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Comparing AD and AP stats/champions

ModJango Mage·11/25/2018, 12:26:31 PM·5 votes·3,168 views

So hey, i've seen some talk here on the boards, suggesting that one of the dmg types is superior to the other one. To get an answer, i decided to compare the two statistics and the champions that use them, so see whats the actual case. The main questions is: Are mages really as bad as ppl make them look like on the boards, or is that just some circlejerk?

Firstly lets compare the kits of ad and ap champions. Keep in mind that im not going to include tanks and supports in this list, since they tend to be neutral dmg whise.

Hard CC Im not going to list all of them, but looking at their list we can see that generally, their cc tends to be single target focused, and in most cases its on a targeted spell.: Ashe Camille Gnar Irelia Jax Pantheon Renekton Riven Skarner Udyr Urgot Vayne Yasuo Warwick Caitlyn Jhin Jinx LeeSin Rengar Varus Xayah Garen Chogath Quinn Aatrox Darius Hecarim Nocturne Shaco Kayn Vi JarvanIV Jayce Kled On the other hand ap champions with hard cc, have them on aoe, skillshot based spells.: Anivia Annie Ahri Akali AurelionSol Brand Cassiopeia {{champion:105Fiddlesticks Xerath Ekko Elise Heimerdinger Leblanc Lissandra {{chamTaliyah Velkoz Viktor Zyra Syndra Orianna Zilean Evelynn Obviously there are exceptions on both sides that i didnt list. From this we can see that their cc generally tends to be distributed in a balanced way, with ad getting the dualist potential with more guranateed single target cc, and ap having the upperhand in teamfights with their aoe spells.

Now lets check their mobility: Again not listing them all, just some so u can get an idea. AD:Aatrox Graves Kalista Kled Lucian Pyke RekSai Rengar Corki Tryndamere Zed Talon MonkeyKing XinZhao Khazix Kindred

AP:Ahri Akali AurelionSol Azir Diana Ekko Elise Kassadin Lissandra Katarina Leblanc Ryze Taliyah Nidalee Fizz TwistedFate In this case the mobility is distributed towards ap assasins unsurprisignly, with mages only getting long ranged teleport like abilities. There are only 2 mages with dash/short ranged teleport like spells: Azir Lissandra

The argument here, is that in return for less/no mobility mages would get aoe hard cc and better wave clear. However, since mage wave clear has generally been nerfed in season 8(which is one of the reasons why fighters have been getting picked instead of them on mid lately), this might not actually be the case anymore. Looking at the ad champions above, most of them can easly have the same amount of wave clear as a mage, if not, then they have item options that help them out this way. Likeitem 3077 item 3085 As we discussed earlier, the aoe hard cc part of mages is already balanced around the same level as ad champions, so it cant be an argument in this case.

To fix this problem, mages should be allowed to have a little bit better wave clear, so their defining role in a teamcomposition can be important again.

Alright, now on to stats that the sides can use.

A lot more classes of champoins are ad, so it means they benefit from more stats than ap as a whole. Beacuse of this im going to break them down in to 3 classes: fighters, assasins, and marksmen. Keep in mind, that there are obviously champions who benefit more from one stat than a different one.

Fighters: AD, Atk speed, Lehtality, Armor pen, Life steal, Spellvamp, CDR, (Atk range though abviously less). They also tend to opt for resistances and health. Also in some cases they even benefit from ap, since they tend to have some ap scalings. Assasins: AD, Crit, Lehtality, Armor pen, Spellvamp, CDR Marksmen: AD, Atk speed, Crit, Lehtality, Armor Pen, Life steal, Atk range

Ap champions in general: AP, %/flat magic pen, CDR, Spellvamp, Atk speed. They also tend to benefit from hp, and resistances in some cases.

AD champions can generally use more stats than AP. This lies in the limitations of stats and items that ap champions have to face. -Only autoattacks, and phisical dmg can crit -AP champions dont use autos much, so Atk speed only benefits a small portion of them. -There are no longer any spellvamp options in items for ap, outside of item 3146. For phisical dmg there are a bit more options. item 3156 item 3812 item 2140 and also item 3146 In the domination tree there are 2 options as well, that work on ad an ap simmilarly -Ap champions with autos dealing magic dmg, are not able to use lifsteal, since it only works on phisical dmg.

Ap champions tend to be balanced around their mana and cooldowns. Mages with mana, in particular have to get at least one mana item in order to function properly. This means that in a bad matchup they cant rush a item 3157 for example, beacuse they have to get mana item first. On the other hand an ad champion can rush a item 3156 as a first item if necesarry. Building mana items also often results in a delay of powerspikes.item 3003 item 3027, this is the reason almost no ad champion builds item 3004 . If an ap champion uses up all of their spells, they have to wait for another rotation before they can attack properly again. With most ad champions this is not that big of a problem, since while their abilities are on a cd, they can still deal decent dmg with their autoattacks. Not to mention that ad empowers your autos and your spells as well.

To fix this, mage autos should scale off of their ap. A 5 or 10% ap scaling would be more than enough.(Kinda like the old arcane blade mastery, if anyone here remembers) This should only occour tho, if the dmg like this would be higher, than the dmg they would deal with their base ad. And in case it happened, they shouldnt deal and phsical dmg. The same thing is the case with their autos against towers. Another option, is to higher the ad/lvl of ap champions so their autos can compete in late/mid game with ad champions.

For the mana issue, i cant really think of any possible solution.

Overall, AP does seem to get the short end of the stick sometimes, but this could be fixed with some minor changes, like the ones i suggested above.

So what are your toughts? Do you agree or not? Do you think ad is the weaker side? Let mer hear your toughts, beacuse im very interesed, but please give arguments, to support what you claim.

17 Comments

Noor Sakata11/25/2018, 1:30:39 PM3 votes

The problem mages got will never be fixed Riot won't fix them , they might even nerf them more Because of pro play Because a Good Mage play can do a lot in pro play , while an ad assassin player can't do muh there Pro players care more about cc and aoe Ever wondered why some Tanks were gutted because of pro play ? Sej despite having 47% she was pick or ban in pro play so they decided to even gut her more

Mages will always be picked in pro play unless a champion is completely busted like Irelia/Aatrox/Urgot Therefore you can't ask for mages buffs You might consider that they are getting more nerfs since somehow everyone think the ap item rework is a huge buff to mage lol

Moody P11/25/2018, 1:38:49 PM3 votes

Mages are the strongest class in the game, why are we buffing them?

Nyarlathοtep11/25/2018, 2:57:20 PM1 votes

100% agree. Mages (or ap damage dealers) are in tough position. They might be having good winrate etc, however playing one (especially a mage)can be such a big chore. You feel like everyone can kill you. You feel like you have to play it perfect in order to get stuff done (unlike some COUGH COUGH Zed COUGH), safety nets (unless you are an assassin) are as absent as lifesteal. Your only outplay option (again if you are a mage) is predict your targets movement which is extremely limited and quite frankly, unreliable.

Anyway, riot wont do anything to help them. Mages specifically are extremely common in proplay and god forbid what will happen to them if riot buffs them for soloq. At best riot will just buff their dmg (which is stupid considering they have fine dmg).

wolvius11/25/2018, 3:38:54 PM1 votes

Your comparison of hard cc is horrendous and you say ad is generally targeted and single target yet there is no clear majority, just like AP.

I could argue that mages are more targeted and less skillshot reliant than AD as things like eve charm can procced from autos as well as skillshot, annie q etc. Mages also have just about as many large aoe CC spells as skillshots, as well as being activated from safer range than melee.

Who takes more effort to land a good ult hecraim or orianna. Half the targeted AD cc listed is from their AA range while mages can plonk down multitarget aoe cc from far away.

The main problem AP users have as you mentioned is they all like the same stats and any good item that comes around is abused by outliers like cassio/ryze and get nerfed to uselessness a la abysmal mask reduced range. AP does need ITEMISATION buffs for diversity for not granting every ap getting free AP auto damage that aint neccesary, when because of deathcap it will be pisspoor prior to purchasing it or overbearing after it.

Evilkiss11/25/2018, 3:50:28 PM1 votes

Mages had their prime era years ago. Ever since then, rito has done nothing but throw them in the gutter. The mana nerfs was the biggest middle finger they have given to them.

mage damage is alright atm. The main issue is mobility and control.

Too many champions are coming out with bloated kits. They are melee but they feel like a mosquito because they are always outrunning you, have a shit ton of mobility in their kit, and have a nice hard cc.

Conclusion none mages: High Dmg Nice CC Lots of mobility/gap closers combined with items that include a lot of variations for different scenario and excellent self-sustain.

while other mages just barely have any mobility tool what so ever.

Lux -- just have a snare and you can negate its effects pretty easily if you get caught. In this game, snares/binding spells don't stop you mid-charge, so you can just charge through the snare and the root cd will be ticking through it. So by the time the charge ends, the root cd is finished and the snare was wasted.

newest mages Zoe zero mobility. Neeko, a minor speed boost. Rock girl -- minor speed boost near walls Galaxy dragon -- doesn't count cuze it breaks on dmg.

Conclusion on mages: Some will have a lot of CC --but you will lose ether range, burst, mobility, a mix of these or all to compensate some will have burst --but you will lose ether range, mobility, cc, a mix of these or all to compensate some will have a high range --but you will lose ether Burst, mobility, cc, a mix of these or all to compensate Items are not very flexible. Most builds will be the same. very low amount of self-sustain items. back when mages where in their prime, we had spell vamp for 40 percent as an option and it wasn't a shitty option too.

A buff to auto attacks won't fix anything because most mages are none auto attackers.

We need: more mobility/escape tools more cc/tools or we need more valuable ap items with more variety in stats, like self-healing/ spell vamp. without it impacting our crucial stats such as Mana/mana regen, Magic pen, CD, Ap.

But, as a beta player, ill tell you its over. Mages will never get love from rito again.

Super Galaxy11/25/2018, 9:33:02 PM1 votes

A few things - feel free to correct me.

  1. For AP champions with hard CC in an area, you mentioned Brand, Elise, Xerath, and Ahri. All of which have single targeted hard CC. Xerath does have an AoE slow, but I didn't think Slows were considered as "hard" crowd control. This just irked me a bit, and I felt the need to point it out, unless I read your statements wrong.

  2. "Mages should be allowed to have a little bit better wave clear, so their defining role in a team composition can be important again."

Most mages have the ability to shove or lock waves with their clearing, but I'd leave the extensive wave clear to the work of Artillery mages like Ziggs, Vel'koz, and Xerath - champions whose sub-class of Mage is specifically designed for siege comps and constantly have massive areas of effect with their spells. Some AP champions have their clearing hindered like Vladimir until late game because he can already sustain enough to where he's equally as effective over a longer period of time than someone throwing three wave clearing spells over the span of 20-30 seconds.

  1. "Mage autos should scale off of their AP"

Mages are literally designed to be reliant on their abilities more than anything else. It's why their kits have synergy in spell rotations. Besides, some mages already have a reliance of auto attacks in their kits, often times being empowered (Lux / Ziggs / Zoe passives). I believe the furthest that Riot should go with scaling AP auto attacks is what they did recently, letting AP champions deal a higher amount of damage to structures with their auto attacks. The game does not need more damage, and compensating a boost in AP auto attack damage with a nerf in their ability scalings would end up pushing them closer to Marksman or Assassin status, which would just make the carry classes almost one-dimensional and little more than an alteration in whether or not you should buy Armor or Magic Resistance to duel them.

  1. "Mana issue"

Some mages have built in mana-preserving abilities or the ability to generate it (Annie, Cassiopeia, Xerath, etc.). The trade off for being able to clear waves so effectively is that you'd go mana-hungry; if you didn't, you'd have a similar problem that warranted the changes to every mage's base and scaling mana pools - shove wave, roam. Some mages can and will still do this - the artillery mages mentioned earlier, but they're meant to have that luxury. One could argue that any mage can do the same as long as they have a Lost Chapter, and they can to an extent, but its passive only grants 15% maximum mana recovered per level. At earlier levels, you will be using much more than that to shove multiple waves; Lost Chapter's passive is more of a bandaid than a cure.

  1. The Item Differences

Here's where I have a lot of gripes with AD itemization. The usefulness of things like item 3053 item 3156 item 3147 item 3814 stems more so from the utility they offer rather than the damage or other stats. The problem stirs in the fact that "AP" tends to mean "Mage", and "Mage" tends to mean "control/utility", so AP will most likely not get any significantly similar items to the aforementioned ones above because they have similar strengths built into most of their kits, like Shields. Because of this, AP items are forced to be pretty stat-sticky with little else to offer. Something like Duskblade is problematic less so because of the free damage but because of how much utility it stacks onto an assassin - a class not meant to have it. Maw of Malmortius and Hexdrinker offer protection early but stunt the power spikes of most AD champions. These items become issues not because of what they bring to the table to fairer champions, but when they're conjoined with someone whose counterplay revolves around the faults of their kit that the items completely protect them from. Have fun with a Zed using Death Mark when under an Edge of Night spellshield.[zombie-brand-clap]

This is mostly from my own speculation and experience, and what I've seen watching streamers and youtubers for the past year or so, so by all means I could be wrong on some points.