Is it just me or does any Sheen evolution item have a history of being abused?

Astôlfo·Oct 5, 2016·1 votes·609 views

Iceborn Gauntlet on Ezreal and tank assassin builds for perma-stick. Lich Bane on certain AP champions way back in the past (forget who). Triforce being the new 'bruiser-happy' item with multiple all-around stats that singlehandedly provides a good chunk of damage, which is enough for some champions to make the rest of their item slots just full tank.

What's with Sheen and the abuse of its evolution items? I'm bad at the game and I don't know much on this specific topic, and I haven't been around for very long (started mid-December 2015), so if I'm just being ignorant, feel free to tell me so and why.

6 Comments

AbyssphereOct 5, 20162 votes

Lich Bane is the least abusive of the three, primarily because the stat it primarily scales off of isn't something you get lots of for free. It was too strong in the past (the numbers on that thing were crazy) but it wasn't abusive, just too strong. Iceborn Gauntlet and Trinity Force run into issues because they scale entirely off stuff you get for free (base AD) and as such they're really attractive damage items for people who don't want to actually build squishy at all. Trinity Force isn't -too- bad for that, but Gauntlet is pretty bad and it's even more abusive as an item because spammable slows are a really dangerous thing to have in the game (hello Rylai's and Mallet).

Overall, Sheen itself is just a really volatile item that's easy to make abusive and it's no surprise that it ran into so many issues in season 6 because it lost its old AP in this season. At that point it just became an item for everyone, whereas before stuff like Gauntlet wasn't abusable (or really good honestly) because tanks didn't want to waste gold on AP. On top of its identity as a "damage without buying damage" item, Sheen probably has too big a difference between who's good and who's bad at using it because League has a lot of auto attack resets, empowered autos and so on. Then you get champions like Ezreal who apply on-hits (balanced by medium to short range) at super long range and it's just asking for trouble.

Sheen is fine I guess but it's just one of those items where you have to accept that it's gonna need to be tuned a lot. There's a variety of ways an effect as simple as that can be abused.

RalanrOct 5, 20161 votes

Spellblade damage is hard to balance for similar reasons that other items that enhance a quality built into a champion (like healing) is?

bad manner kidOct 5, 20161 votes

I think pretty much what Ralanr said. It's a lot of damage early game and depending on your champion the effects make fighting a lot easier (ie Fizz lichbane q.)

It's always had a fairly low combine cost and most champions super benefit from the mana boost.

RivuoOct 5, 20161 votes

''i get damage by building armor and cdr'' item 3025

DrCyanideOct 5, 20161 votes

Someone feel free to correct me, but Sheen (and it's upgrades) are force multipliers that aren't universally applicable.

Getting item 3089 on Xerath and Ekko will benefit both equally, because it enhances all of their abilities equally and results in the same damage output.

Getting item 3100 on Xerath and Ekko doesn't benefit them both equally. While their abilities benefit equally, the play pattern differences mean that Ekko gets far more out of the purchase than Xerath, simply because he can use the passive more often/more reliably.

Now with that in mind, add to that the strengths and weaknesses of different champions that can reasonably use item 3057 . It's almost impossible to have an additional passive for the item's upgrade that's both desirable and doesn't push someone's strengths too far or mitigate their weaknesses too much.

The common abuser is Ezreal , because he's able to apply the on-hit faster and from further away than any other champion (being able to build AP or AD helps too). His weaknesses include limited waveclear, no CC, and being squishy, while he's normally picked for his range, mobility, and damage. If a new sheen item provides more waveclear, CC, defense, or damage, (hint: it will provide one of those) chances are he'll give it a try. Because he can use Sheen to a much greater extend than someone who has to be right on top of you to use it (like Nasus ), he gets to apply his force multiplier more frequently, thus abusing/benefiting from it more. In many ways, this is a similar parallel to the Ekko/Xerath example, since Ezreal's play pattern lets him activate the passive far more often than Nasus could.

WoonStruckOct 5, 20161 votes

Its only because Sheen was the original "Add significant damage near-independent of champion kit" item.

Its part of the reason sunfire, botrk, gunblade, Luden's, RFC, SS, DFG, Manamune, and Wit's End have all been issues in the past as well.

Now its not terribly out of line, much like the new "add champion independent damage to kit " items (revolver, DMP, etc) because there are so many other items like this already. Oh, and Fervor, DFT, Grasp, and TLD.

However, sheen has a special case of scaling with the champion in question due to base attack damage. This is part of why lichbane was so widely abused when it added close to a 1.0 AP ratio to your autos, while its not used nearly as much now.

This makes the item look a bit more broken because only the champions that can use it to its fullest potential use the item and its final build items.