Of course, I'm talking about Essence Reaver - that's right, 65 AD, 20% crit, 30% cooldown and a unlimited mana all on one item. Meanwhile "We want mages to have to think about their mana management and their item choices". Go fuck yourselves Riot.
TheFrozenChosen36 votesI am excited about the new changes. But this one, along with you, I don't really agree with. I don't really see the reasoning behind it.
Durfain55 votesI am too. I like the changes to Zhonya's, the new items look interesting. But Riot have a habit of wanting to break things that aren't broken. Mages currently have a multitude of different options for resource generations.. Seraphs, RoA, Athenes, Morellonomicon. I don't see how forcing every mage to go tear is good for build diversity in any way. They're apparently doing this because of some bullshit about game health meanwhile Zed is just there spamming you with shurikens that cost nothing.
TheFrozenChosen4 votesYea ikr, or kat with no mana at all. I am also really looking forward to hextech starburst. I am hoping it will bring immobile mages into the meta. That way people will stop just playing yas and zed.
Just Shimakaze6 votesActually I heard from xypherous that it's unlikely the rocket belt will see live simply because of how broken it would be.
EfficientDynamo7 votesThe problem is that it will make mobile mages even harder to catch. Imagine Ekko dashing around with that thing, it would be incredibly frustrating.
KING 5HARK4 votesAs frustrating as lucian? Or graves? Or Leblanc?
EfficientDynamo3 votesThe point was that this won't just give immobile mages more options, but make mobile mages even more frustrating to play against. Not sure what your point is to be honest.
KING 5HARK1 votesThat we already have a lot of extremely mobile champs, even ADCs, yet Mages still have to watch them dashing all over the map(and being frustrated). So its fine if some champs have near unlimited mobility but as soon as immobile Mages get 1 dash, they become frustrating?
EfficientDynamo4 votesAh I understand. The problem is that many mages, such as Annie, are balanced around their lack of mobility, so adding it could make them OP (since it's not like you can dodge Annie's ult). You can argue that immobile mages are underpowered, but simply adding a mobility item isn't the healthiest way to solve that problem.
Plus, regardless of whether it is healthy to give immobile mages a mobility item, it still wouldn't change the fact that other mobile mages like Ekko would just be that much MORE mobile. It would be moving the bar in one direction for everyone while introducing game health problems, with relatively little net benefit.
KING 5HARK1 votesAnnies getting changed(more power into tibbers, less into his appeaance)
mobile mages like Ekko
Ekko changing to more AP items is pretty fine for me. Hes not a mage tho, assassins are supposed to be mobile
EfficientDynamo2 votesYou are focused on the individual cases and not on the broader implications that my examples are pointing towards. It is irrelevant that Ekko is an assassin or that Annie is getting changed. What IS relevant is that Ekko can make good use of the stats in this mobility item (since he has AP ratios), and that there are immobile mages like Annie that are balanced around their lack of mobility.
Think about my examples as indicators of classes and not as individual champs. It may help you understand my argument.
Battlecast Sona11 votesI think Riot is trying to make mana more of a "real" gating mechanism so that characters that rely on it can have power funneled back into their kits. Currently the only "gate" on mana consumption is until the point that you no longer care - you complete Athene's or RoA + a regen item or whatever your "necessary" mana regen is and then you never think about your manapool again until it runs out. This super binary play pattern makes mana a poor gating mechanism and really just forces mages to have crappy early games. If mana regen becomes less available as a stat to mages, it means their base regen or pool could be increased to compensate and the gate could become less "you suck until you get a strong regen item" and more "you have to carefully manage your resources early".
EvilRabbitt26 votesThe problem being not that (though I like your post :) but that AD characters can build ER and mana becomes a joke. And cooldowns. ER is a bad item concept and if AD can have ER, mages need something that gives: High AP (65 ad) Decent Move speed (20% crit) Massive mana regen (the passive) 30% cdr( the 30% cdr)
That's what ER is to mages. Its the holy grail. :C And its why I don't wanna play mages when I can just build IE/ER and hit 30% cdr, 40% crit, 130 ad, unlimited mana, and 50% extra crit damage. There is no mage equivalent to that.
Axis the Dragon21 votesThat's why you play Corki mid, the best mage in the game :^)
Battlecast Sona3 votesWhere is the 2.5 second stasis item for ADs?
Where is the AP Mercurial Scimitar?
Just because AD has it doesn't mean AP needs something identical. AD characters generally don't have the strength in their abilities that mages do so a single item giving them that kind of instant mana regen + cdr cap kinda bullshit is actually directly catering to the problem - that once you complete a single item, you no longer care about mana. Most of the characters that utilize ER are gated very heavily by mana in the laning phase (Lucian before his max rank E and ER eats mana so quickly) and then get ER... And are STILL GATED by the fact that they don't have ASPD/crit/damage/IE/etc. An equivalent mage item (high AP, decent move speed, massive mana regen, 30% cdr) would be mandatory on every single caster in the game. There's no way you can compare the two classes because one (mages) relies ENTIRELY on their abilities, whereas I can't think of a single AD Caster or caster style Marksman who makes ER that doesn't utilize AAs as part of their combo, and most of the cast that makes ER are Marksmen who are gated by crit/aspd/other stats that don't exist for mages.
EvilRabbitt8 votesI don't mean to be rude, just pointing out the point I made. ER is why mages are mad. It gives ad players who utilize this item alone (even building no other crit AT ALL) lots of mana recovery. Now think how anyone who builds this is building one more crit item.
For your mage point- my mana probs aren't gone when I build ludens, rabadons, or zhonyas. They don't just "vanish". They vanish when I get tear, Morello, or Athenes. Oh and look- those are the complaints. These items are being nerfed (testing myself soon I hope).
Last piece, AD casters and ER. You use autos because this item gives your autos damage. Mages do not because AP does not empower the autos. Unless you are Orianna or Akali anyway. It's not "oh ER doesn't give me enough" its "ER boosts my damage abilities and autos".
I am not saying oh boohoo mages won't ever regen again. I'm saying that (along with lots of actual mage players) its prejudice. If an ad player builds ER and gets MASSIVE stats including unlimited regen, then why are mages losing Athenes/Morellos? Just something to think about.
Battlecast Sona2 votesuhm...
mages aren't bad.
I don't think you're really looking at this from the right perspective? There isn't any possible way for ER to exist for mages.
What would the trigger be? How would the mage player get mana back without it just being passive, free sustain? Because that's Riot's issue. Essence Reaver is fine because you can still easily run out of mana if you don't get to AA. I mean, for example, on a character like Varus it's easy to still have mana problems with ER because it can be hard to get into AA range safely. ER's sustain paradigm requires it though. What is the equivalent for AP? Because that's what Riot is introducing. These new mechanics (Awe reducing mana costs by 25%, the new catalyst passive, new chalice) are targetted at providing mana sustain that involves interacting with your opponent rather than just free mana regen.
The main difference is that Athene's purchases were intended to stall the game out - "I need to waveclear and keep waveclearing without having to back for as long as possible, so Athene's." ER encourages aggressive gameplay - "I have access to crits turning into mana, but only if I'm actively AAing." Riot is attempting to give mages options that give them similar kinds of sustain, but because they ONLY rely on abilities, giving them just another mana regen item that would replace any other mana regen item is silly.
Also, it's not "MASSIVE" stats. the only other final tier item focused at ADCs with the same AD as it (65) is IE, and IE has the crit damage passive to help it. All the other ADC/AD items are 75+ AD. 20% crit is in line with IE's crit and less than the upgraded zeal items... as far as pure combat stats go, ER loses to almost every other ADC item, with the CDR requiring at least 1 investment of 2.8~ gold additionally to hit the bonus CDR cap. In fact, 10 times out of 10 making Essence Reaver is a (fairly significant) loss to DPS over making IE.
Basically, you're mad that Mages don't have ER and claim it makes ADCs have unfair mana options, but their options for mana management are 2 items (Manamune and Essence Reaver) while mages have many more options (Morello, Archangel's, RoA, Athene's) to build both their ability to mana mana AND their pool simultaneously (with stuff like catalyst passive giving both mana pool and the mana/HP sustain or Tear giving both 1k max mana pool fully stacked and 25% reduced costs, with new changes coming in). Yeah ADCs have access to Tear as well, but their ability to increase their max mana pool is greatly reduced, meaning that they can't engage in an endless poke paradigm with ER, which is what Riot is trying to prevent with mages.
tl;dr: ER or an item like it will never exist because the mages that would be able to abuse that kind of mana sustain for an endless poke paradigm would be stupidly broken or require nerfs (Ziggs) as we've already seen with the release of any major waveclear midlaner who can opt into athene's for eternal waveclear.
J Eevo10 votesYou're misunderstanding the point entirely
He never said "I WANT MAGE VERSION OF ER" to which you're reacting and trying to argue against
He said ADs have ER as an option IN ADDITION to all of the other crap so if they want to go the route they can and with better ways too, in addition to having acess to lifesteal and other crap. And that an item like ER shouldn't exist in the first place, because frankly it supplies EVERYTHING an ad caster (and sometimes just adc) would want.
On the other hand we have the news that with the new update they want to make it so mages CANNOT opt into mana regeneration anymore, as it's relegated to a support stat for some reason (oh but full mana regeneration and cooldownreduction in addition to prime ADis an adc stat? ) which I think you'd agree seems unfair.
YCitizenSnipsY1 votesActually there was for a long time. It was called Athene's unholy grail. It provided AP, MR, CDR, and basically unlimited mana. It ;had to be nerfed several times becasue it was the Swiss army knife of mid lane for ap mages. I don't know why ap mains are suddenly crying about bad itemization and poor resource management like it wasn't a problem for AD champions for years.
I've said it before, You got used to having better itemization than AD champions by default. And now for the first time that you can definitely say that it tip in favor of AD you don't like being on the other end of it. Just put up with this shit for another 5 seasons or so and maybe this complaint will have some real merit.
EvilRabbitt1 votesYou realize I play Aram and AD champions, right?
YCitizenSnipsY2 votesDoesn't detract for my point. You describe ER like AP champions have never had the exact same luxury. They had their do everything with one item, that they used to follow up with a cheaper death cap. Its like people like you who complain about AD vs AP itemization have never actually played the game before the preseason.
I don't know why you think AP vs AD imbalance is something new, its been in AP's favor for 5 straight seasons.
Ulquiorra99528 votesAD champions will now have better access to mana management via ER, better access to cooldown reduction via ER and other crit items and exclusive access to Spell Vamp with Death's Dance. Why even bother with playing a mage anymore?
Gnart Even Close2 votesAD champions will now have better access to mana management via ER, better access to cooldown reduction via ER and other crit items and exclusive access to Spell Vamp with Death's Dance. Why even bother with playing a mage anymore?
they provide different utlity and they can get spellvamp through hextech gunblade (which isn't good on most mages, but still has to be pointed out). the entire point of magic damage and physical damage is to force enemy tanks to have to split between armor and mr. this means that there will always be a need for both magic damage and physical champions, thus both mages (or corki, btw i hate corki) and adcs. mages will actually have better access to cdr now, so idk what you really mean by that point. the only thing that adcs really have against mages is better sustain and dps, which aren't supposed to be the strong suits of mages anyways
edit: i love how the salty mage mains downvote even though i'm right and not being biased. i like playing mages too, but ffs these changes aren't the end of the world. change happens. just deal with it
McKeifus11 votesThe point is that an ADC gets almost max CDR with one item, that also provides a bunch of great benefits and infinite mana.
ModAcademy Kayn2 votesNot to nit pick, but you need at least one other item to get that 30%.
McKeifus4 votesOne other item that they are already going to buy.
ModAcademy Kayn2 votesYeah, but the value of ER is being held behind 2500 more gold, meaning you'd need 6100 gold to get both ER and a Crit item to acheive max value. ER alone gives only 65 ad and 20% crit.
Plus, isn't ER the only way ADC's get CDR?
McKeifus6 votesExcept the gold you spent on that crit is much more efficient. Just saying "need 6100 gold to make ER work" isn't accurate. You immediately get an item which is on its own pretty gold efficient, and then provide extra value by purchasing items that are already in your build. If it had less AD and crit than say, IE, then I might be inclined to agree with you. But as a whole, ER is an incredible pick if you can achieve high damage output or control using cdr & mana.
YerroFever19 votesRiot has a terrible habit of making flavors of the month instead of actually making long term balances and I think it's out of a fear that if there's nothing that's OP at any given time and it's actually balanced, they'll have people lose interest in the game.
Unfortunately that just means all you have is 20%-30% satisfaction and then 70%-80% dissatisfaction and just people who complain until their roles are OP and it just sounds like everyone has to wait their turn to get the OP crown and that's all you have to look forward to.
Edit: It might make sense for a game to be newbie friendly where all they play is the OP champs to get introduced to the game to make it fun... but seriously, this basically feels like an abusive relationship between the devs and players.
Kairya5 votesArguably the "flavor of a month" strategy is intentional. LoL is a game that lives from its many changes. It's important that there isn't some sort of meta that just sticks around forever. Even a perfectly balanced game would eventually become boring, because there are just no surprises anymore. And sometimes the greatest satisfaction stems from playing an underdog that does surprisingly well. Things like the new mage items: For one they offer a new challenge for the players to find solutions for new problems. Also they give Riot the opportunity to change mages a great deal, so that they can work with those items.
They also mentioned that they are not unhappy about ADCs appearing increasingly on different lanes, but no player would just randomly take an ADC into mid. Thus ADCs need to be strong on mid lane, while Mages need to be weaker. BUT Mages may actually work on Bot-lane better, now that they have a support that might be able to refund health or shield you. And then it's not quite as bad anymore to take a hit once in a while, that refunds Mana.
Long term solutions or balances wouldn't actually be good for the game. Constantly changing tides however challenge players creativity and flexebility regarding playstyles. It's very human to cling to old traditions and so on, but new things can be fun too.
While I was also very ... surprised... about the suggested changes in mage itemization, I am also curious how it will all turn out. Especially since none of those changes are set in stone yet. (And champion changes are yet to be released)
McKeifus2 votesHa ya they want to move AD to midlane so they can be the "stars" Riot always wanted them to be. Mages are too slow and plodding to be interesting to watch, so they relegate them to the Bot lane.
Steelflame4 votesADCs used to be used exclusively mid lane in S1. Bot lane tended to be either double bruiser or double mage, with top generally having a tank IIRC. Jungle was whatever could survive the damn place, it wasn't easy at all back then, and pretty much only WW, Fiddles, and Nunu could jungle then. Having duo top wasn't looked down upon that much, because of how few people could actually jungle at all. Back then there wasn't even jungle items, except for Madred's Razor/Bloodrazor, which was sort of a jungle item for AS users, but it was pretty bad, I think the earliest that real jungle items started to show up was S3 if I recall correctly (Pretty sure that was when Lizard, Wraith, and Golem were added), which would have been when they added Machete.
Nausicäa 13 votesADC's get to have infinite mana and the no resource on their primary form of damage, but mages should go oom and completely lose the ability to do meaningful damage. Sounds pretty consistent the overall direction Riot has taken all year. Pre-reason nerfed mages hard and at the same time massively buffed AD itemization, giving them the ability to be relatively tanky and still output the same damage.
If you havent already read the Rioter comments in the PBE item thread, this guy has such a blatant bias against mages its not even funny.
LankPants11 votesWhat actually made me angry is what he said about Hextech Rocket Belt.
One of the issues that we've struggled with in a lot of mid-range mages is that many of them essentially brute force their way to victory through raw numbers. They also don't have a ton of ways to opt into more flexible or flashy combat patterns with their core itemization.
Hextech Rocket Belt is an extremely dangerous effect that acts as either a range increased for their spells - a burst of initiation power - or simply a quick reposition tool so that these mages can fight in a more clever manner.
I can't actually believe that a Rioter said that, it's just so absurdly stupid. He paints the lack of mobility of mages as a problem rather than the mobility creep in the game and proposes that it should be fixed by creeping mobility harder.
Then he claims that giving mages a 'get out of jail free card' encourages clever play, which is just wrong on every level.
Nimble Manta5 votesRito wants league to be more like dodgeball and less like chess.
Alüe7 votesI think what is really upsetting is they are targeting the completely wrong issues, mobility is supposed to be the defining weakness of mages. Sorta why our tool kits never came with mobility dashes, other than a few outliers. We are supposed to have insane raw numbers, with insane aoe aspects. I feel as though they are trying to redefine mages, when they should be looking to reduce mobility outside of mages to in turn return the game to a state of having to actually select counters.
AwesomeChad7 votesI like how people try to compare apples to oranges. Any person with two functioning eyes knows that they're not the same.
Durfain35 votesI fail to see how it's comparing apples with oranges. It's comparing apples with other types of apples since all of these item types are designed to provide mana sustain. Which ADCs and mages currently both have but which mages will no longer have if the PBE changes go through.
Gnart Even Close2 votesI fail to see how it's comparing apples with oranges. It's comparing apples with other types of apples since all of these item types are designed to provide mana sustain. Which ADCs and mages currently both have but which mages will no longer have if the PBE changes go through.
mages are burst magic damage while adcs are sustained physical damage. they are supposed to have very different itemization and take different roles. they are either very different apples or two entirely different fruits. if you want to aruge that adcs are cancer, go right ahead i won't stop you (especially stuff like graves, vayne, and corki). but if you want to say that mages should have infinite mana and never need to back, then that simply does not make sense. all classes are supposed to have to back, the fact that adcs and certain tanks don't is pretty problematic in nature
Trundle Bundle9 votesWhich means these should all be addressed at once, but instead we're getting one lever lowered right after another was just raised (ADC lifesteal and mana sustain), while being explicitly told resources are strained enough to prevent widespread changes to deal with the aftermath. They shouldn't be dealing with this piecemeal, but that appears to be the intention.
And this is in addition to the ADC role expansion giving some ADCs a lot more access to mage qualities.
RocketRelm2 votesAdd supports to that list, with the intended changes, aside from Ward charges and sometimes HP. So basically, it's 'only' mages that're expected to back right now. This might be a more systemic issue, and our Rioter said he'd "check on the expectation", so I'm hoping there's some kind of response.
I hate my ADC5 votesYeah... because most supports don't use mana right?
Definitely never has to back!
130 mana for a basic ability? Bah, I don't need that mana anyways.
Could teach you mages a thing or two about spamming abilities.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/9a74316bd93f122be30b8916122539d8/tumblr_mrnu7ua7E91snr38ko1_1280.gif
And before you say "Athene", Supports can already oom with a Mikael or Athene in the current patch and, unlike mages, supports can't build archangel or be bothered with buying a morello because almost every support items give CDR while archangel is too expensive and certainly not useful to a support. This means no Lost Chapter either. If anything, supports will be oom faster than mages because they don't build mana unless they go Frozen Heart.
Cryo007 votesLate game, an ADC can just go to the jungle, kill some minions, and gain all of his/her health and if they have essence reaver, mana as well back. Now mages late game have to go back to regen mana, which gives a chance for the enemy team to engage in a 5v4. I know comparing mana for a mage to that of an ADC is not the best comparison, but the fact that mages will have to back late game AND have less impactful spells due to lower AP is pretty annoying. If they had more impactful spells due to higher AP, then it would have been fine (Sort of)
Weasel Kensei4 votesYeah I said that in another thread, If AP were getting increased it would make more sense. The way it looks now is mages are getting LESS AP with the item changes, and LESS mana sustain than we have now. So if people are confused why no one seems happy about these changes, its because all evidence points to a mid season mage NERF.
Maybe we dont have all the information to go on, but CRYOoo is correct more or less. Mages will maybe be able to cast more spells with the added mana on items, but will also NEED more spells cause of less AP; this is exacerbated by the situation of once this mana is gone, it will take a very long time to get it back.
People will be watching mana bars more closely, Zeds and Yasuos will know when theyre about to force you back and will gladly take an HP chunck to force you to sit under your tower oom, or leave the lane for more.
Hayaishi27 votesER is mana sustain, not mana management you ignorant mage.
And it's hardly enough sustain for champions with high mana costs which is why Varus doesn't use it and Lucian does.
Auryiel43 votesMore like Varus doesn't want to be in AA range in the first place cuz then he'll get fucked thanks to his lack of mobility
Nausicäa 8 votesOr Varus has never been a truly viable bot lane ADC and functions much better as a tear/cdr/penetration poke champions mid lane.
TurquoiseYoshi6 votesMore like an AD mage.
ViashinoWizard2 votesThese changes aren't final, you know. If it turns out, as many people are saying it will, that mages have widespread mana issues due to the new items, then further changes will be made to address that.
