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Liandry's confusing identity and potential suggestions/solutions

GankedByNaija·4/11/2016, 9:51:17 PM·2 votes·557 views
Liandry's Torment

With the upcoming AP item rework in the wings in the big midseason patch, even though mana is the big focus for the pass I wanted to bring attention to the reds about an Item who I believe has always been a rather odd duck in the item system in item 3151 .

Liandry's has been in worse places before. It used to only give a paltry 50 Ability power at full completion prior to the AP itemization pass in 5.13 making it horribly slot and gold inefficient and something very few champions bought at all. But even after getting significantly buffed it still doesn't change the fact that the intended situation you should use this item just seems relatively confusing to me

The passive burn indicates a very natural synergy with slows (and Rylai's, hence the Ryliandries combination being exceedingly popular) as well healthy, high HP targets (Like tanks) with the %current health damage, but the truth of the matter is when you do the actual numbers the burn does a paltry amount of damage in a fight or even just poking around, even against the targets it should be great against. What further compounds that is that the item gives FLAT pen, which usually tends to lead itself to be used against squishies since they aren't likely to have MR until a decent ways into a game but is considerably less impactful on a tank that's sitting on a full 70 MR Banshee's/Spirit Visage or even just a Negatron cloak.

Obviously there is a major conflict of interest here, but let's go even deeper

Frequently in seasons past you would see the likes of Rumble Zyra Annie rush the haunting guise, for good reason as a cheap source of flat pen to blow up targets lacking in MR made for a quick effective powerspike. Flat Magic pen is relatively hard to come by in the item system only appearing on Sorc Shoes Liandry's as well Abyssal's aura (although it is slightly more justified now in the current state of the game with Void Staff still having the benefit of reducing total MR vs bonus unlike it's AD counterpart Last Whisper) and while powerful early on it loses a conisderable amount of it's power compared to just having AP once MR starts getting built which is it's obvious counterplay.. With how overly abundant AD champs options are for armor penetration especially after the preseason (I'm personally a believer that Maw gaining flat pen was a gigantic mistake but that's an argument for another post) I was genuinely surprised that the same wasn't implemented for AP champs, especially now that MR is cheaper and more effective than it's ever been since the S2 days of FoN.

This is where some of my own personal suggestions come into play

-Liandry's passive ignores a % of bonus Magic Resistance

Surely a price hike or a reduction of stats somewhere else on the item would have to occur for this to happen, but it would iron out a definitive niche for the item for properly melting bulky HP targets

-Remove the flat pen from Haunting Guise while boosting the AP, and introduce a cheap, gold inefficient (yet slot inefficient, matching the nature of flat pen being a "powerspike quickly" new item that builds out of it that is more focused on it's flat pen and a passive that'd aid in popping squishies, while Liandry's loses it's flat pen becomes more tank busting oriented

This would kill two birds with one stone in both defining Liandry's identity for cutting through high HP bulky targets with sustained damage and poke, while giving champs who preferred the early power spike of the component a more dedicated specialized item that fulfills old guise's purpose as a fast, cheap powerspike.

I don't take those suggestions as gospel, just some random idea to prompt discussion and to correlate with the real issue at hand. Any thoughts??

4 Comments

Abyssphere4/11/2016, 10:09:07 PM2 votes

Liandry's purpose is to force the enemy team to itemise magic resist and make "Meh, I'll just stack armour for the ADC(s) and health will take care of the mage(s)" an incorrect statement. Flat MPen + %HP damage accomplishes this because flat MPen is very punishing on low MR targets and %HP damage is obvious. Its other identity is being a more general DOT amplifier and it clearly accomplishes that well. Changing Liandry's to % MPen would give it a better identity as a dedicated tank-busting item but that isn't really what the item is supposed to be doing in the present outside of being combined with Void Staff so you're changing its function. You have to make sure you're comfortable with that.

If I were to list Liandry's problems they'd be:

  • Haunting Guise is not an attractive item anymore
  • HP is a very iffy stat on most mages
  • The passive's crowd control interaction is weird and restrictive - not every mage can afford to combo it with Rylai's
  • The passive's DOT nature in general means it's essentially exclusive to DPS mages - Riot have proven themselves incapable of balancing DOT spell effects for both burst and sustain damage mages both with Liandry's and Deathfire Touch
  • The item's odd combo of stats mean people get confused about what it's designed to do and don't notice the situations it's strong in - 80 AP with 15 MPen is extremely dangerous to squishies and that combined with the %HP damage makes Liandry's a very real threat against targets pretending to be bulky by stacking damage + HP items, but people assume it's only useful against mega-tanks

You could replace the flat pen with % to make it more obvious in what it's good at but IMO most of Liandry's failings actually come outside of its stat line. If you want Liandry's to be good then lower the price of Haunting Guise so it's actually a power spike again, remove the HP on Guise/consider removing it on Liandry's so it's more attractive to long range mages and make the passive burst rather than DOT, plus remove the Rylai's interaction so that it can be strong on everyone without being overwhelming on Teemo/Malzahar/Swain. I think you'd have a very attractive item with those changes.

Nekusen4/11/2016, 10:11:06 PM1 votes

seems ok, but i'd rather have more tank-busting options for ap, as much as ad has.

item 3135 item 3151 vs item 3036 item 3035 item 3153 item 3071 item 3034 item 3033

Also, item 3151 has a weird mix of stats as magic penetration is used vs squishies and the passive vs tanks, while AD can specialize in penetration or tank busting.