Item-By-Item Initial Opinion of Mage Item Changes

First off, I've been a mage main since season 2. I heavily focus on Anivia, but dabble in practically all mid laners- with tier 3 mastery or higher on 24 different mid champions. I was Plat 3 last season. I'm going to go through each item that's receiving changes and give my personal views on what I like and dislike about the changes. I won't hide my Anivia bias here; I'll explicitly tell you whether I view the change as positive or negative for the bird.

This is a pretty darn cool change. It will even out sustain from the item in lane, rather than having it come in bursts upon level-up. Exact relative power level is hard to judge, but definitely seems powerful for high-mana cost champions. For Anivia, this is a pretty interesting change that I definitely like in theory. I won't be able to say for sure whether it's better on her or not until I try it out.

This is AWESOME. Really awesome. I love this change. The synergy with Catalyst/RoA is super nice, and the %mana cost reduction means that this will scale much better with high mana pools than the old mana regen. It's definitely a buff for Tear Anivia, especially for long team fights that you have to keep ultimate on for a long time.

This is... really odd. I don't really understand what HP regen is doing here at all. Not sure why we didn't go back to the old Mana Font (increasingly increased mana regen the lower your mana pool is), because I'm not sure it makes sense to give HP sustain like this to Chalice. I'd prefer something like "increases mana regen from this item by 1-2% per 1% missing mana," which would probably be less mana regen than Riot's version gives most of the time. My version would be more clearly targeted at doing what Chalice traditionally does, which is significantly alleviate mana issues for mages with the highest mana costs (that aren't named Anivia or Swain, anyway). Not sure whether this will synergize with Catalyst or not, but the changes to its upgrades mean I'm never building Cata+Chalice as Bird anymore either way.

Lost Chapter This is a pretty cool item. Very viable to combine this with either Cata or Tear, meaning ArchAngel+Morello or RoA+ Morello is 20x as viable as it was before.

This is no longer as good as a standalone mana item. It's not bad, and many mages will be fine with just this amount. Combined with Tear/AA, it will solve all mana problems for most to almost all mages. Swain's bird is eternally hungry for more mana for longer ult, and Anivia may still have some difficulty after Lost Chapter is upgraded.

I really can't stand the changes to this item. 40 AP is ridiculous; 60 AP was already painful. This will no longer be the choice of control mages desiring a safer lane phase and the greatest mana regen possible. It's pretty much a support item at this point. The whole Blood Charge thing seems like something that belongs on Mikael's; in fact, I think it would be interesting to see this as a remade version of Mikael/Ardent Censer/ or as a new item. If this item is built in mid lane at all, it will be a very situational choice on only a few champs. I'd really like them to take another go at Athene, targeting it as the high mana cost champion option it has historically been.

Seems very odd to keep the omnivamp on this item; I could actually see this being a very situational choice on Vlad. However, it obviously isn't going to be chosen on any other mages, and I don't have many strong feelings about this choice.

About time. This item has never been anything but trouble for Riot. I do think there's a world in which spell vamp could exist, and I'd love to see it, but it's certainly not the world we currently live in.

Well, this is definitely different. It's weaker overall, but it is much more appealing to a wider base of champs. I can't give a strong opinion on it yet, having not tried it on many champs.

Hextech Rocket Belt I really dislike this idea. I've had enough mobility creep in the game already, thank you very much. I feel like this might be mandatory on pretty much every champion capable of building it. The stats are pretty good and the dash is just too strong. I mean, if the enemy builds this, you kind of have to, too.

Hextech GLP-07A This is a pretty neat addition. I could see this being completely viable as a ROA alternative for Bird and others. I think this definitely has a place in the game, but is almost certainly too strong right now. The AP ratio is likely too high and needs to be lowered to something like 10%. Have we learned nothing from Lich Bane and Ludens? Ap ratios from items are really OP, and that base damage isn't exactly low. Not sure what the range on this active is; I hope it's low though. Something like 400-500. This would make it primarily useful as a peeling tool or an assassination tool when extremely close already, but wouldn't hep much with catching up to someone.

I feel that these nerfs go too far. RoA lost its identity when it went to 120 AP from 100, not when it traded HP for mana and AP. I'd prefer a 3000 gold cost with 80 scaling to 100 AP and unchanged mana to this low cost, low stats version. RoA is supposed to be a late game item for scaling champs that need HP, not a low cost item.

The CDR addition I like. Trading that CDR for AP is acceptable. I really can't get over that cooldown nerf though; Zhonya simply pales in comparison to both QSS and Hexdrinker/maw with such a long cooldown. I'd prefer something like 3200-3300 gold, 80 AP instead of 70, and a maintained 90 second CD. Ultimates still typically have a lower CD at high levels than that 90 seconds, so there will still be vulnerability periods in champions that build Zhonya. The gold efficiency/slot efficiency of the item in its current iteration just seems too weak on balance. Still, a new CDR option is appreciated.

I like everything about this change except for the removal of MR reduction vs minions. I feel the other changes already push this item away from the "must rush as an assassin and vs an assassin" space it was in. -10 AP is already a nerf to its waveclear, and the scaling MR redux is ALSO a nerf to its waveclear.

No strong opinion. This is pretty much just a shuffling of stats on the component and seems perfectly acceptable.

On the one hand, this item allows easier access to MR components for tanks. On the other, it's now horribly inefficient as a completed item. 400 HP with ~2600 gold cost I could live with, but 300 HP is just so incredibly low, it's much harder to justify this purchase. Banshee already had an identity as the anti-hard engage item (great vs Malphite, Zac, Naut, Amumu...), and this makes it into more of an early MR rush option and less of an anti-hard engage option. Much weaker on Anivia than it was, although the reduced cost to get to the passive might make this still worthwhile on her and other carries.

I really like these changes. Visage was incredibly powerful against general magic damage on pretty much everyone in its last iteration; this version makes it less ridiculous on non-healing champions and about the same on healers. However, the Banshee's completed stats being so reduced make this still the better option for pretty much everyone... which is part of why Banshee should have 400 HP instead of 300.

TL;DR: I think there are a lot of really neat ideas here. The numbers overall seem to be fairly unfavorable for mages, which leads me to believe that some changes should be made to at least make the changes net neutral. Things that ARE positive changes- namely, Hextech Rocket Belt and GLP-07A- seem strong in "cheesy" ways that make the items likely to be mandatory on a wide range of champions and potentially broken on their ideal champions. These changes should be toned down. I certainly want to compliment Riot on the inventiveness of their ideas; Catalyst, Lost Chapter, GLP, and even Chalice/Grail have interesting ideas that I believe could be very good additions to the game under the right circumstances. However, I feel that the current setup of items does not apply these numbers especially well, and I hope to see changes to improve these applications.