Time for some new Magic Res items

UrbanStew·Oct 31, 2014·3 votes·1,990 views

1st) Note that all of this is in my own thoughts

I think that its about time that we either got new magic res items or to make the ones in the game better. Allow me to explain why mages in this game in general can CRUSH any TANK (or so there called in this game) or tanky type build. As i like to main tanks or tanky supp I cant help but feel that when it comes to phy dmg dealers I can tank their hits just fine, or i can defend my lane partner just as easy. However when their is a mage or mage supp in my lane or the other lanes partner is one i cant do my job AT ALL. I've went online and looked at the BEST possible tank builds in the game(runes masteries and items) and it just seems to do &#^# in the game to reduce or even help me or my team in fights or lane phase mid or late game. When you have all the best gear runes, etc and your rockin 200+ armor and magic res 2500+ hp plus shields and buffs and your maxed out build wise, then you opponent comes with 200-500+ magic dmg with pent runes and items!! Its like okay here two of my skills and your dead thx for playing (LOLOLOLOLO). I've been playing this game for YEARS and I cant ever seem to recall when a mage could 2 shot a FULL spec tank champ in this game(time for a change?)I think that the magic res dept could use some serious tweaks or just some new items in general I have some ideas for some new ones.One main new item id like to see is something like thornmail but for magic dmg instead of phy. Or perhaps some type of item(s) that slow or even raise their cooldown when you strike them with a spell, AOE or otherwise(less for AOE more for single). Another good one would be that if they hit you with a q, w, or e that it blocks that skill for 0.5 or 1 sec. These are just a few, okay guys I've my rant loved to hear what you guys have to say or help/feedback be great. Please keep in mind these are all just ideas and thoughts thank you for your time and have a good one.

36 Comments

Sailor MintOct 31, 20144 votes

You can dodge most magic damage. You can't avoid auto-attacks.

If you're dying too fast, you're probably taking damage from too many people.

Drunk RummateOct 31, 20142 votes

You can dodge most magic damage. You can't avoid auto-attacks.

Ryze take this scroll and stick it somewhere.... safe

Vladimir hi, i click on people

Leona my passive is pretty good

Maokai my sapling has more movespeed than a janna with a sivir ultimate

Akali hi, i click on people

FeatherztormOct 31, 20144 votes

Ahri Hi, dodge all this. Annie As long as you dodge my ulti, or stay out of range, you can kite me easily. Azir Boy do I suck. Cassiopeia Poison spots on the ground? Where? Chogath ... Diana Dodge my Q, gg. Elise Only way I win fights is if I land a cocoon and rappel onto you! Evelynn Chets ulti Fizz "Shark!" Lux Because all my abilities are "Click to win!" and the list continues. Devi pointed out that MOST ap dmg is dodge-able. Not all.

Drunk RummateOct 31, 20141 votes

it's funny because you say most ap damage is dodgeable when it clearly isnt. some ap damage is dodgeable, but even in your list that you made to counter my argument there's tons of undodgeable ap damage.

ahri ult and w

annie's q has 625 range (more than almost all auto attackers) and if she stuns with it her whole combo is essentially guaranteed damage

azir's viability isn't really part of this discussion so not sure why you would bring him up, especially since it's fairly guaranteed to land a Q+auto with a soldier if your opponent is in range

cass E is guaranteed damage.

chogath ult is just a click skill

diana rew combo is guaranteed damage even if you miss the q

elise spiders are tracking, her human form and spider form Q both do tons of damage (%max hp) and they're click skills aided by rapel to gapclose, which is another click skill

evelynn is all skillshots but she has low cooldowns and high movement speed in her kit to make missing anything but her ult very difficult

fizz q is targeted, w is an auto attack buff with magic damage on it that procs on q

lux is all skillshots so i'll give you that

JustMyBassCannonOct 31, 20143 votes

annie's q has 625 range (more than almost all auto attackers) and if she stuns with it her whole combo is essentially guaranteed damage

Fun fact: spell ranges are calculated at the center of the hitbox, while basic attack ranges are calculated at the edge. This means ~100 range difference between attacks and spells.

chogath ult is just a click skill

It's also melee range on a slow, no-gap-closer behemoth.

elise spiders are tracking, her human form and spider form Q both do tons of damage (%max hp) and they're click skills aided by rapel to gapclose, which is another click skill

Tracking != guaranteed damage (see also, Maokai), Spider form Q is a nearly-melee gap closer, and Rappel deals no damage.

evelynn is all skillshots but she has low cooldowns and high movement speed in her kit to make missing anything but her ult very difficult

"It's all avoidable, but she has low cooldowns." Still avoidable. You can say the same bullshit about Orianna.

FeatherztormOct 31, 20141 votes

Do you not understand what dodging is? If it's a skillshot, you can dodge it. All the champs I've listed have at least 2 skill shots that you can dodge, and those skill shots are the base of their damage. Again, most AP damage is dodge-able.

All the counterarguments you added about the champs, you forget that, when they go in with those "non-skill shot" abilities, they are sacrificing their lives more than they would if they hit their skillshots. If Diana goes in full hp vs a full hp opponent, without first landing her Q, she's a sitting duck unless the enemy just does no dmg. Her pull has a long cool down, and her shield will explode upon landing with your ulti (Any good diana goes in with shield procced). If Ahri goes in without first landing her charm, she's done for, since her Q is just as easy to dodge.

3 outta 4 of cass's spells are skillshots, yet you still tried to argue it? I said DAMAGE not champs. Numbnuts.

EndlessSorcererOct 31, 20141 votes

Notice how he said most. That's the important word in that sentence.

Skia AsteriOct 31, 20142 votes

MR items are intentionally left bad because it causes burst AP champions far more than armour hurts burst AD champions. Once their abilities are on cool down they are useless until they come back, so they have to be able to do enough damage on the front end to be useful. Otherwise they are just a crappy support if even that.

Burst AD champions can just auto attack and continue doing damage.

cshakesOct 31, 20142 votes

I think a better alternative might be nerfing Void Staff a bit. Currently, it's 35% pen. I wonder what it'd be like if it were only 25% or 30% or even, say, "35% of Bonus MR" so it's an anti-tank item specifically and won't help mages delete squishies like they want to.

JustMyBassCannonOct 31, 20142 votes

Riot has already said they are not changing % penetration items to % bonus penetration, because the numbers required for it to be worthwhile would be stupid overpowered. On top of that, and this is my own opinion, flat pen causes more problems than % pen. It counters not-counter-building; it punishes the player that doesn't (or can't afford to) buy resistance. When they made the change where Flat Pen applies after % Pen, it became very powerful. Unless someone builds >130 MR, the 30 Flat Pen you gain from Sorcs and Liandry's are worth effectively another 35% MPen (multiplicative scaling, meaning that their total MPen is 57.75%)

Void Staff, as it is, doesn't really punish players who haven't build much MR nearly as badly.

DrogmyreOct 31, 20142 votes

Flat pen is broken as hell, i 100% agree.

Why is MR itemization such a problem? It COULDN'T be the +15 pen boots and the 10+pen from runes and masteries, noooo, that can't be right.

Flat Pen basically says 'fuck your first MR item, don't care what it is.'

Sun Tzu X2Nov 1, 20141 votes

Flat pen is broken as hell, i 100% agree.

Why is MR itemization such a problem? It COULDN'T be the +15 pen boots and the 10+pen from runes and masteries, noooo, that can't be right.

Flat Pen basically says 'fuck your first MR item, don't care what it is.'

I know I played an Aram recently as Darius. I had 350 MR and Syndra killed me instantly. Like sweet.

DrogmyreNov 1, 20141 votes

ARAM fucking SUCKS for tanks, it's almost unplayable. I hate getting a tank I enjoy playing in ARAM and then just getting shit on because MR and Armor don't mean jack shit and are expensive as hell on that map.

Sailor MintOct 31, 20141 votes

Unlike Brutalizer, Haunting Guise doesn't build into anything worthwhile for all but a select few casters and none of them are assassins. You need very high base damage at lower ranks or bad scaling for it to be worth building over AP.

JustMyBassCannonNov 2, 20141 votes

Flat Penetration is worth more than AP if your target has less than 70 MR, unless you have AP ratios around 80% apiece. Assuming you have Sorcerer's Shoes, someone would need to have 90 MR before any reductions, in order for the 15 from Haunting Guise to not increase your magic damage more than the same amount of AP.

Basically, if you're able to achieve an effective >30% penetration with flat pen, it's worth more than AP on the majority of spells. Between runes and items (yes, this is calculating a page filled with as many MPen runes as possible, which is not an efficient idea), the highest total flat MPen possible is 15 + 15 + 19.5 = 49.5; that flat pen is worth more than 50 AP until your target has approximately 140 MR before accounting for Void Staff.

Now I'm actually considering a full MPen page for Brand, just because of how well he scales on MPen...Non-scaling %HP damage? Sure, I'll buff that!

Sailor MintNov 2, 20142 votes

When you build your Haunting guise, you're around level 7-9, with 2 abilities at rank 1-2. By the time you hit level 14, everyone should have some MR.

Base (30) + Locket (+20) + Flat MR (+12) blues is 62MR.
Mid laners build Athene's (+25), Supports build Mikael's (40).
Everyone else builds Banshee's (+55), possibly on top of Athene's for some mid laners.

Is 1485g for Haunting Guise (15MPen) better than spending 1600g for a Large Rod (55 more AP) that can be build into a big item? Short term, probably. Long term, only on certain champions. If your AP ratios are bad and/or you can make use of Liandry's then sure, it's a good buy. For everyone else, stacking AP is strictly better.

I also believe you're making a mistake by comparing AP and MPen 1:1.

You're paying 20g per AP from Needlessly Large Rod.
Using a 20g per AP price tag, you're paying ~30g per point of MPen from Haunting Guise.

It'd be more accurate to compare 1.5AP vs 1 MPen.

JustMyBassCannonNov 2, 20141 votes

Well, in the first place, gold efficiency is calculated on the base building block, rather than the most efficient (I know, it's freaking moon logic, but that's how people calculate it >.>). So, actually, AP's efficiency based on tome is 21.75 per point. Using that, and using Ruby Crystal for 2.667 gold per point of HP, the Flat MPen from Guise is worth ~27.2 gold per point, making the approximate ratio 1 : 1.25 from Mpen to AP.

And second, you're right. It's significantly more important if your AP ratios are bad. As I mentioned in a roundabout way, 15 MPen needs to ignore more than 20% of their total MR to be worth more 1:1 vs AP if you have ratios in the 80% range. The lower your AP ratio, the better it gets.

But, even with your figures, there were a few targets who did not have enough MR to make the flat pen from Guise+Sorcs weaker than buying AP. Bottom line, either the MPen is significantly stronger than AP, or it's just barely weaker and significantly less cost-efficient.

Lord DusteonOct 31, 20142 votes

AP normally does damage in bursts, which means if you survive their combo they can't do much except maybe a couple Q's as they try and run away. AD's tend to have more sustained damage (bruisers and adcs, though assassins (obviously!) are mostly burst), making armor a way to keep yourself alive longer from sustained, and magic resist a way to survive longer against burst.

Skia AsteriOct 31, 20141 votes

though assassins (obviously!) are mostly burst)

Until they build Blade of the Ruined King... which is very common on Zed.

clyphenOct 31, 20142 votes

I agree that Summoners Rift needs new magic resist items. With so many armor items such as sunfire, randuins, thornmail being the main ones, it can be hard to counterbuild a heavy ap team. I'm already aware of Banshees and spirit, but then what? When you're building tanky you generally don't go for an Athene's Holy Grail for MR, you want health packed in. Bring back Force of Nature?

Skia AsteriOct 31, 20141 votes

I agree that Summoners Rift needs new magic resist items. With so many armor items such as sunfire, randuins, thornmail being the main ones, it can be hard to counterbuild a heavy ap team. I'm already aware of Banshees and spirit, but then what? When you're building tanky you generally don't go for an Athene's Holy Grail for MR, you want health packed in. Bring back Force of Nature?

Iron Locket of the Solari.

And this should give you some idea about how to deal with AP heavy teams: http://www.lolking.net/replay/na/1608783309

Except in the case of a select few AP champions, Void Scepter does nothing once someone has at least three major (40+) MR items. The exceptions are those that are intended to scale great into late game (Cass, Vlad, Ryze, Fiddlesticks).

XengreNov 1, 20142 votes

Mage's can't "crush" any tank in the game and arguably not simply anyone that isn't super behind compared to said mage.

Magic resistance helps, but effective health is what really matters. In general raw health is very powerful against magic and even stronger with magic resistance for a total effective magic health. This is because most aps, almost all, are burst and those that are not burst are not as much an issue generally for obvious reasons (aka can't chunk huge amounts of health instantly). Often getting a medium amount of Mres and a lot of health is strong vs mages and also helps with physica/true damage. BV and Spirit both give decent HP as does Locket. Warmogs, if the mdmg issue is really bad on the enemy team grab Warmogs combined with another Mres item can add significant survivability vs mdmg.

GA, Zhongya, and CC are very powerful for stopping burst windows for a period of time or even completely bypassing the most dangerous part of a mage's rotation. Heal and shields help as well. The biggest issue would be lower CD or more sustained mages but often simply raw HP and Mres act as effective counters for them.

I think the main issue is a few select mages get access to too much dmg early on before you can itemize against it and even if you do they keep climbing so heavily while you can't ever buy anything offensive just to barely get by and still not have enough (example: Rumble in some match ups makes it almost impossible to get enough mres/health while being able to take any offensive action whatsoever against him even if he started out fairly behind early, while in other match ups Rumble gets wrecked by a simple Cowl and some HP).

xDingwithsaladOct 31, 20141 votes

holy wall of text batman

ValyrianBladeOct 31, 20141 votes

Honestly, I'm all for a thornmail type passive on an mr item.

Otherwise though, you can build mr with ap, ad, armor, several actives, (combined in one item, mr with any 1 in list) it's fairly versatile already.

JustMyBassCannonOct 31, 20143 votes

Honestly, I'm all for a thornmail type passive on an mr item.

I have said it a few hundred times; the idea of a magic Thornmail is not and will never be balanced. The concept causes too many systemic issues, and the differences between AD and AP are also important to consider. Refer to my 5 reasons why Magic Thornmail is no.

First and foremost, coding issues. Item damage tends to be coded the same as spell damage when it isn't attached to basic attacks. Long story short, what this means is that there's a very high chance that the code could bug out, and two Magic Thornmails could reflect each others' damages. So, if you had two mages pick up Magic Thornmail, and one casts one spell, the damage reflection would go back and forth a number of times depending on how high the damage return was. If they threw their whole rotation, it could crash the game with the feedback loop. They would have to specifically focus on making sure the code could never hold a feedback loop like this. Plus, thanks to spell damage and magic damage not having the same meaning. AD champions would be taking spell reflection damage as well.

AD is not similar to AP, ergo Armor is not similar to MR. With AD, your damage tends to scale over time, whereas AP damage tends to come in bursts that take about a full second to rotate. While an AP champion is capable of 2000-3000 damage in a single second, an AD champion can match that damage during the AP champ's rotation cooldown (usually about 5-8 seconds downtime). Thus, when you buy Armor, you're trying to extend your lifespan by a number of seconds. When you buy MR, you're trying to survive the rotation so you can retaliate.

AD has a lot more control over their damage output than AP. AD champions don't have auto attacks that apply in a large area of effect. AD champions don't have uncontrollable bounce attacks that apply on-hit effects. AD champions don't have skill shot type basic attacks that can be body-blocked by someone else.

AP champions don't have a sustain mechanic quite like AD champions. With AD, you have Lifesteal, which is consistently sustaining you through combat. Now, your first reaction might be to point out Spell Vamp, but the problem with Spell Vamp is that it's a lot less plentiful and much less useful to most mages. Lifesteal is commonplace, Spell Vamp is not (and everyone hated it when it was).

What is your solution when someone picks up Thornmail and "Magic Thornmail"?

ValyrianBladeOct 31, 20141 votes

It doesn't need to be the same as thornmail for ap, just simply make an item that can be an obvious go to if the enemy team is ap heavy or their ap champions are getting really fed. Right now, the best options for that are banshees veil or spirit visage I think? Except banshees veil functions better as protection from poke spells like nidalee Spears or blitz grabs and doesn't do that much against some other abilities, and spirit visage has this healing passive that's really wasted on any champion without a self-healing mechanic.

It would just be nice to have an item that offers a lot of MR and does something to specifically protect you from ap in general - if the only purpose of mr was to survive the burst then GA would be the best option hands down.

The sustain point is "meh". You can build spell vamp if you want, most ap champions don't because they intend to just blow someone up 100-0 then leave the fight. The thing with similar total damage to ad but ap gets it all at once is that you don't have to stick around to take damage once you're done applying it. So sustain really isn't needed outside of trading in Lane for ap champions.

If someone buys both this item and thornmail, you ignore them until the rest of the team is dead. Or we could introduce a true damage item (which tanks would counter by stacking health).

It just seems unfair that if you see an all ad team or if the adc is getting madly fed it's just obvious to buy thornmail, but there's no similar go to for magic damage.

And since I'm saying the item could have a different passive I'll suggest one: Item 80 magic resist unique passive: after being hit by a spell, applies a debuff to the casting champion, the next spell cast by the casting champion will have no effect/reduced effect. This cannot activate against the same champion more than once every x (20?) Seconds.

Alternatively: Unique passive: Upon being hit by a spell, debuffs the casting champion, lowering their ap by x% (30?) For x seconds or until their next spell cast.

The only problem I see here is the debuff not being applied until all spells are already cast out due to travel time, but with some work I could see an item like this being realistic.

JustMyBassCannonOct 31, 20142 votes

It doesn't need to be the same as thornmail for ap, just simply make an item that can be an obvious go to if the enemy team is ap heavy or their ap champions are getting really fed. Right now, the best options for that are banshees veil or spirit visage I think? Except banshees veil functions better as protection from poke spells like nidalee Spears or blitz grabs and doesn't do that much against some other abilities, and spirit visage has this healing passive that's really wasted on any champion without a self-healing mechanic.

Interestingly enough, Spirit Visage is over 110% efficient without that healing passive. And it affects all self-healing and regen, meaning any self-sustaining items period.

It would just be nice to have an item that offers a lot of MR and does something to specifically protect you from ap in general - if the only purpose of mr was to survive the burst then GA would be the best option hands down.

The core purpose of MR is to survive burst, because burst is how the vast majority of AP works. There are a few AP DPS champions, and they deal lower DPS than AD champions due to the fact that AP has 3 damage scalars while AD has 4.

The sustain point is "meh". You can build spell vamp if you want, most ap champions don't because they intend to just blow someone up 100-0 then leave the fight. The thing with similar total damage to ad but ap gets it all at once is that you don't have to stick around to take damage once you're done applying it. So sustain really isn't needed outside of trading in Lane for ap champions.

No, I did not say AP has similar total damage to AD.

The difference between them is that AP gets to instantly deal its damage. AD has to take time. There is maybe one AD burst champion who does not deal solid DPS while their spells are on rotation, and Talon needs a rework now that his silence-centric kit has no silence.

If someone buys both this item and thornmail, you ignore them until the rest of the team is dead. Or we could introduce a true damage item (which tanks would counter by stacking health).

You don't seem to understand the problem. Let me rephrase.

Jax buys Thornmail and Magic Thornmail. You are now forced to ignore one of the highest-ramping DPS bruisers in the game as he stands in the middle of your team, beating everyone senseless, because any damage you would deal to him is returned in spades.

Katarina buys Thornmail and Magic Thornmail. She can now jump in the middle of your team without giving a damn, because focusing on her is going to drain your team's resources while her team rolls you, and ignoring her will let her deal her ultimate freely.

**When the counter-play is "ignore them" and it can be put on any champion, there is a massive problem. **

It just seems unfair that if you see an all ad team or if the adc is getting madly fed it's just obvious to buy thornmail, but there's no similar go to for magic damage.

And since I'm saying the item could have a different passive I'll suggest one: Item 80 magic resist unique passive: after being hit by a spell, applies a debuff to the casting champion, the next spell cast by the casting champion will have no effect/reduced effect. This cannot activate against the same champion more than once every x (20?) Seconds.

Alternatively: Unique passive: Upon being hit by a spell, debuffs the casting champion, lowering their ap by x% (30?) For x seconds or until their next spell cast.

The only problem I see here is the debuff not being applied until all spells are already cast out due to travel time, but with some work I could see an item like this being realistic.

The difference is that, while AD has full control over their target and has far more damage scaling potential, AP has to deal with AoE, skill shots and uncontrollable elements. Oh look, Fiddlesticks' Dark Wind accidentally tagged the guy with Anti-Magic Bullshit Barrier Bonanza, now his ultimate is dealing significantly less damage to the entire team because reasons.

ValyrianBladeOct 31, 20141 votes

Spirit visage being gold efficient despite the passive shows the problem that there isn't an MR-centric item, there isn't a good base to value the stat on. Saying it's efficient because magic resist is being valued based on a 720g cloak doesn't mean much (perhaps efficiency for MR is wrong).

You ignore my point that if all you care about is surviving the burst, you'd buy GA and survive it guaranteed. The thing is many burst champions can come back in after a 10 seconds cooldown and replicate their burst minus the ultimate. AP has sustained damage, just not in the same way adcs do.

You also ignore my point regarding spell vamp.

With respect to jax or kat owning both items, or anyone else, it's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. They need to make a choice to use 2 item slots on those two items. To say that the existence of thornmail makes it impossible to introduce an ap equivalent would mean thornmail shouldn't exist as an item at all. To say adcs should suffer from thornmail but apcs shouldn't because if someone bought both There'd be no good response, is unfair. Why not have the magic one and not the ad one then? It's not a valid argument, there should be both or neither. If having both causes problems, then give the passives the same name and make them unique so even though they have different effects they can't both work at the same time (or otherwise prevent a player using both).

It completely isn't true that ad has full control over their target. Often an adc who is positioned well has 2 options, attack the tank or no one at all. Also, you act like AOE is a bad thing - it's definitely a huge advantage for apcs. If my passive ideas don't work because of it, fine, make it less powerful and like a randuins omen or frozen heart, lower the stat if they're within range of the item.

I'm simply saying there is no go to item for defense against a fed ap or an ap heavy team, and there should be one - as thornmail is for ad. To argue this point would only point out that you play ap and not ad (and as someone who mains ahri as much as caitlyn/tristana, I'm trying to be unbiased as possible). How powerful this item should be, or whether you think it already exists, are good arguments (which you're making by the way, this discussion is productive! !) but I think this is a void in item options right now.

JustMyBassCannonNov 1, 20141 votes

Spirit visage being gold efficient despite the passive shows the problem that there isn't an MR-centric item, there isn't a good base to value the stat on. Saying it's efficient because magic resist is being valued based on a 720g cloak doesn't mean much (perhaps efficiency for MR is wrong).

You seem to believe that there is a problem with MR, because there isn't an item that exists explicitly for the MR and nothing else. Am I wrong in this assumption?

Interestingly enough, MR is one of the most versatile stats, being combined with nearly every other important stat, as well as the 4th most abundant. Why is the fact that there isn't specifically an item with MR and almost nothing else (except in ARAM) a problem when you can slip MR itemization into literally any champion's build?

You ignore my point that if all you care about is surviving the burst, you'd buy GA and survive it guaranteed. The thing is many burst champions can come back in after a 10 seconds cooldown and replicate their burst minus the ultimate. AP has sustained damage, just not in the same way adcs do.

You ignore the fact that *the reason I said that the core point of MR is to survive a burst rotation is due to the fact that AP functions on a burst rotation instead of on basic attack DPS output. They are functionally different, therefore functionally different defense mechanisms.

You don't build AD for burst damage unless you're Talon, and you don't build AP for DPS unless you're Teemo or AP Varus (and even then, you get a lot more out of Blind Dart/Shroom/Blight stacks). Likewise, you build Armor for the sake of increasing your lifespan by a number of seconds under direct fire, while you build MR to survive an increased number of burst rotations.

CORE. POINT.

You also ignore my point regarding spell vamp.

What, the point that no one buys it because they expect to 100-0 someone and walk away?

The point that works against having a magic Thornmail?

Most mages don't need Spell Vamp because they don't tend to take damage before/during their rotation. The few that want it already have HP sustain to stack with it.

To say that the existence of thornmail makes it impossible to introduce an ap equivalent would mean thornmail shouldn't exist as an item at all. To say adcs should suffer from thornmail but apcs shouldn't because if someone bought both There'd be no good response, is unfair. Why not have the magic one and not the ad one then? It's not a valid argument, there should be both or neither. If having both causes problems, then give the passives the same name and make them unique so even though they have different effects they can't both work at the same time (or otherwise prevent a player using both).

It's not a valid argument because one entirely, functionally different type of damage output has a defensive counter that the other does not?

I'm sorry, are we arguing in Bizarro World?!?

I mean, ffs, nobody has ever even tried arguing that coding a Magic Thornmail would be a systemic pain in the ass, but you're actually going to tell me that it's not fair that two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COMBAT STYLES do not have the exact same counter-measure available? Why aren't you complaining that there is no Armor Banshee's Veil that negates one basic attack every 40 seconds? Why aren't you worried about the lack of an Armor Maw of Malmortius? Oh, right, because AD and AP are functionally different, requiring different counter-measures.

For you to say that, if a mirror would be overpowered, the original item must be as well, you would need to have an extremely narrow view of balance. On the level of "Why don't we have AP Infinity Edge? Why don't we have AD Rabadon's?"

[continued because lack of space]

JustMyBassCannonNov 1, 20141 votes

It completely isn't true that ad has full control over their target. Often an adc who is positioned well has 2 options, attack the tank or no one at all.

Are you even reading what you're typing at this point?

An ADC who is positioned well will have whatever option they want. An ADC hiding behind the rest of their team will only have the option of the combat initiators, but behind the rest of the team isn't necessarily the best position. Especially if you're playing anyone who has any idea of the concept of mobility.

Also, you act like AOE is a bad thing - it's definitely a huge advantage for apcs.

No, I'm not acting like AoE is bad. I'm saying AoE is the reason you can't have a Thornmail-esque on-being-hit-by-a-spell effect item any better than Banshee's Veil.

But please, continue to take my words out of context. I've already ranted anyway.

If my passive ideas don't work because of it, fine, make it less powerful and like a randuins omen or frozen heart, lower the stat if they're within range of the item.

Problem; the aura would have to consider the fact that champions have spells ranging from 100 to 25000 (i.e. Global).

Either the aura range would be too short to matter against the majority of APCs, or it would have too large a radius to allow it to have any significant effect against mages without being a giant middle finger to them (and this is before considering the damage it would do to supports who aren't building much AP).

I'm simply saying there is no go to item for defense against a fed ap or an ap heavy team, and there should be one - as thornmail is for ad.

My counter to this point is that Thornmail (a) does not counter-play AD-based teams, because they tend to have a lot of AD-based spells, and (b) really exists as a counter to Lifesteal rather than to AD champions. If you want to survive an AD-based team, Randuin's Omen is significantly better for your lifespan. Even Frozen Heart will do more for you than Thornmail.

On top of that, instead of having a specialized "Screw mages" item, you have a choice regardless of what champion you play. There's MR with AD, MR with AS, MR with AP, MR with CDR, MR with HP, MR with Armor, MR with Regen, the only important stat combination that doesn't exist currently is MR with Mana, because of Ryze, Blitzcrank and Singed.

To argue this point would only point out that you play ap and not ad (and as someone who mains ahri as much as caitlyn/tristana, I'm trying to be unbiased as possible). How powerful this item should be, or whether you think it already exists, are good arguments (which you're making by the way, this discussion is productive! !) but I think this is a void in item options right now.

Why, yes, I do main mages, and thank you so much for noticing. In fact, I play the one mage with the least control over his AoE damage, Brand.

That said, I also main Draven and Shyvana, so I'd say I'm pretty well-rounded in my bias.

As far as an MR-and-only-MR item, it doesn't need to exist. We used to have an item that was mostly MR (and HP regen) called Force of Nature. The thing was not even cost-efficient, but it was overpowered, and it made it pretty much impossible for a mage to kill you unless they had a ton of MPen and %HP damage combined.

ValyrianBladeNov 3, 20141 votes

Uugh...

I should have stated that both teams are well positioned. If an adc is positioned to be able to auto any target, then any target can threaten them and hence they aren't very well positioned. There's a reason you have a front line and a back line.

I should also have been using the term "auto attack reliant" instead of "ad" although I thought the argument being about thornmail made this obvious...

My problem isn't that there isn't an exclusive mr item, but that there isn't either that or an mr heavy item that has an active/passive that somehow inhibits caster's in the same way thornmail inhibits auto attackers.

With respect to the suggested passive, I was thinking of having a small range to make it something only tanks could effectively use, I.e. They have to get within melee range to disrupt the caster. The onus is on the user of the item to get close enough to create the effect.

Thornmail is considerably cheaper than randuins for good reason - of course randuins is better for survivability. Thornmail is simply there to annoy auto attack reliant champions.

My point on spell vamp is that an apc doesn't need sustain like an adc does. This is inherently unfair, in that an apc that wins a fight typically does so with high health whereas an adc who wins a fight typically needs to base afterwards or risk an easy gank. If there were better anti-casting defensive options, perhaps spell vamp would become more important. Riot also has shown they feel the 100-0 in one combo is not healthy for the game, and while this focuses on specific champions I'm arguing that perhaps the problem is the lack of itemization against caster's apart from building items that have a little mr as part of their stats.

It is reasonable to say one shouldn't exist without the other. I'm not arguing it should be identical, only that there should be an item that says to apcs "Hey avoid this person" like thornmail does to adcs. If there's something that makes someone almost impossible for an adc to kill, there should be the same for an apc. If it's not fair to make someone safe against an apc, why is it fair to make someone safe against an adc?

You mention that force of nature was OP. That sort of just proves my point, the item should have been kept and just made more expensive or give less stats. The person who buys it would be the adcs or hybrids job to handle. Right now, mages get free range of being able to handle pretty much any target.

I'll also point out you never said to survive MORE burst rotations, only to survive the burst (I.e. One). As soon as you get in to surviving rotations, you're building mr for the same reason you build armour, which is to add seconds to your survival. I made this point specifically because a core part of your argument was the difference of resistances and by changing your wording here You've completely shown the original argument that you made was wrong - you don't build mr just to survive one burst but to survive longer in a fight.

I'm not asking for an efficient item, I'm asking for an item that would be bought in those 2% of games where the enemy team has a lot of caster's and two of them are really fed while a couple people on your team are doing well too and want a chance to win. Right now, it seems a fed caster can carry much more easily than a fed auto attacker (i've played adc longer than mid and find it much easier to carry as mid at least - tanks itemize against ad so well and you need someone to peel them off, while a fed mage just blows up whoever they please, back out, then repeat after 10 seconds).

JustMyBassCannonNov 3, 20141 votes

My problem isn't that there isn't an exclusive mr item, but that there isn't either that or an mr heavy item that has an active/passive that somehow inhibits caster's in the same way thornmail inhibits auto attackers.

My point is that there isn't going to be an item that inhibits attackers in the same way that it inhibits spellcasters, because spellcasters don't attack in the same way as auto attackers.

There are two, maybe three mages in all of League capable of throwing spells as frequently as an auto attack based champion can attack. Every other mage works on a rotation. That rotation takes significantly less time to pull off, and significantly more time to come back off cooldown, than basic attacks. Mages, regardless of their design, deal significantly lower DPS than attackers.

Thornmail is considerably cheaper than randuins for good reason - of course randuins is better for survivability. Thornmail is simply there to annoy auto attack reliant champions.

Thornmail actually exists as a counter to Lifesteal, more than anything else. Not many auto attack champs are actually bothered by Thornmail; they either know they can out-duel them anyway, or they just switch targets because they sit on infinite damage potential that scales on how long they fight, rather than having a cooldown of 4-12 seconds per basic attack.

My point on spell vamp is that an apc doesn't need sustain like an adc does. This is inherently unfair, in that an apc that wins a fight typically does so with high health whereas an adc who wins a fight typically needs to base afterwards or risk an easy gank. If there were better anti-casting defensive options, perhaps spell vamp would become more important. Riot also has shown they feel the 100-0 in one combo is not healthy for the game, and while this focuses on specific champions I'm arguing that perhaps the problem is the lack of itemization against caster's apart from building items that have a little mr as part of their stats.

I haven't seen a mage 100-0 someone since Season 2, because, between the availability of MR and the hundreds of nerfs mages have taken to their burst, it takes a significant advantage to actually pull that off. And at that point, you should also be complaining about a marksman killing you in 3 attacks with IE+PD when you have a Doran's Shield.

You mention that force of nature was OP. That sort of just proves my point, the item should have been kept and just made more expensive or give less stats. The person who buys it would be the adcs or hybrids job to handle. Right now, mages get free range of being able to handle pretty much any target.

Force of Nature was already too expensive. Even accounting for the HP regen from the passive, it wasn't 100% efficient if you didn't buy HP items. Giving it fewer stats and/or increasing the cost would only eventually reach the point where it's not worth buying. See also Atma's Impaler, for a similar, poorly-designed item.

I'll also point out you never said to survive MORE burst rotations, only to survive the burst (I.e. One). As soon as you get in to surviving rotations, you're building mr for the same reason you build armour, which is to add seconds to your survival. I made this point specifically because a core part of your argument was the difference of resistances and by changing your wording here You've completely shown the original argument that you made was wrong - you don't build mr just to survive one burst but to survive longer in a fight.

You're right, I didn't actually say "survive multiple burst rotations" until recently. I implied wanting to survive one. That's because it's pretty common to hear complaining about getting 100-0 by a mage. But it's natural to think that you want to survive more than one, because chances are, there's more than one mage on the enemy team. They might not all be AP carries in mid lane, but the support tends to be AP-based.

You still survive based on a number of rotations, rather than an amount of time under 100% guaranteed DPS.

ValyrianBladeNov 3, 20141 votes

Okay, it seems we just look at things differently.

Can we ignore all of these arguments and focus on one question:

Would this item be OP at all prices under 4000? item with 70 or 80 mr and a passive which either: Reduces ap by x% (10 to 30) for a number of seconds or until 1 or a number of spells have been cast (whichever comes first) Or Applies a debuff to all enemies within range, causing their next spell to have no effect or a reduced effect (e.g. 50% damage and 50% of cc effects and 50% of boosting effects, could vary by spell).

Range: 100-300 Neither debuff can be applied to the same champion more than once in 30-45 sec.

Mages counterplay to the item: either use a weak spell/low cooldown spell asap, or use an item active that deals magic damage (if riot could somehow make this cover item actives as well, if I recall you seemed to think they were coded similarly? ).

JustMyBassCannonNov 4, 20141 votes

Okay, it seems we just look at things differently.

The basis of all arguments.

Sorry, I should stop interrupting so much. Continue

Can we ignore all of these arguments and focus on one question:

Would this item be OP at all prices under 4000? item with 70 or 80 mr and a passive which either: Reduces ap by x% (10 to 30) for a number of seconds or until 1 or a number of spells have been cast (whichever comes first) Or Applies a debuff to all enemies within range, causing their next spell to have no effect or a reduced effect (e.g. 50% damage and 50% of cc effects and 50% of boosting effects, could vary by spell).

Range: 100-300 Neither debuff can be applied to the same champion more than once in 30-45 sec.

Mages counterplay to the item: either use a weak spell/low cooldown spell asap, or use an item active that deals magic damage (if riot could somehow make this cover item actives as well, if I recall you seemed to think they were coded similarly?).

I don't just think item actives are coded similarly; any source of damage that is from an activation--a spell or an item--deals its damage as if it were a spell. If you don't believe me, buy Liandry's and use Frost Queen's Claim or Hextech Gunblade. I also recall that Thornmail, because it is a triggered effect not based on your basic attacks, also reacts like spell damage, but I could be wrong or they might have changed it.

In any event, the first one is extremely detrimental to the late-game of a mage. Early- and mid-game, most mages are focusing on the utility they need that builds into AP when you complete the item (i.e. Chalice, Catalyst, TotG), or lower AP items that build into other items you'll want (i.e. Armguard).

Conversely, Thornmail is more of an early-game issue for attacking-based champions. Early on, you're not going to have the ArPen and Lifesteal (and MR) needed to combat Thornmail. But, by late-game, your DPS is going to out-strip theirs while also having sustain and penetration to help you ignore Thornmail.

The second one...the idea of making the next spell do half or no damage/effect would be extremely binary and scenario-based. You could end up negating/weakening a spell that does absolutely nothing, and you may as well have bought Banshee's Veil; conversely, you could tag someone at the same moment they cast their ultimate, meaning that they just wasted their ultimate without having any chance to cancel it or cast a different spell.

You have an item whose stats alone are worth 1400-1600 gold, but the passive has such a large effect on mages that you can't really justify selling it for less than your house and your firstborn son.

I reiterate; the stats on the item are garbage for defense. You get more effective HP out of a Banshee's Veil unless you have a ridiculous offset around 2800 HP and 30 MR. Meanwhile, the passive is so utterly ridiculous, you'd have to go to DotA to find it.