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Strategic diversity that Riot can't believe in

MTaur·11/1/2014, 12:44:36 PM·1 votes·661 views

Strategic diversity that Riot can't believe in: AP/AD build itemization that actually flipping scales. Absolutely going to not make the cut at the "diversity" buzzword brainstorm session at HQ. Yet again. (It might even be banned from internal discussion by gag order at this point, the way it's never ever taken seriously in public)

Hint: Compound scaling belongs on items, not Akali's passive. Reworking Akali's passive to scale linearly off of one stat at a time opens doors for all kinds of magic to happen with items.

PS: Why doesn't Gunblade's active scale with bonus AD as well as with AP? Because "lolol, you thought it was a hybrid item" or some such?

PPS: Lucian could've been a dual-scaling champ, but the AP ratios needed to be moved around to places other than his ult for full release, not just nerfed to the ground because "lolol Nashor's, our hands are tied". Seriously, Lucian's concept art screams "gunmage hybrid". He dual-wields guns that shoot flipping light. I was really disappointed when he was just the next FotM mobile ADC lane bully...

2 Comments

Sightless6611/1/2014, 7:20:04 PM1 votes

Hybrid builds aren't really strategic diversity. You still tend to play the champions in almost exactly the same way whether you have hybrid items or non-hybrid items, and none of them have actives or other elements strong enough to really cause a change in playstyle. For example, AP Jax plays almost exactly the same as Hybrid Jax who plays almost exactly the same as AD Jax. It's just a matter of which specific number is making my damage go up. Lucian could have ad a hybrid build and his playstyle would still be the same.

Increasing item diversity is an aim of strategic diversity, but if those items really just aim to do the same thing as other items but with slightly different stats then it isn't valuable, and right now that is all that hybrid builds are. That isn't increasing strategic diversity. It's just letting me buy two different things that don't really change my gameplay at all.