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ADC Crit items are bonkers!

XeroKimo·2/22/2018, 2:01:58 AM·1 votes·410 views

In the distant past, 90% of adcs had the exact same 4 core items, which made choosing adc based on their kits (and the current meta), so riot started introducing more items, or reworking them to increase build diversity. They've succeeded, but at the cost of making adcs unique, in a sense. Example: Sivir the go to pushing/wave clearing adc, can now be replaced with having statik built. Caster ADCs used to have the most upfront damage, allowing them to win short trades or burst someone, can now be replaced with statik + rfc

I digress. Currently, adcs fall under 3 general builds:

  • 80% crit, with IE and 2 AS items
  • on hit, BORTK, Guinsoos, Runnans
  • Caster, which you're either a triforce user, or Essence

there's also letahlithy, but that's going below the scope again.

Currently, crit build has become a staggered build. Everyone builds item 3031 item 3087 item 3094. Rarely do you see an adc get item 3046 or item 3085 if they are going for a crit build. Why Statik and RFC? Simply because they are too good of a combination. You get poke, wave clear, and AOE. When riot did the marksman update, they intended to each have their own intended uses, yet at any given moment, only 2 of them will ever be popular, as before, Runnans and PD were the go to 80% crit build. So how can we fix this?

Well simply nerfing statikk will give rise to runaans once again, or maybe it won't as fleet footwork exist, and just synergies so well with Statik + RFC. My suggestion based off Riot's intended purpose would be:

Runaans Hurricane:

  • Bolts deal 75% damage to minions Reasoning: If statik becomes too weak for wave clearing, Runaans tends to take it's place, by reducing bolt damage to minions, we can keep the 2 from overlapping

RFC:

  • No longer gives bonus charging ability
  • Can now crit
  • Damage buffed to 50 - 140 from 50 - 120 Reasoning: RFC is probably the bigger reason on why the triad of Energized abilities become so viable, taking off the charging ability can make it less appealing, but now it's the burst damage item of the 4. Also having the base damage lower than statik makes it only better than statik, should you still stack the 2 items, on crit

Statik:

  • Can no longer crit
  • Bonus damage to minions back to 120% from 65%
  • Bonus damage to minions scale to 360% at level 18
  • Give bonus energized charging ability Reasoning: Taking off the ability for statik to crit reduces it's chance overlap with runaans, in doing so would reduce it's ability to wave clear minions, we can then increase it's bonus damage to minions putting it back to it's intended use. The overall damage early would be stronger than normal, but weaker in comparison to critting, for minions, and it'll continue to be weaker as the game goes on, adding a scaling bonus damage can alleviate the now lack of ability for statik to crit. Side note: I'm hesitant to have the bonus charging ability to statik, as it'll keep the triad of energized attacks alive, but maybe in a less toxic form, but also in the case of having to clear more than 1 wave worth of minions, Runnans might become the better choice again so maybe having it won't be too bad?

Phantom Dancer: No changes Reasoning: It's still the go to duelist attack speed item, but most adcs don't really do a lot of dueling, so it's understandable seeing this item be the rarest of the 4, it also doesn't really cover any adcs' weakness mostly, in comparison to the 3, granting them either additional safety or waveclearing, this item just really saves you from being bursted, if you manage to attack your opponent before he hits you with all his abilities, but the safety in range with RFC is also really strong. Who knows, without really seeing this item on an adc, I can hardly tell if it's really strong or not

Thoughts?

TL:DR Crit items are making some adcs overlap with each others strengths, making who can abuse them the best, the strongest, some simple changes can fix this and probably return the diversity riot failed to deliver, 3 seasons ago

Additional thoughts: With high crit chance (70% or 80%) being one of the go to builds, which introduces us to the ever so new term, burst per second, we can then nerf IE

Infinity edge: Increases crit damage by 10%, increase to 50% at level 18 Reasoning: Lowers crit damage early game, while late game changes nothing

4 Comments

xToxicOsirisx2/22/2018, 2:53:07 AM1 votes

I like how your argument is that these items are hurting adc diversity and to address that, you decided that every single crit item had to be nerfed. Cause that's somehow going to affect item diversity. The only one I would argue that needs a nerf is Shiv. Otherwise, lots of adcs build different zeal items based on their kits. Lots of adc like sivir go IE and ER, with one zeal item of their choosing. Some go IE and 2 zeal items, Shiv and RFC being popular cause shiv is stupid. Even vayne used to go PD before shiv and RFC became popular.