An Open Discussion about Runic Echoes/AP in the Jungle
This is sort of my response to a thread that was on the front page of the boards regarding Runic Echoes and the state of AP junglers right now. I'd also like to point out that Maple Nectar had also mention that Riot is planning to do some work in the Jungle in Patch 8.10 along with looking at Runic Echoes as well.
So I've been thinking about Runic echoes for a little bit, and I was thinking how it could/should be made better. Currently it just doesn't stack up against it's other counterparts, and it's showing in the fact that there really isn't much variance in AP champs who can jungle. After some thought, and while this might not be the best solution, here's what I came up with for a proposed Runic Echoes change:
- New Name (enchant color is now purple) - Runic Binder
- +10 AP
- Now has an Active component: A slightly different Spellbinder (50 charges, gives AP + %Missing Mana back based on Charges)
So here's my reasoning for the changes I gave it. A JG version of Luden's echo just makes an AP Jungler's Itemization just so awkward because half of the AP Junglers would also like to get Luden's as well. So, I decided to use the new item Riot made for the users of old luden's who'd want to use both. As for why this item now has an active, well the thought came to me; why should the mage JG item be a static stat item? for AD and Tank items, that sort of makes sense because they don't normally use active items outside of Ghostblade and BORK, whereas Mages have items like Spellbinder, AAS, and the Hextech items because that makes sense for a mage to use magical tools to assist them in battle. My final point, is why did I change the enchantment color to purple? Well that leads to Phase 2 of my plan for AP junglers - A new Jungle Item!
- New Enchant (Blue) - Arcane Pox
- Build:
/
(1000G) + 
(900G) + 
(435) + 300G (10G more than Current Runic) - 70 AP, 10% CDR
- now has the Passive/Active from an old Black Market Brawlers item: Pox Arcana
- UNIQUE Passive – POX: Applies a stack of Pox for 10 seconds whenever you deal ability damage, stacking up to 5 times.
- UNIQUE Active – DISEASE HARVEST: Deals 100 magic damage plus 20 (+5% AP) per stack of Pox (maximum of 200 (+25% AP)) to all nearby enemies affected by Pox, and restores 5% of your maximum mana for every Pox stack harvested. 60 second cooldown.
Alright, so since I just Copy/Pasted the Passive/Active from the wiki, there's more than likely going to be some number nerfs to the active so it's not stupid broken or anything, but the concept seems like a good idea here.
I really feel like splitting the AP JG item in half is the best way to go here. It would allow for a bigger variety of AP junglers to impact the game, which I know Riot wants since they also want to try to have Mages in Bot lane, It gives some AP Junglers new options so they can adapt to certain scenarios in-game, and I can actually build a JG item that means something as JG Karthus since I almost never even upgrade to a smite item because it's just a waste of 650G for me.
This is just something I've been thinking about since I read that post regarding Runic Echoes. I'm interesting to hear your thoughts on my proposed changes, as well as any potential changes you might think of for Runic Echoes or something to replace it.