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ADC itemization will always be broken for this reason.

WoonStruck··6 votes·1,257 views

They're all made to multiply each-others effects.

What ADC itemization, and itemization in general, should do is improve a champion's kit over-all.

Master Yi, Irelia, Jax, etc are all fantastic example of this. Items are bought to scale their kit, not just each other so their auto-attacks become powerful by default. Most mages fit this bill pretty well, but there needs to be lessitem 3089 item 3041 item 3001 Where they're just stat-sticks and more item 3157 item 3151 item 3116, where they provide actual utilities.

The thing that makes Yi, Irelia, and Jax great examples is how they're focused on auto-attacks, but its an ability related to them that's being scaled in effectiveness rather than the items themselves scaling each other. They multiply the effect of the kit, not the other items. They are what real auto-attack carries should be like.

This is why ADC itemization and item 3930 + item 3124 are so fundamentally bad, and why Fervor of Battle is a failure, IMO.

item 3053 item 3156, while being better stat-wise than what they counter ATM, are fantastic concepts because they improve your ability to reliably apply your kit, rather than just improve AD damage. The issue isn't these items, its how kits interact with other items, making this game's static flow of Assassin>ADC>Tank>Assassin far too binary when either assassins can't burst or people can't burst ADCs. This binary flow due to League's overarching metagame as a result of itemization and base balance concept (AD vs AP critical mass stat interactions) is what makes these items too powerful.

If AP and AD itemization was more about improving aspects of one's kit or covering flaws, as opposed to "hurr more damage", you would find many more champions are opened up to viability and ADCs would stop being 'Let's see who's the safest/most powerful auto-attacker this patch.'

It also makes it so 'assassins' are another form of engage, damage, as opposed to the quintessential 'assassin' insta-gibbing someone. You would follow-up on damage, rather than CC in this case. They could be balanced around this and still be a fulfilling experience for everyone while also retaining the '1-shot' ability while extremely fed, rather than trying to just instant-kill someone when they out-stat them or are out of position. Item actives would be required for 1v1-killing more, rather than a kit just having the ability to kill someone 1v1. This means real costs for all-ins, rather than just 10 second CDs. Itemization would be the gating mechanism, as opposed to just hitting level 3, 6, 9, 11, or 13 depending on the champion.

An example of how to make AP damage items that aren't just stat sticks are items like Refresher Orb, Orchid Malevolence, Dagon, and Aghanim's Scepter-like items from DotA 2. Yes, they would have to be made to fit League without being broken, but options for damage without just making someone out-stat someone else are there. Azir is a good example of what could happen if there were more itemization that affected the kit, rather than just numbers. Yes, Azir is poorly designed with how he functions, but it would feel really good for the player and be less frustrating for the opponent on any other champion when they all can improve their kit, rather than just the damage it provides.

An example of how to make ADs more varied is by varying their kits and having items improve those, rather than solely their auto-attacks. If auto-attacks are the main factor of ADCs, you will always run into the meta issues of who applies damage most effectively, and only those champions will be used, rather than ADCs being used for what they offer overall.

A world where ADCs are balanced is a world where they and bruisers can build the same items and be considered balanced and have trade-offs for their range, as opposed to the mess we have now because of how well 2 or 3 ADC items scale each other.

24 Comments

LaughingMan113 votes

Honestly, they just need to remove crit from the game, they removed Dodge because "It was unfair to leave RNG in charge of plays," but decided to keep crit even though its the exact same thing in reverse. AD is broken because of ADxAS with CR and Crit Damage thrown in. I'm too lazy to make math sentence out of it all, if a math guy wants to make the damage math sentence, by all means go ahead. Not saying ADC's cant have their AA augmenting items, like SS and RFC. Like with IE they could simply make it to where your autos do 25% more damage to champions (or some other number) that way by building it, the item is still filling its current intended roll, while at the same time not really affecting farming/pushing. Have PD do what it does now, and instead of the CR give it an SS/RFC like benefit, and obviously make it so all 3 of those items cant stack with their passives.

WoonStruck1 votes

I'd say 15% additional damage. +25% more damage all the time is pretty absurd, especially since there are lots of other % multipliers that will inflate that even further. Makes it on-par with deathcap, but without the inhibition of CDs or chance to miss...sooo, lower than 25%.

But yeah, your point remains. Even a behind ADC can make it so they have crit, attack speed, and AD to stay in the game. A mage that ends up behind only has one option: more AP. A melee that ends up behind has to have a significant amount of survivability to do their job before they get damage. Range and itemization are the reasons ADCs will always be a factor in every game. Especially with the amount of crit/AD all of their items have tacked onto them, in addition to the fact that all of the strong ADs atm have a way to ignore/improve attack timers...gee, I wonder why the ADC meta is so lop-sided.

LaughingMan111 votes

The reason why i chose 25% is as of right now, with a 100% CR build, which is pretty easy to get, you end up doing 150% more damage on every auto attack (crits are 200% damage, where IE makes crits 250%, which is 100% Base + 150% CD from IE) which is fairly strong all on its own, that at least the 25% AA damage doesnt seem to be too far out of the question. Note that it would also apply to abilities that can currently Crit now, like Ez Q and GP Q.

But honestly, if ADC's had to choose between Survivability + AD + AS or CR/Cirt Damage + AS + AD, id be more okay with them being crit machines, easily being able to get 20%~ LS + 300 or more AD + 1.5-2.0 AS + 70 or greater CR, thats say, 750 damage on a crit (assuming a target has 0% DR from armor here) you're able to do that 2 times a second, at most, so thats 1500 damage in 1 second, every second, that you're also healing for 15-20% of, so thats between 115 and 150 twice per second of healing. while you're still doing super high damage. That's like catching a viegar ult to the face every second. People complain about viegar ult, but yet its okay for ADC's to do that, while having more survivability options. I know mages get Zhonyas, but that really only stalls for you to get a CD up (hopefully) or to dodge/block a really painful thing. I'm not saying ADC's shouldnt have late game, but they should have to choose between super high damage, or super good sustain, and not have both easily accessible at the same time.

WoonStruck1 votes

First off, Ez Q can't crit. Second, getting a x2 multiplier on your damage is already a pretty good deal. IE is an item that shouldn't exist if you want ADCs to be truly balanced with crit rate in the game.

Without crit rate in the game, you merely convert all crit rate to half the value and make it give auto attack damage multipliers in place of crit rate. However, they would be additive, not multiplicative. This would allow Jhin to be better balanced as well, as a behind jhin wouldn't still easily be fatal to people below 50% HP, regardless of current itemization. He'd need some items to beef up his procs as well.

LaughingMan111 votes

You are correct, Ez cant crit, it may have been some one else i was thinking of.

So what you're saying is you have say 15% CR on two items, translate that now into 15% AA increase (capped at 100%) it would be 15% + 15% AA damage, equaling out to 30% bonus AA damage. Am i understanding that correctly?

WoonStruck1 votes

I'm saying if you were going to grab 2 current ADC items that give a total of 50% crit now (20 and 30%, let's say), you would instead get 10%+15%, for a total of 25% increased auto attack damage.

Edit: I was forgetting the fact that their itemization would eat AD nerfs, but the multiplier would compensate at the same time as replacing crit, so higher values would be needed.

The purpose of this is to give you effective attack damage that does not scale into abilities unless explicitly stated otherwise. If you bought enough items, it could go past a 100% increase, otherwise you wouldn't end up hitting over 400 damage from an auto attack...That's not what we want. The goal is ranged ADCs still being viable.

The issue with many ADCs is that they get good attack damage for abilities AND have stats that multiply their auto-attack potency by an extremely high amount.

This is part of what makes Essence Reaver and many other AD items too strong. They scale ADC kits well while also scaling their auto attack damage.

Why pick an AP mage when you can pick an AD caster, or better yet add DPS to that by taking a caster ADC like Corki? Why pick a bruiser when you can just pick Graves?

After these changes, you could choose for your auto attacks to act effectively as bursty, relatively low CD 'spells' along side the rest of your kit, with mostly AD and 'crit', or DPS via lower AD values, more attack speed, and more multipliers, but very little ability damage.

LaughingMan112 votes

So, in essence it would create a larger difference in play style, you would have say Ez, built more around his abilities for items that just straight up give AD, but sack some AA damage for it, then say have Jinx who may benefit more from AAs and would sacrifice ability damage for AAs and use abilities more for utility.

WoonStruck1 votes

Correct. This would allow Ez's kit to be buffed as well, since it would be the majority of his damage, since autos would be dropping quite a lot as opposed to the two supplementing each other.

There would be weird hybrids, like Varus, but those could easily be addressed. Especially if on-hits could scale with the auto-attack multipliers. This would mean ALL marksmen, including Teemo, could make use of this itemization (instead of just ADCs), possibly even Azir, as he's another that's allowed to have safety, burst, and DPS all at the same time, and could use a similar re-balancing.

LaughingMan111 votes

An issue I see with buffing on hit magic damage, is things like Yi and Jax who build SD and Rageblade, giving them even better mixed damage would make it harder to itemize against them since their hybid damage would be getting buffed too.

Edit: Also, Nashors kinda fills the role of magic on hit being buffed with building AP, giving it more than one scaling factor might make it too strong.

WoonStruck1 votes

Sated Devourer and rage-blade are made to boost on-hits, effectively. With this new system, they wouldn't need to exist.

Guinsoo's could still have its place, but Sated likely would not.

At the same time, remember, Yi would be choosing between high AD, for his Q and E, letting just his ult and passive scale his effective attack speed, or high attack speed with magic damage and junk. He'd either be glass cannon, or just about as effective as right now. No issues there IMO.

Also, keep in mind his true damage would not be scaled by the auto-attack bonus, since it is true damage.

Jax would be a minor concern, but remember, he'd be getting on-hit scaling as opposed to pure AD/AP, meaning his regular auto attacks would likely hurt less compared to now, while his W and ult hurt more, while he's less tanky, since he's not scaling his ult's active. Either that or he'd use the same build. Or he'd be glass cannon. He might be adjustments, but who hasn't needed adjustments with any significant changes to itemization/kit?

LaughingMan111 votes

I see your point there, are you saying as well then that things like jax's w would be effected by the on hit increase? If so, how would that interact with things like Dianas passive or Ekkos, or skills like Reneks W?

Also, I feel like my point on mixed damage potentially becoming an issue, tanks may have a harder time itemizing against AA Carries in general, bc rather than building for penetration with their respective damage types, they'll have the ability to build hybrid damage instead and accomplish the same thing forcing tanks to have to spread their resisances thinner.

WoonStruck1 votes

Actually, I have to correct myself. Jax's W is on-attack, not on-hit. So that, Nasus Q, Cho E, etc would not be affected at all, but the auto-attack applying them would be increased.

Forgot about that tidbit. I am not sure how it applies to Nocturne's passive, however. Him and Xin would be bigger issues than anyone else mentioned here, I believe.

Also, its easy to balance on-hit effects.

You can

A)Give them all low bases, but scaling with AD/AP, depending on the damage type

B)Introduce itemization that directly counters on-hits (as there is none atm)

C)Introduce hybrid defensive items that are more effective due to the passives than the base stats of MR/Armor. This way it doesn't allow easy itemization against pure physical or magic damage.

LaughingMan111 votes

So, things like Diana's and Ekko's passives would be effected, its safe to assume the passive on Jax R would be as well, while any on next AA ability, like you exampled above, would remain unaffected.

Though, at risk of sounding like a broken record, i feel that the resistances issue should be addressed.

WoonStruck1 votes

{quoted}

So, things like Diana's and Ekko's passives would be effected, its safe to assume the passive on Jax R would be as well, while any on next AA ability, like you exampled above, would remain unaffected.

Though, at risk of sounding like a broken record, i feel that the resistances issue should be addressed.

Defensive itemization for tanks specifically is extremely lackluster, made only to counter AP burst or AD burst, and some severely under-powered anti-auto attack items. They would likely need more prolific itemization to keep up with the changes, but to be honest, its long due. Just need to make more tank items that are more about their passives/actives than the raw stats they provide.

Gragas's Drunken Rage Jax's Empower/Grandmaster's Might Kayle's Righteous Fury Kennen's Electrical Surge Kha'Zix's Unseen Threat Leona Shield of Daybreak Twisted Fate Stacked Deck Udyr Tiger Stance Volibear Thunder Claws

Would all not be multiplied, I guess, as they are all considered on-spell effects. However, the auto attack that applies them would be multiplied. Whether or not this is intentional or not is not known, though.

All of the abilities applied on-attack, such as cho, azir, ekko, vi, TF, etc, would not be multiplied either.

LaughingMan112 votes

Revert closer to the Frozen Heart and old Randuins type things that lower AS and such? Maybe make a few hybrid defensive items, not too strong mind you so carries are less likely to purchase them, though with all of these changes it would be harder for them to build bruiser and still do decent damage, (which is part of the point)

If only we could get a Red in on this, and see what some opinions are on the idea.

WoonStruck1 votes

They would never pull a complete game overhaul like this, though.

All if it would have to be done at the same time, but we all know Riot won't invest what's actually needed for the game; only E-Sports and skins.

Honestly, its a pipe-dream at this point. Too late to turn back down another road. :/

LaughingMan112 votes

Riot would actually have to care about their game, and admit the game isn't in any way shape or form, in a good state right now. Before they'd do anything about it.

Sahn Uzal1 votes

AD items are designed to synergise well with each other, allowing good scaling. AP items have better passives and utility on them. That's how it has always been and how it's supposed to be. summoner 31

WoonStruck3 votes

[{quoted}](name=SwHc Fenris,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=HF7395iB,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-04-01T17:15:14.531+0000)

AD items are designed to synergise well with each other, allowing good scaling. AP items have better passives and utility on them. That's how it has always been and how it's supposed to be. summoner 31

Actually, AD items have more successful utility than AP items now.

Its AP kits that are well-made, not itemization. The only 'superior' effect AP itemization has is Zhonya's. AD is even better at bursting now due to the amount of pen and active effects they have now.

ADCs will always be a game of "who does the most/safest damage" because of how ADC itemization is. Niche will never matter unless the champion's kit is the main factor as opposed to just auto attacks and how well they can apply them. That's part of why mobility is a big factor in how viable an ADC is. Just the auto-attacks matter.

Optimal AD itemization for this game would be items with AD and other uses that all champions who want to auto-attack can utilize well, not itemization solely intended for ranged auto-attackers/people who scale with crit so they can multiply the shit out of right-clicking.

If itemization caters to a specific role, its going to be broken if another role can make use of it, or that role will be too strong because their itemization caters specifically to what they have the ability to do. Otherwise that itemization will be considered too weak and they will utilize another's pool of items, creating more issues.

Sahn Uzal1 votes

Actually, AD items have more successful utility than AP items now.

Arguable

ADC itemization will always be broken for this reason.

Nope. summoner 31

WoonStruck2 votes

[{quoted}](name=SwHc Fenris,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=HF7395iB,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2016-04-01T18:18:03.439+0000)

Arguable

Not Arguable.

Maw, Sterak's, Frozen Mallet (value artificially low due to nerfs), Frozen Gauntlet, Mercurial Scimitar, Death's Dance, Phantom Dancer, BotRK, Executioner's Calling, Essense Reaver.

Vs

Rylai's, Seraph's, Liandry's, Zhonya's, Morello's...maybe RoA???

Nope. summoner 31

Actually yeah. Because of the multiplicative interaction between just 3 ADC itemization now, it allows ADCs to pick up essentially any other 2 items and still have absurd damage. Since all of the AD items listed above also have stats relevant to an ADC, they actually have far more worth on an ADC than other classes due to those 3 multiplicative items multiplying those stats from outside items AND each other. Hell, even Armor and MR have artificially higher worth on ADCs due to the amount of lifesteal they get through damage. This is why Graves feels tanky as hell after his E is leveled up and tanks can still feel like they get melted at 4 items unless absurdly ahead.

Sahn Uzal1 votes

Good sir I do not mind having a discussion. I do mind it if you are just gonna repeat the same arguements and make no fucking progress at all in the conversation. Take my downvotes and have a good day. summoner 31

WoonStruck1 votes

[{quoted}](name=SwHc Fenris,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=HF7395iB,comment-id=00000000000000000000,timestamp=2016-04-01T18:31:27.837+0000)

Good sir I do not mind having a discussion. I do mind it if you are just gonna repeat the same arguements and make no fucking progress at all in the conversation. Take my downvotes and have a good day. summoner 31

That's not repeating the same argument. I didn't mention the drastic difference between utility through items before. I mentioned that what an item offers should be the focus of the buy. Stat-sticks make the game much more about who has more stats, better scaling, or better bases at any given moment rather than what the champions themselves are capable of.

I didn't mention the artificially inflated gold value ADCs get out of every other item due to their 3 core damage items they buy. I mentioned that items bought solely to multiply each other stifle the diversity among ADCs, and in sated/gruinsoo's case additional champions, because its all about who makes better use of those stats on any given patch, not what an ADC's kit is capable of in total.

You just don't actually have an argument, nor the ability to defend your points (of which you have none so far).

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