The problem isn't damage creep...

It's shield and heal creep. True, overabundance of dmg and burst might have caused this, but after the assassin rework and changes to flat armor pen this isn't the case. Yet we still have items and champions who can just perma shield or drastically increase the strength of the shield. these items increase the total shield size along with a certain keystone and mastery this becomes a problem. Even more so when you get 2 shield supports in a game and , , , etc.

You either get unkillable adc's or giant fucking bruisers with twice their hp in shield mowing trough your team. So what do we do to help with this, well we either nerf or give more dmg. See the problem? More dmg to fight the shields, and more tankiness because of that. It's a cycle, and in my opinion the best way to brake it is to make everyhing countered by something, like it used to be with classes.

Before assassins countered adcs and mages, tanks(anything that was durable, before the new classification) and supports countered assassins and tanks were countered by mages and adcs. Now assassins can't burst, adcs can't get trough the shields and tanks can't survive because of so much penetration. Suddenly someone can do their job right and all goes to hell.

We need a new mechanic or a revision of certain aspects. Shields should be a commodity and not something to be spammed. Same goes for cdr, sure make spells do a lot of dmg, but gate them with cdrs. Also mages need more mana items, morelo is too good, so much so that it's overbearing. It's literary everything a mage wants (mana, mana regain, cdr, a lot of ap, grievous wound) it needs to be split up or another item introduced. The ones we have now are too slow for most or impossible to stack.

Sorry for the rant, but AP has really gone down lately. There is no choice in what to build. You have to build this on most .