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Let's talk about Magus

RyuPhalian·12/5/2014, 8:00:37 PM·15 votes·2,371 views

Am I the only one who is starting to find it rather odd that it's the AP jungle item which lacks the same flare and individuality that the others contain? Currently (on the PBE) Magus is the only Smite Enchant which has no scaling, no individuality, just some stats. Devourer scales with the +1 Magic Damage on Large Monster kill & +2 on champ Kill/Assist, Juggernaut has Tenacity, and Warrior gives +10% bonus AD (on PBE, so it is an AD Deathcap now), but Magus just gives +80 AP & +20% CDR. I guess one could argue about the CDR but it's not that hard to get with AP items.

Now I know you can't put a %bonus AP like Warrior does since mages already have Deathcap but what about leaning more towards utility? Something which can be just as appealing to an Amumu as it would to Elise or Diana (yes, Diana can jungle well). Something like a way to help restore mana as junglers typically can't afford Athene's Unholy Grail or Archangel's Scepter on a tight budget. Also before you go pouncing in the comments about "Just grab Blue Buff", that would just anger mid lane players. One possible idea would be something like "Mana Siphon: Whenever you cast a spell, X% of the damage you deal is returned as mana." or in other words "Spell Vamp but for mana instead of HP". I know it would have to be a low % like 10% but that would help out.

28 Comments

Tsukuy0m112/5/2014, 8:20:15 PM11 votes

there isnt that much ap junglers other than fiddles and amumu if he is going offensive ap.

80 and 20cdr is really good. especially the 20cdr.

Kuroi8612/5/2014, 8:39:30 PM4 votes

Warrior gives +10% bonus AD

I thought it was 10% bonus damage on champs? Tried looking it up, surrenderat20 seems to have removed any mention of it.

7ha7guy77712/5/2014, 8:41:35 PM4 votes

i feel like mana regen would be valuable especially considering the nerf to blue buff duration on another note, it sounds like warrior changes are going to make AD Malzahar scarier

Bears Dont Care12/6/2014, 5:51:24 AM3 votes

Warwick is not going to be spamming Q on anyone, let's be honest there. The issue is that Magus is an inferior Morellonomicon. In the past, it had to be built up to 80 AP, but you got it for much cheaper than morellonomicon and it had a gold bonus. At the moment, it doesn't have that at all.

Perhaps a passive mana regen buff, or something else to make it worth the gold. Thankfully Eve uses AD anyway

Skia Asteri12/5/2014, 8:58:41 PM3 votes

They are not going to change it in anyway that would make the item itself better pick for none junglers than items that are not jungle specific. As it stands in is the Morellonomicon without mana regen or the grevious wounds passive that costs 150 more gold.

Without taking something else away, at best it would gain something that is only useful in the jungle like a small amount of mana returned on killing monsters.

Messaiga12/6/2014, 2:47:42 AM2 votes

I think they need to just increase the mana regen per second from the jungle items across the board, there are plenty of junglers who suffer mana issues once their blue buff runs out (or if it is stolen, or once you start giving blue to mid). As for utility on Magus, would this sound attractive? Example: Unique Passive - Dealing magic damage to an enemy champion heals you for (10 + 11% AP) health per second. To put this heal into perspective, the heal would increase by 1 for every 3 AP. Its a steady heal and isn't reduced by MR unlike spell vamp, the only problem I foresee is Fiddlesticks, since his kit already grants immense healing from his W.

The idea behind this is it gives something to these AP Junglers that most AP's have a lot of difficult obtaining, in this case health restoration since spell vamp is limited to 2 items and doesn't do well on many champs except for like 2 or 3. The weakness to this passive is that it does not active when attacking minions or monsters, making AP Junglers more vulnerable that AD Junglers sustain-wise.

The only other thing I could really think of as an alternative to this passive would be MR Shred but Abyssal Scepter exists for that and it could easily break Amumu or Fiddle (once again) due to so much flat penetration.

Kowe The Ewok12/6/2014, 4:08:32 AM1 votes

Why not grant it a modified Lissandra passive? A free spell every 20s. The current cooldown gets halved when being used against a large jungle monster.

Jungle Lux God12/6/2014, 6:46:56 PM1 votes

I personally like this change for a mana return passive, as the AP jungle items have never really provided anything interesting to them.

Back in seasons 3 and 4, Spirit of the Elder Lizard gave the incinerate passive, Spirit of the Ancient Golem used to give Tenacity until it was changed to give bonus health and a sight ward active, and Wriggle's Lantern was changed in season 4 to change into Feral Flare and always had a sight ward. These were all cool mechanics for the jungle items that really helped these jungle items stand out from other items that would be core for laners.

What did Spirit of the Spectral Wraith get? At best, it got spell vamp, which isn't too exciting, although you could argue it was necessary because most AP junglers have a hard time sustaining in the jungle barring Fiddlesticks, and at worst it got that lame scaling AP passive it got in season 4.

Fast forward to now, and Devourer and Juggernaut are the only items with interesting passives that separate them from other items, while Magus and Warrior don't really have anything like that. It's almost like Riot wants to make AP junglers viable in the jungle, and they give them the tools to support it, but the tools they get don't really help that much.

While this change won't break any of the existing AP junglers, I feel like this would be a really cool addition to help make jungling as an AP caster a lot better.

Ulric Greatsword12/6/2014, 8:23:03 PM1 votes

How about adding Mana Charge item 3003 to it, but gaining stacks on monster and champ kills/assists?

NorthernDruid12/7/2014, 2:49:15 AM1 votes

I like the idea of giving it Spellvamp (and manaleech)

Or some wholly new Unique, maybe a spellblade variant, or some form of scaling flat magic penetration, or Furor for spells (scaling with AP) Or something more along the lines of Liandry's passive.

Or maybe something which converts excess CDR into something useful (mPen maybe, like every 1% wasted CDR gives 1 flat mPen, or every 2% weasted gives 1% mPen), giving you inscentive to overstack CDR.

Or maybe make it quite cheaper but have it stack up over time Rod of Ages.

As long as it's not something overly mana focused (I mean, i'm not gonna be mad if they just add some mana regen to it or some sort of manavamp passive, but Energy champs like Akali won't benefit from any extra mana regen, and champs based on AP scaling steroids, like Kayle, won't benefit from a Manavamp thingy.

Leblancs Boob12/7/2014, 2:53:45 AM1 votes

Agreed. Since blue buff is often more valuable on mid laners, AP junglers NEED mana sustain for clearing. Whats the point of all that AP and CDR if I'm going oom after 2 camps?

The5lacker12/7/2014, 4:29:40 AM1 votes

Riot needs to stop with their %bonus scaling on jungle items insanity. It's not a good idea. It's never been a good idea. It never will be a good idea.

Dominick Destine12/5/2014, 8:33:39 PM1 votes

Traditionally; caster oriented jungle items have always been shit.

I don't know why they are so terrified of opening up the jungle for the Amumu/Diana/AP Evelynn types... even just putting the old conservation would make it an infinitely more attractive item.

MattAkhavan12/5/2014, 10:56:42 PM1 votes

I actually think that anything more on magus would make it difficult to stay balanced. 80 AP is quite a of raw power than you get from one item from just fiendish codex. You get a very nice power spike once you complete this jungle item and you get 20% cool down reduction. CDR is any casters bread and butter and provides half of the max cdr meaning you only need 1 more item to hit 40%.

The best way to make magus scale better in late game is to have it do the same thing as spectral wraith and have it scale from 80-100 ap as you kill minions or something. Magus as it is is very strong.

The Whamboozler12/5/2014, 11:14:29 PM1 votes

Actually... what's wrong with it having a small % of bonus AP? Most AP junglers can't afford to build glass cannon anyway, so it's not like Deathcap is a part of most AP jungle builds anyway. (Fiddlesticks is the only one I can think of) Sure, it might lead to laners abusing the item by taking smite into midlane, but really... if they wanna make that tradeoff it seems fair.

The number would need to be pretty low though, 10% at most. Maybe as low as 5%? Could be fun.

Grithien12/5/2014, 11:27:31 PM1 votes

Magnus

+80 ability power +10% cooldown reduction

  • 5% SpellVamp

Unique passive + 2% ManaVamp (Spell's that you cast gain mana equal to 2% of the total damage they do.)

Unique active Smite's increased to 90 seconds. After you kill the smitten monster in the jungle gain 5% bonus ability power for the next 90 seconds.

Too powerful? more/less spellvamp? ( I did enjoy my jungle season 4 akali/vladimir games)

Digitality12/6/2014, 2:23:35 AM1 votes

Magus is already the most gold efficient enchantment available of the four.