Can we look at reworking Black Cleaver into a solo damage-booster instead of an Armor-Shredder?

oLnPeVerna·8/10/2019, 12:41:00 PM·15 votes·9,138 views

Considering the fact that Armor-Shred and Penetration applies BEFORE lethality, essentially cancelling out the "fall off" of things like item 3142 item 3147 item 3814 by cutting through a whole quarter of the armor that was built to counter these "early game items that fall off late game?"

Think about it: item 3071 is one of the core picks for Bruisers, and yet it's amazingly more effective on Assassins because it makes it so every single one of them can scale well into 40+ minute games before they see any sort of fall-off due to the ridiculous pseudo True-Damage they deal from all the penetration they get on their near impossible to miss point and click "combos" which will all be reduced in cooldown by the full 40% because every one of them religiously buys item 3142 item 3147 item 3071 every single game.

Make it like item 3151's effect, only instead of the user getting a damage increase over time in combat with champions the user's damage increases from stacks on the target granted on every unique source of physical damage. So this way if an assassin want's to deal with heavy armor they HAVE TO BUY item 3033 or item 3036 instead of getting everything they could possibly want with item 3071

This way Bruisers still get the damage increase they want in order to function the same while Assassins can't abuse the broken penetration mechanics with Cleaver to counter the fall off they're designed to have.

25 Comments

Saevum8/10/2019, 6:22:02 PM3 votes

I am still thinking there should be a ranged and melee handicap tooltip. Cause the only witness we have that testifies there was once a difference between melee and ranged is the Phage passive.

tempname12321348/10/2019, 12:59:56 PM3 votes

ceaver is a broken item 3 massive stats and 2 massive passives remove 2 or 3 of these

MordridtheBlack8/10/2019, 12:43:33 PM3 votes

Lethality tends to fall off late game more than Armor Shred does.

Chembaron Yamada8/10/2019, 12:56:29 PM2 votes

One reason why bruisers want this item is the armor shred, though, not just a damage increase. It's why fighters can tank bust and counter tanks in top lane. I prefer Black Cleaver to stay as an armor shred item.

CHEWYARMS8/10/2019, 4:29:16 PM2 votes

This has bugged me for a while. I think it's a design flaw that this item is good on ADCs and assassin's.

Gives too much HPs to champs that should be made of glass.

PzyXo8/10/2019, 4:50:46 PM1 votes

I think BC is ok...

voidscaler8/11/2019, 1:47:42 PM1 votes

Imo cleaver needs a full rework (and armour pen in general but I'd settle for cleaver) Armour penetration should be a "counter buy" to deal with opponents who are building armour, it should never be the default buy as armour pen items SHOULD be weaker Vs non armoured opponents then non pen items BUT Cleaver offers perfect stats for an ad bruiser, combined with being a relatively cheep item and being over 100% gold efficient BEFORE the pen is taken into account This means it is a core item on a HUGE number of characters while at the same time being a "counter" item When the best anti tank item is also the best anti squishy item you have a serious design problem

Cleaver needs a rework, it should either be a counter it to tanks, and weaker Vs non tanks, or a default buy WITHOUT armour pen, it should NOT be a default buy and have counter stats

ProfDrDeath8/11/2019, 1:59:33 PM1 votes

Hmm.

Cleaver itself is not a problem, imo. Rather, it mostly becomes problematic if it is combined with Lethality on the same champion. So, why not add the following passive to item 3071 :

Passive - Sets the user's Lethality value to a perpetual 0.

This prevents abuse by Lethality-building assassins while keeping it as an option for Juggernauts that want to amplify their team's damage output.

TakaDama8/11/2019, 2:13:14 PM1 votes

Honestly, as someone who plays juggernauts, I typically only get Black Cleaver for the Phage passive: the absence of tanks top lane, as well as noy building Lethality on juggernauts myself, means that the % armor reduction feels nonexistent on them.

If anything, just increase the max stacks to 8 and decrease the armor reduced to 3% because if you are fighting a tank, the fight should be drawn out.

HP Crookshanks8/10/2019, 3:08:45 PM1 votes

item 3071 also makes comps strong despite being full AD. They can easily melt high armored targets.

GodlyBane8/10/2019, 4:07:05 PM1 votes

If they did that each of the pen items would have tk get 5% more armor pen, if not then mages would be even more broken then they currently are

Kazekiba8/10/2019, 4:14:35 PM1 votes

Cleaver doesn't build out of 2 CDR items and shouldn't have 20% CDR. Thats what makes it so strong, especially on champions with fast combos and back-loaded damage.

Hemulen Magi8/10/2019, 4:23:45 PM1 votes

How about this? The %armor penetration available in the game become unified in such a way that a target cannot be % reduced via items by more than 30%. Lethality would remain as-is because it is flat penetration.

item 3035 +20 AD, Unique Passive: 20% Armor Pen +15% Attack Speed Unique Passive: Gain +3% Attack Speed for each basic attack against champions, epic monsters, or structures, stacking up to 5 times for a total of +15% Attack Speed. [This is an unnamed passive, so each separate item built from this would have its own independent stack counter and a user could benefit from each separate ramp-up effect.]

item 3122 [Palette swap to red] +25 AD Unique Passive - Sunder: Dealing physical damage to champions, epic monster, or structures, Sunders them. Sunder reduces the target's armor by 3% for 6 seconds and can stack up to 10 times for a maximum of 30%. [This is a named passive, and a single champion owning multiple Sunder items would only benefit from one passive. However, a target could be Sunderd by multiple separate champions having Sunder items. Compared to current Black Cleaver, this stacks up to more times (10 instead of 6) but shreds less with each stack (3% instead of 4%). The idea is that with % armor pen unified into cleaving, you will have multiple allies (ie., marksman + fighter) working together to apply shredding on a tank in teamfights, therefore the upper limit is increased to incentivize this teamwork.]

item 3036 ( item 3035 + item 3122 ) +45 AD +25% Attack Speed Unique Passive: Gain + 5% Attack Speed for each basic attack against champions, epic monsters, or structures, stacking up to 5 times for a total of +25% Attack Speed. Unique Passive - Sunder: ... [Identical to listed above.]

item 3033 ( item 3035 + item 3123 ) +35 AD +25% Attack Speed Unique Passive: Gain + 5% Attack Speed for each basic attack against champions, epic monsters, or structures, stacking up to 5 times for a total of +25% Attack Speed. Unique Passive - Executioner: ... [Same as current.]

item 3104 ( item 3122 + item 3044 + item 3133) +400 Health +75% Base AD as Bonus AD +10% Cooldown Reduction Unique Passive - Sunder: ... [Identical to listed above.] Unique Passive - Rage: ... [Same as current.] [This is the replacement for current Black Cleaver.]

item 3071 ( item 3122 + item 3077) +80 AD +100% Health Regen Unique Passive - Sunder: ... [Identical to listed above.] Unique Passive - Cleave: ... [Same version as on Tiamat.] Unique Active - Crescent: Deals 30% to 50% of total Attack Damage as physical damage to nearby enemy units (enemies closest to the target take the most damage). This effect applies 3 times over 3 seconds (10 second cooldown). [This item would be very useful for applying many stacks of Sunder in a teamfight. It would be an alternative to item 3748 + item 3104. Though it might be too redundant as an item. It seems to me that the item named "Cleaver" should have the Cleave passive, and I don't want to suggest removing an iconic League item.]