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New item type, Cursed items

Plorpmeister·5/16/2015, 8:37:47 AM·7 votes·1,265 views

I've been thinking a lot about item diversity of late (there isn't really any).

So I thought to myself, how would I shake things up. What I came up with is Cursed Items.

Cursed Items give a great value for the cost, but have some sort of significant downside to them too. Also of note the Benefits are Unique, but the downsides are not. Another trick with cursed items, is they can be tailored suit certain champions, especially ones that need a bit of a boost.

I give for example the Hemorrhaging Hacker: 2600 2400 Gold (Vampiric Scepter + Vampiric Scepter + 1000 800 gold) Unique: 65 75 AD Unique: 20% Lifesteal -15 Armor -50% passive health regeneration Basic Attacks against you cause you to bleed for 25% of the total damage as magic damage over 3 seconds.

A pretty beefy item, if you don't mind recalling after every fight. It give very good offensive stats for the price, but makes it harder to win trades. It's an amazing pick for say Olaf, because the downsides don't affect him too badly, and wouldn't be terrible for an AD caster against a mage.

Cursed Spellbook of Despair: 2200 Gold (Fiendish Codex + Blasting Wand +580 Gold) Unique: 90 120 AP Unique: 20% CDR -15% (total) Mana Your spells cost 50% more to cast, but have all non-range, non-duration parameters raised by 25% (Damage, direct healing (I'm looking at you Morde's ult), shield size, movement speed, etc.).

Awesome you get to chain your spells like mad! You're gonna have to really manage your mana though. Even with an Althene's you will run low on mana unless you're getting kills and assists. Also, it reduces the effectiveness of just having a gigantic mana pool.

How about some love/hate for the mana hungry? Ugh this one is a mess. Glass Bauble: 1000 Gold (Faerie Charm + Faerie Charm + Faerie Charm + 460) Unique: +100% Base Mana Regen Unique: +5% Movement Speed Before armor and magic resist, converts the first (8+Champion Level) points of damage taken into true damage (2 second cool down). Void Idol 2000 Gold (Forbidden Idol + Vampiric Scepter + 600) Unique +75% base Mana Regen Unique +10% CDR Unique +10% Lifesteal Unique +15 Attack Damage Void's Favor: Upon entering combat you have 10 seconds to gain 10 stacks of Void's favor. You gain stacks by attacking enemies or affecting enemies with spells. If you gain 10 stacks, you gain Void's Blessing, doubling the attributes of this item for the remainder of combat. Failing to gain 10 stacks grants you Void's Scorn. Void's scorn slows you by 50% for 6.66 seconds, and reveals you for up to 5 seconds after you leave combat. 30 second cooldown.

Better build some extra health! Look out for Teemo too. Please your new Void Masters, or suffer their Scorn!

Something silly now: Pretty Purse: 600 Gold Unique: +8 Gold every 10 Seconds Shallow Pockets: Enemy champions gain additional gold when hitting you with basic attacks (Melee gain 2 gold per attack, Ranged gain 1). May use in conjunction with another gold item.

Just fun and interesting there. I see tanks with purses.

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The only limit to cursed items is your imagination! I welcome see more additions to my ideas, or suggestions/alterations to my items.

Edit: For the purpose of continuity, and now knowing Riot won't do Negative values on items, I am going to alter items. Changes will be italicized. Original values will be struck through.

9 Comments

Critmaster Garen5/16/2015, 10:58:29 AM4 votes

riot said, they wont do negative stats.

i dont think the system would work either. the items would only ever be bought by champions who could circumvent the weakness of the item.

for example the item that reduces your mana by 15% would be the first one to be bought by vlad every game. or other manaless ap champs. that gold item, id probably buy on ziggs, sit on it the entire game and never get close enough to be in auto range of any opponent.

you get the idea. there are simply so many different types of champions in this game, that you would always find one who isnt affected much (or in some cases at all) by the drawbacks of the item, but makes great use of the benefitial stats.

JustMyBassCannon5/16/2015, 11:14:55 AM4 votes

Riot doesn't even let item upgrades lose stats, let alone negative stats. The first problem with negative stats is whether or not the item is worth using.

For example, with your stat-focused suggestions, I can name an alternative that has no negative, is within the same cost range, and provides similar stats. With Hemorrhaging Hacker, I can just as easily buy Vamp Scepter + BF Sword and be on my way to Bloodthirster, or Bilgewater Cutlass plus a Dagger or two towards BotRK. I get less AD/Lifesteal, but I don't lose HP regen or Armor.

With Cursed Spellbook, I'd just rather buy Will of the Ancients. 10 less AP and 10% less CDR, but I get 20% Spell Vamp instead of -15% max mana.

Glass Bauble isn't even worth comparing with Forbidden Idol, Chalice of Harmony or Tear of the Goddess. The one positive you get out of it is MS, and I'd rather not sacrifice what little natural defenses I have for the sake of less than +20 MS early-game.

I'd rather not buy these cursed options, because they all make unnecessary sacrifices compared to their alternatives.

That's not the only problem, though. Even if you could make cursed items that are worth the cost, you run into the problem of champions who can abuse them because of their stats. For almost every possible stat permutation, there's a champion who either doesn't need the cursed stat, or they can negate the negative with their kit.

So, you either end up with items that have a penalty no one wants, or a penalty that doesn't hold back specific champions at all.

BluePolarizer5/17/2015, 7:46:54 AM2 votes

The point of Cursed items is also that it allows bruisers who fall behind to build damage instead of tankiness - but at cost - turning them into assassins that can trade 1 for 1. This means that depending on your team comp, you might not want Riven or Fizz to build full tank. Instead all they have to do is jump in, take out their ADC and then whether they live or not is irrelevant. That means they can buy cursed items and low cost offensive items like LW or Void Staff to maximize their burst while totally ignoring survivability and sustained damage. This doesn't work for carry Riven or carry Fizz, because they have to actually survive to output sustained damage, but works great for assassin Riven and assassin Fizz, say.

Yaksha5/16/2015, 10:20:01 AM1 votes

Pretty interesting concept but it seems like it would be a nightmare to balance

LifeCyclesTWA5/17/2015, 8:59:21 AM1 votes

I really like this idea, however it would be extremely hard to implement without it being overpowering for certain character to use. For example:

Cursed Spellbook of Despair: 2200 Gold (Fiendish Codex + Blasting Wand +580 Gold) Unique: 90 120 AP Unique: 20% CDR Your spells cost 50% more to cast, but have all non-range, non-duration parameters raised by 25% (Damage, direct healing (I'm looking at you Morde's ult), shield size, movement speed, etc.).

This item would be insane on some of the champions with no costs attached to their abilities. Katarina anyone? Also, Malzahar who refreshes mana upon killing units with his space aids. He would easily 1 shot anyone in the game with this item, even the most beefiest of tanks.

Every single item that has negatives attached to it can be abused by champions that the negatives do not apply to.

FantasySniper5/17/2015, 8:45:09 PM1 votes

These are horrible ideas, to say the least.

The thing about "cursed items" is that they usually provide a downside that is irrelevant to the user, resulting in a min-max method of battle that practically has no downsides, ruining the initial concept of actually having to sacrifice this for that, or the cost is just too great/inconsistent to even bother considering in most normal situations.

Hemorrhaging Hacker's downside of taking 25% more damage is meaningless if you kill the opponent faster than they kill you and you get to have that much sustain. Cursed Spellbook of Despair is too powerful on champions like Karthus or anyone with a mana refund on their spells. On Ahri and Vladimir, this thing would become a nightmare. Void Idol can literally have no downsides. Pretty Purse pays for itself in 12.5 minutes, not that it's worth buying because there is no niche for it.