Can we do something about Ohmwrecker?

Yuumi or Lose·Oct 17, 2015·10 votes·6,290 views

It's been with us for several seasons and has yet to be of any use. The only time I've ever seen it used is when someone is trolling, making a funny league video showcasing the item to troll, or when someone buys the trap item for the first time and realizing it's bad.

The active is so situational that you barely have the right time to make use of it. By the time you buy it, you're already naturally tanky to tower dive and take so many hits. If not, you can buy other tank items that do better and serve more uses later. The stats may look good, but all of that can be bought from other items at higher coverage. The active becomes more useless late game as turrets go down.

Suggested options are rework the active, add another active that can be used at all phases of the game, give another passive, rework the build paths so that you can rework the passive if needed, or... Just delete it like other items have been.

58 Comments

RiotMeddlerOct 18, 201512 votes

When we were doing preseason planning a little while back we decided one of smaller projects we wanted to do was to take a look at a few items that either lacked a clear purpose or were simply outclassed by other options too often. Ohmwrecker was one of those items, along with a few others like Guinsoo's Rageblade and Essence Reaver. We ended up with improvements we felt worked for some of those items (the updated Essence Reaver for example should be a regularly appealing item on the more caster like marksmen).

Ohmwrecker however we're not yet happy with the changes we've been testing, so we'll be taking another crack at it sometime post preseason (potentially early next year). Current thinking is to see if we can make Ohmwrecker a clearly appealing item when your team's looking for a bit of sieging power from a tank or tank support (as opposed to a diving item, given raw defense already fills that niche well). That's pretty experimental though of course, so might not be where we end up eventually.

aperson1Oct 18, 20151 votes

Isn't Void Gate like this in a way? If you're going to be looking at Ohmwrecker to fill that niche you should be looking at the other Raptor Cloak item, too.

RiotMeddlerOct 18, 20155 votes

Yeah, there's some risk of excessive overlap with Zz'Rot Portal. Goal would be to make Ohmwrecker the team siege option, with Zz'Rot aimed more at split pushing. It's possible that'll still be too narrow a space for two items for characters who want tankiness and sieging power though.

As far as Zz'Rot itself goes that's an item we're pretty torn on. It's not used much at all, but its stats are already really high and its active's powerful even if used only to throw down the gate mid teamfight for the self speed boost.

GundayMondayOct 18, 20152 votes

Just because no one's using it, doesn't mean it isn't good.

MiraweaveOct 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Just because no one's using it, doesn't mean it isn't good.

I had some stupidly high winrate on Zz'Rot Garen before the Garen rework, just because you'd rush the thing and be tanky enough and fast enough to escape from two or three people, but still be a tower killing threat that required an answer. It was like, if your team didn't feed, you won just by turning the game into a 4v3 in your favor while you ran around being annoying.

GundayMondayOct 19, 20151 votes

Yeah I can see that.

Tried it out a few games. It took maybe 2-4 towers each game just because the enemy team is too lazy to go deal with it. The main problem I see is that there are better items for team fighting. So if your team is dumb and won't wait for pressure to build before suiciding, then you're not getting your money's worth out of the item. If they're patient and wait for the imbalance to build up, then you're good to go. Not to mention that you can use it for vision around baron/dragon, block creeps out of your base with multiple zz'rots and set up baits where you all sit in the zz'rot bush and wait for someone to facecheck. Lots of useful tools. I'm going to figure out how to use it more effectively. Hope Riot doesn't remove.

DessemOct 18, 20151 votes

As far as Zz'Rot itself goes that's an item we're pretty torn on. It's not used much at all, but its stats are already really high and its active's powerful even if used only to throw down the gate mid teamfight for the self speed boost.

B, but I use it. D: The bonus movement speed is super helpful, and putting down the Zz'rot Portal helps a lot to bait the enemy team. It's also my go-to Siege item if not building Banner of Command.

The Yetii RiderOct 18, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, there's some risk of excessive overlap with Zz'Rot Portal. Goal would be to make Ohmwrecker the team siege option, with Zz'Rot aimed more at split pushing. It's possible that'll still be too narrow a space for two items for characters who want tankiness and sieging power though.

As far as Zz'Rot itself goes that's an item we're pretty torn on. It's not used much at all, but its stats are already really high and its active's powerful even if used only to throw down the gate mid teamfight for the self speed boost.

I think the reason people don't use Zz'rot is not because the item is weak, it's because tanky champions would rather group and dive than split push. Diving is ridiculously easy and very hard to screw up at the moment, and either you get a kill or force the team away long enough to get towers.

With how fast Jinx kills turrets (especially with second dragon) split pushing just isn't efficient.

Champs that want to split push like Tryn and Gnar don't need the portal, and champs who might make use of it like Cho or Shen would rather build for team fights and just slowly siege down a tower over two or three pushes/TPs.

You didn't make an item for a niche strategy. You made it for a nonexistent strategy.

Angry MonsterOct 18, 20152 votes

I think this is the wrong approuch. Ohm should be the dive item and zz rot should be a sieg item.

Ohm you should be diving a tower and then turnning it off to limit damage

Rot should be a poking at the enemy and allowing the summons slowly do damage.

edit i meant the players poke at the enemy while rot/voidlings do the tower damage. The goal should be harassment from the players so the voidlings do not get killed.

KougaOct 18, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Angry Monster,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QAXgX9xG,comment-id=0004000000000003,timestamp=2015-10-18T03:41:40.145+0000)

Ohm you should be diving a tower and then turnning it off to limit damage

Rot should be a poking at the enemy and allowing the summons slowly do damage.

Actually.. that might be a good idea. What if the Voidlings from the Portal were focused on getting to the enemy wave and then exploding, doing a decent chunk of damage to Champions - and bonus damage to Minions.

So if you're at a tower, you drop a portal behind your frontline and let the Voidlings skitter over to the enemy team. Upon death or decay, they blow up, which would chunk away at the minion waves and grind down any Champs in the way. If you're trying to defend a tower, this lets you keep the enemy minion waves from gaining any momentum, stopping the enemy team from an easy tower dive (since they will usually wait for a creep wave to come and take tower agro so the initiator can get in range without taking damage). And if there arent minions it serves as a poke for the Champs, discouraging them from sieging.

If you're on the sieging side, waiting at the enemy's tower, you drop it for the same purpose - to burst down their minions waves (thus letting yours get to the tower faster and let you dive/push), and to harass the enemy team that is trying to defend the tower. Right now the Rot usually seems so pointless, since you can easily pick the Voidlings off, and its usually left unattended. Instead, the voidlings would be a potential threat, blowing up when they get killed.

So Ohm would retain the "turn tower off and dive like a submarine", while Rot would become the "Stop Standing Around The Tower" item.

Angry MonsterOct 18, 20151 votes

i mean the team pokes at the enemy while voidlings do damage to towers.

Lady SeptimusOct 18, 20151 votes

Whatever you do, please don't delete zz'rot portal!! I think part of the reason the portal isn't used as often is because lack of education. I didn't even know the item was out when it was added to the shop, and it took me a couple of months to get used to the idea of the item even being an option. Maybe do a series on educating players about items and what they can do and when it's beneficial to buy the item. ZZ 'Rot portal itself is a pretty new unique item in what it does compared to what every other item in the game does, except for maybe Banner is similar but it's been in the game for a while so players may not even be aware of or understand ZZ'rots potential.

Yuumi or LoseOct 18, 20152 votes

I like the way Zz'Rot Portal functions. The change to make the voidlings scale from max % health is a good change. I think the one change to put the Portal in a perfect spot is instead of making every fourth voidling to scale with max % health, make it every third.

As for Ohmwrecker, I was looking at some of the items that was featured in the Black Market Brawler event and maybe you guys can use the passive from item 3430 and make it function with tanks. Instead of the item scaling with AP, make it scale with tank stats such as health, magic resist and/or armor.

Or maybe turn Ohmwrecker back into and AP item like it was and apply the passive from Rite of Ruins.

It fits with the sieging theme of the item and gives it more use. That way you can siege by attacking the turret and if all goes a teamfight ever occurs, you can use the active.

Now the only problem with this is that it also suffers from the poacher jungler item effect. If your team is pushed back and behind at the defensive, then there is almost no use for this item because there might not be an opportunity to fully implement the item at its full use.

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

Adding the Rite of Ruin Passive to item 3056 would be extremely fun.

ErockandrollOct 18, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, there's some risk of excessive overlap with Zz'Rot Portal. Goal would be to make Ohmwrecker the team siege option, with Zz'Rot aimed more at split pushing. It's possible that'll still be too narrow a space for two items for characters who want tankiness and sieging power though.

As far as Zz'Rot itself goes that's an item we're pretty torn on. It's not used much at all, but its stats are already really high and its active's powerful even if used only to throw down the gate mid teamfight for the self speed boost.

Giving Tanks the ability to split push was pretty unique. Except that it some what counter minded the point of playing a tank. And even if the more split push Juggernauts. They would likely prefer Titanic Hydra over portal if they wanted split push power.

Personally, I would have liked to try experiment with portal as a Support item. (because split pushing with a support is more unique still.) Except that Banner of Command is the better alternative for this strat.

In Either case, Because ZZ'rot's portal and Owmrecker are both being looked at. I would also look at the Point runner passive on both those items as well as on rapter's cloak. It feels like a very niche burst of speed, which could be very strong if it works well. But that niche speed is being overshadowed with more reliable speed boosts from Righteous glory and Talisman. So their item's Component item, doesn't even feel that rewarding.

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

I always build these items on support. Never found a solo laner they were good for, but Braum loves them.

And the raptors cloak passive is good for just about any fight near a turret (even dead turrets), or even racing back from base to lane. It does not have a set duration, so you can keep the speed boost through an entire fight, rather than treating it like a burst. It was recently nerfed, (probably because of just how reliable it really is) but I don't think many paid attention to it, because they just don't use the item.

chipi99Oct 18, 20152 votes

Any changes to twin shadows? Have seen it be used in ages, probably due to frost queens claim.

TotalJerkOct 19, 20151 votes

The thing about ZZ'rot is that it's so niche that when a situation where it's optimal to build it pops up, most people forget the damn thing even exists.

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

Actually, ZZ'rot is pretty good defending against minion waves too. Can sometimes hold against super minions without an actual player having to be there, and gives you the gold earned too.

It's true though that people are a bit blind to its uses though.

Gare JordansOct 19, 20151 votes

How about making Ohmwrecker's active, instead of disabling an enemy turret, it turns enemy turrets into your turrets for 2 seconds?

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

I find that item 3512 almost always outclasses item 3056 . Though I know I'm in the minority, I'm a big fan of the item 2053 items. The speed boost alone is well worth the cost of the cloak, and the transition to for magic resist alone is usually worth the cost, too, since it's one of 3 items that gives both MR and Armor.

More specific to my case though, the Void gate is an extremely versatile ability. You can use it up close to enemy structures to tear them down quickly, or you can lay it down in your own base to single handedly hold off wave after wave of super minions (not perfect for that, but it's close). On the other hand, I find myself using Ohmwrecker when I know hit points will mean more to me than MR, and generally hope-beyond-hope that I will get to use the active more than once on an enemy turret.

If you want to differentiate the two, wouldn't it make more sense to make one Offensive, and one Defensive? At first, when I saw zz'rot portal, I thought that was going to be the case but it never really panned out that way.

What if dealt damage to the turret, as well as stunning it? What if the Turret lost resistances while disabled?
What if the minions didn't explode? That would make the item a lot less appealing on offense, but also more uniquely defensive if you want to try that route. (also good if you're interested in them tanking damage)
What if were available during laning phase? Braum builds Ohmwrecker and then jungler dives turret with no worries? (potential abuse, yes)
What if the effect from were reduced, in exchange for a shorter cooldown? A lot of why I avoid the item is because it's so unsatisfying to use the active once or twice a game, and not see enough impact from it.
What if popped turret shots already in the air? just that change would make it extremely satisfying to defend against a single certain-death turret shot.

fasegaOct 19, 20151 votes

Whenever I play Blitz I build ZZ portal to help with seiging down the towers. I think making the item more for tank support and seiging would make sense. I meaning Seiging is something done over time and ZZ portal does this perfectly for the support role that usually doesn't do much to help these situations progress.

For Ohmwrecker make it the Anit-seige item for supports by changing its passive do what the old Fortify summoner spell did and buff your own towers. This change would actually give supports more defensive utility options.

darkdillOct 20, 20151 votes

Have you considered this?

What if Ohmwrecker were changed to instead be an item with which you can "spring a trap" on people who tower-dive you? As they are, towers are what I call "reliably useless"; even if you hug one, the enemy simply doesn't give a damn and kills you anyway. Having an item that lets you punish enemy divers reactively could be really interesting.

Deep Terror NamiOct 18, 20157 votes

My idea for Ohmwrecker was to simply let it power up your own turrets as well as shut down the opponents. If you buy it and you don't get to siege or dive it becomes a waste of gold; however, if you aren't able to get to an enemy turret that probably means the enemy is at yours.

Earl EulrichOct 18, 20151 votes

i think Ohmwrecker is actually in a good spot to allow divecomps to close out games when they got ahead - it´s niche, but it´s a good one.

DrCyanideOct 18, 20152 votes

Out of curiosity have you considered having it modify tower ranges rather than just disabling them?

Perhaps a longer duration with the tower range being 100-200 units shorter (of if you're still looking to make it useful on the defensive as well, increase friendly tower range). The shorter range provides less protection, making it easier to siege.

Toa of DeathOct 18, 20151 votes

What about Lord Van Damm's Pillager item 3104 ? Never even see it used.

The EllimiistOct 18, 20154 votes

Isn't that twisted treeline or dominion only?

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

yes

Valderis VandalaOct 18, 20151 votes

Maybe shift Ohmwrecker and ZZ'Rot Portal stats into a little bit of AP so it becomes more appealing to supports who are desperate for that stat.

Giving Ohmwrecker an extra active for your own towers would also be really nice so it won't feel like it becomes a useless item when you are behind.

VantoothOct 18, 20151 votes

The item would be much more relevant if turret were actually dangerous late-mid and late game where you can realistically buy the item without suffering with your build path.

StoningtonOct 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

When we were doing preseason planning a little while back we decided one of smaller projects we wanted to do was to take a look at a few items that either lacked a clear purpose or were simply outclassed by other options too often. Ohmwrecker was one of those items, along with a few others like Guinsoo's Rageblade and Essence Reaver. We ended up with improvements we felt worked for some of those items (the updated Essence Reaver for example should be a regularly appealing item on the more caster like marksmen).

Ohmwrecker however we're not yet happy with the changes we've been testing, so we'll be taking another crack at it sometime post preseason (potentially early next year). Current thinking is to see if we can make Ohmwrecker a clearly appealing item when your team's looking for a bit of sieging power from a tank or tank support (as opposed to a diving item, given raw defense already fills that niche well). That's pretty experimental though of course, so might not be where we end up eventually.

It'd be cool if it could buff allied towers, shut down enemy towers, and put up Azir towers. As is, Ohmwrecker is an item you only buy when you want to style on the enemy and shut down a tower. It's only practical use is for when you're so far ahead you can't possibly lose. It would be nice if it had versatility.

SonicÐeHedgedawgOct 18, 20152 votes

Honestly, I used to occasionally grab Ohmwrecker after it got the recipe change this session on some off-tank supports like thresh,... But then Zerke's happened

Yuumi or LoseOct 19, 20152 votes

As for Ohmwrecker, I was looking at some of the items that was featured in the Black Market Brawler event and maybe you guys can use the passive from and make it function with tanks. Instead of the item scaling with AP, make it scale with tank stats such as health, magic resist and/or armor.

Rite of Ruin: 100 ability power 100 mana regen. 20% cdr Unique passive: Razing - Gain charges upon moving or killing enemies (200 charges max). Attacking a structure expends 50 charges to deal 100 (+15% AP) bonus true damage.

Or maybe turn Ohmwrecker back into and AP item like it was and apply the passive from Rite of Ruins.

It fits with the sieging theme of the item and gives it more use. That way you can siege by attacking the turret and if all goes a teamfight ever occurs, you can use the active.

thewire666Oct 17, 20151 votes

Why do you need to stop tower for a few sec when the tank can tank (lolxd) it without having trouble Buying a tank item instead of it will help more on tower dives. the only way it can be useful is making the tower being an allied for those seconds ( and it may be op)

Yuumi or LoseOct 17, 20151 votes

Exactly. It's such an underpowered item. Honestly they just need yo rework the active out of all the options so that it works across the rift and any phase so it doesn't become situational like poachers.

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

Wait. item 3711 is situational? I thought it was just outclassed by item 3933 .

khorneyOct 17, 20151 votes

what they did toy around with was making it so allied turrets would increase ad and attack speed for a little bit which would be a good thing

BeatzBoyFTWOct 18, 20154 votes

Janna item 3504 item 3056 Well shit

TotalJerkOct 19, 20151 votes

Ardent censer doesn't work on turrets, tho.

BeatzBoyFTWOct 19, 20151 votes

Uhh it actually does.

TotalJerkOct 19, 20151 votes

item 3504

UNIQUE Passive: Your heals and shields on another allied champion grant them 15% Attack Speed and 30 magic damage on-hit for 6 seconds.

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

never liked that change. something about Alistar item 3504 plus a huge minion wave. back when it was AS, and not magic damage on hit it made sense to effect minions... never did get that change explained to me.

BeatzBoyFTWOct 19, 20151 votes

And JarvanIV 's ult claims to be impassable & Vayne 's Q claims to be unable to move through walls(from tips)

Meanwhile......

Racism BadOct 18, 20151 votes

It could be extremely over powered right now if you take it as first/maybe second if you're fed item on a champ with high base damage. For example if you got hydra and then wrecker on fiora then you could turret dive your opponent easily without them expecting it.

SpecterVonBarenOct 18, 20151 votes

You say this as if Fiora can't do this with any item...

Racism BadOct 23, 20151 votes

{quoted}

You say this as if Fiora can't do this with any item...

ok with that item you could dive someone with cc and still make it out on full health with a kill, or you could 1v1 a turret

TotalJerkOct 19, 20151 votes

Ohmwrecker's problem is that towers are so weak that you pretty much don't need it.

KaeblenOct 19, 20151 votes

So buffing turrets would buff Ohmwrecker? I may know some people who could get behind that.

71389310_DELOct 19, 20151 votes

Sion + Ohmwrecker = fun tower dives? I'm not sure how well it would work in anything above Silver but if a team is gathered around a tower and you ult into them and get the stun you could, in theory, then use the Ohmwrecker to buy your team time to clean up your mess. Anybody willing to try this out and see how it works?

On another note, I don't want to see Ohmwrecker vanish. That would mean Riot made two songs for items that no longer exist; the first being D.F.G.

R.I.P. D.F.G. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Z7qCDoBMs Please live on, Ohmwrecker! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqB_wKUJcZg