Some Thoughts About The Conqueror Keystone

Don't want to dwell on an introduction, but since some people might question if I'm in a position to make the claims I am, here is some info: I don't play Ranked. I don't play Normal Draft Pick. Only have about 1300 games in about 2 years worth of time.

If you're still here, thanks, and I hope the article gives you some benefit. Now, let's get going.

The Conqueror Keystone was added to the Precision Tree on patch 8.6 to give most Bruisers and Juggernauts a proper keystone, since nothing from the new runes reforged was really working for them. It worked as so: Entering combat generates one stack every second for the next 3 seconds. After reaching 4 stacks, your next basic attack against an enemy champion consumes all stacks to grants 10 - 35 (based on level) bonus Attack Damage for 3 seconds and converts 20% of your damage to champions to true damage for the duration. All stacks will wear off after 3 seconds out of combat. Riot also made sure to make it Bruiser and Juggernaut specific by making the buff refresh for Melee champs and only melee champs. Overall, it was a success, and lots of bruisers and juggernauts use it as their main keystone. However, I feel like their were a couple small oversights and missed opportunities with the keystone I'd like to bring up.

1. How The True Damage Conversion Affects Healers Their is only one item in the game that provides omnivamp (healing from all damage dealt) in the game, which is Hextech Gunblade. That's fine, but the rest of the items that provide healing from damage do it in the form of lifesteal (healing based on damage dealt from auto attacks), with the exception of Death's Dance, which instead provides 15% healing from all physical damage dealt. Many Bruiser champions also have healing built into their kit, but all this is where the conflict with most bruiser's favorite keystone begins. Since Conqueror converts 20% of all damage, including auto attack damage, into true damage, it effectively also cuts 20% of their lifesteal, since that only procs on an auto attacks physical damage. Here are a some examples. Mordekaiser-A Conqueror Mordekaiser could be pretty great to play. He has ad scaling in his kit, and a conqueror empowered ult could deal some ridiculous damage. However, because it converts 20% of his abilities damage into true damage, its pretty bad on him, because his passive gives him a shield based on the magic damage dealt by his abilities, cutting his only real form of durability down by 20% if he takes the keystone. New Aatrox-The reworked aatrox has a similar problem. On the pbe, his E has a passive that heals him for a percentage of the physical damage he deals, similar to Death's Dance. Conqueror would also be great on him, but it has the same effect it has on Mordekaiser. It cuts down his healing.

The trade off of some healing or shielding for tons of true damage to most champs isn't a problem at all, but it really cuts out some champs who would love the keystone from using it, (the mentioned Mordekaiser and New Aatrox) and lowers the effectiveness of lifesteal on champs who run it and run lifesteal as well (examples being Yasuo and Fiora)

2. It Can Be A Bit Of A Mess To Work With True Damage Conqueror's true damage can be pretty problematic. Having champs like Master Yi, who already have lots of true damage from items (new infinity edge) and their kit (Wuju Style) run it as well can make them deal ridiculous amounts of true damage, shredding squishes in moments, and invalidating lots of the gold tanks put into tank items, and the abilities of some champs, since it ignores damage reduction (working againt Galio W, Irelia W, etc.) as well as armor and magic resistance. This may be more geared to the issue of having to much true damage in the game overall, especially in places where it might not be needed (I believe one of those places where it isn't needed is Conqueror). Having Conqueror added to the ever expanding list of true damage sources is something to keep in mind, at least. The list is pretty big already, considering how powerful true damage is. It's understandable the bruisers need a way to get through tanks, but is true damage really the way to do it? % Health damage and % Penetration do the job too, and it feels better to play against that in most ways. Another thing to consider is that conqueror can give True Damage to abilities and empowered auto attacks that were definitely not balanced around the idea of having 20% of their damage be true damage.

List of True Damage Sources That Affect Champions Champions that deal true damage- Camille, Fiora, Gangplank, Twitch, Vayne, Master Yi, Ahri, Garen, Ammumu, Darius, Cho'Gath, Kog'Maw, Olaf, Rek'Sai, Syndra, Vel'Koz, Zoe Items that deal true damage- Elixir of Sorcery, Infinity Edge, Redemption Summoner Spells that deal true damage- Ignite, Challenging Smite, Chilling Smite Buffs that apply true damage- Red Buff Runes the deal true damage- Cheap Shot, Conqueror.

3. An Idea For A Change to Conqueror. This change gets rid of points one and two, while also opening up the Precision tree as a whole, and making use of a neat mechanic Riot Made. Make Conqueror give adaptive AD/AP and adaptive Penetration. Having Conqueror give Adaptive stats and Pen still make allows it to give Bruisers the anti tank umph they need, (You could always just buff up the amount of penetration and/or adaptive stats it gives if it was under performing its previous true damage counterpart,) and gets rid of the issues I have with true damage and Conqueror's lifesteal ineffectiveness. It also makes the Keystone more versatile, (Conqueror AP Jax, Conqueror Mordekaiser, Conqueror AP Irelia, etc.) It even makes use of a really cool mechanic in the form of Adaptive stats. This isn't even too new of an idea, as during development Conqueror gave Adaptive stats instead of just AD.

Well, that's the end, thanks for taking a look and reading this. Any thoughts? Leave any ideas in the comments if you'd like. It would be interesting to see what other people think about this. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]