[Theorycraft] Attack Speed items (cc @System team / Balance Team)
There are a lot of recent changes regarding Attack Speed:
- Trinity Force builds out of Stinger, with more AS and no Crit (among other things).
- Wit's End has been straight up buffed.
- Jungle enchant focused on AS is now a mini BotRK (kinda), maybe to keep the pattern of Enchants not providing something unique (green is minisunfire, blue is mini Luden, etc.).
- The old Phantom Hit from Devourer was moved to Guinsoo instead, and Guinsoo lost its AoE in compensation.
- Lots of AS-based champs got new or improved AP ratios, so that Guinsoo is more attractive for them.
So the question is, how do you build an AS focused champion, depending on how much offensive items you can afford? What are the best combinations? If you main some AS champs, what builds are you considering, what does it change, what do you think of the new landscape?
Stray observations (but keep in mind I don't play a lot of AS champs, I could be full of crap):
- If you want only 1 offensive item and haven't any in-built on-hits in your kit, Triforce seems like the new 1-item wonder.
- If you go for Guinsoo, you should probably go for BotRK too for the synergy. But that's damn expensive and not very tanky, so who can actually afford that?
- Bloodrazor seems underwhelming compared to BotRK. Cinderhulk and Runic Echoes are just less powerful versions of the standard items, but Bloodrazor lacks the lifesteal and the active from BotRK. Even if you build lifesteal on another item, Bloodrazor's passive doesn't apply lifesteal. I think skipping Jungle Enchant or going for Cinderhulk (potentially later) may be best for AS-based Junglers. But on the other hand, the passive is MAX HP%, not CurrentHP%. Your thoughts?
- The AS items are strangely split between physical and magic damage. Bloodrazor and BotRK passives are physical, Wit's End is magical (but also has MR shred to stay relevant?), Guinsoo has a lot of hybrid stats but the passive is magic damage and there is no MR shred. There is also Nashor's Tooth, with AS, on-hit, but lots of AP, so very niche and not used by most of the champs that use the other AS items. In the end, should AS champs focus on one kind of damage, be hybrid, or what?
This is not the kind of simple question @Meddler use to answer frequently, but maybe he could forward the thread to someone from the System Team or from the Balance Team that worked on all the recent changes? That would be great to have Riot more high-level view on AS itemization, in addition to the comments on the Triforce changes specifically :)