How to make tear not an awful buy.

At least, this is an idea I had recently about what would happen if the most notorious issue of buying tear of the goddess were no longer as big of an issue. I play a lot of ezreal (oh boy there it is) and as someone who still tries to work with tear into manamune and all that jazz I can't help but feel like tear itself is becoming more of a burdensome item. I know there's TONS of items for tons of different champions and tear did get a little buff that I think will definitely help it out there is still that issue of Tear of the Goddess not actually giving you any stats for going back to lane. It gives you mana and yeah, abilities are the main source of damage; having mana is important but when your first back consists of tear of the goddess and boots/mana crystal and the enemy just comes back with a Best Friend sword and is 40 ad over you then there's definitely a moment where I personally go 'Well this is lame'.

Considering Tear of the Goddess is meant to work towards a more late game and value approach it makes total sense it's not incredibly strong on it's own and when you do upgrade it both archangel's staff and manamune are really strong items in their own right, archangel's more so than manamune honestly. Yet at the same time if you aren't ryze or Cassiopeia who both gain more out of the raw mana than they do the overall AP they would get anyways or you're not using some strange build based around sustain/tanking more so than damage then buying tear is pretty much not on anyone's mind. Ezreal has many different builds that are popular these days as well so it's not like changing tear would instantly buff 'him' in particular either but it just feels like an item that's so efficient at getting you killed if anything. Considering that both manamune and archangel's staff have the passive of giving you bonus ad or ap based on your maximum mana, why don't we see something new implemented like that for tear sometime? Obviously weaker than those but with the 'adaptive' stuff that is being worked into the game I could totally see Tear of the goddess gaining some kind of new passive like; "Gain bonus Attack Damage/Ability Power (Adaptive based on which is higher; your BONUS attack damage or total ability power) equal to 1% of your max mana (2% for ap)". It'd have to be fleshed out so something like Janna shield or Tryndamere shout didn't accidentally convert a hybrid or ap champion's tear buff to the wrong type which would still be hilarious but it's something. It's half as strong as Manamune's passive and a bit weaker than Archangel's bonus and the champions who normally buy tear for ap already aren't getting that much out of the bonus to begin with. It might lead to almost nothing in terms of actual benefits but even that little bit would make going back to lane with a tear of the goddess a lot less punishing when it gives you at least half the benefit the enemy's back did. And then you upgrade it and back to normal, like nothing happened. Maybe they could make tear cost more, like 900 gold then and maybe they'll make manamune's build path not as awful like a longsword or two longswords even. All I'm saying is that for the few people who use tear of the goddess at all for anything other than trolling let alone who use manamune/muramana in the first place a simple added bit of damage earlier on would make it much easier to work into the mid/late game and it might even make it easier to try putting into new builds for more champions. Maybe it's an awful idea and I'm just being an idiot but I think it's at least worth some thought.

Now to bug riot about giving Gangplank's passive a challenging smite effect. I'll be honest; He needs something if he's ever gonna come back to existence.