zhonyas is overloaded

kilyan mbardppe·Nov 9, 2019·4 votes·1,600 views

zhonyas right now gives 75 ap, 45 armor, 10%cdr, the best defensive active in the game and has some of the best build components in the game. this is so evident when you see people building zhonyas against fizz, ap malphite and other ap burst champions simply because of the active, instead of building the item that gives mr, aka banshees veil. i think the cdr needs to be removed from this item and the passive on bashees needs to work in a way where you activate it reactively and block 1 spell. right now, the item is useless against most champions that you would want to build ut against because any ability can trigger it and it has a 45 second cooldown. for example: banshees would be built to block zac's e, but he can simply smite you while he flies and he will proc your banshees. make banshees work like sivir's e. it would be a lot more skill expressive because good people would be able to make game-winning plays with proper usage of banshees. this way, banshees would actually be a good option against ap champions like fizz because you can react to his shark and block it if you are good enough to do it. zhonyas should be built mostly agaisnt ad heavy comps or ad assassins and right now, mages build that item every single game because of how overloaded it is. when you add that to the fact that the other defensive option for mages is very underwhelming, you have a very big balance issue because this item can single-handedly make or break the game.

17 Comments

NyarlathοtepNov 9, 20195 votes

The reason people buy zhonyas in response to ap burst is because banshee's is fucking trash.

kilyan mbardppeNov 9, 20191 votes

i clearly stated that in my post. its a combination of banshees passive being very bad and zhonyas active beeing rly good and the item being very gold efficient. if banshees worked like sivir e i would buy it vs fizz, malph, zac, ahri, etc...

NyarlathοtepNov 9, 20192 votes

{quoted}

i clearly stated that in my post. its a combination of banshees passive being very bad and zhonyas active beeing rly good and the item being very gold efficient. if banshees worked like sivir e i would buy it vs fizz, malph, zac, ahri, etc...

Thats exactly why. The item lacks a proper ability.

kilyan mbardppeDec 2, 20191 votes

hey man, just to give you some clarity on where im coming from. GA is 84.82% gold efficient when it´s passive is on cooldown. Zhonya's is 96.48% gold efficient when it's active is on cooldown. zhonya's and ga are comparable items and their purpose is the same: help you stay alive. however, not only does zhonyas's active better than GA's passive( more variety of use and much shorter cooldown. you can use zhonyas 2 times and have 1 minute to spare while ga passive is on cd) but the item is also a lot more gold efficient even without the active. an adc or a bruiser has to spend 5 minutes with a very gold inefficient item while a mage only stays 2 minutes with a fairly gold efficient item. that's my problem with it. if riot makes the item less efficient in terms of stats to compensate for the incredibly strong active the item becomes much more balanced. most other items that have a defensive mechanic are very gold inefficient( GA, Maw, PD,etc...) except for zhonyas. as i said, for such a good active, it gives way too many stats for how much it cost's. increase its price or lower the stats. for example, why does that item even give cdr? why is it even a thing?

SirsirNov 9, 20193 votes

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kilyan mbardppeNov 9, 20191 votes

im not saying they dont need zhonyas, i just think that for an item that costs 2900 gold, it gives way too many stats, the components are rly efficient and the active is insane. it overshadows banshees to the point where you build zhonyas against champions that you are supposed to build banshees.

ZT XperimentorNov 9, 20192 votes

item 3194 item 3071 item 3147 item 3814 item 3026 item 3222 item 3033 item 3056 item 3046 item 3094 item 3085 item 3050 There's stronger generalist items for 3k or less.

kilyan mbardppeNov 9, 20191 votes

i never said those items are good either, but black cleaver for example has bad components. if you play champs that build it you know how big of a difference it is having phage+kindlegem and having blackcleaver.adaptive helm also has some questionable components and gives no cdr, plus the passive makes it so that it is a very situational item.ga is very inneficient without the active, because the stats it gives are the same as having bf+ chain vest. ohmrecker is gone next patch, zeal items are not good by themselves because you need flat ad to make crits worthwile, duskblade gets outscaled by flat armor and the other items are support items, and those have to be more gold efficient because supports get less income.however, zhonyas has the strenghts of those items, but none of the weaknesses. its not situational like adaptive helm, it doesnt get ouscaled like duskblade, its good on its own, unlike zeal items, its not inneficient without the active like ga is, im not even gonna mention omwhrecked because that item sucks, and its as gold efficient as the support items, despite mages having a lot more income that supports.

kilyan mbardppeNov 9, 20192 votes

oh and my bad , forgot about edge of night. that item, like duskblade, gets outscaled by armor and the active is very inconsistent, similar to banshees. also the fact that it has no cdr means that you dont even build it every game on assassins, only in games where there are no tanks, and i would argue that even with no tanks, lord doms plus ghostblade and duskblade is better for burst.

ZT XperimentorNov 16, 20191 votes

Bad components? Phage is often a rush item since it can make up for a lack of boots early game with it's speedboost on hit, and kindlegem gives cdr. I'm more concerned with finished items, as there's plenty of problems with the vast majority of items about multiple slots being wasted on components. Adaptive helm has cdr by the way; GA is often picked up by champions that already have either several or a significant safety net making it frustrating to shutdown said user.
Sure you're not thinking of zzrot portal being removed? Most zeal items give critical hit chance lol, but they also often have extra utility ontop of damage amplification, which is why I didn't specify statikk shiv.

Lethality only falls off if their target is stacking armor, and lethality itself can be stacked from multiple items and the rune sudden impact, and scales up over the game. https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-622-notes#patch-assassin-itemization

I'm well aware of the problem of support items being too gold efficient, seen riot hamstring their core builds on multiple occasions because of being abused by nonsupports.

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however, zhonyas has the strenghts of those items, but none of the weaknesses. its not situational like adaptive helm, it doesnt get ouscaled like duskblade, its good on its own, unlike zeal items, its not inneficient without the active like ga is

You sure about that on raw stats, because without the active it only gives 75 AP, 45 armor, and 10% cdr, for 2900 gold. Compare rod of ages after 10 minutes, 100 AP, 400 mana, and 500 HP costing 2600 gold; cooldown reduction is excessively available ever since the mastery and rune merger, and they have similar effective health, but roa gives more power if you're patient, You can thank wolvius for reminding me of it, but I didn't include it because of it's masochistic sustain passive. Also hourglass suppresses the user, preventing movement abilities items and spells; not to mention advertising being setup for combos with it's bright gold sheen and ching sound effect. In this burst or be bursted meta allies are more likely to leave you to die than give coverfire anyway.

Ohmwrecker was a joke to make sure you're paying attention lol, it's bloody terrible. The difference between edge of night and banshee's veil, is that the former is an on command spell shield, while the later is passive but has it's cooldown reset whenever you take damage from an enemy champion. Good luck getting more use out of veil if the enemies have any DOTs, AOEs, or global abilities. The inconsistency you mentioned is probably user error (or server error as the last few patches have been unusually unstable), there's a brief channel time to activate edge of night, it's supposed to be a preparation step before tackling an unaware opponent. That and lethality items are pointless on magically inclined assassins. However there's 4 runes that give cdr, possible to have 20% without items.

Tanks are just CC bots anyway these days since they don't last in teamfights, and I agree lord dominik's regards is better for burst, but your post was about overloaded items. Mortal reminder cripples sustain and ignores some defense, not everyone builds armor anyway but most have some sort of regeneration.

kilyan mbardppeNov 20, 20191 votes

rod of ages doesnt give you the stats right away, you need to wait 10 minutes, so there is a risk associated with it and a clear win condition. zhonyas has instant power as soon as you build it, builds off of one of the most broken runes in the game, which lowers its cooldown by 15% ( which is much better than the reduced contribution it gives to the combine cost) and with transcendence, you get 20 ap for every 10% extra cdr. i think zhonyas needs to get its cdr removed, cuz the item should not be a great item even without its active as it is currently. banshees and edge should work like sivir e( or like previous edge without channel time), so that if you are good you can win the game for your team by blocking a crucial spell, and if you are bad the item doesnt become any worse than it is now so there is rly no drawbacks.

wolviusNov 9, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=ZT Xperimentor,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=M6Ftise8,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2019-11-09T16:56:23.159+0000)

There's stronger generalist items for 3k or less.

I'm smelling some AP bias from this post no mention of item 3152 (2500), item 3116 item 3027 at all, with proto probably being the 2/3rd most overloaded item in the game competing with trinity after zhonyas.

Also ohmwrecker is such a good item that in three years I've seen it the same amount of times as I've seen 'banner of command' in the last year on aram.

I don't think any of those (even proto if include mine) is more general purpose item than zhonyas, it's not uncommon to see 3/4 zhonyas if karth/pyke/ is on enemy team.

kilyan mbardppeNov 9, 20192 votes

dude this guy said generalist items and included edge of night and adaptive helm, both situational items. that tells you what kind of person you are dealing with.

wolviusNov 9, 20191 votes

{quoted}

dude this guy said generalist items and included edge of night and adaptive helm, both situational items. that tells you what kind of person you are dealing with.

Well honestly if you need a second tank MR item adaptive helm is probably better choice than abyssal mask with its abysmal range, so I would nearly give him that but thats more to do with how bad tank mr choices are.

But yeah pretty bonkers list, its nearly more likely to see banner of command than a last whisper item on a 5 item adc in aram, only marginally more likely to see a mortal reminder in SR.

Look at this: https://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/EUW1/4038276804/230344911?tab=overview 40 min aram, 3 adc's no last whisper

Edit: grammer was missing better/best.

kilyan mbardppeNov 9, 20192 votes

last whisper is a good item, its never bad because they changed it to be total armor pen, rather than bonus armor pen. the tank items point u made is a very good one. i looked it up the other day, there are more mr items for squishy champs than for tanks, and if ur champ doesnt have mana u only have 2 choices. armor items give a lot more armor and are much better at their job. randuins forces an adc to buy last whisper becuz of the crit dmg reduction, thornail forces u to buy last whisper and lifesteal, sunfire gives good early wave clear, gauntlet is a bit weak but they can solve that if they make the item melee only( they cant buff it becuz ezreal abuses it). tanks have 8 good armor items plus ninja tabi, which is much better at its job than merc treads are because combining 12% less dmg from auto attacks with 20% less dmg from crits is insane. look at how ridiculous this is: tank mr items: adaptive, visage, stoneplate( gives both armor and mr) and abyssal. squishy mr items: maw, wits end, banshees, athenes, mercurial scimitar and mikkaels. and tank supports dont have a single support item that just gives mr. all of them give armor, and some give both, but there is not a single support item for tank supports that only gives mr, and against certain teams, armor is not very good.

ZT XperimentorNov 16, 20191 votes

The post was about overloaded items, I'm looking at passive effects that synergize with their stats, which AD items tend to do more than others. I had forgotten about the protobelt though lol, I see the snowball mark spell used more often so it didn't occur to me. Crystal scepter and rod of ages have been nerfed from their prime years ago and are more or less used as crutches for shorter ranged mages that lack the tools to keep up with more mobile opponents, I have seen a few abuse cases for artillery mages but not many people bother with such a gold investment from what I've seen. https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-513-notes#patch-items https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-69-notes#patch-mage-itemization https://euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-624-notes#patch-items

And nice to see someone catch the joke item, just making sure readers pay attention, ohmwrecker needs a rework again anyway.

Hold up, you've seen people take hourglass against pyke? Karhus I understand, but pyke stacking lethality will quickly ignore it's armor and his ult will be on a shorter cooldown. It's possible to near always deal true damage on any physical melee using conqueror, black cleaver, mortal reminder, and a combination of lethality items; how is that not generalistic?

But since you're skeptical in general consider these: -With how excessively prevalent cooldown reduction is, adaptive helm is deceptively strong against most mages do to spammability and combo reliance, also it's the counterpoint to liandry's torment. -Black cleaver itself is incredibly gold efficient, and it's armor shredding passive is a debuff applied on any physical damage including splash from the hydra and hurricane items, not to mention allowing allies to benefit from the reduced durability too. -Guardian's angel is picked as often as hourglass for it's denial of kills, and similarly decides games by nullifying ultimates. -Mikael's crucible gives a plethora of sustainability for any support, and removes all crowd control short of displacements on an ally but gives brief immunity to slows. Combined with mercurial scimitar it becomes quite problematic to pin down some champions, but that's not as much of a generalist item as it is a counterpick, which is why I didn't include it.

kilyan mbardppeDec 2, 20191 votes

zhonyas is 96.4% gold effective without the active. for how good the active it it's way too gold efficient. for example, GA is 84% gold efficient without the passive and maw is 89%. that is my biggest problem with zhonyas. way too many stats for how much it costs and for how good the active is.