Boards›Gameplay

Let's talk about spell vamp

Togekiss24·1/14/2015, 8:04:54 PM·2 votes·789 views

After reading the nth thread on DFG replacement proposals on this board, I started to think of what AP mages/casters are currently lacking at the moment. Being a particular fan of mages myself, I notice that the builds still seem rather similar to each other, and that they all share very common weaknesses that kind of makes me feel like something is "missing" to bring them up to their full potential.

One weakness I'd like to bring up is Spell Vamp. On SR, there are currently only... 3 items to gain spellvamp for your caster:

- This item is godly, but the main problem with it is that only a few champions (namely ) actually benefit from everything it has to offer. Most hybrids, other than what I mentioned, would rather build something else like a or a .

- This is a piece of crap. Sure if you are playing or it's pretty much essential, but for everyone else it's stats and everything else it has to offer is surpassed by other items.

- Another niche item that doesn't support the stats of most champions. I almost forgot it still existed.

Wait, Mr. Pokemon person, why are you making such a big deal over niche items? Because we should compare it to the lifesteal/sustain options that other opposing classes have access to:

Doesn't this come off as being a bit disproportionate? An AD auto-attacker can easily regenerate lost health with both commonly used and effective items while casters typically have next to no viable tools to do the same thing. If there is a deliberate reason for this, I'd love to hear it.

What ways can we improve spell vamp? Should it even be improved at all?

11 Comments

Linna Excel1/14/2015, 8:39:10 PM2 votes

I'm in the Ahri camp of spell vamp. The Ahri camp is "spell vamp should be a flat value plus some AP ratio healed for each target damaged". So basically spell vamp should be a fully charged Ahri passive.

One argument for ADCs getting a lot of sustain is that when dueling other ADCs, they have to worry about crits. AP champs don't have that randomness in laning like ADCs.

Yawnli1/14/2015, 9:14:39 PM1 votes

buff vlad pls

ccseancc1431/14/2015, 9:18:35 PM1 votes

They should make a AD Spell Vamp item-2600 gold- 55 Attack Damage 20% Spell Vamp

Active-For 10 seconds the spell vamp is amped to 40%, when item is on cooldown the spell vamp is reduced to 5%. CD=70 seconds? Maybe more?

7ha7guy7771/14/2015, 9:24:37 PM1 votes

Malzahar actually benefits from everything item 3146 has to offer. E and R have full spell vamp. Q and E have reduced vamp. voidlings have AD scaling.

Toru Itai1/14/2015, 10:09:27 PM1 votes

give wota a needlessly large rod 120 ap +20 spellvamp >:D

Zahz1/14/2015, 10:17:54 PM1 votes

didnt they just nerf mages with a mana change and now this? spellvamp is already pretty pointless on anyone that i konw of outside of a few select champs as it is. Im gettin annihlated by zed every game it seems cuz he can poke me limitlessly till 6 then delete me from the game

Rebonack1/14/2015, 8:09:31 PM1 votes

Change WotA build to include Blasting Wand, upping its AP. Give it a spellvamp version of Bloodthirster's passive so it works better for a much wider selection of Mages.

Done and done.

FalconPawwwwnch1/14/2015, 10:44:57 PM1 votes

The problem with spellvamp is that it's much harder to balance than lifesteal for a few reasons:

Every champion's lifesteal can be balanced because it's all AA based and outside of a few decimals in base AS, everyone pretty much lifesteals the same amount, whereas spellvamp benefits champions with low CD single target spells (Jax, Vladimir, Akali, etc) and this is MUCH harder to keep track off.
Lifestealing doesn't cost anything for ANY champion. Many champions are manaless and can abuse spellvamp way harder than mana based champions for obvious reasons.