Mid Year Mage Update Ideas

Okay with the mage update coming around and the post about the items I decided to throw my two cents in.

First Im going to look at what they are planning to do with most of the items right now then I will look at other items that could be slightly reworked to better fit mages right now.

Lets start with Catalyst I honestly quite like this idea because of the sustain it can give. When you get hit by someone you can convert that into mana and then into health essentially healing off of damage you take, Kinda like a Galio W. Granted the healing is slightly limited it gives better sustain since you can play more aggressively towards your enemy laner. What I don't like though would be the fact that with other item changes it kind of makes this item a necessity to build.

Next on the list will be Tear Another item that I believe is done pretty well since it essentially reduces all your spells cost by 25% therefore reducing mana spent in total. A drawback of this is just like Catalyst It kind of makes this item a necessity to build if you want to lower your mana output. (Plus imagine a Kassadin with this thing). I think this idea in total is a great idea if they wish to have mana as a focus for mages and that they could expand on mana reduction for mages in general, like CDR.

Chalice Equilibrium effect and an interesting idea to toy around with, and essentially you will always have something with a 100% regen unless you are full health. Something I dont like is that they seem to itemize this more around a support instead of mages which seems kinda counter-intuitive since with spellfang they dont really need this item unless they are under constant pressure. While I like the passive I don't like the somewhat niche pick its turned into.

Lost Chapter Interesting Idea and seems somewhat like a one way old Catalyst I can see this being a rush item since it gives some sense of security when you level up. This gives some time to poke down your enemy and when you finally get your power spike you have enough mana to use it. All in all a pretty decent item.

Morellonomicon Considering this item gives both CDR and now flat mana I think that when paired with lost chapter passive it gives a great combo of AP and Mana sustain. The 100 gold decrease is also nice. Like the post said the mana and archangels do compliment each other nicely.

Athene's This item is probably one of the first items I say I do not like the change it has. The passive that restores your mana and the mana font made this item a great tool for mages to use their combo and have them be able to use a stun or something to get out, while now they are basically sitting ducks since they have now used their mana and their combo and cant escape. Granted thats what makes an immobile mage but this item was great on high cost mana users and now seems like a pick for only supports.

Spell Vamp I quite liked spell vamp but I can see that its mainly used on nothing but poor Vlad . I think that its okay that it was removed from the game but needs to be replaced with something equally as nice as spell vamp.

Hextech Revolver This item is something that I think can have great potential. Now hear me out, I think that this would make a great mage item like Serrated Dirk . There arent a lot of magic penetration items out there and I think that with some magic pen it can become a more heavily sought after item Combine cost - 230 Total Cost - 1100 AP unchanged Spell Vamp changed to 10 magic penetration New passive (I like this passive and think that it can give some extra damage while your spells are on Cooldown) basic attacks deal 75 - 150 magic damage on hit. (30 second cooldown, shared with other Hextech items).

Hextech Gunblade I like the new passive since it fits the hybrid version of a BoRK.

Hextech Rocket Belt Interesting item in that it gives flat AP, Health, and some CDR. Although I feel like this is kind of making immobile mages suicide bombers to dive into the enemy team and go one for one. Granted with Flash you could get in and get out. I also think that since it builds from Revolver it could give a small portion of armor penetration. In all I see this as an option for when your truly desperate to steal that kill from the person you hate the most, and then promptly die.

Hextech (Insert letters and numbers here) Interesting concept in that its kinda like ROA and a Frost Queens but doesnt follow the enemy. I like the active but I also see it as more mages stacking tanky items and providing them with more sustained damage and not burst damage, which is great for someone like Vlad or Sol But not someone like Annie or Fiddle .

Zhonyas and Abyssal I like the CDR but I do not like the AP reduction on either of them since while yes the cost was lowered it wasnt lowered sufficiently for a 30 and 10 AP reduction respectively. The active cooldown also seems like an unnecessary nerf since the original coold was quite alright. I also see these as now items you want to build but dont really become something you can rush because of the AP reduction.

Various MR items Reducing the MR is a decent idea but it ends up being useless since AP items got nerfed anyway so its kinda like scaling both of them down for no real reason. Looking over this I can see that it gives nothing but tanks some stronger sustain and mages feeling more helpless against them.

Okay now that I have gone over the new stuffs im going to share some of my ideas about items and mages.

Im not a huge mage main but I do almost main entirely assassins so I can provide input to what mages need to counter them since thats what this meta is turning into. First off mages need some more armor items to provide some decent protection from assassins and not sacrificing too much of their item slots. Zhonyas is a great item but only provides one use with a now nerfed cooldown so if riot decides to nerf the cooldown why not add some other Armor/Ap Item. I personally think something like maybe an item that gives armor from your ap would be an interesting idea. Nothing too strong but something like 5% of your ap is converted into armor and activating this ability will strengthen your armor by 10% for a few seconds. Another interesting idea would be some more magic penetration items for mages since theres only a few out there such as Void Staff ,Liandry's Torment , and Sorcerers Boots . I quite like the idea of turning Revolver into a magic pen item which allow for some more damage to come off of mages.

TL;DR In all I honestly don't like the new mage update since I've really wanted to play some mages but with little itemization I haven't seen the chance too. I think that they seem to make it so you have to buy either tear or catalyst to grant any kind of large amount of mana sustain since thats what mages really need.

Anyway my brain is broken, Time to play some league.

Open to any thoughts Peace.