Hourglass needs to be removed from the game
and replaced with real items. Armguard is a joke compared to hexdrinker, it costs an arm and a leg to finish this item and once fully built it it's a stronger item on assassin than mages.
6 Comments
This post took an interesting turn. Plus 1.
It's still a really good item for countering assassins as a Mage. It's just harder to get now because Riot made it more expensive in the preseason changes.
i disagree i just posted that i would like to see a hourglass for ad here http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/1uBTZetJ-ap-and-ad-items-passive-and-active-that-should-be-for-both
mages need it.
is definitely under-powered at the moment and severely handicaps any mage forced to build into it.
A (simpler) alternative suggestion to your idea would be to make build out of:
and 
; or
and 
(Depending on how you wanted to tune it, I lean towards the latter) Increase the total cost of it a little, and remove the scaling passive from kills.
The passive is biggest problem as it makes it incredibly gold inefficient upfront, when the only reason someone is building it is for survivability. Taking 30 kills to stack up, this requires csing 5 waves or 4 and a raptor camp in best case scenario which is at least 3 further minutes before the item is cost efficient, let alone making an appreciable difference.
You pay a horrendous 465g to combine and for just a measly 10 Armor upfront. This then becomes 25 armor and 15 AP, which is almost identical to buying (+40 Armor) and (+20 AP) for total cost of 1235g, except the latter is all up front - when you need it.
As it stands, on most mages I just buy if struggling against AD, and later get 
. Then I just upgrade to 
from there (which costs 1740g, including selling the extra cloth armor).
An additional idea would be to a new item that builds out of and 
; and it can then have QSS's active and Seeker's (former) passive perhaps tuned with more max stacks, i.e:
50 stacks at: 0.6 AP, and 0.4 Armor and 0.3 MR per stack;
Min stats: 45 AP, 35 Armor and 30 MR;
Max stats: 75 AP, 55 Armor, 45 MR;
Total cost: 2900g.
This for an alternative item for mages to build, akin to 
, which emphasizes the utility early on for tough match-ups without giving you too much strength, and allowing an opponent counter-play in denying you cs to make the item reach legendary tier, but without denying you the utility and upfront survivabilty you need from the components.