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New AP Item Suggestions (Fix some gaps)

Arakk01··2 votes·551 views

So I had some ideas in another post that never actually showed up in the Gameplay section- I know this because it praised the new AP item reworks and didn't get downvoted to hell. Or at all. It included some ideas that deserve their own post: An armor/AP item that provides not only mages, but AP tanks a bit of sustain and AP against AD poke- or other mage poke, for that matter. Also, a flipside to that item, a fast fix for the mana chuggers of League who want to turn an early lead into some serious sustain at the cost of a LOT of AP. Again, usable for AP tanks, but even more helpful to mages.

item 3191 + item 3113 + item 1052 + 315g (2800g)

item 3801 Warded Bracers

+60 AP +60 Armor +50% Base Mana Regen

Unique Passive- Grants 7% Movement Speed

Unique Passive- When moving, attacking, or using abilities, generates stacks (similar to Shiv/Luden's/etc- stacking slightly faster than half as quickly). At 100 stacks, when you take champion damage gain a shield for 30-200 (20+10 per level) + (15% AP) that lasts for 5 seconds. Cannot gain charges for two seconds after being shielded, healed, or made invulnerable/untargetable, though charges you have gained will be maintained.

--The idea behind this item is to give mages a more passive armor/MR option to play around when faced with an AD or manaless (who am I kidding, it's probably Zed) champion poking them down at a more rapid rate than they can deal with. This is an item for surviving lane early , transitioning to an item for being beefy later with considerable scaling, but low stats and gold efficiency. This is, sorta like Zhonyas, an item you buy for the PASSIVE- but unlike Zhonyas, it is less about making a clutch play and more about surviving laning phase. Lacking gold efficiency and being very low on offensive stats mean this is an item players should feel bad about buying when ahead (unless they're Amumu or Malphite, I guess) while being an affordable choice that a player who falls behind will definitely feel later in the game. Effectively, this is the 'PLEASE GOD STOP POKING ME, I WANT TO CS' item, because nothing sucks more than losing lane to an assassin (or Quinn). TL;DR: Cheap, not gold efficient, gives an AP-scaling Yasuo shield passive.

item 3010 + item 3070 + item 3108 + 550g (3300g)

AurelionSol Gift of the Cosmos

+80 AP +400 Health +700 Mana +10% Cooldown Reduction

Unique Passive: Infinity (Distinct from Eternity) - 23-40% (22%+1% per level) of mana spent regained as health over 1.5 seconds. (75% efficiency for toggles)

Unique Passive: Awe (Does not stack with other Tear items) - Refunds 25% of mana spent.

REMOVED: Mana Charge - No longer stacks mana as per Tear of the Goddess

Hidden Passive: Aurelion Sol Interaction- "Oh, so that's where I left this."

--Opposite from Warded Bracers rests Gift of the Cosmos. Again with the low AP, this item is first and foremost a stat stick for mages (and again, AP tanks) that want to become beefy- this is the HP route. It greatly rewards champions who are AGGRESSIVE with their mana pool, positioning, and cooldowns, restoring a large percentage of mana spent as health and refunding as per Tear of the Goddess. An important thing to note is that you are losing Mana Charge and immediately gaining ~250 mana; this is very much a greedy snowball item, and it seeks to be something like Death Dancer for mages- a defensive item built for offensive plays. It's pricey, but pretty gold efficient for the price tag. Best built on mages who position aggressively and use a lot of mana- choices like AurelionSol Azir Malzahar Swain

That's my presentation for the day! Please help bring these suggestions to Riot's attention with an upvote, comment with your own ideas, etc. These are not professionally designed items, and likely have many flaws, but I think they match what mages need and what the community has been clamoring for- particularly a way to compete with assassins.

9 Comments

Hethalean1 votes

Your first item feels like it's designed for Mages (not supports), but has passive mana regen. I believe their game plan is to have mana regen be for supports, and flat mana for mages. The reason being that supports don't really have a gold income, thus they get the mana regen to maximize their uptime on the map. Where mages are about unloading their combo a few times, maybe get a kill, a bunch of CS. HOwever, hopefully the flat mana pool they have sustained them to where they can buy a new item.

That being said. I ALWAYS am backing just for wards as a support, so I don't know how true that 'mana per 5 for supports so they can stay out longer!' will help.

Arakk012 votes

{quoted}

Your first item feels like it's designed for Mages (not supports), but has passive mana regen. I believe their game plan is to have mana regen be for supports, and flat mana for mages. The reason being that supports don't really have a gold income, thus they get the mana regen to maximize their uptime on the map. Where mages are about unloading their combo a few times, maybe get a kill, a bunch of CS. HOwever, hopefully the flat mana pool they have sustained them to where they can buy a new item.

That being said. I ALWAYS am backing just for wards as a support, so I don't know how true that 'mana per 5 for supports so they can stay out longer!' will help.

Yeah, the explanation in the OP was not 'mages have to play the attrition game'. Mages aren't supposed to be barred from Mana/5- they're just supposed to make a meaningful sacrifice to have it. They wanted to take it off of 'power play' items that you buy to unload on someone and put it on items that are more clearly about sustain. It just so happens that sustain items compliment supports better than mages- but this is an item for Mages who are falling behind and need that sustain to stay relevant. A Rioter put it this way: They want there to be an active choice when you buy Mana/5 to back off and build a little more supportive, instead of focusing on raw power. Staying alive and lowering your risk of death is a TEAM-oriented play, buying Rod of Ages is more about the AP, mana, etc. and is a SELFISH buy- which is OK, but you're increasing your personal power versus trying to keep yourself alive for the team's sake. That's why I decided Mana/5 was more relevant than flat mana.

Hethalean1 votes

Well put. Thanks for the clarification on Riots position on flat mana vs mana / 5. I do agree that counter AD itemization is awful for mages. If you're a AD, you can EASILY build a heavily anti AP item for 1300g which does a lot more than the AP anti AD itemization currently. I like the idea of that one.

I like both of your items, though I wonder if the Gift of the Cosmos will be too OP on tanks like Maokai. Both interesting ideas.

Arakk011 votes

{quoted}

Well put. Thanks for the clarification on Riots position on flat mana vs mana / 5. I do agree that counter AD itemization is awful for mages. If you're a AD, you can EASILY build a heavily anti AP item for 1300g which does a lot more than the AP anti AD itemization currently. I like the idea of that one.

I like both of your items, though I wonder if the Gift of the Cosmos will be too OP on tanks like Maokai. Both interesting ideas.

I wonder, too! It'd probably be drastically OP against teams full of AD assassins and marksmen. ;) But the nerfs to MR items shipping with the mana changes seem to cement mages as being better against tanks anyway- so why not make tanks better against AD?

Hethalean1 votes

As long as it isn't too good on Tank Ekko. ;)

abbbez1 votes

Your second item feels a little bit overloaded with stats. The gold value of the stats (not including the passive) is at a 4086.4 cost which seems a little bit high. Mayve change the stats to

70 ap 300 hp 500 mana 10% cdr

which would put the cost at 3322.3 which seems a little bit fair (with the passive). Might have to change the build path then.

Arakk011 votes

{quoted}

Your second item feels a little bit overloaded with stats. The gold value of the stats (not including the passive) is at a 4086.4 cost which seems a little bit high. Mayve change the stats to

70 ap 300 hp 500 mana 10% cdr

which would put the cost at 3322.3 which seems a little bit fair (with the passive). Might have to change the build path then.

Yes and no. A fully stacked Rod of Ages gives 5k gold worth of stats, and as a rule of thumb most items are more than 100% gold efficient. Zhonyas is an outlier.

abbbez1 votes

{quoted}

Yes and no. A fully stacked Rod of Ages gives 5k gold worth of stats, and as a rule of thumb most items are more than 100% gold efficient. Zhonyas is an outlier.

Then have a similar stacking passive, like the RoA and it's done.

Arakk011 votes

{quoted}

Yes and no. A fully stacked Rod of Ages gives 5k gold worth of stats, and as a rule of thumb most items are more than 100% gold efficient. Zhonyas is an outlier.

The problem is Rod of Ages will also be seeing the new passive from Catalyst carry over- this is an item meant to 'greed buy' early or be bought as a second or third item. It condenses TWO stacking passives into an immediate bundle of stats, and carries over one relevant passive while improving on the other. The great thing here is with a PASSIVE, the item's winrate will directly reflect its power at ALL levels of play, and as gold efficiency is not even what decides an item- that makes this a dream for balancing.

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