Ohmwrecker and other forgotten items

bad manner kid·Oct 15, 2014·3 votes·801 views

Been in game through thousands of changes and it's probably the least bought item next to Banner of Command. I like these goofy items but you should change them slightly to be more appealing. I read that Guinsoo's will be removed soon, and that makes me sad.

It makes me sad that our item pool is being more constricted to the meta, like how talents got gutted to be easier to pick. I believe it would be healthier for fun gameplay to edit these "forgotten items" and add more experimental items routinely to keep buying items fun.

Last night was a great one, "OMG LB So bronze trash buying ROA LOLOL" said the 2-11 Rammus on the enemy team, and it made me think: Why do people even consider item build flamable? Unless you are totally ineffective with 6 incomplete items, who cares? Items should reflect your playstyle, not some cookie cutter meta item tree for each champion.

8 Comments

TehNACHOOct 15, 20144 votes

Aaaaand you lost me at the whole 'constricting to meta' comment.

The thing about Banner of Command and Ohmwrecker is that they represent both extremes of bad item design: A really powerful active ability with bad stats, and an item with relatively solid stats but an insanely hard to use active.

Like, imagine if Ohmwreker gave a decent amount of health for its cost: virtually every fighter in existence now have absolutely no reason to fear towers. Think of it like this, the only reason you'd buy Ohmwrecker is if you are drastically ahead of the opponent to the point that you are literally willing to invest 2000 gold to tower dive them and give them absolutely no chance to protect themselves with towers. This has to do with Riot's big nut about counter play: if you fall behind, you should have the option to hug your tower in order to protect yourself from anybody you fell behind in lane against. If the opponent buys Ohmwrecker at this point, there is literally no way to defend yourself at this point. The assumed situation is that you are behind, so we can assume you won't survive a straight up 1v1, and if they buy an Ohmwrecker, the tower won't defend you. Lose lose situation for the player that is behind.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Banner of Command is actually really good for creating a '6th man push', but you need to jump through hoops just to use it. You need to time yourself and walk by your Siege minions to use it, you need to deal with its built in cool down on top of this, early game Siege Minions come at slower intervals, it's just hard to use.

A similar version to Banner of Command that's actually viable is relatively easy to implement into the game without breaking any balance, but other items like the Ohmwrecker just won't work from a balance point of view.

bad manner kidOct 15, 20141 votes

But what if we admit Ohmwrecker is totally unviable in its current form, and transform it a bit? (Current effect: Stops a turret from attacking for 2.5 seconds, 120sec cd, two can't be used consecutively on a turret.)

HP, AP, should affect turret game play.

Increase damage done to turrets on a shorter cd.
Passively does more damage to structures
Units around you take less damage from turrets
Active that does 20% damage to a turret on a 90 sec cd.

The more popular HP/AP items are Rylai, Liandry, and RoA. All of them make you more tanky and have a utility/defensive passive. Maybe Ohmwrecker's stats need to be modified because the slot is occupied, but the current active on it just sucks imo.

TehNACHOOct 15, 20141 votes

Do note the current active is most likely the way it is because of balance reasons, like what I pointed out with the whole 'no way to fight back' comments I made.

That would work much better though; it's a definite tower threatening item but doesn't cause the stupid amounts of snowballing the other active could possibly allow.

doubleguacOct 15, 20142 votes

Banner of command is actually good on Heimerdinger. His turrets are coded as minions, so they benefit from the aura. It's easily the most cost efficient damage item in the game for him, from a sheer stat perspective.

I agree Ohmwrecker has been kind of a mess since release. But they already have changes lined up on the PBE for it--the active can now be used on allied turrets to increase their DPS for a brief period of time. I'm not sure that's going to catapult it into viability, but it's at least gaining some much needed versatility.

a Friendly TrollOct 16, 20141 votes

Banner of command is actually good on Heimerdinger. His turrets are coded as minions, so they benefit from the aura. It's easily the most cost efficient damage item in the game for him, from a sheer stat perspective.

I agree Ohmwrecker has been kind of a mess since release. But they already have changes lined up on the PBE for it--the active can now be used on allied turrets to increase their DPS for a brief period of time. I'm not sure that's going to catapult it into viability, but it's at least gaining some much needed versatility.

Same for Zyra's plants.

Acolyte of SteelOct 15, 20141 votes

Like I tell a lot of people, each champion is really just a kit with some stats. You can utilize that however you want - some things scale better than others, however if it's truely viable you have the right to try it as long as you don't intentionally fk up someone's day.

DrukyulOct 15, 20141 votes

Even if Ohmwrecker had good stats, I still think many people would pick up things like Randuin's instead. Armor works against towers, champs, minions, AND monsters.

ShadowNinetailsOct 16, 20141 votes

I think TehNACHO already summed up why Ohmwrecker and BoC are the way they are, but let me speak on the LB with RoA. It's one thing to experiment with what your champion can do, but it's another to choose an item path that runs counter to what your champion does best. LB is a "I'm going to get 6 and destroy everything in my sight until 30ish minutes" champion. RoA says "I'm a glorified minion until 30 minutes". When you have a champion that starts to turn down at a certain point and then give them an expensive item that doesn't turn on until that same point, you end up with low to middling effectiveness at all stages of the game.