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Rant Coming from a Mage/Ap assassin main? CAN WE LIKE OVERHAUL ENTIRE AP ITEMIZATION?

Poske··115 votes·4,926 views

Lets count how many good AP items there are

List of Good ap Items.

  1. item 3165
  2. item 3135
  3. item 3136 (largest powerspike possible when you are at 1500 Gold and an item it builds into isnt ultra trash)

PLZ NOTE VOIDSTAFF IS SOON GOING IN OP TIER SINCE THEY ARE BUFFING THE % BY 5. HE ll meet a buddy called last whisper

Seriously this 2 items item 3135 item 3035 are unhealthy for the game,** They make Defense irelevant**. They force every viable bruiser/tank/juggernaut to have % dmg reduction in a kit or to be the best abusers of stoneplate (j4 and cho) which is the best %dmg reduction item. Else they die 1.5 seconds slower then a squishy does. I Know rammus is an exception but he is viable because the only thing which matters atm is an ADC and he is anti autoattacker

Edit I DO NOT WANT %PEN ITEMS TO BE REMOVED. I just want the %Pen nerfed. Give the items which have that other stuff just not %PEN. Make tanks feel tanky

Edit Additional note some champions mimmick %dmg reduction with trickster/zhonya like stuff. Maokai W (Really relevant). Zac wait time for his Passive (not that relevant, despite how insane zac kit is he doesn't have enough %dmg reduction so he is outclassed wierdly).

By the time teamfights happen defensive itemization is irelevant locket/redemption exluded

Who would win Bunch of stacked Armor/Mr Items Or some Autistic bow/Staff

But now I tackled into another subject which is that there are no "tankier melee" teamfighers which carry fights at level AD carries do / some mages. Because tankiness is a joke due to % penetration

**List of Trash Ap items ** item 3089 This is the biggest noob bait atm in a game. This item has gone far way from zhonya ring (AKA original rabadon). Not saying it should be OP item 3285 Ugh that scarry passive to bad Stattick does 250% more damage still better then rabadon however item 3070 Ryze/Anivia/cass only item... I swear if i see another karthus going full mana regen. Any mana non nomicon item is trash, but nomicon doesnt give enough mana for anivia/Cass (she also doesnt build boots so easier investment towards arch) item 3157 This item is just straight up trash compared to what it used to be. **EDIT **But hey atleast they gutted azir because of it and then they nerfed this item and then they avkwardly reworked azir. They seem to think we wanted more damage on Azir so they gutted half of his kit respectivly item 3116 LUL Garbage noob bait good on brand But then again Brand is also garbage outclassed by many item 3151 Same as the above except atleast this item builds out of guise WHICH IS THE ONLY THING WE CAN BUY AT THAT PRICE POINT XD item 3146 Noob bait rush for LB/Ahri players. (Its situational for both). Aparently we have to borrow gunblade from hybrids says alot on its own. Explanation on Why this is horrible rush and nothing more then situational on LB is in the coments below (I had the #1 LB World title and I have been playing lb since she came out) item 3100 Great On Le blanc because she can proc it twice. Good on TF because MS is a good stat on him + he has to auto. Good on fizz because its just the best burst option he can build. Ekko is not viable at my elo So i WONT SAY it is good on him because he is still irelevant despite it. the only reliable ability he has is his E so in his build there are lots of on hit items to support the least trash thing about him item 3027 So you are either Ryze which is an exception and scales of mana or you need so much mana that you are Anivia. In extremly rare case you are Cass who got 4 early kills

item 3115 Are you a kayle= where is your ardent why arent you top support/ mid support for you precious twitch jungle which farms both jungle and your lane. Kinda outclassed by ardent. Oh No you are a teemo? Well people build teemo in 129381301839 ways because you know what? it doesnt matter he is trash regardless. Or maybe you are an azir stuck in 2015. item 3030 Hi aurelion sol. This item is garbage because it only found 1 champion

List of OK-ish ap items item 3020 item 1056 item 1082 item 3102 item 3152 item 2139 (Mainly because ap itemization is trash and this is the only way you ll spend all the gold)

156 Comments

Aenaeus20 votes

List of good AD items. Notice how flexible they are.

item 3031 item 3153 item 3147 item 3812 item 3026 item 3036 item 3508 item 3156 item 3142 item 3033 item 3071 item 3072

Yalathanil4 votes

Where is item 3026 , and don't forget that you list doesn't even include crit/AS items

Votable Jester8 votes

Good ad caster/assassin items: item 3812 item 3147 item 3814 item 3026 item 3036 item 3156 item 3139 item 3033 item 3071 item 3142

Good ADC items: item 3026 item 3508 item 3031 item 3036 item 3156 item 3139 item 3033 item 3046 item 3094 item 3085 item 3087 item 3072

Plus ad champions have greater variety in boot options than AP (at least, they sacrifice less).

Penns20 votes

I agree with everything except: item 3146 is not situational for LB and item 3100 isnt even good on Fizz anymore imo, its just good for split pushing which he is forced to do.

And 35% total/bonus pen doesnt make defense irrelevant

Tortunga3 votes

It ofc doesn't make defences completely irrelevant, but he has a point that it hurts the viability of tanks/juggernauts that (almost) exclusively rely on items for their defences, Tank-items aren't that amazingly cost efficient to start with, and losing 35/40% of the MR/Armour value, because the enemy bought an item, really stings.

Just look at the tanks being played at worlds. All of them have extra defences in their kits, if they didn't they would just melt as fast as everything ells would. A Naut or Zac would roughly bring the same value as Sej/gragas do, but as they don't have any extra defences in their kit, they are just to squishy for this meta. While % penetration is ofc not the main reason (Hyper-carries/Ardent being broken is that), it amplifies it by making tank items even less value for their bucks.

I don't think removing them is the solution though; you still need a way to kill tanks, but the commitment should be more then 'buy' this item. One idea I had myself is making Last Whisper not work with crits. Would mean you had to go for a non-crit build if you wanted to be a true tank killer, losing damage against non-tanks (On hit builds will be a problem, but meh it was just an idea)

Penns3 votes

Every tank has extra defense tho, thats what tanks do.

Durzaka3 votes

Not the same.

Zac doesn't have extra defense.

Whereas Sej has the massive spike at the start of a fight, and Gragas has % dmg reduction on his W.

THAT is what he means by extra defense.

crippler384 votes

I'd consider anything that boosts your effective HP (IE Zac passive respawn and healing) as extra defense personally.

Anything that increases your survival and stacks with defensive stats really is what encourages someone to be a tank rather than a damage dealer.

Durzaka3 votes

Exception until SV, the sustain is not significant for fights, its purely for sustaining himself through the jungle.

And after SV, he is putting himself in MORE danger to collect the blobs to heal, there are good odds walking to a blob to heal will result in him taking more damage than he will heal, therefore the end result is basically 0.

As for the passive, that is hardly extra defense. That is something separate entirely.

Notice the strong/popular tanks in the meta have % dmg reduction, or MASSIVE protection (sej passive), whereas garbage like Naut's "shield" (which barely makes him tanky) are basically irrelevant.

hopeful41 votes

Nautilus has a huge shield and Zac has his passive. They may not be defenses with your definition but they most certainly help their defensive capabilities.

Also Nautilus was played at Worlds. The reason that Sej and Gragas are dominant is because they are overtuned and they have rather broken kits (highly mobiles tanks are cancer)

Voluug132 votes

Nautilus's shield is big in theory but he doesnt get the gold (on supp or jg) to get enough HP items.

YumaS2Astral22 votes

What are you talking about, Lich Bane is core for Fizz. He procs it easily with his Q and Lich Bane + his W = insane burst. It is just not good as a first item, Hextech Protobelt is a better first item now.

Ulquiorra012314 votes

I can't tell if troll or not. You literally stay away from the three you listed as good as much as humanly possible it seems, and still manage to do really well......................................................................................... Don't think there is a problem with AP items, There is a problem with the way MR interacts with AP, It seems, and this is from an experience standpoint, that I can have 100 MR and get one shot, or have 100 MR and take half my health bar. Coming from a tank main btw.

The difference between AP and AD champions is also a thing. AD and AP champions play completely differently and you know this because you are Diamond. You aren't stupid so stop acting like it. AD champions will always have 12-15 items that are viable because their playstyle is the same regardless of champion, you are looking for AD, Crit/Lethality (depending on champion), AS (depending on champion). AP itemization is great because you have so many different tools at your disposal, and can choose your utility depending on how you want to play, or what fits the specific champion. All ADCs need the same things, All AD assassins need the same things, Mages need different things hence your list being less around what is garbage and more around what is specific to a few champions.

Again, cannot tell if Troll or not, but if not, there is your reason why AP items are designed that way.

CasterGilgamesh6 votes

" You literally stay away from the three you listed as good" so mages are only able to have three things good... feelsbadman [zombie-nunu-bummed]

warmcorntortilla14 votes

Oh my god I hate to be That Person but since when did 'autistic' become shorthand for 'stuff I think is stupid'? Is it because it's not cool to be homophobic any more?

Can we, as a species, find a better way to express ourselves than calling everything bad autistic? I mean, seriously, I really think, if we all tried just a little bit, we could find a different word. There are over 170,000 words in the English language. Can we just excise like, .0001% of them? In a limited number of contexts?

RavenMagus11 votes

My biggest problem with AP items:

item 3036 : 300 gold combine cost item 3033 : 500 gold combine cost item 3135 : 1365 gold combine cost

item 3087 : 600 gold combine cost item 3285 : 1100 gold combine cost

item 3031 : 425 gold combine cost item 3089 : 1265 gold combine cost

I won't even go into how the passives are often just plain worse than the AD counterparts (Ludens vs Statikk, anything vs GA)...

AirKingNeo1 votes

Ludens and Statikk do two different things.

RavenMagus6 votes

Not really. They're both pure damage items that add a frontloaded burst proc component. You can claim that they're different because Statikk Shiv's stats are geared more towards sustained damage, but AP just plain doesn't have a sustained damage stat. (Also, it's pretty sad that the AD item geared towards sustained damage offers a burst damage proc that does more damage than the AP version while also costing less.)

Fisher No Chains10 votes

As a LeBlanc main, I’ll tell you that Gunblade is NOT situational at all. Yes, you can get protobelt for less gold (without wasting gold on AD and lifesteal) but without the reliability that GB offers and the omnivamp good luck dueling someone with her bullshit delays.

I’ve played Ahri as well this season and after her last nerf I feel like she needs some help to burst someone 1v1, either a revolver item or a lich bane (or both).

We’re at a point where some AP champions need 300 damage from items to succeed as burst mages/assassins, and this shit happens because AP itemization itself compared to AD+Support itemization is garbage.

Also, I don’t agree with Guise and Doran’s ring current state. Sure, Guise is super strong considering that it’s the only AP item that gives flat MPen with sorcs, but MPen is disgustingly expensive compared to MR. Also, Guise starts as a squishy-bursting item and builds into an item supposed to do... well I don’t know, it gives flat MPen (supposed to work vs squishies) and a %current health damage that suggests to build it against tanks, so it definitely needs more building options or a rework.

As for Doran’s ring, I think that the last nerf (after tanks abused the mana refund passive) was bigger than everyone thinks. Some champions like Morgana used to build more rings to survive laning phase/have a chance to push without going oom before chapter, and now the mana refund is a joke and if you’re behind you’re forced to sit on Doran+dark seal for ages. It would be cool if it gave double the mana (8, not much) for cannons/takedowns or every X units killed.

Champion Skin1 votes

Yes, you can get protobelt for less gold (without wasting gold on AD and lifesteal) but without the reliability that GB offers and the omnivamp good luck dueling someone with her bullshit delays.

Well LB is ranged so not like the AD is totally wasted as she can potentially get in some AA's (though it usually isn't safe to do so)

Poske1 votes

It is safe to aa you can mask it in W(1) W(2) For example

However you are right

Gunblade rush is not correct on LB.

Bank of Veggie2 votes

That's from your perspective, feel free to enlighten the challenger Leblanc players on many other servers including KR as to why they shouldn't be building gunblade in nearly every game.

You're playing it wrong if you feel like gunblade isn't good first item, it has a really good path for laning and it's extremely good for her splitpush playstyle.

Daddy Ants8 votes

Removing Last Whisper and Void Staff from the game would mean armor/magic resist numbers/stats and base stats on tanks and other champions would need to take a MASSIVE nerf.

Barcid7 votes

What's with this weird assertion that Brand's trash?

Like, there are far worse champions than him and he's sitting at a 50% winrate in both mid and support... he's actually just balanced.

What times are we living in that "balanced" means "trash tier"?

Poske2 votes

Syndra does as much AOE damage, Has more range, Can orbwalker easier, lower cast times, has singletargeted burst, Has multi high range stun / knockback, lower cooldowns

Velkoz does as much AOE damage while being better anti tank. Even Velkoz is outclassed by syndra.

But hey maybe if Voidstaff werent so OP velkoz with true damage would have its niche

Then there is veigar who also outclasses brand in similar aspects syndra does

I am a brand main sadly enough he is borderline trollpick for MID at my ELO

Brand mid was viable for around 2 patches in history. At its release (then they gutted E range and much more) Back when Deathfire touch was Insane.

I remember building Frost queen claim on brand mid back when you could get away with it sort of. Going 20% cdr per level runes >Queen claim > rylai liandry. Even takign 6% spellwamp you would be surprised how well His AOE kit which has bunch of singletargeted parts worked with spellwamp

Essentially queen claim was accelerating my build (1800 gold per game from it) while being a nomicon alternative. And you couldnt just play brand without mana..

Brand scales of CDR insanly well (due to passive) however no good AP item gave him CDR

I tried everything. He was almost viable with Queen claim build but even that got nerfed (mana regen) It was lategame hypercarry build. Spellwamp and hp yellows got me through early game. However he had its criptonites such as zed

as far as support brand goes he is not as outclassed as he is in mid Velkoz/Taliyah/fiddle (7 bounces lul) do his job just a tiny bit better

xxxMadLionxxx5 votes

It due for an overhaul but i upvote to add pressure to riot. We want an update now

koshkyra5 votes

How are you saying that void staff is unhealthy for the game

It gets rid of 35% of defense. Not 100%. You are still barely touching tanks with void. It doesnt change anything.

Poske2 votes

Last whisper removes 35% of bonus defense yet it makes armor irelevant

Voidstaff has always been insane item

The fact that it is a second buy nowdays and not an incorrect buy despite the enemy team not yet having MR Is absurd

RocketRelm4 votes

Yeah, it's kind of cornerstone to the entire Magic Damage system and why it's fairly toxic right now.

Void Staff is the crutch damage ramp item for mages, because almost literally every other AP item has been gutted.

Since Void Staff is the standard damage item you buy even if the enemy team has no MR, MR is heavily devalued.

Since MR is heavily devalued, MR items need to be absurdly strong, since 35%(soon to be 40%) of their MR is baseline defunct.

Since MR items are now inflated, the other AP items feel significantly worse.

Tortunga4 votes

I wouldn't say item 3027 or item 3151 are garbage. They are great items, just not ment for everyone. RoD is fine honestly, as it provides a good amount of AP, health, mana and because of the charging mechanic is pretty cheap. Torment is an item for DoT champs, but as it's the only option for some flat magic penetration everyone buyes it.

The others spot on. I especially hate deathcap, such a lame excuse of an item to limit mages AP early game scaling.

But what mages really need is more defined 'build' sets, like how ADC got on-hit build, crit build and Penetration build. Three different build with just some minor overlap, And besides those they got several defensive options; item 3155 for some MR and a shield, item 3814 for some MR and a spell shield, item 3139 for some MR and a cc-removal, item 3026 for some armour and a Ress. Mages got item 3157 for Armour and item 3102 for MR + spellshield.

The lack of mage items is even cleared if you would look at components that can only be build in to 1 item; item 3191 -> item 3157 item 3136 -> item 3151 item 3802 -> item 3165

I'm pretty sure AD items don't have any of them.

For the % penetration items, I don't think they have to be removed, but making it much less of an 'enemy has armour/MR, lets buy last whisper/void' item. That if you opt for going penetration you will deal a lot more damage against tanks then if you wouldn't, but less damage against enemies with low resistance. This would I think be much healthier for the game, as now it's just 'let's buy it and destroy everyone at the same time' item (especially for ADC's).

Not xPeke4 votes

I'll start of saying that I agree with all your points, but I'm curious as to why you say that Ekko is unviable at your elo?

Any particular reason? I'm interested because I'm currently Plat 3 and climbing. I'm an Ekko main. At what point did you notice Ekko being less viable? Should I consider playing him less and less while climbing up, or are you strictly talking about high Diamond/Masters?

EDIT: why is this downvoted? I'm asking for advice.. nice boards user we got here lol

Fisher No Chains2 votes

Shiphtur plays quite a lot of Ekko in challenger and his winrate is kind of high (57% over 200+ games iirc).

I don’t see how he’s unviable in high elo either lol, I mean he just got buffed to be better against mages (the most popular class for midlane) and he’s really better at punishing them and trading with not much risk.

Also, considering how good his roams and zoning are, he’s even better in this botlane-focused meta.

Poske1 votes

Shiptur is subpar player on a subpar server (NA chall looks like EU Diamond just watch shiptur* videos). JUST BY THE WAY HE IS HOLDING HIS HANDS ON KEYBOARD I am tilted. He is deformed or something twists his hands backwards and leans forward wtf which shows clear lack of logic

Shiptur couldnt successed on good server so he went to NA

Ekko is not viable because:

  1. His Second Q part can be countered by walking backwards and it wont reach you even if the first part hit (mitigating this with E isnt sufficient)
  2. His W can ocassionaly hit a player if you use it outside of FOG. Its a 3 second delayed shield ability thats it
  3. His ultimate also wont hit anything and that is assuming you ll use an ultimate before you get insta bursted by an ADC

Also in no way shape or form I consider shiptur a good player

Basicly his abilities are to easy to dodge Ziggs suffer from the same issue

Katarina/le blanc/akali have better roams more zoning..

Fisher No Chains1 votes

Tbh I think that EUNE high elo is way easier than EUW/NA high elo because there’s like 1/3 of the players of big servers.

I’ll answer your post about LB later, no time now.

Poske2 votes

NA has extremly low number of ranked players given the ammount of players it has

Eune is like 10% smaller then NA but it has more ... ranked players Euw has like twice as much players then eune

Euw has better challenger then eune but anything below has no difference

Just take a loot at NA and LCS

Your best midlaner Bjerg is European. You had to buy bunch of chinese/korean or whatever the fk they are players because your server is full of bad players

HUrr durr what about EUNE. **Half Of LCS EU players come from EUNE territory **

I cna play both at EUW/EUNE with low ping

Dont feel like grinding on euw but I am confident I could reach master there atleast.

The steam life2 votes

He’s good enough to be considered for a Buff on worlds patch so

JoeMG4 votes

Ideally, it would be nice to see

  1. Another mpen item

  2. A few more mixed AP and defensive items

  3. Better build paths for some items (looking at you deathcap)

  4. An AP equivalent of executioners calling - reliable grievous wounds with a lower AP state

Bank of Veggie4 votes

Seriously this 2 items item 3135 item 3035 are unhealthy for the game, They make Defense irelevant.

This is probably the most poorly thought out statement I've seen in a while.

They are counterplay to pure defense builds, they come nowhere close to making it irrelevant.

Why exactly do you think tanks should be literally impossible to kill?

AirKingNeo3 votes

Nashor's Tooth is one of the most gold efficient items in the game. It's not a mage item either; it's a specialized item.

Hourglass is still the most bought AP item. Give it like 5 AP or something and reduce the active's cooldown.

Lost Chapter and Morello need a nerf. Revert Catalyst to make RoA and GLP viable options. Make Rylais not a support item. Lower prices on Ludens and Deathcap. Toss a amp tome in luden's and GLP's build paths just for smoothness. Protobelt needs to be better late game; up cost and AP and toss in an amp tome in the build path for smoothness. Liandyr's is fine. Gunblade isn't a mage item. Not sure on Lich.

Jorencice2 votes

Karthus goes tear because he can use the mana and archangel staff give 160+ AP.

For a slightly weaker early game it gives a massivly better mid and late game.

2Charmnot2Charm2 votes

Seriously this 2 items item 3135 item 3035 are unhealthy for the game, They make Defense irelevant.

Alright if riot is going to remove those two items then they better gut the damage of every single tank in the game since they have high base damages.

If that doesn't happens then oh boy i can't want to start playing top lane again for freelo.

Daddy Ants2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ahri Carries U,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EK9E04wy,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2017-10-17T14:56:04.247+0000)

Alright if riot is going to remove those two items then they better gut the damage of every single tank in the game since they have high base damages.

If that doesn't happens then oh boy i can't want to start playing top lane again for freelo.

Not just their damage.

Everything would have to be gutted. Armor growth, MR growth, tank items. Certain champion kits ie Malphite as he gets % extra armor.

The Yetii Rider2 votes

Mages have good items. Luden's Echo gives quite a lot of damage, the only time people complain about it is when they compare the damage directly to Stattik Shiv. Ignoring the fact that Stattik doesn't even give AD and Luden's gives 100 AP, you shouldn't be comparing items across classes. Mages have very different goals compared to marksmen. Mages want to deal damage to the entire enemy team, marksmen want to kill one person while they drain tank off that person. Mages have range, they have more durability, and they have better CC. The large majority of ADC CC is "AH! Get off of me!" Mage CC is better for catching someone out and blowing them up from a safe distance. (Veigar can easily Burst someone down without ever entering auto range).

SteelMankind2 votes

Hextech GLP is amazing on Zilean and has multiple synergies with his kit specifically, but remains very underpurchased (likely due to Zilean mid's status as a counterpick in high elo, resulting in people not theorycrafting with him like they do with meta picks).

It sets up AOE double bomb stun It allows TLD to be procced without an auto It gives Zilean, who only has one damaging ability, an extra AP ratio and base damage

Similar case for the item on TF - he has low AP ratios in his kit, and the active helps him buy enough tike to lock in and throw out a gold card.

I also think this item has a case on Veigar due to an extra AP ratio being so meaningful, helping to land E stun, and allowing for low counterplay Hextech->Q->ult oneshots without needing to land W. Similar to Zilean, Veigar isnt really seen as a serious meta mid pick (though that kinda changed recently) and so the high elo players dont really put effort into their itemization cause in their mind, they're already kinda trolling by playing Veigar.

That being said, Veigar needs CDR pretty badly and GLP makes it awkward, so I don't advocate it as strongly as I do for Zilean. But, the fact remains that the item is underpurchased, if only in comparison to RoA.

Not xPeke1 votes

What sort of picks is Zilean picked as a counterpick? I like playing him and used to play him Mid a long time ago. What sort of matchups would it be optimal to play him in?

AcidTheWarlock2 votes

I'd think Zilean would be good into like Syndra or Orianna where he can ult himself to survive their ult them double bomb for ganks

Glory ln Death2 votes

You should read the posts Riot puts out, such as the several "Quick Gameplay Thoughts" from Meddler where he has already stated that AP itemization is getting an update once preseason ends.

Poske3 votes

Saw that asked for full overhaul not an update

Jesus Is My King2 votes

marry me [sg-jinx] best post ever

Squidward Dab2 votes

The only reason why I ever buy the current shit zhonyas is cuz zed/talon comes back with a dirk/hexdrinker and be getting turnt in the mid lane.

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