A change to the Tear of the Goddess - Fair and Easier stacking for champs without low-CD abilities

So, I wanted to share my thoughts about the Tear of the Goddess and how it works right now in the game.

I think the whole idea of spending time and money, sacrificing early-game damage and advantage that comes with it for an investment into mid-lategame higher damage is brilliant. If you want to be able to achieve juicy stats and bonuses (tons of AP + active, or very strong on-hit effect of ) you have to buy them early and be patient. However, that's not always the case. There are many champions, that, even if Archangel is bought on them early, they won't be able to get it stacked till very late game, or even won't be able to get them to full stacks before the game ends. What could be the reason for that? The answer is simple:

The **stacking mechanism is UNFAIR **and is advantageous to champions with low-cooldown spells, which in my opinion isn't right. I see no sensible reason to punish, or rather, make it harder for champs with high cooldowns to stack the Tear. Are they worse in any way? That's racist, kappa.

Archangel and Manamune are both great items that would be a viable option as an alternative way of building on many, many champs if not for their clunky, unfair and unreliable way of stacking. Build Diversity is always a good thing, I think anyone would agree on that, right? Items were made so that as many champs as possible, bearing in mind their respective roles of course (Tank, ADC, Mage etc), can buy them and recognize them as a viable part of their build(Am I right, Devs?). I can't imagine Riot adding an item to the game only to serve one or just a couple of champions, while being worthless to all other. So why not make it so that champs other than Urgot, Ezreal, Jayce and Karthus(and a few more) can find these items useful and worthy of buying?

"Alright, smartie, how do we fix it then?"

My idea is to change how the passive of the Tear works, obviously, since it's unfair.

Right now it works in a way, as we all propably know, that you can twice every 8 seconds proc the passive with a spellcast to gain 4 mana. Which means, you can get a maximum of 8 mana every 8 seconds. In other words,** for every in-game second you are able to get 1 mana point**, if you are playing a champion that has low enough cooldowns to proc the passive reliably, of course.

I'll highlight once more a very important, core mechanic of the Tear that we want to stick to, as we don't want to mess it up too much or make it too OP: "for every in-game second you are able to get 1 mana point" - and let's stick to that. There will be no changes in regard to this mechanic.

What I'd like to propose is a change in how much mana we get for an ability cast, on what it depends and the available-to-stack mana pool in a given period of time.

So these are my ideas I'd like you to think about, wheter they are viable or not:

1. Change an "available-to-stack mana pool" that at this moment amounts to 8 every 8 seconds, to, for example, 20 mana every 20 seconds. Or 30 every 30s. This is just a rough guess how much it should be, this should be tested to check what number is ideal. The amount of available charges cannot be too high of course - we still want for that mechanic punishing players that neglect regular, consistent stacking to be present.

2. Change the way ready-to-use charges work. Right now we gain 1 charge of 4 stackable mana every fourth second, up to a maximum of 2 available charges. I propose to change it so that each 1 second Tear of the Goddess would replenish 1 charge, up to a maximum of - for example - 20-30 as stated above.

3. Change how the stacking itsef works. Right now you get 4 mana for each charge used, per spellcast, no matter what kind of a spell it was. It should be changed so that each spellcast will consume between 4 and 10 charges, granting you 4-10 stacked mana, based on the Cooldown of the ability. Yes, you read that right. If the spell's cooldown is less than 5 seconds you'd get the current amount of mana per cast - 4. However, for each second of cooldown above 4, rounded down, up to a maximum of 10 seconds, you'd spend an additional charge, granting you up to a maximum of 10 mana per ability cast. Formula: Mana Gained/Charges Used Per Cast = 4 + 1 for each second of ability's cooldown above 4s, rounded down, up to a maximum of +6 for a 10s+ CD Ability.

So, summarizing, we have a maximum of 20-30 charges, we gain 1 charge per second, and spells consume diffirent amounts of charges, between 4 and 10, based on their cooldown, gaining between 4 and 10 maximum mana, Here are some examples of how it would work:

Veigar's Q has 7s CD on level 1. Upon casting it he'd consume 7 charges of the Tear and gain 7 maximum mana. Brand's Q has 7.5s CD on level 2. Upon Casting it he'd consume 7 charges of the Tear and gain 7 maximum mana. Veigar's W has 10s CD on level 1. Upon Casting it he'd consume 10 charges of the Tear and gain 10 maximum mana. Brand's W has 9.5s CD on level 2. Upon Casting it he'd consume 9 charges of the Tear and gain 9 maximum mana. Veigar's E has 18s CD on level 1. Upon Casting it he'd consume 10 charges of the Tear and gain 10 maximum mana. Evelynn's Q has 1.5s CD on level 1. Upon Casting it she'd consume 4 charges of the Tear and gain 4 maximum mana.

And, since Tear would generate 1 charge per second, if you were to have less charges available than you could stack with your ability, you'd only spend available charges, of course. For example:

has 7/20 available charges. Veigar's uses his W which has 10s CD on level 1. Upon Casting it he'd consume 7 charges of the Tear and gain 7 maximum mana, because only 7 charges were available.

Now the last changes that would need to be made are to the finished items that build out of the Tear. Manamune and Archangel. Well, actually I lied a bit, Manamune needs no changes - you'd still gain 4 mana for each basic attack. However, in Archangel's case the amount of stacked mana compared to the Tear is doubled, so an analogous mechanic to the one on live servers should exist in the new one, too - The maximum amount of charges, the regen of charges and the amount of charges spent per cast should all be doubled, meaning Archangel's Staff should have a maximum of 40-60charges, generating 2 charges per second, and spending 8-20 charges per ability cast (with CDs 4-10s).

And that'd be all. I hope everyone understood how I'd like it to work. If not, just ask away, I'll try to answer your questions. Let's see now what are the pros and cons of this solution:

Pros:

• It doesn't change in any way the minimum time required to fully stack the tear, as you still gain a maximum of 1 charge per 1 second, which means there is no possible way to get the Tear stacked in less than 750seconds (12min 30s)
• Players that were building these on champs that are good at stacking the tear won't be negatively affected by this change, yet it won't make it too easy for them to stack neither
• It makes Tear-items a viable choice for champions with higher ability cooldowns,** allowing for more diverse builds** (which is a great thing)
• It also **helps champions that have no skillshots ** stack the Tear (Evelynn for example), thanks to the higher charges pool. She'll be able to get from one jungle camp to another without wasting any charges

Cons:

• Are there any? Well, maybe it'd make it a bit too easy to stack the Tear if the maximum charges limit was too high, but as I said, that'd need to be tested out. Other than that, there are none.

What do you guys think about this? Do you agree with me that , & need some well deserved love? I don't want to see them being build so rarely. They are an awesome addition to the game, and they definetly should receive this tiny and easy to implement for Riot, yet huge and impactful for all of the lovers change of the passive mechanics.

Cheers. [zombie-nunu-tears]