Alright, a response to Xypherous's AP itemizations.

Lets start out by saying that Xypherous has a track record of... over optimism. Which is my gentle way of saying everything he touches turns to OP. He is an idea guy, but he clearly needs another guy behind him who whaps him on the back of the head every time he comes up with a number. Yes whaps is a word.

Lets start AGAIN by saying I totally agree with this:

Ability Power is a relatively easy thing to optimize in the current ecosystem and the current AP builds are a little more generic than I'd like.

AP mages bring a mix of damage and utility but the AP items have accidentally converged around damaging AP builds far outpacing more utility or counter-centric ones.

Yes, AP builds have been Hourglass/Deathcap/Void staff/boots. That leaves you 2 items to actually "build with" and most of the time one of those two items is going to be a defensive item. That leaves typically ONE item to build with, and that one item will typically need to be a CDR item, so it'll either be Athene's or Morellonomicon. EXCEPT Morello's is OP as hell right now and is clearly better than Athene's because the utility on it shuts down several champions. This means Hourglass/Deathcap/Void staff/boots/Morello's is ~80% of AP builds seen right now. Add in Luden's still being OP and you have almost every single mage building the same items.

So the IDEA behind the AP rework is a good idea. It's just right now AP items tend to be OP rather than not OP, and I assumed that this rework would mostly entail curbing the power of spamming late game items for maximum effect.

Changelist

Blasting Wand Cost: 860 G --> 850 G

Needlessly Large Rod Cost: 1600 G --> 1250 G Ability Power: 80 AP --> 60 AP

Yeah this is pretty much expected. Their costs have been very high for awhile now. Blasting wand I don't get though because pickaxe is 875 so reducing it to 850 from 860 seems more like an OCD tick than a real needed change.

Rabadon's Deathcap Recipe Change: NLR + Blasting Wand + Amplifying Tome Total Cost: 3300 G --> 3500 G Ability Power UNCHANGED: 120 AP UNIQUE Passive: 30% Ability Power Amp --> 35% Ability Power Amp

Deathcap's change mostly revolves around keeping total final AP of the damage build the same - while being able to nerf the individual AP items to have more comparable numbers to each other. As Deathcap is the keystone I want a lot of AP item - we pushed the power here.

This is where our paths start to diverge. Deathcap was ALREADY a 100% required item, so pushing power here just seems questionable. It's a boring item that does nothing more than "MORE DAMAGE!!1!1" and has no actives, no effects, no synergy. It just means if you have high AP ratios you get tons more damage, and if you don't have high AP ratios you just simply get a lot more damage instead.

Zhonya's Hourglass Total Cost: 3300 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 120 Ability Power --> 100 Ability Power

Ooookayyyy... when I was first reading this I imagined Hourglass getting a hatchet taken to it. Hourglass has been screwing up balance for years now ever since you (Riot) jacked the AP ratio up considerably from 80. It's such a required item that even mages like Xerath get it, mages who will likely never get hit unless caught or their team loses a team fight. An item so required that even if the opposing team is 5 tanks and you'll likely take 5 damage over the entire course of the game you'll still buy it cause why not.

Luden's Echo (Summoner's Rift) Total Cost: 3100 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 120 Ablity Power --> 100 Ability Power Movement Speed: 7% Movement Speed --> 10% Movement Speed

Luden's is a terrifying item in terms of the general poke power it adds - Luden's probably needs a more solid identity that 'raw power' - so we've been pushing the item to be more and more about being mobility focused rather than spam spell focused.

I suspect we'll eventually need to do more to the item but it'd most likely be more of a slow burn.

... ten percent movement speed? Movement speed quantities of that magnitude were removed in season 3 because it just created a haves and have-not situation. Luden's will remain a required item because not only is it's effect terrifying, but have-nots will no longer be able to secure kills against the haves, and the haves will be able to always secure kills against the have-nots. You know, the EXACT problem with S2 Trinity/PD.

Archangel's Staff (Summoner's Rift) Recipe Change: NLR + Tear of the Goddess + 1030 G Total Cost: 2700 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 60 Base AP --> 80 Base AP

Making more items build out of NLR in the hopes of expanding the high-tier AP space. AAA is definitely deserving of being one of the high tier AP slots, given its general growth pattern and the fact that it's attached to a quest in order to achieve maximum AP potential.

Archangel's was already a common-ish buy held down by how OP other AP items were. It commonly gives 150 AP and more if you're a weird case (Kassadin.) The simple fact is that dealing with mana issues and buying Luden's is always better than not dealing with mana issues and buying Archangel's. This won't change that.

Rod of Ages (Summoner's Rift) Total Cost: 2800 G --> 2700 G Health: 450 Base Health --> 300 Base Health Mana: 450 Base Mana --> 400 Base Mana Passive: 20 Mana Growth / 200 Maximum Mana --> 40 Mana Growth / 400 Maximum Mana Passive: 2 Ability Power / 20 Maximum Ability Power --> 4 Ability Power / 40 Maximum Ability Power

Rod is currently leaning a bit too much towards favoring AP Heavies with the statline - while not really solving Mana / AP concerns for mages who want to pick it up. Going to adjust the item to more favor the Mana and Offensive statistics of this item, especially over time.

But why? RoA being built on Maokai is so much a reason to change a 6 year old item that you'll do it? Should every Maokai just be going RG and being a root-spam machine? I legit don't even understand this one. Tons of mages and some tanks were using RoA as a tank-ish item for early game lane control. It was a built item, it was popular. Why change an item that people are already getting? I've NEVER heard anyone complain that RoA was too good at being RoA.

Nashor's Tooth Total Cost: 2920 G --> 3000 G Attack Speed: 50% Attack Speed --> 40% Attack Speed Ability Power: 60 Ability Power --> 80 Ability Power

We're also pushing more items up to compete in the 80 Ability Power range - While Nashor's is a fine purchase for people who already have strong on-hit procs - the ratio of Attack Speed to Spells favored these characters probably a bit too hard.

Nashor's should be acceptable as a niche for certain mages that can use their autoattacks well - but also have decent ratios.

(I'm not being biased here at all. I don't know who you're talking about.)

I'm not even going to comment. I'm just going shake my head. Orianna got her range and attack damage reduced Xypherous, it's never gonna be a thing.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter Recipe Change: NLR + Amplifying Tome + Giant's Belt Total Cost: 2900 G --> 3000 G Passive Single Target: 35% Slow for 1.5 seconds --> 40% Single Target Slow for 1.5 seconds Passive Instant AoE: 15% Slow for 1.5 seconds --> 40% Slow for 1 second Passive DoT / "Zone" Spells: 15% slow for 1.5 seconds --> 20% Slow for 1 second

Note: If a spell is both an AoE and a DoT - they use the DoT value.

Rylai's is currently good in a few scenarios, namely - do you have a spammable single target spell and a train pattern - a large part of this is the fact that the AoE / DoT portions of the slow are so weak in comparison to the single target slow. Changing the tactic here to make those slows have less overall duration rather than penalizing the direct effect.

This is a very powerful push in terms of Rylai's overall power - but we'll be looking at modifying and cleaning up of the slow rules as well either now or in the near future.

(Also added a self-only freeze particle effect so you can watch everyone become ice cubes when you're slowing them. FOR CLARITY.)

Once again an AP item that was already bought that you're massively buffing? Not to mention the reason it only has a 35% slow rather than a 40% one is because ranged champions can buy it and they aren't supposed to have a 40%+ slow (yet increasingly get them lately...) S2 Vlad with Rylai's perma kitting? Rumble with flamespitter perma-kiting/chasing? These aren't fun scenarios, and they lack any counterplay since they don't use skill shots to chain proc the slow. Once you're pushed out of melee that's the end of it, and you'll likely be chased down to death. Much like Frozen Mallet the reason it remains a niche pick is because it literally fucks balance. LITERALLY.

Haunting Guise Total Cost: 1480G --> 1500 G

Wait for it...

OCD.

Liandry's Torment Recipe Change: Haunting Guise + Blasting Wand Total Cost: 2900 G --> 3000 G Ability Power: 50 Base AP --> 80 Base AP

Liandry's Torment is designed to be able to fit as a High Health / Low Resistance shredder (hence the combination of health damage + flat penetration). However, the lower AP on the item frequently meant your kit didn't actually work. Aggressively pushing the power of this build to be able to compete with the more immediate damage type builds - like proc builds.

I actually had to go make some coffee just so I could spit it on my screen after reading this. A bought item that is getting a 30 AP buff.

Will of the Ancients Spell Vamp 20% Spell Vamp --> 0% Spell Vamp New Passive: Your spells and abilities heal you for 15% of the damage dealt, calculated BEFORE your opponent's resistances. 33% effect for AoE Spells.

You need so many things to get a Spell Vamp build to work. You have to be resistant enough to not get bursted. You have to deal a sufficient amount of raw damage in order to heal. You probably need to be ahead to outscale the opponent's resistances. You need a ton of base damage. Therefore - this change is trying to reduce the number of dependencies needed in order to 'turn on.' You won't need Pen to heal from this item on champions. Spell Vamp builds are fairly problematic to control once they get rolling - so they tend to be pretty binary.

The hope here is that there's a lower spell vamp value and less healing generally in exchange for not needing so much to get started.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” Much like Rylais the reason this stopped being a thing (because it got nerfed intentionally) was because it ruins the game. Do you really want to see Vlad with perma-slows and spell vamp that can't MR? Because this is how you get Vlad with perma-slows and spell vamp that you can't MR. This is a straight buff to the item even against squishy targets, and a MASSIVE buff against the champions that are supposed to be beating mages like Mundo. Mundo is already pushed off the meta due to Morello's, and now you're adding more options for de-Mundoing Mundo.

OmNomNomicon Recipe Change: Codex + Idol + Amplifying Tome Total Cost Unchanged

Wanted to increase the number of potential purchase options at the ~1200 G level.

I'm attempting to make Codex + Book or Wisp + Book potentially attractive choices compared to NLR, especially on your first back. You'll get more interim power than the NLR - at the slight cost of strongly telegrahing what you're going to build and locking yourself into a build. It's mostly an experiment to see if players like having this kind of choice between 800 + 400 component vs. ~1200 mid-tier.

It makes the recipe a bit bloated but... yeah.

Speak of the (unnerfed) devil.

Void Staff Total Cost: 2295 G --> 2500 G Ability Power: 70 Ability Power --> 80 Ability Power

Void Staff's raw efficiency is pretty high compared to some of the other items on the list.

While % Penetration will always be a great multiplier for damage for any damage oriented mage - you don't really need it to also be such a great source of Ability Power. This pushes Void Staff's efficiency more in line with some of the other items with comparable multipliers. Also adding a bit of AP to ensure that players end up at roughly the same amount of AP they did pre-patch.

I was actually thinking to myself the other day that Mages lacked late game power. Riiiight before Orianna 1 shot half out team by pressing RW.

The biggest problem here seems to be that you're not taking away enough power to make up for rampantly buffing nearly every build path for mages. Vlad is being played sparingly, and Rumble is a top tier almost broken tier pick right now. What's more is that many mages are building bad paths just to gain access to the OP items, and you're going to let them start building correctly now which will be a straight gain to power. But the REAL bad thing here is the Rylais/WotA/Liandry's changes. Theses changes aren't just numbers changes, these changes will fundamentally alter the tank/mage balance and throw it RIGHT back in to mage favor. I know Riot has a fetish for constantly changing out mages/tanks in top lane, and they're due for a good mage-ing of top lane but this will actually be cancer.

I could (maybe) get behind the other changs but the Rylais/WotA/Liandry's changes are just silly. The question that comes to me is: Why? Lets say this build path becomes viable: What was gained for LoL? What will be GAINED by allowing mages to drain tank while perma slowing while doing %HP damage? Worst case scenario it doesn't work and people don't build it, best case scenario.... it does work and people do build it. What a horror story.

Another problem seems to be that nothing really fun was added. So much time was spent on just increasing the power level of items, and very little time was spent on actually allowing diversity. I see no gunblade buffs, no banner of command buffs, no rageblade buffs, no twin shadows buffs. You know, the items that actually needed it.