard be for champions who do stack health?

Getting a realistic value approximately equivalent to or exceeding the abstract value of 504 gold is an easy feat to achieve, from what past calculations of AD Carries I made way back when suggest. While I don't think this is bad - it's actually contextually correct that the tank busting item busts tanks - I really would like to know where the line is drawn when comparing the Blade of the Ruined King against tanks and that dichotomy with squishies. It's a pressing matter in my mind as if the bar is set far too low, all it does is hurt the super tanks who function at 4+ dedicated tank items. In fact, it's a large thing I was trying to aim for in the last paragraph of the original post. This item's apparent gold value seems to revolve pretty well (too well) around squishies...so what does it mean for tanks?

RiotRiot Reinboom12 votes

I chose the level 9, median health values because they were predictable. Overall, it also shows that compared to the other choices at that point in the game blade of the ruined king is probably stat inefficient.

Output is different from value though. For some champions, especially those that needs to stick, the killing potential of blade of the ruined king is high regardless of enemy health state. For most champions, the killing potential of blade of the ruined king is subpar (Here I would point out that Annie wouldn't buy BotRK as an extreme). For many champions that would like the item but don't need the sticking power the killing potential is "less than other options". Unless your opponent buys a lot of health, then it becomes "obviously more than other options". Which is ideal.

The item doesn't have one use. It's not the "% HP damage item". It's not the "Bruiser's favorite sticky item". It's the "Bruiser's favorite sticky item that happens to be the most available lifesteal / attack speed item that also does % HP damage item". Each of those things are contextually good in of their own right. I could never say that the item fails or passes an arbitrary balance metric based on just one of those three.

Hellioning3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Reinboom,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AfHHG9mA,comment-id=001e00010000,timestamp=2015-01-20T21:46:52.741+0000) The item doesn't have one use. It's not the "% HP damage item". It's not the "Bruiser's favorite sticky item". It's the "Bruiser's favorite sticky item that happens to be the most available lifesteal / attack speed item that also does % HP damage item". Each of those things are contextually good in of their own right. I could never say that the item fails or passes an arbitrary balance metric based on just one of those three.

Isn't that a problem, though? It's an item you get if you want extra burst and don't want a hydra, if you want to chase people, if you want to peel someone, if you want to screw over bruisers, if you ARE a bruiser and only want to buy one damage item, if there's a Mundo on the enemy team...

I may hate the item just because Zed buys it, but it (and hydra!) feel really overloaded to me. They're just an item that does a lot of things, and you get 4 other slots to buy whatever else you want.

Hobbsgoblin1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Reinboom,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AfHHG9mA,comment-id=001e00010000,timestamp=2015-01-20T21:46:52.741+0000)

(Here I would point out that Annie wouldn't buy BotRK as an extreme).

Challenge accepted. As soon as I get my PC that I game with fixed shit is going to get all kinds of extreme.

Ale non è male3 votes

The item doesn't have one use. It's not the "% HP damage item". It's not the "Bruiser's favorite sticky item". It's the "Bruiser's favorite sticky item that happens to be the most available lifesteal / attack speed item that also does % HP damage item". Each of those things are contextually good in of their own right. I could never say that the item fails or passes an arbitrary balance metric based on just one of those three.

Uhm, that's not really good though. BoTRK should not fill out so much niches. BoTRK should be the %HP damage item, it shuld not cover the niche of "Bruiser's favorite sticky item" that should be covered by Frozen Mallet/Entropy(CS/HA)/Rylai(AP bruisers) or the niche of the item that can represent a major damage item against basically any kind of champ - because, let's be honest, the actual 8% of the current health on hit passive added to the 40% AS make BoTRK deal tons of damage even to squishies, competing with the major damage items -

Just my two cents

P.S. And to clarify, the problem isn't clearly the active slow

Jambat2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Reinboom,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AfHHG9mA,comment-id=001e,timestamp=2015-01-20T19:20:58.654+0000)

I'll bite! :D

Riot, I love when you talk numbers to me.

TY for the good reply.

Negamaku1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Reinboom,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AfHHG9mA,comment-id=001e,timestamp=2015-01-20T19:20:58.654+0000)

I'll bite! :D

An approximate level you might start to see BotrKs: 9 (usually) An approximate amount of HP you might generally see at this level: 1400

Damage on hit: 114.56 physical damage

(These are using the tables we use internally, I don't know what other people use) Value of 1 AD = 36 gold Value of 1% ASPD = 33 Value of 1% Lifesteal = 54

Properties of 1 AD versus 1 Physical on Hit: Can be crit (50% down) Can be applied to spells (50% down)

36 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 9 9 x 114.56 = 1031.04 gold value from the on hit at level 9 against approximately median health, no items. (AD) 36 x 25 = 900 (ASPD) = 1320 (Lifesteal) = 540

= 3791.04 total gold value (not counting active, those are hard to evaluate)

ceiling(3791.04) = 3792 gold Versus cost of 3200 = +18.50% efficient

So Blade of the Ruined King at level 9 against most champions who have not bought health has a +18.50% efficiency if you don't use its active.

Average efficiency percent for 2800+ gold items, using our stat values (approximate)** 34.26%**

Which means in order to reach value Blade of the Ruined King's active (at level 9, against champions who have not bought health) would need to be 504 gold.

Which it is not. Sometimes. Contextually.

Doing calculations to reach the stat value of items can tell you a lot about the ballpark strength of an item, but it can't give you contextual information. The actual value of a stat is hard to pin down: It's relative to the state of the game (the value of %pen increases with more opposing armor). It's relative to the opportunity cost (With IE, this calculation changes as you pointed out). It's relative to champion ranges and spell ranges (what damage can a champion actually apply).

Stat values also are relative to each other, not necessarily what's available at level 1. For example, we consider Boots of Speed and Health Crystal "slightly inefficient" .

Most places that try to make values of items base it off "earliest possible" for a stat and to that I present the following hypothetical scenario: Let's say we increase Long Sword to 600 gold with no other changes. All items that it builds into decreases by 240 gold. Does the value of AD increase to 60? Does this suddenly increase the value Bloodthirster by 1920 gold even though we actually effectively nerfed its build path?

Lol mind = blown.

Hizsoo1 votes

There are items in this game which are deal the damage instead of your champion. Anyone can get them and the biggest problem is with the both cost efficient, expensive and slot efficient ones, which are got champions "balanced" around them. I'm specifically talking about these items: item 3128 item 3100 item 3146 item 3031 item 3078 item 3153 This item balance philosophy sets back the balance of champions who gets one, but rather who gets multiple of them as the most popular build on those champs and it will be the part of the game what I will keep really hating. This item balance philosophy is also one of the most garbage parts that the game is laying on and the item balance team somewhat still have the will to keep failing with it. Got THE OP item and now I can deal the good old Tons of Damage with it. That is what I really don't want to see anymore. Make those items worth buying only on champions, which are actually benefit the most from them. I'm thinking about effected champion like them: Akali Corki Ezreal Irelia Jax MasterYi Skarner Tryndamere Vayne Yasuo Zed This problem proved the existence of it a lot of the time and I hope that there will be something which forces Riot Games to solve it. Strong competition in the MOBA genre, massive complains, anything, but this needs to happen. There are other good and interesting MOBA games and player who ain't stick to this one. Preseason is a good time for some experimentations, but usually it is just a bigger patch with lot of time wasting. I'm glad that a lot more happened this time. I would post a few feedback threads, if I would judge, it is worth some investment from my part, but it really doesn't look like, for multiple reasons. Sorry for the complaining style, but it seems like this is the only effective one here :D

Drogmyre1 votes

I'll also bite, since you did the courtesy of replying. I apologize in advance if you find it a bit long, I found it difficult to make this post concise. If you do read this, please do me the courtesy of responding, even if it's to just say 'interesting' or 'k', just something to let me know I didn't write this in vain. Thanks.

For anyone that doesn't feel like reading a relatively uncoordinated novel by a rather opinionated author, below is a convenient TL;DR.

TL;DR: I ended up ranting about how AD stats are overpowered compared to AP stats, thus making BoRK seem like a Billy Mays 'but wait there's more' kind of item. I make the argument that Riot undervalues AD and overvalues AP by comparing each stat and its related synergistic stats. I compare BoRK to its AP counterpart, Liandry's, where BoRK is stronger. Overall, the point is that the AD item tree doesn't need BoRK, it needs an overhaul as a collective group of stats. The '3/4 AD 2/1 AP' meta that's been going on just reinforces this idea, as AD items and champions tend to be more powerful/reliable than AP items and champions, ignoring the issues regarding resources and defensive items entirely.

For those of you that feel like spending a few minutes reading, here ya go:

I would argue that AD stats are the most overpowered set of stats in the game. In fact, I would argue that Riot's internal values, generously provided by you, are very low.

AP stats (spellvamp, flat AP, Magic Pen, CDR) are heavily restricted. Spell Vamp, due to its restrictions on AoE, is only effective on certain champions (which abuse the hell out of it.) Flat AP by and large only applies to abilities, and even then it's more often than not less than a 1:1 ratio. Magic Pen is restricted by only applying to magical damage (which is largely ability based and thus subject to cooldowns and skillshots), and CDR has a cap.

Champions like Vladimir (who abuse spell vamp) are anomalies and do not represent the vast majority of all magic damage dealing champions. The necessity of keeping spell vamp intentionally underpowered is wise, though I would argue that immediately reworking problematic champions would be more wise.

AD stats (lifesteal, critical strike, flat AD, armor pen, attack speed) by contrast are incredibly powerful and largely unrestricted.

Every champion in the game is capable of auto attacking. This means, at some level, all champions benefit from AD stats, obviously some more than others (such as Quinn vs. Xerath as an example.)

Additionally, CDR/AS are not restricted stats. Items like Nashor's Tooth and Brutalizer, to name two, have both AD and AP stats, but keep in mind that these 'shared stats' are in no way equal. Nashor's Tooth is hardly an AP staple, while Brutalizer is certainly an AD staple, especially in assassin builds.

Flat AD is a 1:1 increase in base attack damage, with potentially increased ability damage as well. This 1:1 increase in damage also affects lifesteal, as lifesteal only applies on auto attacks and not physical damage spells.

This leads to a significant problem, and a core imbalance in league of legends:

All AD stats are not only highly synergistic, they are also limited by only 1 factor: How often you land auto attacks, which are not skillshots and have a cooldown of +/- 1 second, potentially having 2.5 attacks per second, though this is rare.

So, to put this in a direct comparison format:

AD vs. AP: AD increases auto attack damage by 1 for each point of AD, as well as providing additional damage based on a champion's AD ratios (if they possess them.)

AP increases ability damage by a champion's ratio (if they have them.)

Lifesteal vs. Spellvamp: Lifesteal is only applied on basic attacks, for the full amount (excluding healing increase or reduction.) this makes lifesteal single target only.

Spellvamp is applied only on spells, and is reduced significantly on AoE abilities. Spellvamp can be multi-target, but suffers a penalty for doing so.

Crit vs. N/A: Crit has no direct competitor, it's a damage multiplier for AD, specifically auto attacks however certain abilities (parrley) can proc critical strikes. There is no AP stat that correlates to Crit, though items like the former DFG and Rabadon's Deathcap do give multipliers (though Deathcap is raw stats and not a direct damage increase, while DFG to an extent was.)

CDR vs. Attack Speed: AS increases the number of attacks per second by a percentage, up to 2.5 per second.

CDR decreases the cooldowns of spells, up to 40%.

Magic Pen vs. Armor Pen: ArPen penetrates armor, which mitigates all physical damage by a %.

Mpen penetrates MR, which mitigates all magical damage by a %.

As you can see by this direct comparison, AD has a definitive edge over AP stats. The only place where AD is not as powerful as AP is in Arpen, where Armor is easier to build than MR, thus letting Mpen be marginally stronger as a stat.

HOWEVER, this does not in any way diminish the fact that AD stats are by far more powerful than AP stats.

Now, how does this relate to the issue at hand (% hp damage, and BoRK in particular)?

AD already is a stronger stat. It has a direct damage multiplier (crit), a stronger sustained damage modifier (attack speed), a stronger stat increase (AD), and a stronger sustain mechanism (lifesteal).

BoRK takes this innate superiority and gives it even more of an edge. Adding %hp damage as a passive on an item with AD stats... Ignoring the active it's already an abomination.

Consider the significant difference between BoRK and, say, Liandry's, its AP counterpart: Liadry's applies on spell damage, ticks several times for a low % which is doubled when coupled with soft or hard CC.

BoRK, on the other hand, applies on every auto attack, in addition to any ability that applies on hit effects.

Given that one can apply 2.5 auto attacks in 1 second (or, more realistically, 1 per 1 second) as opposed to 4 spells in approximately 3 seconds, BoRK has a decisive advantage in fights or skirmishes lasting longer than 4 seconds.

Liandry's is also gimped by the nature of it being a DoT, meaning that each ability resets the damage ticks, while BoRK applies each effect per auto attack (basically it stacks, while LT doesn't.)

I'm finding it difficult to formulate a proper conclusion to this argument, so I'll basically summarize my thoughts:

Riot, AD is overpowered and undercosted, with superior efficiency and impact in every category EXCEPT penetration. What's worse is that AD champions also benefit significantly from AP stats like CDR, while many mages hardly benefit from AD stats (as their abilities do not scale with AD and are not auto attacking as a primary source of damage, sorry Azir)

Items like Blade of the Ruined King exacerbate this core imbalance, while it's not as bad as some items (IE, looking at you) it's still a problem.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

Properties of 1 AD versus 1 Physical on Hit: Can be crit (50% down) Can be applied to spells (50% down)

your math is undervaluing the physical on hit.

if you are an AA reliant champion (the type of champions who typically buy the item, i mean i don't think we care about it on nami...) the physical on hit damage being applied to spells isn't what you care about anyway, meaning the additional 50% reduction is irrelevant to your case. I don't think you can say that physical on hit damage is only 25% as valuable as raw AD. That just doesn't make sense to me.

meanwhile if you are an AD caster you aren't getting the spell damage, but you still see the likes of Zed, talon, etc... take it. So if the physical on hit damage is so devalued, why do they take it? Answer: the lifesteal. AA the tank once and use the active to heal based on their HP and you will see the value of that passive interaction. It may be hard to calculate but the effects are extremely real.

EDIT: sorry i didn't realize how old this was, but imo is still relevant.

junglerboy1620 votes

When they changed it back with the "ADC" patch, and gave it a ton of % health damage, that is when it got really skewed and out of whack. Before, it was perfect as a niche item for people who needed to actually bust a tank, because it was good against a champ with a ton of health. Now that the passive deals so much damage, it has increased its relative cost efficiency threshold by a massive amount. If it costed 3600-3800 gold, then it would actually have to be for when the enemy had enough HP to make it worth buying.

I commend you for your excellent post. +1

Pyro5 votes

Even at 3600 gold, it would still be a core item on Vayne.

The problem with BotRK is that it combines the % health damage with invaluable active. It needs to lose some slot efficiency, and separating the active and the passive effects into separate items could be one of the ways to do that.

Bigger project on ADC items

junglerboy161 votes

Oh, I know making it cost more wouldn't be a perfect fix, but it would help a lot in making it less of an all around item and force it better into a "buy this if the enemy stacks HP" kind of niche.

Pyro8 votes

Items that cost 3k gold or more are not response items, but power items. They're either good rushed or second (Gunblade, Deathcap, Triforce, IE, BT). Only exception here would be Mercurial Scimitar, which is just a n AD add-on to QSS, which is the real response item.

This is the problem with BotRK. It shouldn't be in the 3k+ group in the first place. It should cost about 2.5k gold and be a situational response purchase to health stacking (so: very cost inefficient if the enemy has no health items).

junglerboy161 votes

Then how about this, they rework it into an AD version of Liandry's, where it deals low % HP damage, but that damage is increased if the target is CCed?.

Danica17083 votes

The reason they won't do that is because mages as a whole have fairly reliable ways of CCing someone. ADC's don't. There are a few exceptions of course, there always are, but on the whole ADC's have unreliable or virtually no CC. That's why they will never change it to be like Liandry's.

junglerboy161 votes

My whole Point is this should never have been an ADC item to begin with.

TehNACHO5 votes

Eww, no. I address this in the last paragraph, a health shred item has a very necessary place in this game's design.

Just not its current iteration, is all.

ProfDrDeath9 votes

Good post, just one thing:

Use geometric mean to calculate the max-HP average damage of BotRK.

Using that, you'll find that it does, over the course of 100->0'ing someone, 3% of max HP per attack.

FastAsHeck6 votes

how about % BONUS hp? that would be kinda cool: perfect for tanks, useless for everything else (talking about the passive/active)

junglerboy161 votes

The only problem with that is that it makes it completely worthless for bruisers, which isn't a good thing.

Orbv2 votes

This is exactly what is needed. Bruisers have been an ongoing issue for the better part of the life of this game. They are there to deal damage and soak damage, not wreck tanks, assassinate squishies and face-tank the mages.

Narasimha4 votes

You also need to do a comparison with BT. Gold efficiency doesn't mean much by itself, it has to be relative. If BT is more efficient against low health targets, then that means BotRK is inefficient in comparison.

agbudar4 votes

god i liked the days of madreds bloodrazor

3900 gold 25 armor 25 ad 40atkspeed 4% max hp per hit in magic damage.

but back then tanks had access to FoN 76 MR 8% movespeed and that life regen that warmogs had

Drogmyre3 votes

Riot needs to stop thinking % based ANYTHING is a good idea.

It, inevitably, punishes the section of the population it's not supposed to affect as much as, if not more than, the population it's supposed to affect.

%pen is supposed to shred tanks. It does. It also shreds literally everyone else, and it's more efficient than straight up flat pen.

% health damage is supposed to shred HP stacking champions. It does. It also shreds literally everyone else, because everyone has HP and more often than not the % health damage is retardedly, stupidly, unforgivably gold efficient.

BoRK has been a broken as goddamn fucking hell item since it was released. I fucking hated that item, I fucking hate that item, and I will always point out that it's a fucking incredibly stupid item that should never, EVER have made it past the PBE.

It took an item (Bloodrazor) that was overcosted, buffed it to hell with lifesteal and bullshit, gave it an active which rivals DFG for being broken as shit, and introduced the same disgusting cancer that Qin's Sais is for SMITE into LoL.

Fuck that item.

Champion Skin2 votes

Ehh Liandries % health damage isn't really all that great...

Drogmyre3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Champion Skin,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AfHHG9mA,comment-id=00150000,timestamp=2015-01-20T16:18:30.748+0000)

Ehh Liandries % health damage isn't really all that great...

Liandry's isn't even remotely as broken as BoRK. 4% current IF the target is afflicted by soft/hard CC is completely different than every auto attack, with an active that does even more, with lifesteal and attack speed and a motherfucking cherry on top.

Liandry's gives HP, AP, Flat Pen, and the passive. It's objectively shit compared to BoRK.

That being said, Liandry's gets fucking disgusting on champions that are able to abuse it. Just thinking of Teemo gives me nightmares.

Yawnli2 votes

what i understood from this post is that bork is only cost efficient when the opponent is at full health. Did i get it wrong?

TehNACHO4 votes

Completely,

All the numbers I state are maximum health values, not current health values. The opponent does not have to be at 1910 health to make the Blade of the Ruined King cost effective, they only need to have more than 1910 health as a base stat.

Wirius2 votes

You have one fatal flaw in your calculations. You see, AD is valued as it is because AD works exponentially with crit. % health shred can't crit. Factor in IE and high crit chance, and you'll see BOTRK falls off, where AD does more damage per gold. You need to find another cost efficiency comparison.

TehNACHO6 votes

Taken from text.

{quoted}

Now anybody who has a basic understanding how Auto Attack DPS really works will know something's totally off with these calculations: Critical Chance. The Blade of the Ruined King's passive does not interact with Critical Chance the same way that actual AD works. "Well looks like these calculations are pointless then, I'm an AD Carry, I'm going to be investing in a buttload of Crit Chance anyway". Well, let's stop to think about it for a moment. Let's just say, even though it's kind of unlikely to achieve this without the most skewed Crit Chance builds, you have 100% Critical Chance. What this means is that the value of AD essentially doubles. Remember how it took the target having ~382 health to make the passive worth 550 gold's worth of AD? Doubling this means that in order for the Blade of the Ruined King's passive to be gold efficient (based off AD) even when you're at 100% critical chance is that your target needs at least 764 health. Now, let's say you also have the Infinity Edge. Multiply ~382 by 2.5 to find out how much health the target needs to have to make the passive gold efficient, and you get a grand total of...~955 health.

What.

If you have 100% Crit Chance with the Infinity Edge's extra 50% modifier, your target only needs to have about 955 health in order for the Blade of the Ruined King to remain cost efficient. Dumbly enough, your opponent only needs 1910 health to make the item cost efficient if we disregard the lifesteal. That's right folks, by the late game, not only is your Blade of the Ruined King going to be cost efficient as fuck even if you have 100% Crit Chance and an Infinity Edge, but because many champions go well above 1910 health by level 18 without buying a single Health item, you also get 10% Life Steal essentially for free.

Gankyu2 votes

There's so many issues with this post. First off, health shred doesn't interact with crit/crit damage. Nor does it affect ability AD ratios. And finally, there are diminishing returns on health shred based on remaining health, not on flat AD. The item is really good, but not broken. Only select champions can use it all that effectively.

TehNACHO3 votes

{quoted}

There's so many issues with this post. First off, health shred doesn't interact with crit/crit damage. Nor does it affect ability AD ratios. And finally, there are diminishing returns on health shred based on remaining health, not on flat AD. The item is really good, but not broken. Only select champions can use it all that effectively.

  1. It's almost sad how many people ignore the second half of the post.

  2. 'Twas why I specified Auto Attacks.

  3. 'Twas why I recalculated for total health instead of remaining health.

It's like you didn't even read the post.

Mathbalnase2 votes

It's almost as if ignoring massively confounding factors can change the outcome of an analysis.

TehNACHO1 votes

...Wait, I made sure to address those factors and Ganky didn't...so you're agreeing with me?

Mathbalnase1 votes

The only confounding factor that I see you actually addressing is crit chance. For instance, you don't accommodate AD's value to abilities, or Lifesteal not counting the on-hit damage. You mentioned the first one, but explicitly ignored it for the purposes of your calculations. I haven't seen you even mention the second one. Maybe I missed it?

TehNACHO1 votes

The first one was ignored to address Blade of the Ruined King's passive in its purpose; auto attacking. I addressed it directly, I did not ignore it.

The second part is a non factor. Blade of the Ruined King's passive procs Spell Vamp.

Mathbalnase1 votes

{quoted}

The first one was ignored [...] I did not ignore it.

Can you see the problem, here?

The second part is a non factor. Blade of the Ruined King's passive procs Spell Vamp.

I would very much like to see the evidence that the on-hit passive of BotRK procs Spell Vamp.

TehNACHO1 votes

Sorry, that was bad phrasing on my part. It's ignored in calculations as it did not apply to said calculations, but was not ignored in concept as I address it directly.

Silly English. You paraphrase to make something easier to read and write, somebody else takes the words at face value and ignores the paraphrasing. I almost feel like a Riot member regarding anything they say about (controversial) champion balance. gg

I've asked about Blade of the Ruined King previously.

Mathbalnase2 votes

The possibility that AD might benefit a champion's abilities is integral to the gold value of that stat. If AD were not able to benefit abilities, I am quite certain that it would not retain its current gold value. That being the case, it DOES apply to said calculations (which rely fundamentally on the gold value of AD) if those calculations are intended to apply to a non-meaninglessly-arbitrary subset of cases.

Is that link (including its half-dozen-or-so uncited claims) intended to function as the requested 'evidence'?

Moreover, as others have mentioned, even the conclusion itself ignores yet another massive confounding factor in the form of relative gold efficiency (vs other comparably advanced items fulfilling similar roles).

MidEvilKnight3k2 votes

Who cares if Botrk is still marginally gold efficient when you have 100% crit chance with an IE. If you had that crit, a bloodthirster would give an effective 200 ad on auto attacks and be over 200% gold efficient. You can't just compare an item to base stat values, you have to consider the alternative legendary items.

Leaf of the lake1 votes

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/The_Bloodthirster

Cost Analysis

Statistical Value

80 attack damage = 2880g
20% life steal = 1100g
    Total Gold Value = 3980g 

Passive Gold Value

50 "health" = 133g
350 "health" = 933g
    Total Gold Value = 133g to 933g 

Total Gold Value (While Fully Stacked) = 4113g to 4913g

Statistical Efficiency

The Bloodthirster base stats are 113.7% gold efficient.
The item is 117.5 to 140.4% gold efficient while fully stacked.
Sneak Dog3 votes

That's right folks, by the late game, not only is your Blade of the Ruined King going to be cost efficient as fuck even if you have 100% Crit Chance and an Infinity Edge, but because many champions go well above 1910 health by level 18 without buying a single Health item, you also get 10% Life Steal essentially for free.

10% lifesteal is 550g. This adds about 17% gold value to the bork. We are also disregarding the active so far. Against 2k health and 200 armor it'll give 100 health, another 267g or 8%. I'm not going to value the movementspeed buff/debuff.

PentaJump1 votes

So, this math is all correct and I can't disagree with any of it. However, BoTRK is still apparently not a super strong item for ADC, as evidenced by highest win rate builds. Personally, it shocked me too, and I'm not sure the reason for it.

Just go through the ADCs and check the highest win rate build. http://champion.gg/champion/Varus/ADC

TehNACHO5 votes

Erm, did you go through all the ADCs?

All of them?

Going by your site, you're right...up to a certain point. Ability based or niche ADCs like Varus or Ashe would rather have the high AD value of the Bloodthirster. However, hyper carry Auto Attack based ADCs (and remember, I made this thread almost entirely on the basis of auto attacking) like Kog'Maw, Vayne, Tristana, and Twitch all favor the Blade of the Ruined King in their builds.

Really now, I think I tried to make it abundantly clear that this post is talking about BotRK's synergy with Auto Attacking. I think it's a little unfair that you link an ability based ADC to counter this.

More from Gameplay

More by TehNACHO