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Good Job Riot, So You Want to Finally do Item Changes? Awesome......Lets Talk.

PowerHouseLegend·4/7/2019, 4:36:19 AM·22 votes·8,278 views

Now that you actually want to fix up the item shop and (hopefully) make impactful choices that gives the game strategy again..... I'm ready to give you my two cents.

So based on your criteria, items should be: #1. Based on the enemy team and your champions strengths. #2. Shouldn't have a very low build/usage rate. #3. Should feel unique in stats and effects. #4. Not remove your counter-play completely. so now with this said, lets get into the items with both my opinions in how these points can be achieved and my interpretation of actual items.

#ITEM ACTIVES I believe that some items classes should have more impactful play-making actives. Take tank class items for example, out of all the items only six have actives, three of which are support itemsitem 3050 ,item 3118 , and item 3190 . Most of the time tanks are the play-makers and savers with CC and sustain so why aren't items giving them the items to excel even further at this.

item 3083 could be given more HEALTH and HP REGEN, while now granting you a team fighting active that siphons health from you and based on what's siphoned gives that much to nearby allies as bonus HEALTH for Xs. And keep the stat prereq for 3000 HEALTH so you need to build for this item.

or

item 3193 could remove the increasing health and reducing damage active with an increase champion size(based off of HEALTH) and instantly remove all CC from you and allies around, while making you immune to CC for Xs. Also have the stat increase based on how many ALLIES are nearby not ENEMIES, makes little sense for your defenses to be decided by your enemy.

#In general item actives should be tools that supplement and enhance what a class excels at and there should be much more than there is currently in the game. Also RIOT remember to make these actives FUN and INTERACTIVE, like your criteria above.

#UNIQUE STATS

This may be a quick section, but lets see. So in my opinion an Item shouldn't be given every GOD-DAMN stat in the game, this removes everything about strategy. Example, "wow....hmmmm should I go full CD so I can spell-sling or should I just go full AD to, hard choice, hard choice", this mentality just doesn't even exist right now cause lots of items have many stats just tied to them. Stat choices should be based on a mix of your champs strengths, the opponent you are facing, and the way you want to play the game.

For example, item 3147 has a a lot of AD and a lot of Lethality, plus it has utility with 10% CDR. It should be concentrating on one thing which is damage and which type, whether a lot of lethality and a little AD or the other way around.

or

A better example would be, item 3157 having a lot of AP, a lot of ARMOR, and the utility with the 10% CDR and one of the most useful actives of the game. So you have an item that has top offense, top defense, and top utility when it should only focus a lot in one of those categories not all of them, then you can have a small splash in the other stuff.

#Basically items should follow a method of offense, defense, and utility and only having a heavy focus in one category at a time. Stop giving every item every stat, it stuns build diversity by inciting you to buy only one item ..... over and over again.

#RANGE EXCLUSIVITY

Ok....DONT BE AFRAID TO MAKE ITEMS RANGE EXCLUSIVE OR HAVE THEIR EFFECTS DIFFER BASED ON ATTACK RANGE....honestly RIOT some items are made for a specific range for a reason and their effects reflect that. Why isnt item 3025 a MELEE ONLY item, is it because Ezreal builds it the most, an ADC building a tank item, sounds like poor design there. Items made to be used by a specific range should reflect that whether it be reductions in effects or making them usable only by a certain attack range. There are some items like this, being item 3085 , item 3230 , and item 3748, but there should be way more. Like you can do better with item 3071 for example, reduce its HEALTH and AD, but increase it armor shred by quite a bit and have this value higher for MELEE vs RANGED Champs. (another thing is riot should merge armor reduction and armor penetration into one thing, same thing for magic).

#Make more items ranged exclusive and/or make their effects have more of a split between ranged vs melee. This would most likely make balancing items easier too.

#I really hope that RIOT gives us a lot of good item changes in the coming year, this game really needs them and I criticize the game cause I do love this game, but its in need of a lot of help from creative open minds. Riot plsssss ...... less new champs, reworks, and skins, and more focus on the actual game itself. I really want to play this game with a smile on my face again, make it happen. Thank you all for reading.

51 Comments

Thefrostyviking4/7/2019, 9:38:08 AM12 votes

Like.....some of your suggestions only come off as kinda backwards.

First up, item 3193 , remove the current active, put in a olaf ulti+ area cleanse and keep the stat boost passive but based on number of nearby allies?

In addition to the active being much too powerful AND overlapping with olaf ult, the passive would be useless as the main people building this items are initiator tanks who will spend most of their time in them middle of the enemy team.,......would also be abused by backline picks and peel melee types.

item 3083 .

Siphon your own health and fuel your allies? When the main users for this are tanks and frontliners?

Get an item that helps you die faster......as a tank.......how about no? Sure it can use a remake but not this.

item 3071 Reduce health and AD while boosting the armor pen.

We cant increase the amount of armor shred, its already very high in total since it stacks with item 3035 items, and they should not be merged as the items would then either have to be exclusive (you can only get 1) or they would have to be nerfed and you´d always need both.

In the first case we´d end up needing a full on armor rework to compensate by the way, and multiple champs would need buffs to help compensate for having to build 2 armor pen items when they are balanced for another build.

item 3157 Narrow its focus down and cut out other stuff for it.

Unfortunately mage builds are super difficult to change because mages are balanced around their builds, change 2 items and basically every mage needs to be changed too, furthermore item 3157 is the only counter to lethality builds that mages can rush so it basically has to be what it is now and they pay a significant price for doing it.

And while the active is powerful its still a high risk thing because it leaves you frozen and helpless under the duration, you cant run or start anything so if you get attacked use it and more enemies show up you are still dead.

And it offers 45 armor, which together with a mages base armor is barely enough to not take true damage but still needs something like ninja tabi to not explode instantly.

A coincidence? I think not.

item 3147 Same deal as item 3157 , narrow the focus.

Now the problem with the lethality vs AD deal is that if you have too much of either you do tons of damage either way, lots of lethality =true damage on low armor targets while lots of AD = lots of extra damage even after mitigation.

So OP asking for it to have more AD or more lethality but less of the other is just pointless, they affect the same damage type after all, more AD makes the item more powerful immediately while more lethality makes the item much more powerful a little while later.

What you´re asking for by calling the item too powerful, is nerfs.

Now with all that written, i am all for more unique items and items designed for different classes/ranges........however one has to be very, very careful when doing so because anything that can be abused in any way will be abused.

And anything that is too gimmicky will fail to work except when it doesnt and its too powerful and gets nerfed anyway.

And finally OP i think you need to put more thought into why some things are as they are, why does item 3157 /item 3147 need to have their stats split and the actives/passives and why are some items like item 3193 set with the conditions that they have.

With just a little thought its obvious really.

item 3157 This item needs the stats it has or it becomes too damn weak when it has to be rushed, even now the price for rushing it is huge so nerfing it would just be kicking someone who is already down and would cause a massive need for buffs.

item 3147 needs to have a balance between AD and lethality because it becomes too powerful at some point otherwise, and they cant be too high so some CDR was added as compensation.

item 3193 cant be based of allies because that means it will be abused by backline carries, supports and it will be useless for the actual initiators who want to use it, and no it cant have a AOE cleanse + give the user a olaf ult.

Yordle Xayah4/7/2019, 6:33:32 AM11 votes

Why isnt item 3025 a MELEE ONLY item

Take my up vote.

Nyarlathοtep4/7/2019, 7:02:40 AM10 votes

lot of AP, a lot of ARMOR

??? item 3157 lots of ap and armour?

VoraciousX4/7/2019, 5:13:49 AM7 votes

Saying items shouldn't have a low usage/build rate is why things like wit's end are getting changed to be general items instead of having a specific niche that is used by certain champions. On-hit champions need a place in League, as they're extremely fun to me, and watering down every on-hit item for the sake of not having a high usage rate is bad imo.

As for your suggestions for things like Warmogs, imagine having Warmogs and Locket of the Iron Solari together. You just used locket to completely ignore the damage siphoned off of you from Warmogs and gave your team bonus health for spending nothing. On top of that, Gargoyle Stone Plate would be built by everyone simply because CC is annoying af and who wouldn't want an Olaf ultimate on top of some extra defenses?

And finally as for your suggestions about items not needing to have everything, I partially agree. Things like tear have always had their place as "let me spam my spells" but they're not the same as they used to be. Now they're not required. We DO need to go back to not everything having mana regen on it, and having to build for it. But on the other hand, some things NEED to have at least two of the three things you've mentioned. Think about it like this, we have Protobelt, Gunblade, and GLP. All three fulfill different niches. But now imagine if Gunblade no longer had damage but instead had armor and no AP or AD, whereas Protobelt had more AP, but no health and no CDR, and GLP only had mana and CDR. Who would use Gunblade? Likely tanks who used armor scalings like Rammus, but would it fit for him? Not really. What about Protobelt? Everyone would be using it most likely. More AP is always a good thing and with these changes we'd be going into a meta where people did even more damage than they're doing now because items no longer are focusing on multiple things, would anyone build GLP? MAYBE Anivia and Cassiopeia.

Zhonya's isn't really a problem for it's armor. In fact most of the time the armor from Zhonya's isn't useful at all unless you're building ROA and other health items, because armor without health isn't good. It doesn't have that much armor either anyways. Zhonya's is only strong because of it's active. It has subpar AP, subpar armor, and some CDR. It doesn't excel at anything but it isn't weak in anything(except armor). It's something people build because they have to. If it didn't have it's active, no one would build it.

Now what I DO agree with is that not EVERY item needs to have EVERYTHING. I definitely don't think we need as much mana regen as we have in the game right now. I feel like there need to be dedicated options for mana regen that are MADE FOR CONSTANT SPELLCASTING, without making every burst item have mana regen or mana or both. Tear isn't built like it needs to be anymore. It used to be built for that exact purpose, but it no longer is. It's built for Cassiopeia and Anivia mage wise and that's about it. Any other champion gets Ludens and they're good. This needs to change. Ludens needs to lose it's mana, and go back to being a full AP item with some move speed. Rod of Ages and Archangel's Staff need to be the primary mana regen items. Athene's needs to go back to mid lane too, I've always been mad they took that away from mid lane and gave it to supports. Banshee's and Abyssal Scepter need to be reverted, I preferred building Banshee's when it had HP to now where I feel bad for even touching it because I still get blown up and the passive is shit. Abyssal is also less used than when it was Abyssal Scepter. It can stay the way it is, but Banshee's for god's sakes needs to be reverted.

yingwhy4/7/2019, 7:17:38 AM6 votes

I stand by the fact that every build shouldn't just hit 40% CDR even if they don't try to build for it. It needs to be a rare stat that you should actively have to build for, and even then, shouldn't hit 40% until your 4th or 5th item. The reason assassins are so strong right now is that almost every item they build gives them cdr, so they just take transcendence and get 36 bonus AD from a single keystone.

jurrrr4/7/2019, 7:57:50 AM5 votes

I think they should add a TON more items to the game.

weighted boots: -20 movement speed

passive: immune to knockups.

im spit balling.. But the game has over 100+ champions. There should be more items at a players disposal for different situations

Vore Me Mommy4/7/2019, 12:23:45 PM5 votes

You complained that 3 of the tank item actives are support, but then you suggested giving Warmog's and Stoneplate super OP support actives? All tank supports would need to build Stoneplate and Warmog's every game if that change went through. You just gave Warmog's a Soraka W that heals the whole team and scales off of max hp on an item that already gives 800 bonus hp. Imagine that item being built on a Cho'gath with 10+ stacks. As for Stoneplate, you just gave tanks a Crucible that's 5x better than the original. If you think items are so overloaded with stats and abilities, why are you suggesting making those (already good) tank items into meta breaking items?

Cyrageous4/7/2019, 1:05:38 PM2 votes

This is dumb wtf

Wizard FYB4/8/2019, 9:28:43 PM2 votes

We need an ap version of item 3077 for wardens who are trying to solo lane Shen Gragas Maokai that can be turned into some sort of APitem 3748 that gives regen, ap, and armor building out of a seeker's but still have the item's damage scale w/ hp.

Also changing item 3056 to also give you the option to use it on your own tower to increase its stats in some way whether it be AS or resistances.

Rencith4/7/2019, 5:53:14 PM2 votes

You spent a lot of time on this and really put thought into the recommendations. I commend you for writing this and I think they are good ideas. This is where I give my opinion though and unfortunately you won't like it. I need you to ask yourself some questions: are you a professional streamer? Are you gonna professional league team? Do you pour tons and tons of money into the shop on this game? If the answer to all three of these is no, then riot doesn't care. They don't want a fun and balanced game, that's not profitable. What they want is to use psychological skinners box tricks to keep you on the game longer by playing with your dopamine levels, while simultaneously creating intentional imbalance to stroke the fires of outrage media and get free publicity from this. As good as your ideas are, riots marketing team (the guys who really call the shots cause they make all the money) only cares about what is profitable..and these days, fun isn't profitable, monetizing everything and making the game as much of a grind as possible is.

sirsnuffleupagus4/7/2019, 4:49:02 PM2 votes

I can never give these posts the time of day because Everytime one if these shows up in my news feed, the poster comes off as an arrogant ass

USAstar4/9/2019, 10:29:35 AM1 votes

My opinions on items are as follow: Bring back Sword of the occult, Elixir of fortitude and Blade Waltz Fiora.

Kaldana4/7/2019, 1:59:46 PM1 votes

So you want to give Warmogs even more HP and HP regen? WTF lmao This game doesnt need any help man. They generate millions of dollars a year and are in no way slowing that down. Seems like you're just trying to make these items even more OP than they already are. Riot knows what they are doing. They have people with degrees who make this game. Since you have so much criticism, and have all the answers, just apply and make the changes yourself. Tired of people with no education in the field telling college grads on the subject how to do their job. If you don't like it, dont play it. But definitely dont cry because you get wrecked by those items.

Ares DuVamp4/7/2019, 3:32:01 PM1 votes

Probably my biggest thing with this game and it's items is that I would love for some more diverse items. Spectre's Cowl plus Bami's Cinder could create the opposite of a Sunfire Cape, like a Lunarflare Cowl or something. Have the aoe immolate effect, but also give health and magic resist like the Sunfire Cape. I feel like spellblade from twisted treeline could be tweaked and added to the rift, stuff like that. Also, I'd love to not have to back every minute or two as a support for more wards on my item. I earned the chance to ward. Let me Regen my wards so most of my time isn't spent backing so I can ward again and can stay out and fight if necessary. Gain a ward every _ amount of time, reduced by kill participation or something.

Alsius4/7/2019, 3:58:44 PM1 votes

makes little sense for your defenses to be decided by your enemy.

"makes little sense" LUL do you have any idea who this item was made for dawg You're supposed to be in the middle of the enemy team when you activate it. It makes perfect sense.

GlacialScion4/7/2019, 4:46:57 PM1 votes

I think I dislike every idea you suggested except the IBG melee-only change, which has been proposed literally thousands of times.

Koun4/7/2019, 5:06:37 PM1 votes

Personally i think a lot of the times are fine. It's just that a lot of the mage items have way to much health in my opinion. Such as Rylias which has 300 health, 90 ap, and an effect that slows the enemy after being hit by a spell. Thats sustain, damage and a utility passive that's pretty good. I'm not asking for rito to completely destroy the health on ap item's, the mages do need that, however, a sharp nerf is needed. Like for the 300 health ap items nerf them to 200 or at least 250.

Kilanost4/7/2019, 5:39:45 PM1 votes

I think that instead of reworking the items we have, we should focus on more items. Make build paths from champion to champion in the same class more differentiated so the game doesn't feel stale mid way through major patch releases while still providing enough uniformity for pro play.

R1bbon4/7/2019, 7:20:31 PM1 votes

Oh look another guy who thinks he's infinitely wiser than riot. I'm shocked.

Criticism is fine, but don't act like you're god's gift to balance.

GRE MarskmaN4/7/2019, 8:56:53 PM1 votes

Let the Game just how it is.... every time you change it's getting worst

polkaspotsss4/8/2019, 4:07:43 AM1 votes

Why is your attitude toward Riot so shitty? Customers are the worst fucking people on the planet. Headlines like these are internet versions of soccer moms who want to see the manager.