I love mages, but

deadlychuck·Sep 11, 2017·31 votes·1,211 views

I can't realistically justify playing them, because AP is just so fucking terrible right now.

The MYMU just made things worse, and with respect to damage there are better AOE and single target options from AD champions. In respect to utility, there are better tank and support options. AD have just as effective wave clear.

The only use mages have now (and this is only applicable to some of them anyway) are wombo combo tools, and that's a very ambitious gamble for sacrificing so much power.

53 Comments

5050BSSep 11, 20178 votes

AD also have STUPID amounts of Life Steal that let the squishy ones live WAY past what they should and AP have item 3157 .....

PrinceOfStormsSep 11, 20176 votes

Not to mention how next season AD will get a one use Zhonya's as a component for GA.

PePsiLemoNNSep 11, 20171 votes

People really still complaining that Zhonya is weak? LUL

bbQsauçeSep 11, 20175 votes

[deleted]

PrinceOfStormsSep 11, 20177 votes

If mages are fine, why are ADC mids becoming more and more common?

bbQsauçeSep 11, 20171 votes

[deleted]

PrinceOfStormsSep 12, 20172 votes

We're in agreement. But the problem is, Riot will never give ADCs the nerfs they need, only token "see, we listen" nerfs that only hit the ones that are the most busted, without acknowledging the systemic problems with the role.

A proper ADC nerf will hit every champion in the role.

deadlychuckSep 12, 20171 votes

It's not even just ADCs, assassins have shoved their way into mid lane and there are plenty of other AD champions that also enjoy dominating the mid lane.

Most people just don't play them, because they haven't seen a pro player, streamer, or youtuber do it first.

Just like how Nasus support is broken as fuck, but i'm not going to talk too much about it.

GayFluffyUnicornSep 11, 20175 votes

Because ADCs are busted. Doesn't mean we have to immediately buff mages.

Somebody Love MeSep 11, 20174 votes

They don't need to buff mages. Mages are fine. The problem is AP itemization is so fucking poor.

LankPantsSep 11, 20175 votes

The MYMU just made things worse, and with respect to damage there are better AOE and single target options from AD champions.

A class update making a class worse, who'da thought?

warpenguin555Sep 11, 20175 votes

What are you talking about, Corki is a great mage!!! /s

DunkinNoobsSep 11, 20173 votes

It almost sounds plausible if you don't bother to look at any stats.

deadlychuckSep 12, 20171 votes

It's also plausible if you understand how to read stats and what information you can actually infer from them.

BerylCrabSep 11, 20173 votes

I think what you are experiencing is that ap carries were too good for too long, now they are just ok and you dont like it.

DunkinNoobsSep 11, 20172 votes

{quoted}

I think what you are experiencing is that ap carries were too good for too long, now they are just ok and you dont like it.

That's still not even accurate. What they're experiencing is that AP carries were broken for a long time and now they're merely "really good". Statistically speaking, immobile mages are still the best class in the game.

PrinceOfStormsSep 11, 201718 votes

Statistically speaking, ADCs are the best class in the game, because there are two of them in every single fucking game.

DunkinNoobsSep 11, 20171 votes

Except there aren't, and even if there were, it wouldn't prove anything. There's 2 supports in every game too; are you gonna say that supports are broken? Of course not.

Thankfully, we have numbers. Immobile mages have the highest overall winrate of all the classes with tanks being a close second. If you want to win solo q games, you pick tanks and mages and stay far away from assassins.

PrinceOfStormsSep 11, 20177 votes

"Support" is a role. ADC is a class. You have many different types of supports- tank supports, burst mage supports, utility mage supports. That's not the case for marksmen. Marksmen are so one dimensional because their entire gameplay more or less boils down to autoattacking. Botlane is literally just a game of musical chairs, and balancing marksmen is a game of whack-a-mole; there's always 2-3 disgusting ADCs, and nerfing them only makes 2-3 different ADCs disgusting because their counters just got nerfed.

Immobile mages have the highest overall winrate of all the classes with tanks being a close second.

That's because since there's an ADC in every game, the role itself has a winrate of 50% (as one wins, and one loses). Both tanks and mages are optional. If you compare a team that has an ADC to a team that doesn't, the team with the ADC will win 99 games out of 100.

An Undead bratSep 11, 20173 votes

Exactly! I hate it when people are so stupid they can't even look for themselves! Like right here, first, Janna, one of the most broken immobile mages for the whole time! Or second, Singed, I hate his broken AoE damage and CCs! Or Soraka and Sona, oh boy I hate being deleted by those two!

Unfortunately only there are two champions that don't match our expectations in the top ten, Malzahar (juggernaut) and Anivia (marksman), but the rest are all immobile mages! They have been the best for too long, we should completely gut them all! https://imgur.com/kRpUWiS

DunkinNoobsSep 11, 20171 votes

I see Malzahar, Anivia, and Swain right there in the top 15. I see absolutely 0 assassins and only 1 adc, although you could argue that Twitch qualifies as an assassin if you'd like. I see literally 0 AD mids that are supposedly taking over the game.

Who am I kidding though? Once the boards circlejerk has started, there's no stopping it. Yes, mages are terrible, Lee Sin is OP, and towers need massive buffs.

An Undead bratSep 11, 20172 votes

Yeah wirate is not the only thing you need to judge: Compare the mages' playrate to the rest. You see, the playrate is comparatively pretty low (~100 000 games compared to Twitch's 500 000). That means only people who actually play these champions, like mains and stuff, thus extremely experienced with those champions, people who know exactly what they are doing, are playing them. Then of course their winrate is going to be high. On the other hand, the rest is played by everybody and everybody is doing well on them - that means those champions are overpowered faceroll picks, this is the reason Azir never went over 50% winrate even when he was OP. If these mages were played as much as the rest of the ladder here, their winrate would go dramatically, dramatically down.

Voluug13Sep 11, 20173 votes

All 3 of them have minimal playrates and a completly niche champions, only played by their mains who know their shit and how/when to play said champions... like thats champion stat analisys 101 dude.

DunkinNoobsSep 11, 20171 votes

I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with someone who's "mages suck" erection is at full mast. You're free to believe what you want even if it's objectively wrong.

Voluug13Sep 11, 20173 votes

So, this is just your edgy way to say ''I think all mages are OP despite most of them being on the 48-52% winrate range''?

You probably are the same kind of person that said Taliyah was ~ so OP ~ when she had 46% winrate and 2% pickrate.

DunkinNoobsSep 11, 20172 votes

I don't have to go that far. I merely have to believe they're not terrible since the prevailing sentiment on these boards is that mages are godawful and you're practically trolling just by picking one. I think that mages are somewhere between fine and strong depending on which mages you're talking about; but the idea that mages as a class are dogshit is just nonsense. The sentiment

I can't realistically justify playing them, because AP is just so fucking terrible right now.

that the OP expressed simply has no basis in reality.

Anu3isIISep 12, 20171 votes

If you just wrote this thing from the beginning, people would have understood your opinion without any real problem.

Attacking the boards, saying mages are broken since forever, and making false claims don't help you at all, as they are not logical arguments.

Attacking people is not constructive at all, unless you just want to make an "Anti-Mage" group, based purely on hate for that said class. Claiming that they are broken needs at least arguments to prove that they morph the game around themselves.

They are not the best class in this patch currently, as Healing Supports (or Ardent Censor "abusers") beat them in rankings (Janna and Soraka in first 2 positions, Sona on 4th and Taric on 7th). Moreover, these Supports have much higher pick rates than the following mages, meaning that they affect more games.

Saying that they are a strong and reliable class is enough to prove your point. They are not the strongest class ever, but they have always been in the tops.

DunkinNoobsSep 12, 20171 votes

{quoted}

If you just wrote this thing from the beginning, people would have understood your opinion without any real problem.

That post is at -2 so you're clearly wrong at that one. Just saying that mages aren't terrible is enough to get downvoted by the circlejerk.

GayFluffyUnicornSep 11, 20171 votes

Yes because talijah is still pretty op. As are syndra, ori and cassio. Everything else is doing well.

PrinceOfStormsSep 11, 20176 votes

What about AD carries then? They've literally had maybe two months since the game was first released where they were mostly dogshit (even then, two ADCs were playable), and were promptly buffed because they had little game impact.

ADCs have never had entire seasons where they weren't meta, unlike mages, who have to fight for midlane with assassins. Yet Riot nerfs mages and not ADCs.

Voluug13Sep 11, 20171 votes

Gotta love when assassin mains are like ''but remember THE OLD DAYS!!!!''

Yeah the old days when assassins were so disgustingly overpowered and oppressive in midlane that mages as a whole were either troll picks or niche champions.

BerylCrabSep 11, 20171 votes

{quoted}

What about AD carries then? They've literally had maybe two months since the game was first released where they were mostly dogshit (even then, two ADCs were playable), and were promptly buffed because they had little game impact.

ADCs have never had entire seasons where they weren't meta, unlike mages, who have to fight for midlane with assassins. Yet Riot nerfs mages and not ADCs.

ap carries were too good for about 6 years. SOME ad carries have been too good for 2 months?

PrinceOfStormsSep 12, 20173 votes

AD carries have been too good for 8 years. Otherwise we wouldn't see two of them in every game.

BerylCrabSep 12, 20171 votes

{quoted}

AD carries have been too good for 8 years. Otherwise we wouldn't see two of them in every game.

Lol, funny how you didn't lead with this. But honestly though, Itemization and general scaling have favored ap carries since the begining on league, and to be honest, I still dont think mages are underpowered so much as i think that lethality is currently too strong, along with yasuo and zed and a few other culprits. The reality is that mages are still very strong.

The truth about how mages worked and still do work for the most part -- Mages are weak at lvl 1. Mages are strong from lvl 2-3 until level 18. After about 25-30 minutes of gameplay, ad carries BEGIN to catch up. at around 35 minutes, ad carries deal better sustain damage, except for twitch, tristana, kogmaw and the like, who have all needed nerfs since before mages got a slight nerf recently. Infact, they have needed nerfs for years and years, but because of how strong mid laners have been and still are, they dont recieve them because despite the fact that they definitely do need them, the mid laners were and in most cases still are EVEN MORE powerful.

PrinceOfStormsSep 12, 20172 votes

Itemization and general scaling have favored ap carries since the begining on league, and to be honest, I still dont think mages are underpowered so much as i think that lethality is currently too strong

AP itemization is utter dogshit right now.

You have the mandatory Void Staff and Morello for 90% of the AP champions, Liandry's is a common 3rd item because it has magic pen on it (since someone was high when they decided to give ranged champions positive MR/level).

If you want high damage you have Deathcap, which costs 3800 gold and has a 1250g combine cost. Compare this to the ADC equivalent, Infinity edge, which not only gives them more damage, but also costs 400 gold less.

Let's not forget that Riot decided that mages being able to sustain was unhealthy, but ADCs being able to heal to full health in 3 seconds is perfectly fine and balanced.

Just admit it. Riot won't give ADCs the hobbling they deserve by addressing the fundamental design flaws of the class.

BerylCrabSep 12, 20171 votes

{quoted}

AP itemization is utter dogshit right now.

You have the mandatory Void Staff and Morello for 90% of the AP champions, Liandry's is a common 3rd item because it has magic pen on it (since someone was high when they decided to give ranged champions positive MR/level).

If you want high damage you have Deathcap, which costs 3800 gold and has a 1250g combine cost. Compare this to the ADC equivalent, Infinity edge, which not only gives them more damage, but also costs 400 gold less.

Let's not forget that Riot decided that mages being able to sustain was unhealthy, but ADCs being able to heal to full health in 3 seconds is perfectly fine and balanced.

Just admit it. Riot won't give ADCs the hobbling they deserve by addressing the fundamental design flaws of the class.

Yep. they finally made you guys have a downside to having higher burst for 90% of the game. boo hoo.

PrinceOfStormsSep 12, 20172 votes

That should be 100% of the game. ADCs should never, at any stage of the game, not even at six items, have higher burst than any mage. Mages are actually gated by cooldowns and mana. ADCs are not.

BerylCrabSep 12, 20171 votes

{quoted}

That should be 100% of the game. ADCs should never, at any stage of the game, not even at six items, have higher burst than any mage. Mages are actually gated by cooldowns and mana. ADCs are not.

You clearly do not understand the word Balance. It is simply not fair for a class to be insanely stronger for 90% of the game, and then still be able to delete you at will no matter what you do. I really don't think you'd like it if adc's suddenly didn't have to scale up and instead started the game dealing 2-3 times more sustained damage than you do. Just think about it for a second.

PrinceOfStormsSep 13, 20171 votes

ADCs are a sustained damage class. Mages are a burst damage class. ADCs, who deal sustained damage, should never deal more damage in short windows (aka burst damage) than a mage, because that would defeat the purpose of having a mage, who generally cannot deal sustained damage.

It would be like if we removed the cooldowns and mana costs from mage spells.

BerylCrabSep 13, 20171 votes

{quoted}

ADCs are a sustained damage class. Mages are a burst damage class. ADCs, who deal sustained damage, should never deal more damage in short windows (aka burst damage) than a mage, because that would defeat the purpose of having a mage, who generally cannot deal sustained damage.

It would be like if we removed the cooldowns and mana costs from mage spells.

You aren't very smart. have a good one.

PrinceOfStormsSep 13, 20171 votes

You were obviously dropped on your head as a child if you can't acknowledge that a DPS class dealing burst damage better than a burst class is a bad idea, because it removes all reason to bring a burst class. You cannot dispute this, as it is fact. If I have a mage and a marksman, and the marksman not only does as much damage as the mage, but isn't gated by resources like a mage is, there isn't any reason to bring the mage over the marksman.

You would get what you have in this meta (where people generally have at least two ADCs), where mages only exist to use Ardent Censer to make ADCs do more damage, since ADCs do just as much burst damage as mages right now.

The meta team comp right now is 2 ADCs, an Ardent Censer abuser, and 2 tanks. You don't even really need a real source of AP damage that much because tank items are basically useless against ADCs, who will shred through a tank with ease while sustaining harder than Vladimir, despite having GW from Thornmail.

This is what you get when ADCs are good, and it's not a healthy or fun meta for anyone but ADCs, which, judging by your retarded biases, you are clearly one of.

AhrisSep 11, 20172 votes

Mages are known to provide utility and damage. It also prevents the enemy from just building ad. Though lethality, armor pen %, and black cleaver, also are options avalible to AD champs which imo is a lot compared to 2 magic pen items and void staff.

Aps just feel so bad to play because their build path for rabadons is so weak, the ap ratios on ap items were nerfed which made apc's midgame weaker than before. Then the newly added mr per lvl on ranged champs hurted apc a lot. With scaling mr runes + newly added mr, squishies get like 35 mr at lvl 18. That is around 40% ap damage reduction for squishies. Then tanks have all this new mr items that makes the already unkillable tanks by mages even harder. Adcs are just way more impactful because adcs now have better survivability(sheild sups, scaling mr, diversity in mr build) and mages only have zhonyas to combat ad champs which is really lacking.

I don't think mages will be good for a while. Unless the new runes actually give mages more overall damage, I don't see mages making a come back. Riot already said(i think) they will focus on melee carry champs for next season. So ya got to wait more than a year if we want to see mages satisfying to play again.

deadlychuckSep 11, 20174 votes

I can also list you plenty of reasons why mages feel like shit to play and are actually just fucking terrible atm. People will talk about win rates, but really those are almost always the result of sample size, where having a single role reduces the play rate of the champions substantially.

The problem is that even if we lay out exactly what's wrong with mages, riot doesn't seem to give a flying fuck, else this wouldn't be a constant problem over the past few years.

AhrisSep 11, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I can also list you plenty of reasons why mages feel like shit to play and are actually just fucking terrible atm. People will talk about win rates, but really those are almost always the result of sample size, where having a single role reduces the play rate of the champions substantially.

The problem is that even if we lay out exactly what's wrong with mages, riot doesn't seem to give a flying fuck, else this wouldn't be a constant problem over the past few years.

Well Riot nerfed apc like a lot. Also winrate is dumb because that is comparing midlaners with each other. Though you will find Talon pretty up there along with Katarina(hyrbid kinda).

But some apc will always be popular(ahri) because of being cute+fun to play. So apc playrate won't go down as long as she is used as it still encourages other champ's usage.

BobaFlautistSep 11, 20172 votes

Morgana and Karma are actually really good mid right now, because late game they can just spam e on their adc

Moon ForcerSep 11, 20172 votes

Preach, gotta keep the morons alive enough to right click, only way to win a game nowadays.

The DeckownerSep 12, 20171 votes

sad but true

Voluug13Sep 11, 20173 votes

I mean Morg is actually, out of sarcasm, a good midlane because she just nopes kill lanes and has high AP ratios... but poor Karma is basically a second support by 20min in. I miss Old karma goddess of mass aoe and bitch-slapping/shield-bombing assassin into their places.

BobaFlautistSep 11, 20171 votes

I love playing Morgan's, but once in a while I just get my shit kicked in.

Aurelion Sol, Xerath, and sometimes Taliyah just feel like they get damage out faster with fewer requirements on shorter cooldowns and cheaper Mana costs and it's hard to not keep taking poke against them.

IDK, maybe I'm just bad.

Voluug13Sep 12, 20171 votes

At that point you just level W and push them. They have, actually, worst mana pushing that morgana if you are able tocorrectly use W to push. THey go OoM, and you simply play no-kill lane until midgame and 2 of them fall off hile you get actual teamfight ult and utility.