Increasing Morello's price still doesn't make Athene's an attractive choice

AnomalousChimera·1/19/2015, 8:02:12 PM·118 votes·4,923 views

Before the preseason changes were even implemented, I stated that the changes to mana regeneration and to mana regeneration items were nerfs across the board for mana regeneration and that the changes would be change for the sake of change (Why nerf a portion of the champion pool while not nerfing the rest of it? And clearly, many champions would not be affected in the exact same way.) while the jungle changes were necessary (although I believe the jungle still needs more work). As it stands, Athene's is pretty much garbage unless you want a tiny amount of Magic Resist.

55 Comments

KirbyCake1/19/2015, 8:27:56 PM23 votes

morello isn't even a late game item for the stats it gives, but unfortunately its the only viable ap cdr item. also the regen isn't good, its slightly worse than athenes.

even buying tear isn't that good since it only offers like 2 mana regen per 5 when it used to give like 6/7 per 5. it's even riskier than before since it offers no combat stats and it's not going to regen you anything if you go oom.

the most viable mana regen item atm are doran rings. 2 doran rings gives the same regen as athenes or better.

Desmond Law1/19/2015, 11:18:33 PM20 votes

Mages got shot in the knees with the recent patches base mana regen and items got nerfed chalice got nerfed morello's is more expensive, removed DFG

At the very least if they wanted to balance the fight between Athene's and Morello, remove the AP from Athene, and compensate it to give ass tons of mana regen and noticeable MR. item 3174 = item 3028 + item 3114 + item 1057

Then remove the mana regen from morello and compensate by turning it into the last 120 ap item 120 AP 20% CDR Your spells apply Grevious wounds on units below 40% max hp. item 3165 = item 1058 + item 3108

Erockandroll1/19/2015, 8:13:16 PM16 votes

I keep telling them, put the MR back of Athene's. They want Athene's to be the Primary AP v AP Item.

balbraaksel1/19/2015, 8:18:10 PM16 votes

I've been frantically avoiding to ever buy Athene's Unholy Grail since the magic resist nerfs it received. The item is just aweful, I'd rather buy a Seraph's Embrace with Rod of Ages and run around with Clarity than that I have to buy that item.

Ultîma1/19/2015, 10:44:43 PM16 votes

It's not fun playing a champion with heavy mana costs anymore because you're heavily gated after one or two rotations of spells.

Athene's should be the uncontested mana-regen item of the game. No one bought it for the MR, even the AP - while a nice touch - was only a bonus to the true purpose of the item; mana regen.

Nerfing everything else won't make Athene's more attractive - it'll just make the game a lot less fun for mid laners.

Moulin Rouge1/19/2015, 9:00:35 PM14 votes

I've since dropped playing mages apart from Orianna. I just cannot do it anymore. The mana issue is ridiculous.

It's a dark time for mana intensive mages. Shame on you Riot for forcing me to roll ADC.

NorthernDruid1/19/2015, 11:15:12 PM7 votes

The problem with the Chalice items, is that they no longer scale well with missing % of mana, but rather with missing falt amount of mana.

Meaning it's fantastic if you can afford a mana item in adittion.

So along with a RoA or AA/Seraph's it's really good (it helps fill up after abusing Seraph's active as well).

The fact that it scales with amount of mana spent rather than % of mana spent means it's also less effective as the game goes on, since Morello's is 100% mana regen and at low levels Athene's passive needs you to be missing about 300 mana to be worth 50% on it's own.

And guess what, this ineffectiveness increases with level, as your base mana regen scales up faster than how mucch missing mana you can typically comfortably walk around with.

At very high levels it evens out... ish. Or if you get some mana items.

But in general it's regeneration doesn't actually kick in until you're too empty to do anything anyway.

So it aught to be good on poke champions. Or in situations where you can benefit from Athene's other passive.

But Chalice/Athene's is way too weak early game. Crucible is the best mana regen item in the game (since it's got 100% base mana regen plus the chalice passive). But Athene's is too weak as a mana regen item without lots of mana to make up for it by having hybrid stats, especially when the Tear is just as good, grants more AP and is a lot cheaper early game, and Morello's is about as cheap (or cheaper) grants 1/3 more AP, and an anti-healing debuff.

So either get Crucible instead, get some extra mana, or get Morello's.

And then if you need a bit of magic resist in the late game (where you can usually snag at least one kill/assist in teamfights to proc Athene's other passive anyway) You can exchange your Morello's for it.

Nausicäa 1/20/2015, 12:57:46 AM3 votes

Yup, early game mana regen in particular took a MASSIVE hit.

Athenes only begins to approach its old regen values AT LEVEL 18. At early levels your mana regen is a tiny fraction of what it used to be. Riot clearly did not think these changes through properly.

Solidair31/19/2015, 11:02:34 PM3 votes

Getting Grail in combination with Tear is an insane combo. Because of the way the passive was changed, you basically stop running out of mana later on.

Unfortunately, that's a lot of time and money spent on just mana items without moving into hard AP, making it hard to pull off

OperationDEEZ11/20/2015, 9:43:42 PM3 votes

Watch Rito make a manaless ADC. Watch.

10Tickler1/19/2015, 9:21:17 PM2 votes

What I love is that the Athene's Changes haven't weakened Galio in one bit.

OperationDEEZ11/19/2015, 11:18:30 PM2 votes

I main Viktor and Anivia and frankly I don't really feel the effects of the nerfed mana regen, I don't run OOM that often and with Viktor I build item 3028 and don't even look back until I've finished most of my core build, after that I either finish it or sell it for a more useful item. When it's not that it's double dorans. For Anivia I usually build item 3027 and item 3070 and I'm golden. I usually take Runic Affinity because of the Blue Buff nerfs and sometimes my jungler would be a dickweed and lock Khazix or Nocturne after I've locked either of these two champs, and even then I do just fine.

DracosKasu1/20/2015, 3:55:40 AM2 votes

The best they can do to help athene is to maybe give it a active like a temporary mana per sec boost. Similar to a potion.

Hyrum Graff1/20/2015, 4:59:21 AM2 votes

Here's how I see it:

(along with ) should be the premier 'AP v AP' items.
should be the premier 'Killing things' item (more AP, grievous wounds).
Should be the premier mana items. If you want to act like you're manaless, buy one of these, at the cost of having a longer ramp-up time.

DadSav1/20/2015, 7:47:23 PM1 votes

I like the changes, except for one part. I like that you have to be careful about using your spells. You cannot just easily use spells to shove lane whenever you want and be a map problem. The issue is that many of the manaless mids can shove lane whenever they want and still have all abilities back and ready to use very soon. Or they can spam a poke move and it does not stop them from unleashing all 3 other moves any time.

Subject 51/20/2015, 8:03:35 PM1 votes

I love how all of the changes to cost are pushing away champions that don't even exist anymore, like Brand for example. Its like, Riots "Tools of awesomeness" states people are buying double morello, therefore the item is OP. Meanwhile item 3174 is literally one of the worst items to have unless if you are supporting, hell why are you buying this item if you are supporting? I can hear Zed Akali whispering to Riot like "Mid laners that actually have resources to worry about are actually becoming a threat, nuke the itemization that is all ready disgustingly terrible compared to AD!"

Sohleks1/20/2015, 8:38:05 PM1 votes

Would it be bad if Athene's had 70 or 80 AP again? The AP was dropped down to 60 before we nerfed the MR and eventually mana sustain, but I don't think AP was ever the problem with the item.

Another amp tome in the recipe would be a buff of a sort too. Increase the cost of the Athenes slightly to compensate the better slot efficiency and build path.

With DFG being gone though I don't want to buff Athenes too much...

EfficientDynamo1/20/2015, 5:03:31 PM1 votes

Not that I think this is necessarily a great idea, but the Athene's nerfs might have been motivated by a desire to force people to learn mana management. It is a valuable skill that everyone should try to have, although it does kinda arbitrarily raise the skillcap for a good chunk of champions.

Alpharite1/20/2015, 10:25:06 PM1 votes

All this change does is put an additionall 200 gold tax on mages, which is BS considering they're already being gutted (chalice/grail destroyed, DFG removed, etc).