Reworking Essence Reaver, Reintroducing Soul Sickle

Essence Reaver often is never purchased because its got a terrible build path and gets crowded out by Bloodthirster in terms of lifesteal. Additionally, the mana restore effect it provides is never really as relevant once you hit late-game, further reducing its usage.

Part of the problem is that it's trying to compete with Bloodthirster by having lifesteal, but will never beat BT at it. IMO, it shouldn't even be trying to compete with BT at lifesteal, seeing as it's also beat out by and at health sustain.

The other part of the problem is the build path. is already a nasty cost, but the main part of the problem is that there is no mid-way stop where the player can get the mana restore effect. Riot had an item called Soul Sickle they were working on in PBE that was meant to be the mid-way item for Essence Reaver, but it got pulled because it made Jayce, Talon, Lucian, Ezreal, etc., too overbearing, partially because Soul Sickle gave both lifesteal and mana restore.

IMO, Soul Sickle wasn't a terrible idea, but it had too many stats for a mid-way item. If it didn't have the lifesteal, it would be a good item. Additionally, with the rework coming to Black Cleaver, Brutalizer isn't going to have anything besides Enchant: Warrior and Youmuu's Ghostblade to build into.

We can kill two birds with one stone (so to speak) by doing the following changes. (Remember that numbers are theoretical, so don't freak out!)

First, reintroduce Soul Sickle, reworked into the following:

#Soul Sickle + 425 gold = 1300 gold +30 attack damage UNIQUE PASSIVE: Killing a unit restores X mana, increasing based on your missing mana.

Then, change Essence Reaver's stats to the following:

#Essence Reaver + Soul Sickle + 563 gold = 3200 gold +80 attack damage +20 flat armor penetration +10% cooldown reduction UNIQUE PASSIVE: Your basic attacks restore mana equal to between 1% and 6% of the physical damage dealt, based on your missing mana.

By removing the lifesteal completely, and introducing Brutalizer into the recipe instead of BFS, Essence Reaver becomes better defined at helping its best customers: AD casters. The flat armor penetration makes it a better item to help kill squishies, which Talon, Pantheon and Kha'Zix would love, while solving their mana issue later in the game and providing some oh-so-useful CDR.

As for Soul Sickle, it isn't given an exact version of Essence Reaver's passive because that could lead to Jayce and Ezreal being a little too dominant. However, if they properly last-hit, they'll get back enough mana to keep up some pressure. Additionally, since it has no lifesteal but costs 1300 gold, it forces the player to think about whether to get Soul Sickle for mana, Bilgewater Cutlass for lifesteal, or BFS for pure attack damage in the early game. With only so much money early on, you can't have it all.

Feel free to discuss these suggestions, though please be civil.

#Sorry, no TL;DR summary. Just read it.