Boards›Gameplay

Things that are different between DFG and Duskblade

TehNACHO··6 votes·1,273 views

Before we get yet another "Why does this item exist? Didn't we remove DFG which did basically the same thing?" thread, I wanted to point out a few (in my opinion rather major) differences between the two items:

DFG gave some of the best stats in the game for its time. Excluding edge case items like an Archangels with other mana items or Rabadons with a lot of AP, it had one of the highest AP to gold ratios in the game, while also having some of the highest amounts of AP you could have on a single item. Not only that, it also granted CDR on top of that. There was literally no mage that would not have wanted this item if they didn't have something else they absolutely needed to buy before it.

Duskblade gives Flat Penetration, which comes with the unique weakness of falling off in effectiveness as the game goes on, and actually amplifying how much Armor the enemy buys, essentially making it more difficult for champions who buy this item to fight Tanky Champions.

Let's say our target has 2000 HP, 85 Armor, and 30 MR:

To 100-0 this poor soul with Doom, you'd need ~1916 damage pre-resistance to kill the target. To 100-0 with Nightfall? You'd need 2728 damage pre-resistance to kill the target.

To top off 100-0'ing a carry, the effective window for Doom is twice as long as Nightfall.

Because of the Flat Penetration, the fact that Nightfall inflicts Physical Damage is even more self defeating against Tanky targets.

Void Staff was, and still is, a great multi-purpose damage item to multiply the effectiveness of your damage on all targets.

With Last Whisper reworked, and Flat Penetration, Duskblade does not see the multi-purpose usage that DFG+Void Staff could enjoy.

Speaking of item interactions, Rabadons gains insane AP because of DFG.

If a Mage falls behind with DFG, because DFG is a multiplier and the Mage has very little damage to work with, DFG multiplies into nothing useful. On the other hand, if the Mage is ahead, that damage is amped up to overbearingly high. Feast or Famine.

If an Assassin falls behind with Duskblade, if they play smart, wait for the middle or end of a team fight, and then jump on an already injured carry, they could still prove useful to the team with the amp on this item. If an Assassin is way ahead and 100-0s the carry in one rotation, they couldn't immediately pound the next guy to the ground because their abilities are on cooldown, and if you kill the squishy, you're likely face to face with a Tanky person if you don't get out right away. You should know by now how Duskblade deals with Tanky targets.

120 Second Cooldown (Duskblade) vs 90 seconds (DFG).

And finally to get back the very first point I made, since any AP Mage can comfortably fit DFG in their build, every AP Mage must be balanced around it. Couple this with other easy to splash AP items like Rabadons and Void Staff, and you effectively put every AP Mage on a balance crutch due to their itemization.

On the other hand, the stats and utilization of Duskblade bottlenecks the amount of champs it can use down to a very specific stat profile and play style, all generally being burst based dive capable champs that want to target squishies. These are the exact champions that Duskblade are intended for, no less. Because it rounds out the champions it is very specifically catered to, it's much easier to isolate balance issues and directly fix power levels related to these particular champs directly.

14 Comments

TurquoiseYoshi3 votes

Not even to mention that Duskblade's longer cooldown is made even worse by it procing on every AA against a champion. If you accidentally slap a tank, that's an ultimate cooldown you just used.

MrwiOzV6pB2 votes

It will be interesting to see how duskblade holds up late game with tanks using it stacked with like thornmail and HP build items.

Riot puts items like this into the game with good intentions, but don't consider every role using it. I noticed even the comment for adding it the game they addressed it directly related to assassins. I have a feeling late game tanks using this such as Zac are going to abuse it the most.

TehNACHO2 votes

Consider when you would have to get that item though.

As it doesn't synergize at all with the vast majority of Tank kits, you couldn't possibly afford it as a first or second item. It's dangerous to try to get it as a third or fourth item because, as the team's tank, this is about the time you need to focus on maximizing your gold efficiency or you can easily fall behind as the team fight phase begins. By the time it's late game, the item itself has fallen off due to the nature of Flat Penetration. It's just too difficult to use it on the wrong types of champions unless you commit to it 100% of the way, for example as Dive Fighter Burst Zac instead of Tank Zac.

Abyssphere2 votes

One of your core points is that Duskblade is very specific in the amount of champions it's going to be good on, while DFG was comparatively broad. That's something I don't think you can really state at this point. Duskblade is very specific in terms of who Riot wants to use it but we don't know how its usage is going to work out yet, and a variety of people would claim that it's going to be used on tanky fighters and even ADCs. DFG was designed by Riot to be used against tanks, but ended up being very powerful against squishies. Riot thinking an item should be used by a very specific group f champions doesn't mean it will be, just as Riot thinking an item would be used in specific situations didn't mean it would in the past.

Your point about how exquisitely niche Duskblade is is strange in general. It doesn't restrict its usage at all beyond "Used by AD champions that like to blow up squishies and can afford to pick up an item with no defensive stats". DFG was exactly the same except you replaced AD with AP. The assertion that every AP mage wanted DFG unless they absolutely could not fit it is completely false - if you didn't have an assassination pattern as a mage then you weren't interested in DFG at all. This is exactly the same positive point that you are claiming is unique to Duskblade.

I am curious as to whether or not you actually played the game when DFG existed because your discussion seems more based on what you've assumed from looking at DFG's page on the Wiki than what you witnessed when it was actually in the game. You call DFG a splashable item and say that every mage in the game was balanced around it but both of those beliefs are just wrong - DFG was very niche and the balance of very few mages was directly impacted by it - there's a reason so few champions received compensation to their kits following its removal. The few people who were balanced around DFG were largely supposed to be balanced around it, just as AD assassins are going to be balanced around Duskblade. Riot wants champions to be balanced around their itemisation, that's the primary reason that Duskblade was actually made.

There were very real problems with Deathfire Grasp, both in terms of tuning (it was very strong), counterplay (certainly it had less than Duskblade) and target selection (it could very easily have been made much less all-purpose and been focused on tanks more), but outside of those problems it was very similar to Duskblade. DFG was not at all too universal in terms of which champions used it well and it didn't impact the balance of mages as a class to anywhere near the extent you're arguing.

At this stage the jury is still out in terms of what's gonna happen with Duskblade in terms of use cases/balance distortion anyway, so we shouldn't be making claims about how healthy it is in comparison to its fallen AP comrade.

SeargentAnus1 votes

They're about to rework the entire mage class and their items. Talking about the balance of those items really don't mean much come a few months.

TehNACHO3 votes

To be frank I'd say that actually supports my thread.

The whole point of it being "stop comparing these two" and all that.

Silver Fluffenbu1 votes

The effective window for Doom is twice as long as Nightfall

Nightfall doesn't have a window. It's missing health. Health which can be removed any amount of time before the 2 seconds. Health which can be removed by ANY source: magic damage, minion damage, monster camp damage.

TehNACHO2 votes

Ahh yeah, it was mostly intended for 100-0 examples.

I do feel inclined to point out that if an AD Assassin is in the position to auto attack an already damaged carry, unless that Assassin is rendered useless by an outside factor, that Carry in question should pretty much be dead on the spot regardless of Nightfall or not.

Z Statistic1 votes

Who has 30 mr except yolo 5 ranged carry teams? Every ADC worth their salt will have either flat mr blue or scaling mr blues. The tank should have aegis because locket is still fucking powerful. So, at the very least, everyone on the team will have 45 mr, some will have 57 mr, some will have 72 at lvl 18, and some will have 94 at lvl 18.

But the model assume raw damage, so whatever. But on a 2k target, the active deals 300 damage then increases damage taken by 20%. So in order to deal 2k raw damage with DFG, you'd have to bring 1417 damage to the table on top of the active.

Now to Drak. It's 90 + 25% missing health. The kill threshold is 72/maxhp% + 20% which comes out to 23.6%. 23.6% of 2k is 472. That means you need to bring 1528 damage to the table on top of the passive.

That's pretty fucking close at lvl 18. The two items perform the exact same function but DFG is tangled in the various kind of itemization couplings where Drakthar is not. That's the difference.

TehNACHO1 votes

Who has 30 mr except yolo 5 ranged carry teams?

Perhaps the squishy ADC that you're supposed to primarily be targeting anyway.

Besides that it was just supposed to be an example. We could just as easily play with the Armor Value and be silly about it, given Thresh and Gnar exist. Let's not be super anal about that.

Your example is only pretty close because you are now assuming zero MR and Armor at all, even though at the lowest denominations, squishies tend to have twice as much Armor as MR. It also happens to prove, still, that the AD Assassins with Duskblade have just that much of a higher hurdle in a perfect environment. Even if the gap is small now, it will only increase further and further as we throw more variables into it like enemy teammates protecting the carry, or that the Flat Penetration from Duskblade causes Armor Purchases to be more effective per gold spent on the enemy team.

Z Statistic1 votes

But again, no. Squishies do not have only 30 mr at lvl 18. Assuming such is disingenuous. Gnar and Thresh are individual exceptions. 'Squishies' refers to roughly 50% of the roster. In fact, I already explained why squishies having only 30 MR at 18 is an outlier in the post you're responding to. The only ones that generally have twice as much armor as mr are tanks and/or bruisers, which we're not talking about.

The entire point of my post is that DFG and Drakthur are identical in function and possibly even in execution efficiency, but Drakthur doesn't have the itemization baggage that DFG had.

Sire Hippington1 votes

DFG gave some of the best stats in the game for its time

So does Duskblade! It's has the highest ad in the game with the best ad-gold ratio on any item, while also giving flatpen and movementspeed. The stats alone make it already very atteracive for any ad-caster, prettymuch like dfg was for mages.

If a Mage falls behind with DFG, because DFG is a multiplier and the Mage has very little damage to work with, DFG multiplies into nothing useful.

It had a 4sec window(on many mages you would kill with one rotation if ahead, but get your main skill a second time if behind) and amped ALL magic damage, so put it on a focuse target and your allies deal more damage aswell, and it was 15% hp nuke, which is a good chunk of extra damage no matter how fed. It actually was an item i usually used if behind, as it it gave you the most potential burst for the gold, so you could atleast still get a reliable burst if behind.

Nightfall is also mostly an amp, but with a 2 sec window, so just as feast or famin cause if you can't get your target low in that wondow, it will do shit. Also, unlike DFG, it can't be controlled but always blows the cd on the first AA-target. If you are ahead, you usually are in a good position to choose your argets. Not so if behind, so this snowballs actually more than dfg. You can't even trade with anyone unless you want an all-in. With dfg, you could do all you want and only use it once the time was right. With duskblade, it's all or nothing as soon as it's off cd, and all or nothing IS snowbally as fuck.

And if you just use it to execute a lowhealth carry at the end of the fight, you have a problem, as this prettymuch means your team has to win the fight 4v5 as you can only do something in the end. The purpose of an assasins is to take out the carry so he doesn't deal alot damage, killing the carry after he already did tons of damage is pretty ineffective(still better than letting him live, but a bad option non the less)

doger1311 votes

I think the most important part about this item which has failed to mention, is that this item + thunderlords is basically all you need. The item itself doesn't look that bad, but no one is mentioning what it is coupled by. Thunderlords and this item is all you need to snowball. Let's also not forget that this item resets. I can't tell you how many times a zed ult+auto+q has killed me within 1-2 secs. The dmg is so out of control that zed doesn't even see if I'm alive. He just dashes away.

ChaddyFantome1 votes

DFG was a high stat with an active that did %initial damage with a free amp on it. DBoD is a high stat with a on hit that blows up in 2 second and is intended as a execute.

They aren't nearly the same.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by TehNACHO

An interesting thought: Tanky Assassins are inevitable
Gameplay168 comments
181
votes
Gangplank Update Question
Gameplay68 comments
124
votes
Why do people complain when a Bruiser can kill a squishy?
Gameplay199 comments
111
votes
Some really dumb things I noticed about Blade of the Ruined King
Gameplay94 comments
87
votes
I don't like Phantom Dancer from a design standpoint
Gameplay72 comments
73
votes
Shouldn't Akali and Ekko be treated more like Skirmishers than Assassins?
Gameplay59 comments
70
votes