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Avarice Blade; what purpose does it serve?

JustMyBassCannon··11 votes·2,363 views

Well, let's think about this. Avarice Blade is a 750 gold Crit item that grants 10% Crit Chance, 3 GP10, and 2 gold per unit kill. Crit tends to be a carry-oriented statistic, as the lack of Crit+Defense items makes it somewhat difficult to realistically build on most fighters, and the lack of reliability makes it a non-priority for pure assassins. So, logically, it seems to be a gold-gain item for carries, mostly marksmen and a few specific fighters.

Except, which carries actually want this item?

The problems I find with it; -Crit Chance is not an early-game stat. It's something you build after you have a bit of AD/AS to scale with it, or that builds out of AD/AS items. -Gold-gain items on marksmen are somewhat redundant. They're supposed to have in the top 3 CS count on the team, so they're already earning a lot of gold. I thought the point of the gold-gain items was to help the junglers and supports keep up. -It's old, and has barely been changed. Honestly, can you see Riot releasing this item as it is today? -Most items that Avarice Blade builds, the exception being Atma's Impaler, are items that help more when completed. I can see no reason why someone would want to delay Youmuu's, Shiv or ExCa (yes, almost nobody builds it ever, but in the cases where it IS built, you don't want to wait). Yet, Avarice Blade is an item that builds value as long as you hold onto it. It's the Catalyst/Rod of Ages oxymoron except with GP10.

So why does Avarice Blade exist? Why haven't we just dropped it and used Cloak of Agility in its place?

Thoughts? Arguments otherwise? Cookies?

22 Comments

FluxBound6 votes

Cause Ashe needs to make it rain

JustMyBassCannon1 votes

That would be DraaaaDraven's job

acepil0t2 votes

Varus makes it rain. Or hail, whichever you prefer.

Heedprime6 votes

I sometimes bring it on GP or Ashe with my Gold+ masteries for obscene gold gain from my farming. You are right though, it seems to be a rather outdated item that doesn't work well on most champs.

I think it would be neat to have it as an AD support item. So far there is an AP item, a Tank item, and a Utility item. If you change the Avarice blade to an AD oriented support item then using champions like Ashe as a support would become more viable perhaps.

Maybe something like +2 gp10, +5 AD, and +%5 AS. It could be +10 each with the same gold gain and a %5 lifesteal aura at tier two. Perhaps you could use it as a new way to turn into the Zeke's Herald as a tier 3 support item? +2 gp10, +15 AD, +%15 AS, +%10 lifesteal, and shares all of these stats passively with an aura. The active could be that it doubles its current bonus including the shared ones for 5 seconds or so? Yes, no?

Thunder Dreamss1 votes

I agree that turning Avarice Blade into an AD support item would be nice and I think you're on the right track. The only problem I see is that Riot has moved all the gold generation items to be based on activity in some way. Even Coin doesn't just give gp10, it gives gold based on nearby minion death.

So, what would an AD support item item generate gold off of? Killing minions is the first thing that springs to mind but we have Relic Shield for that. AAing the enemy is the next to mind but there's Spelltheif for that.

There's still gold for kills/assists open but that's a snowball item if I ever heard of one. Maybe it could work as an even higher risk/reward gold item than Spelltheifs.

Maybe Avarice Blade could gain stacks like Conservation from the jungle items. When you aa a turret you burn off up to X stacks gaining one gold and dealing one extra damage per stack. It certainly opens up a new angle for support to help push down objectives and get rewarded for it.

KarmicXKoala3 votes

I have to agree. Having gp10 on a low-tier item like this seems pretty redundant. It seems like the only goal is to quicken the transition into the next item, like item 3087 Shiv or item 3142 Ghostblade. In that case, why not just make the higher tiers cheaper? Okay, it's so that the player has to wait a while for the higher tier to get cheaper. Not really a shining point.

Look at the way item 3078 TriForce used to work (before item 3044 Phage got switched around) all 3 mid-tier items had their own specialized upgrade paths, or you could get all 3-mid tiers and keep (roughly) the mid-tier effect of all of them on item 3078 TriForce. Something like that seems viable on item 3093 Avarice Blade.

As an example, say you would give item 3093 Avarice Blade a passive similar to Shiv, but at a slower stack rate, and less dmage/targets. item 3093 Avarice could specialize into item 3087 Shiv, or could stay weaker in item 3142 Ghostblade (replace, for instance, the AS buff on the active.), item 3123 Executioner's Calling (maybe someone would actually buy it then) and item 3005 Atma's (not sure what to replace on that. Nerfing the hp/ad ratio, judging by the history of the item.)

I'm not saying those particular changes are balanced, or even viable, just mentioning the idea of what I mean. It's just bothersome when an item loses the abilities of one of its component items.

2xHero2 votes

I think the main problem is that it is an old item. My guess is that it was designed to be a "high-risk / investment" item - you spend more gold now on an overpriced item in order to farm up a more powerful item, more quickly. But, the items that it upgrades into aren't that powerful - especially for carries that have the best chance of making use of the Avarice Blade.

item 3005 Atma's Impaler really is a fighter item, and the original recipe didn't even have an avarice blade. It should have attack speed instead of critical chance anyway, since fighters like attack speed and don't care much for critical chance.

item 3123 Executioner's calling really isn't that powerful. It is gold efficient and has a useful passive, but it is really not slot efficient for an ADC. It needs an upgrade path or something... but it also relates to the problematic state of heals in LoL. That's a another topic.

item 3142 We're getting warmer. I could almost see you getting an early Avarice Blade for this - but Brutalizer is so much better.

item 3087 Statik Shiv - the one time it can be useful. An early avarice blade sometimes works as an investment item if you plan to upgrade it into a Statik Shiv. I don't play carries enough to know how viable of a strategy it is; but if you can get away with a lot of farming, you can possibly get away with buying an Avarice Blade shortly after your first BF Sword and then upgrading to a Statik Shiv after upgrading your BF Sword and possibly buying a Last Whisperer.

In my opinion, Riot should just dump the item, modify existing recipes to use Brawler's Gloves or Cloak of Agility, and do a rework on Atma's Impaler. On the other hand, Riot could embrace it and include it in more recipes to try to push it as an investment item and try to make a farming strategy more viable. I am not sure if that would be healthy for the game, but at least it is a pretty horrible item to rush for farming since Critical Strike is expensive, does not add sustain, and does not make last hitting easier.

Viro Melchior3 votes

Completely agree on Atma's. Not really any champion out there that wants armor and critical, except for an ADC (who is needing some defense, likely due to a 3x or 4x AD threat enemy team). And a carry who is in that position is better served with a Randuins, because it also gives some health, and a great passive for denying enemy AD champs. Switching it to AD/Armor (with its passive intact) would just make it grant too much AD, though, so attack speed would work well (since most fighters benefit more from aspd than crit%.

Executioner's Calling is just bad. The champion that it is strongest against is Mundo (a tank with insane regen), and it still doesn't see any professional play, despite the frequency of Mundo picks. Exactly for the reason stated - no upgrade path, and crappy slot efficiency. Mundo is a late game champion, so an item that wimps out after mid-game is pointless.

The problem with Youmou's is that the other half (Brutalizer) is insanely powerful in the early game (flat pen and flat AD). And the completed item's active is insanely powerful (not OP, but compared to Brutalizer + Avarice, Ghostblade is insanely strong). So there's really no scenario where you have an Avarice in your inventory for more than one trip out to lane, because you'd have to be crazy not to finish the item. 1 lane trip is usually 5 minutes or less. 5 minutes = 90 gold from passive, plus up to 126 gold from minion slaying. So, best case scenario, its saving you ~200 gold (and, usually, far less than that).

Which leaves Staikk Shiv. Here is an item you can rationally build Avarice on first. Zeal is nice, but not a huge power spike. Zeal doesn't give AD, so you're not forfeiting anything there. And its early game, so you don't have any crazy ADC multiplicative stats hitting their peak yet (so that crit% is fairly weak). But that early game scenario is exactly where Shiv goes wrong. Shiv and PD fill the same general item slot, with Shiv having an early game and split pushing advantage, while PD is more of the lategame max dps item. Or, in other words, 6th item PD = good, 6th item Shiv = bad. What that means is that if you build an Avarice Blade to turn into Shiv, just like the Ghostblade, you're pressured into upgrading it, because Shiv provides something major to completing your goals.
So, while you're more likely to have an Avarice Blade sit in your inventory for a while if Shiv is your goal, its still an item that you're rushed to upgrade.

So, how this bothers me: Every other gold item in the game has 3 tiers. Tier 1 is a "meh" gold generation item, designed for supports. Tier 2 is about twice as good as the tier 1. And Tier 3 adds another side item in, and an activatable item, but still holds onto its gold generation. Avarice blade is a tier 2 item with tier 2 gold generation (or tier 1.5 maybe). This is cool. Giving ADCs/fighters a tier 1 gold gen item could be really bad. But when you upgrade it, no aspect about it having been Avarice is kept. No passive gold. No gold bonus for farming. And you're actively pushed into upgrading it, because the (useful) items it turns into have amazing actives/passives.

So, in all honesty, the item simply shouldn't exist. If you're going to have a farm-centric item, it should continue to have a farm incentive when upgraded. If you're not going to have a farm-centric end-tier item, don't make the mid-tier one upgrade into anything, and give it better numbers.

Knight SoIaire 2 votes

atma's crit is not a good stat for ppl who would buy the item thou it can be combined with youmu and trinity, would work executioner offers just to little stats, its a counter item for one champ who heals a lot so itsn ot worth to waste the slot you described youmu correctly

crit is not wanted too early so static rush wont work either

you nailed the problem, the item is outdated

Linna Excel2 votes

My thoughts are its purpose is one of a noob trap and nothing else.

Syvenon2 votes

I think it works really well with Ashe , because she has a really weak early game anyway. So basically buying avarice blade first and taking an early point in your e is how you win your lane. The problem with this is that for that to work you need to avoid fighting because your lane opponent will probably have more ad. If you can avoid having any kills in your lane and you keep relatively close in lane, you will make far more gold than your opponent.

However, playing support with an adc who is doing that is absolutely miserable. So usually, the supports will try to make plays even if the adc is choosing to build towards late game. That's why I had to start going bf before avarice blade, because supports and junglers would get upset if I couldn't follow up due to having that crit chance instead of ad.

I think if avarice had a little bit of ad on it (maybe build from long sword?) it would be a really good item so that you don't have to completely give up early game power to build it, but you still have a trade off.

APissedOffDude1 votes

It's purpose is to be a garbage item on a garbage champ like TryndaFail.

Macbob1 votes

Or for the op mid range hit Yasuo and also for the support Ashe :P jungleMasterYi and as for others yea it's garbage you could also put it on Garen and Darius as 1st item but it would probably be a fail :P

iRetribution1 votes

Personally, I would like to see it be buffed a bit- maybe remove the gp10 on it but increase gold per kill and add some special passive to it like what Atma's has, but yknow, better and while we're at it, buff up Atma's a bit and replace Avarice with CoA on SS.

Cloud Potato1 votes

I always thought of it the same way you think of the other (old) Gold Generation items; it's weaker when you get it but gives you more Gold in the long run. Effective at doing so? I would say no. It's definitely no HoG. I just think it's a more interesting item to sit on than a Brawler's Glove or something.

Aura Master Fox1 votes

Personally, I only use the Avarice Blade when I'm playing a high-crit build, and even then it's mostly just there so I can use it to build Youmuu's Ghostblade or Statikk Shiv. The extra gold is nice, but after I build it into something else, I don't miss it too much.

From my point of view, it's a weak mid-level item that grants bonus gold to make the path to the next item slightly shorter.

Sire Hippington1 votes

maybe it's there to give yomuuns or SS a bas earlygame to balance the the massiuve midgame spike they grant once finished

JustMyBassCannon1 votes

Except, why would it also build from Brutalizer if it was supposed to have a bad early game? Brutalizer is possibly the strongest AD component item in League. You could build Brutalizer, not worry about Avarice, and just complete Youmuu's from there.

Sire Hippington1 votes

somewhat true, but if ur sitting on 2400g, ur enemy could have a b.f.sowrd and a vampiric, or cutless +2daggers, wich would definitly be stronger than brutalizer+avaric, giving them a window in witch they are stronger till u finish yomuu's

JustMyBassCannon1 votes

No, what I meant was, you can afford to sit on Brutalizer. Avarice Blade is pretty insubstantial on its own, meanwhile Brutalizer is a Pickaxe on steroids. From there, it's 1363 gold to Youmuu's. If you end up backing, and you're just short of a BF Sword, you can just complete Youmuu's and get about as much of a power spike. So if the point of Avarice Blade is to give you a weak item before the final upgrade, it's pretty much circumvented by not wasting your gold on Avarice Blade. You can sit on Brutalizer almost all game long and not suffer much.

Shiv, on the other hand, it doesn't matter which item you build first. It's going to be weak until it's complete (same story as Phantom Dancer). In that example, your theory makes sense.

Cowpowerz1 votes

I just wish the 2 gold per kill passive would carry over to the item 3087

Khodexus1 votes

I actually build an avarice blade on every marksman, usually right after doran's blade, boots, and vampire scepter (usually in that order). This way I can be more lenient with my support and not sweat losing a little bit of CS. Which in turn allows me to focus more on trading, and getting early kills. Sure it slows down building attack damage a little, but most the time it's well worth the time and gold spent on it.

And yes, I do avoid building it into a better item until the late game. As useful as Shiv or Ghostblade are, I don't feel the need to rush them. Or if I do, I buy a second Avarice Blade afterwards, and then sell it late game when I'm getting close to full build.

I also build this on Yasuo (and build it into a Shiv), Jayce, and Wukong (Impaler for both), so not just marksmen.

In short, the gold this item provides can be a huge boon, and is well worth the brief sacrifice of the gold to build it early, and then hold onto it for a while earning gold from it.

I wouldn't mind if they made a full on 3 tier build path for Avarice Blade, and replaced the build tree on these other four items with something else. But I do find Avarice Blade to be quite useful as it is currently.

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