Spellbinder design is counter intuitive if you think about it.

xxxMadLionxxx·Dec 26, 2018·1 votes·1,638 views

The item takes forever to stack on your own and is best stacked in team fights.

The problem is each team fight you are actively choosing to do one of two things.

Pop spell binder because you have enough stacks. Or
Use this team fight to stack spell binder.

That means spell binder active is not used in every team fight, but in every second or third fight. Maybe in a 1v1 situation you might pop it because its stacked. Even with Ignious hunter cutting the cooldown to half, you still have to stack it for it to be remotely effective.

The point is, the active is rarely ever ready for a team fight or reliable.

When you think of it like that, does the 4 second active even seem to be worth it? Even when you wait patiently and stack it to 100 for that perfect moment, is 4 seconds enough? Does it ever feel super impactful considering the dedication you took to stack it?

3 Comments

DuskDaUmbreonDec 26, 20181 votes

It's rarely worth getting to 100 stacks unless you get to that easily.

Popping it at 40 or something and consistently is better overall.

Warlord RhinarkDec 26, 20181 votes

Spellbinder is meant to be built on Mages with very low cooldowns on their spells that they can stack on a minion wave.

Things like Cassiopeia Evelynn Karthus etc. etc.

That's not to say it doesn't feel useless most of the time.

Because it kinda does.

Crispy0SnakeDec 26, 20181 votes

{quoted} Spellbinder's is an awkward item because:

1: It gives no mana, but needs mana to stack. 2: You want to use it on a burst combo, but those combos often rely on abilities with high cd's, meaning the active synergises with champions that can't really stack it.

It also leaves you vulnerable to being bursted down, you become a glass cannon that runs out of mana really fast, and because it's such an awkward item it's just through and through garbage.

(Was comparing it to protobelt)

And if you have low cooldowns, you just build archangels+mana items instead