Black Cleaver Buffs

Most items are gold efficient without their big passive/active, there are a few that are not such as BotRK, Last Whisper/Void Staff, Youmuus, the Trap Mask (Liandrys) and items like Mejais/Sword of the occult,

Basically tank killing items and items meant to be super snowbally. With this I would to a certain degree expect Black Cleaver to be Gold Inefficient without it's stacking passive as well, and it is, it's worth 2770.7g without that stacking passive, With it's passive at full stacks it has a value of 3070.7g.

The problem with this item is compared to other tank killing items, this one sucks. Like okay yea Trap Mask is technically worse but your average champion is probably going to have 80 armor by the end of the game, add on 10 from runes, you got about 90 armor without trying. Last Whisper will shred 31 of that, the cleaver gives a maximum of 35 and it takes time to build up. This means Last Whisper is just better for armor pene purposed, of course black cleaver comes with it's own benefits but it also suffers from other issues in return, + HP and CDR but also gold. In terms of armor pene alone, Last Whisper has it beat pretty hard, which sucks cause I really enjoy Cleaver and the champions that should/would build it.

I heard a while ago Last Whisper was getting nerfed, it never ended up happening, and I kind think it's okay that it didn't. The problem isn't that Last Whisper is OP, or that armor is OP. The issue is every other tank combating item, especially the Black Cleaver. BotRK is pretty terrible to but it's a very early game suited item and therefor it kinda just goes unnoticed. It also has a relatively strong passive/active. Liandrys is the worst of em but it's not even necessary to the game, Void Staff and Abyssal Scepter along with the Magic pene boots taken on most mages just handle the issue to the point that there is no reason for it to exist.

Cleaver on the other hand has a place in LoL, and I hope it can actually get back into that place, there are a lot of champions with abilities or kits that synergize with Cleaver.

MF Has her ultimate to apply to an entire team. Wukong does the MF thing Darius requires 5 stacks of bleed anyways and loves those stats. Renekton loves the stats even more and has enough abilities to apply the stacks to get a good jump in power early on.

But despite all the synergy, if it's not build first or maybe second then it's complete garbage and by late game it's just better to sell it for Last Whisper.

Cleaver is the early game armor pene item, the problem is that it's pretty much restricted to the early game and doesn't give early game stats.

HP is nice as an early game stat, but in such a small amount, it's not really making a difference, but beyond that the item doesn't have any life steal. Not having any life steal makes the item horrible for MF and Wukong, Riven and many others who might actually be able to build it.

I know I am bouncing all over the place here but no matter what angle you come at it from it doesn't because a viable item. If you added life steal to it, it's cost goes up, A high priced early game item makes for a weak early game, something you should try to avoid. Trinity Force works because it doesn't upgrade out of garbage like long sword and ruby crystal, sapphire crystal and amp tome, instead it upgrades out of cheap early game items like Sheen and Phage. Now Black Cleaver kind of has that with Brutalizer but it's not the same, I know there is a lot of fans of the item out there but compared to Sheen, it's not just not that good. Brutalizer requires you to already be doing good damage. Something like Sheen on the other hand just buffs your damage itself to be actually decent.

I've tried to say everything I've thought about that led me to want this change to help understand why the item needs it so bad. Here is what I think the black cleaver should be.

Cost: 3600 Build Path: Brutalizer + Kindle Gem + Vampiric Scepter + 13 gold Stats: 50 AD 200 HP 20% CDR 10% Life Steal 10 Armor Penetration Passive: Same as now.

This would give it a 3937.4g Gold Efficiency overall. Now that might seem a little high, but as an early game item it's not uncommon to go a little over the price, kind of like most other items and especially early game items like Dorans (except less shitty because you no longer have to sell it later)

Alternatively the item could just remove it's early game status by getting a passive buff instead. However I favor these changes personally.