Because with the great AP nerfing it became one of the most powerful AP items. 100AP is top-tier. When AP was 120, 100, and 80 there were three 120AP items one situational AP item, and RoA. Plus you always wanted morellos and boots.
Now, rylais is one of the best AP items which is WHY you see it so much now. its a problem caused not by the item itself per se, but because riot nerfed all the AP options to the point where it became staple on everyone.
Handy Sandy 1 votesIt's popular because it's the only way to 1v1 a bruiser or assassin since they have so much movement speed and a gapcloser as a mage.
Paroe1 votesIt's popular because it's the only way to 1v1 a bruiser or assassin since they have so much movement speed and a gapcloser as a mage.
Not particularly... it was never a must buy before the great AP nerfs.
Nerfs, mind you, that lowered the base AP you get from a build to 400500 from 600700.
At this point, lowering the AP to 80 again wouldnt even solve the problem because 80AP is still mid-tier...
Astôlfo1 votesOf course not, everyone wants even more CDR instead of AP, right???- oh wait.
TeemoXNidalee1 votesThey also buffed the slow from 20% to 40% on AOE spells
Wonderlands1 votesThere's so much damn mobility in the game, hard to play stationary mages without getting kited/jumped on
Big Lincoln1 votesi still hold that the item update was poorly thought through
should be back to 120 AP, and hopefully we get a new 120 AP item in preseason
utility AP items like 
should all have 60-80 AP for their tank stats and utility
Paroe1 votes[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VNZmgOUo,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-10-06T21:21:44.324+0000)
i still hold that the item update was poorly thought through
utility AP items like
Zhonyas needs a buff back to 120AP, seekers armguard needs to be replaced with a new item that has the zhonya active. RoA needs to go back to 120AP at full stacks as well. Every complete item with 60 AP should also be brought up to 80.
Critmaster Garen1 votes
Zhonyas needs a buff back to 120AP, seekers armguard needs to be replaced with a new item that has the zhonya active. RoA needs to go back to 120AP at full stacks as well. Every complete item with 60 AP should also be brought up to 80.
the problem with rylais isnt its stats. its the passive. nerfing the ap down to 80 doesnt change that the permaslow the item creates is plain unfair in a lot of situations.
and the reason riot has been slightly reducing available ap across the board is, that mages with their new items can stack a whole lot more health.
it was intended to be a tradeoff, to deal slightly less damage, but not be quite as vulnerable to assassins.
you can either run around with 3000 health and 600 ap on a mage, or you can get 700 ap and be squishy as fuck. there is no reason mages should get the best of both.
Big Lincoln1 votesit was intended to be a tradeoff, to deal slightly less damage, but not be quite as vulnerable to assassins.
damage dropoff really isn't enough for how tanky a lot of mages get now; I would rather have more high AP items that make you squishy af for tradeoff. absolutely no reason you should get the best of both worlds on top of being high range
especially the burst mages who can for some reason survive burst just with items, not by doing any real outplay, and then counter-bursting them right back.
also rylai's needs to be reverted to 15% slow on dot and aoe, 40% is utterly ridiculous.
Critmaster Garen1 votesim pretty sure its 50% its stats and 50% because the passive is basically aimbot for people who cant hit their skillshots.
not to mention, its downright abusive and completely shuts low mobility champions down with permaslows.
and no, rylais has not been the way it is forever.
plus, there was an adjustment period where it was sleeper op and people were slowly realizing how broken it was, increasing its playrate more and more over time.