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AP bruisers

While True Fork··1 votes·1,103 views

Somewhere a while back a red, either Ghostcrawler or Morello I think, asked what an AP bruiser is and what their function on a team should be. Today I had some free time to think and here's what I came up with.

First off, let me state when I say AP bruiser, I mean champions who primarily (there will always be exceptions, like with anything) deal damage through abilities, scale off AP in some manner, and are melee. The reason for this distinction is so that we have a narrow enough scope to say "X could be built as an AP bruiser". The reason for excluding ranged champions is because that blurs the line between a Mage and a Bruiser too much.

AP bruisers should have several of these:

  • Situational Sustain Mechanic
  • Ability Gating
  • Active Play method of getting around ability gating
  • Utility abilities
  • A method of forcing a point of attention

AP bruisers should NOT have

  • Multiple high damage scaling abilities
  • Chain-able CC
  • Defensive steroids
  • Offensive Resets

Situational Sustain: This means a method of either regaining health, or preventing damage in a way that is interactive. An example of a non-situational sustain mechanic would be Mundo's passive. Regardless of how he's acting, its always giving him sustain.

Ability Gating: This is normally done through mana, but it doesn't have to be. This is here to keep the bruiser in check. Without gating, the bruiser would run rampant and then subsequently be nerfed.

Circumventing Ability Gating: Some method of play that allows the bruiser to get around their gating. This should be something that says "If you do X then Y is cheaper/better/faster/etc." It should require some form of interaction either with minions, champions, or monsters.

Utility Abilities: These are abilities used not primarily for their damaging effect (though they can have one), but for their utility provided to your team/removed from the enemy team. Diana's vortex is a perfect example of this.

Method of Forcing Attention: Something in the kit that should force the enemy to acknowledge you and react. A recent example, I played a game as Nunu. Every time I used my ultimate in a team fight, the enemy was forced to CC me. By activating the ability, it forced a reaction from the enemy team. This doesn't have to be a massive damage ultimate.

High Scaling Damage: This should be avoided because it leads to an assassin pattern rather than a bruiser's. The bruiser is there to fight it out, not kill and run.

Chain-able CC: This is more the domain of tanks, which we do not want to take over either. A single CC can work, but it should probably be a soft CC such as slow/silence rather than a stun or suppress.

Defensive Steroids: Again, this is tank territory. When I say defensive steroid, I mean something to the effect of Malphite's W (+30% armor) or Galio's W. Small shields such as Diana's W can work, as long as they are short duration or require Active Play to maintain.

Offensive Resets: This is the primary reason that bruisers get turned into assassins. cough Diana cough Resets as a mechanic are fairly frustrating to play against in general, but if a champion must have a reset, it should be a utility or defensive one. Think something like Draven's W reset on catching an axe for an extra movespeed buff.

A prime example of what I think an AP bruiser design pattern looks like is Nunu. His Q provides sustain, but only if an enemy minion or monster is nearby. His W is pure utility without any damaging effects. His E has decent damage and a good amount of utility packed into it. His R forces attention to him and punishes those who do not. The mana cost on his E is fairly significant, but his passive allows him to bypass that cost, but only if he is actively participating (5 melee attacks). One issue I have with him is that his E has a significant slow that can be nearly permanently reapplied.

Another champion that nearly fits this model is Diana. The primary issue is that the reset on her R allows her to play more as an assassin than a bruiser. Other than that point, her Q has decent damage, W has minor damage but provides shielding with extra dependent on being in melee range with enemies. E provides pure utility. R has decent damage, but again the reset pushes the assassin pattern.

Anyways, that's my take on what and why AP bruisers should look like. I'm open to all forms of constructive discussion. Love it? Let me know what point and why. Hate it? Same thing! Tell me what and why, and most important how can we do better?

3 Comments

FuzzyBunnyofDoom2 votes

IMO, the reason there really isn't an AP bruiser role/meta is there really isn't a way to make it appealing to function as a buriser as opposed to an assassin or tank. Generally I think that with the way AP scaling works as a whole there's far more incentive to build all these champions either full damage or full tank, with little advantage to building tanky damage like a bruiser would have to do. Which, tbf, I think is more a problem of lacking itemization options for such builds. Yes, there are builds that can work, but generally they're FULL builds that require 4-5 items to really be effective and still end up being lacking compared to either a full AP or full tank build so that you're not doing enough damage and you're too squishy.

What I think would make AP bruisers more appealing would be either a.) better item options for such a role (Damage items that are good for AP bruisers like Nashors and Wits End don't really fit into most builds; Nashor's because no defensive stats and it only scales with a full AP build; Wits End because it doens't fit at all into an AP build, even with the MR debuff it has minimal scaling potential for a full kit), or b.) different scaling options other than JUST AP (incentivises full AP builds, which is why champions like sej work well as AP bruisers: because she also scales off health, or Malph because he scales off armor)

Champion specific ideas that I think would benefit the idea of an AP bruiser: Diana: keep the reset on her ult because it's really good gameplay imo (also, without it the moonlight debuff would be completely useless) BUT simply make her passive's damage work with spell vamp (now she'd have conditonal sustain that incentivises her auto attacks/passive and sustained fighting rather than just bursting with her ult).

Jax: basically IS an AP bruiser, but his base damages are so high you don't need AP and the itemization for AD is simply FAR better.

Irelia: COULD be an AP bruiser, but again, the item options really aren't there, well, they are, but there's no reason to pick them over a more normal build.

Malphite: too much incentive for either full tank or full AP currently (unkillable or massive burst, armor scaling on E just isn't quite enough imo).

Nunu: already a good AP bruiser, but kit usually ends up being infuriating to lane against or is bound to the Jungle, so his problem is that he's shoehorned into a role, but his kit is good.

Mordekaiser: good AP bruiser overall imo but lacks CC/mobility and is simply unpopular

Gragas: works as an AP bruiser, but mainly because of his base damages, damage reduction and utility (dat ult), he's an "AP" bruiser that really just gets tanky with a tiny bit of ap and good base damages (% max health damage and sustain with damage reduction and good CC, he's a really effective bruiser regardless of AP)

Rumble: no incentive to be tanky or build anything other than full AP, his mechanics are great, but I think he needs scaling other than AP too really be a bruiser and not just a melee ranged mage.

TL;DR I like the idea of AP bruisers, but until there are better/other item/scaling choices that are comparable alternatives to just full AP or full tank I don't think it'll be really popular; currently AP bruiser builds generally leave you dealing too little damage AND being too squishy to really be effective imo.

Wullf1 votes

Well I agree with you. But I would not call Diana an AP bruiser she deal to much burst, she is more of an assasin.

Great examle of AP bruiser Rumble. He is melee, his Q deals good amount of damage when applied for the longer duration. His W is good sustain tool and E has soft CC with average damage and finally his Ultimate does force enemy to acnowledge him.

Also he has his dangerzone machanics wich are just great.

I also think that Malphite Maokai and Gragas are viable to build as AP bruisers. But they are either inclined to tanky or full AP damage builds.

Lumus Avatar1 votes

I think of Sejuani as an AP bruiser and I like her a lot, so I added her to my roster. After the 4.2 rework, Skarner was an amazing AP bruiser since he built his damage on his Q plus the value of his shield off of AP. After 4.10 he functions poorly as an AP bruiser and leans more toward a mana-hungry tank or a mana-hungry AD bruiser if you give him Trinity Force.

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