Theorycrafting with the Echo

Effectively, the new item, Luden's Echo, which will be coming out next patch with seemingly no more balance changes to it until it hits live, is going to change mid lane/AP preferences heavily. It is a 120 AP item, with 8% MS. It has a passive which applies 100 + .15 AP (Note, this means it's base damage is actually 116 or so) damage on spell hit at max stacks. It generates stacks on spell cast (not sure if a hit is required, I think so though) and moving. It does not apply on auto attacks.

The first part, the passive proc, makes it very powerful on long range poke mages. Effectively, just adding more AoE damage to that poke. The second part, the generation method, helps spell spammers heavily.

This would point out one person who is godlike with it. . A long range poke mage/assassin, who can jump in to assassinate with a very quick spell rotation. Nidalee, very easily (I've tested this on the PBE, and played a lot of champs on the PBE to get a feel for the best users of the item) is it's strongest abuser reliably. This item is a new core on her.

Second abuser is , who got a PBE buff to his CD on his ult. Effectively, he can restack it via mobility and spellcast in one. While he won't be getting it early game (he has too many other items to grab first) he is still one of it's abusers.

Oh fu---un... I meant fun. Yes, fun. With LBs insane mobility, and tendencies to do some pretty potent burst with AP, she easily will get what she wants out of this item, as it not only boost her burst, but heavily helps her rather bad waveclear without having to blow her W every time (or making sure the W finishes the wave). While this item won't make her lategame godlike, it is a very significant midgame powerspike to help her try and force an early win.

Away from abusers, strong users are (makes her 500-ish+1.5 AP ratio RQ instead be a 600+1.65 AP ratio RQ) While yes, Nid gets this same thing on her spears, Karma does land her RQ easier, and has innate AoE for more team shreading in trade for a longer CD for most of the game (late game Karma RQ is low enough CD to be pretty spammable), (Both enhances his burst potential, and gives him a small boost to his rather pathetic mobility. It also helps for when he is just spamming his Q at enemies for poke in mid-late game, as it is a 30%ish increase in his Q's base damage, and a 25% increase in it's ratio. Combo this with Veigar's infinite scaling, and he is a good user of the new item. also gets good use, as she has decent poke on top of insane mobility, allowing her the potential to charge it 1-2 times in a burst, similar to Nid.

Competing items - Effectively, Luden's Echo is a direct competitor to Lichbane in use cases. What Luden's Echo has in safety, Lichbane has in more overall damage output. Lichbane also synergizes better with some champs than Luden's does, as most on hit heavy champs can't use LE except on one skill (Kayle can't use LE except on Q, Fizz only has R and E, Zilean has only one damage skill to set it regardless). Lichbane will also add more damage to a combo than LE does later on, after your second item usually (40 less AP, 25 less base damage, but a .35 high AP ratio, on what is usually a lower CD except in abuse cases). While Lichbane isn't AoE, usually the AoE of LE isn't heavily utilized, between it randomly targetting 3 nearby targets (usually minions due to their numbers) and the fact the proc alone without a spell to back it up doesn't do too much damage, more being an irritant than a problem.

Pros

• Great AP, very powerful proc to boost both poke and DPS.
• Gives a large power spike to a lot of long range, safe champs who tend to focus on whittling away a target with a spell here and there over going ham all at once.
• Can help boost the waveclear of a few lower waveclear APs.

Weaknesses

• If you are behind and being held away from the farm, the NLR can hold a significant early game powerspike back.
• Very kit dependent to be effective. While the item gives good stats, it is hard to fit in a build if your kit doesn't support it, as while it is very powerful on it's own in the midgame, it will fall off without more items to amp it further.