Opinion on AP Itemization Changes

Sorry but wall of text inc. Would love to get some a Riot employee's input on this

The current popular opinion for the AP itemization changes is that they're bad, however I'm not in TOTAL agreement with that. There are some things I disagree with in terms of the AP itemizations which I think will damage the play patterns of some champions making them into less appealing picks overall, additionally I feel these changes will add in an increase in toxicity with regards to mage-jungler interactions.

The changes aim to give mages large mana pools, more CDR options and more overall abilities to play around through the Hextech item line which are all good things. But the issue with removing mana regen from the game is it takes mages with poke play patterns and makes them kinda useless. These mages thrive in long, drawn out fights where they can get a good cadence of casting on their spells to chunk down the enemy team forcing them off objectives and making resulting engages more likely to go in the harassing mage's favor. However removing all the mana regen from the game will cause these mages to be unable to perform this function as effectively since the enemy team can stall out their harass and engage when the mages are oom or when they've recalled to refill their mana resulting in a 4v5 and teams shouting at the mage "WTF where were you there, they dove us and destroyed us the second you were gone!?!"

My other concern with regards to these changes are since mana regen is being removed from everything it means that one of the only sources of mana regen on the map, blue buff, will become a very heated issue. If a jungler forgoes giving it to their AP mid, I can see the mids raging significantly more and being overall more toxic because blue buff will essentially become mana using mage crack.

These changes will also likely give a ton of power to mages with mana sustain mechanisms in their kits like or since they have tools to restore their mana pools preventing them from going oom if they're smart while the competition bottoms out and has to recall creating potential 4v5s.

I can also see these changes shifting the meta from mages with poke (aside from those listed above due to reasons mentioned above) to a meta of burst mages that are based around just unloading a huge AoE ( , then just falling back to wait for CDs which often means they recall if the fight is lost or hide if its won so they can help AA down towers. More consistent damage mages will likely find themselves in a weaker position if they use their spells to try and harass before a full engage since it will burn through most of their mana pool causing them to overall be less able to contribute to the fight as a whole since they'll run oom while trying to chunk through tanks (these kinds of mages include , , , , , , , ).

This is just coming from personal experience stuff that I feel is kinda against the current goals for the itemization. I have found situations where I have been in lane as a mage and somewhat low on mana as I have yet to get my mana sustain items and I would get ganked by the enemy jungler, and my jungler would counter gank but I wouldn't have the mana to full combo causing us to both die. Yes its kinda my fault for running myself dry through excessive harass but when you're laning against a or or who can continually harass without much need to worry about their resources it gets somewhat difficult since u need to return trades to prevent them from zoning you out of CS. I can see these changes to mana items causing these kinds of issues but on a team wide scale and happening throughout the game as opposed to just during the laning phase before a mana sustain item is complete.

My final note is that AP champions are kinda in need of an additional AP+Armor item for help against fed AD champions such as Zed, Talon, Rengar, Jayce, Yi and marksmen as a whole, Zhonya's despite the price decrease is mainly used for the stasis active and less for its armor numbers since the stasis active hikes the price up quiet a bit. The discount on it plus the CDR makes the item somewhat more appealing but it would be nice to have options for dealing with AD champions as a whole. The same goes for MR items now that Athane's is being turned into a support item, leaving us with few options other than to build Abyssal which maybe sub-optimal or go for a tank item which is an issue right now (cough Ekko cough Akali cough).

What I would like to happen is have AP champions given an item that builds out of QSS so AP champions can benefit from this item as we see some AP champions build it to cleanse specific CCs/debuffs despite it offering them only a bit of MR, no offenses and nothing to built it into. As well as AP champions getting an item kinda like Hexdrinker in that it provides them with a strong option for reducing AD threats in lane while providing good trading power. AP champions are also totally lacking in the penetration department compared to the AD counterparts AP magic pen items , , and kinda plus 2 masteries versus AD armor Pen items plus 2 masteries. Overall the AD items offer more beneficial stats, and are more diverse than their AP counterparts which is somewhat unfair especially since AD champions are supposed to be the ones who naturally shred tanks since their damage isn't as gated by ability CDs and mana pools. I get some of the discrepancy is because armor itemization is better than MR itemization but the gap between items shouldn't be this drastic.

Things I like: more CDR options, more utility options through the Hextech line, some general tankiness options through more HP on items.