@Riot Axes Why I feel AP bruiser items ARE needed and who their intended users are

Dªy·1/26/2016, 1:43:33 PM·2 votes·675 views

>TLDR: What I think are AP Tank/Bruisers: Shen/Maokai/Singed/Alistar/Mundo/Gragas/Mordekaiser/Zac/Amumu/Galio/Malphite/Chogath/Sejuani/Rammus/Nautilus What they need: Something similar to the Abyssal Scepter which was being reworked Possible onhit or auto attack passive/active items that encourage melee range tanks/bruisers

Hi, I am Shén. I play (as you may be able to tell) allot of Shen, a champ who I would consider to be an AP Tank. There are many many ways I like to build Shen when I play him (e.g weird wave clear item picks like Stattick Shiv or ap tank melting with liandries...to the usual standard Sunfire rush/SV and tank build) This is one of the reasons I love to play Shen; aside from the clear cost effectiveness decrease on mana items, I have always loved that you can build almost anything with this one champ.

BUT

My one gripe is that with champions such as Shen, who are in esscence (or atleast to me) AP tank/bruisers, there has never been any clear itemization to specifically benefit being in this subset. None without being considered a gimmick/novelty item choice (dont get me wrong, building into wits end and Botrk is fun as hell but it does very little to support any competitive play).

This brings me to a post that made me wonder about the identity of Champions like Shen, a post made recently by Riot Axes in which he discussed the ambiguity of this subset:

> [{quoted}](name=Riot Axes,realm=NA,application-id=A7LBtoKc,discussion-id=fWOVQoin,comment-id=000b0000,timestamp=2016-01-26T05:05:17.567+0000)

> The big question for me on "AP Bruiser" is that it's not clear that we're talking about any real class of champions. Names I hear include stuff like Mordekaiser (hybrid stats Juggernaut), Rumble (AP damage dealer who buys minimal tank stats), and Maokai/Singed (more or less straight up tanks). I could imagine doing an AP Bruiser item if it's clear that it's supporting a decent set of champions who share an itemization need, but most of the ideas in that space that I've heard pitched end up being an item for just one or two champions since these champs don't really share many properties other than "fighter-ish and scales off AP". >

Now if any of you remember the item changes back on the PBE a while back relating to Abyssal Scepter Back in patch 5.13 on PBE riot included these changes to the Abyssal Scepter:

> Abyssal Scepter [Currently disabled as of the 5/13 update] Abyssal Scepter has been reworked in today's update.] Total Cost: 2500 gold Recipe: Amp Tome + Ruby Crystal + Negatron Cloak + 815g New stats & effects: +30 Ability Power +250 Health +60 Magic Resist
** UNIQUE Passive**:Every 4 seconds emanates a pulse dealing 80 (+5 per champion level) magic damage to nearby enemy champions and reduces their Magic Resist by 15% for 10 seconds (stacks up to 3 times, up to 45%)

This was a change riot made to specifically combat the use of what should essentially be an item that should benefit tanks but was mostly being used to help burst squishies; much like how the old black cleaver did. I think that keeping the reworked black cleaver in mind would really help give some greater ideas into what direction to take this in.

I know that the AP carries will be getting some better itemization this year. In fact I actually feel that abyssal in its current form is not toxic and actually benefits ap melee carries like Katarina. But looking at what ideas Riot had for a rework I still feel confident that there is room for a new item or set of items that will help AP tanks/bruisers identities and provide better item variety.

I would really love to hear from you guys as to what you would classify as AP tanks/bruisers.

I would definitely describe these champions as AP tank/bruisers: