Maybe Deathcap would be easier to purchase if it had its own mini version of itself.

Illâoi Evê Siôn·Aug 3, 2017·154 votes·4,619 views

For example:

##Witchcap

Cost: 2400 Gold
Recipe: Needlessly Large Rod + Amplifying Tomb + 715 Gold
80 Ability Power
UNIQUE Passive - Death: Increases Ability Power by 10%

You need 183 Ability Power from other sources for the item to be cost efficient. Then Rabadon's would build like this:

##Rabadon's Deathcap

Cost: 3800 Gold
Recipe: Witchcap + Blasting Wand + 550 Gold
120 Ability Power
UNIQUE Passive - Death: Increases Ability Power by 35%

Here you only need 36 Ability Power from other sources. The numbers for Witchcap could be adjusted, of course. The price/+% Ability Power would have to be so you can only buy it as fourth item, and even then it probably shouldn't be worth it because other items grant more than just Ability Power.

99 Comments

Gosh DarnAug 3, 201739 votes

I made this same suggestion a year ago and got downvoted to hell. I've said it before and I'll say it again, boards are fickle as hell.

Needless to say, I support your suggestion. Deathcap is the most expensive item in the game and having a 1700 completion cost makes it insanely difficult to build. It's cost and build path and completion cost are all horrid.

EDIT: Lol actually it was just 3 months ago...

Chaos Milk TeaAug 3, 201716 votes

Times have changed. Games are shorter. People cant find time for deathcap.

notice me Sin piAug 3, 201712 votes

2 reasons u might have been downvoted for:

people didnt agree with the numbers on ur example and downvoted u for having a bad example ~~and no upvotes for the idea itself~~, in which case u clearly did not deserve the downvotes
the meta year ago wasnt that bad for AP mages; new AD assassin itemizations rn turned so many AP mages unviable. U may or may not have deserved downvote in that case depending on ur reasoning for it ~~eg: was it to make smoother item build path even tho mages were already fine? was it to lessen powerspike from rabadon by smoothing the build path and in return nerfing the core item?~~

AirKingNeoAug 3, 20172 votes

AP mages are strong right now.

Pie CubedAug 3, 201716 votes

I love the passive name (Death lol), but it's supposed to be hard to complete and you have to pool your gold for it.

KloqdqAug 3, 201765 votes

That's just silly when you consider the mass amount of other items with infinity better build paths but even better effects. item 3078 item 3812 item 3147 item 3508 as just a couple of good build path examples.

item 3031 is the closest to Deathcaps shit build path but at least the items in IE are a little better spread out gold wise.

hsumis1oveAug 3, 20172 votes

Even better effects? What is stronger than IE, Rabadons or Rageblade?

KloqdqAug 3, 20179 votes

I mean there is a lot of stronger items than rabadons, ie and rageblade. item 3102 item 3812 item 3147 item 3193 item 3146 item 3109 item 3190 item 3165 item 3074 item 3748 item 3071 item 3157 item 3078

Rageblade is arguably the strongest of the three but it is iffy. Items have just gotten far better over the years and rabadons and IE are frankly just added stats to crit and ap. They are strong but they are outclassed nowadays when you just consider the power of other items.

AirKingNeoAug 3, 20174 votes

Rageblade is probably the worst of the three. Trinity nor Titanic nor Gunblade nor RavHydra belong on that list.

hsumis1oveSep 6, 20171 votes

Well I guess this list is champion dependent.

GamerThinkAug 3, 201710 votes

is the closest to Deathcaps shit build path

I guess it's pretty much intended?

item 1058 1250 --> item 1038 1300 item 1037 875 --> item 1026 850 item 1018 800 --> item 1052 435

They are the most expensive items for a reason: they're the late-game op item for their own class. [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

KloqdqAug 3, 201716 votes

I mean they could easily be fixed to not be so shitty build wise.

item 1052 + = item 1058

item 1036 + = item 1038

That would massively help out the items build path as a good example.

It Hertz When IPAug 3, 201729 votes

NLR and BFS are high cost without precursors for a reason. Them and the items they build into are meant to be large-scale items representing significant investment and inventory management, forcing you to save up for them.

FantasySniperAug 4, 20171 votes

Except at this point the only items that use them in their recipe are practically avoided. Any marksmen that actually rushes BFS would rather start Zeal or Greaves than forgo any items when they don't have enough on their first back. No mage in their right mind rushes NLR anymore because the only things it builds into have massive combine costs.

It Hertz When IPAug 4, 20174 votes

Who said anything about rushing them? Last I checked item 3285 item 3089 item 3003 and item 3508 item 3031 item 3072 are all fairly commonly built items for mages and ADCs.

nm1010Aug 3, 201719 votes

Deathcap is 400g more than IE. IE is 3400g to match item 3153 item 3146 , both Hydras are 3500g with much much better build paths. Deathcap is long overdue for a price reduction and/or a different build path.

Edit: and of course item 3078 which has an amazing build path while costing similar gold.

Sozan5Aug 3, 201714 votes

And you can see that IE is superior here, having more powerful components and less combine cost.

Especially the difference between Cloak and Amp Tome is big.

Hyrum GraffAug 3, 201733 votes

<= + + + 425

<= + + + 1265

840 extra combine cost means you're sitting on components for much longer.

yay nibbersAug 4, 201724 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hyrum Graff,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=fOLxOtAe,comment-id=0000000000010003,timestamp=2017-08-03T21:02:12.398+0000)

<= + + + 425

<= + + + 1265

840 extra combine cost means you're sitting on components for much longer.

This is the big kicker. Component cost doesn't matter when you're sitting on them for a goddamn century.

GamerThinkAug 4, 20172 votes

But the combine cost for Rabadon's is a bonus +30% AP, of course they can't make it cheaper than that! How would you value in gold having +30% AP? Less than 1200g? I don't think so.

For completeness, IE has a little less impact when finished, instead (+5 AD and +25% damage only on crits).

Hyrum GraffAug 4, 20174 votes

{quoted}

But the combine cost for Rabadon's is a bonus +30% AP, of course they can't make it cheaper than that! How would you value in gold having +30% AP? Less than 1200g? I don't think so.

For completeness, IE has a little less impact when finished, instead (+5 AD and +25% damage only on crits).

The crit bonus damage is pretty huge, arguably stronger than deathcap's % bonus AP.

That's because crit scales with your base and bonus AD, while deathcap's passive affects only scaling with AP ratios, not your base damages/shields.

I did the math out once for what it'd be like if AP had a stat equivalent to crit. I chopped half the AP off a bunch of big ticket items and gave them an "AP crit" stat equivalent of a zeal upgrade. The result was that in a standard build, you'd have maybe half the AP, but would do 50% more damage -- a direct result of "AP crit" affecting bases as well as ratios.

I'm not saying deathcap is necessarily overpriced, but it's build path is undeniably terrible. I'd much prefer if it built out of two blasting wands, even if that meant it didn't provide any additional flat AP upon completion.

GamerThinkAug 6, 20171 votes

The crit bonus damage is pretty huge, arguably stronger than deathcap's % bonus AP.

No it isn't. Even with 100% crit chance, you would do just 25% more damage than without it (250% instead of 200% means the ratio is 250/200=1.25=125%), that becomes even less if you already have crit bonus damage from runes (for instance 260/210 is less than 125%). The fact that usually you don't have 100% crit chance when you complete it (unless you are Yasuo ) perfectly balances the fact you don't raise "base AP" with Rabadon's, and we are talking about 25% instead of 35%.

Hyrum GraffAug 7, 20171 votes

{quoted}

No it isn't. Even with 100% crit chance, you would do just 25% more damage than without it (250% instead of 200% means the ratio is 250/200=1.25=125%), that becomes even less if you already have crit bonus damage from runes (for instance 260/210 is less than 125%). The fact that usually you don't have 100% crit chance when you complete it (unless you are ) perfectly balances the fact you don't raise "base AP" with Rabadon's, and we are talking about 25% instead of 35%.

Let's run the numbers for a full combo from Orianna, who commonly builds deathcap. Let's assume she rushes Deathcap as a 3rd item, after morello and sorc. That's the rough equivalent of greaves/ie/zeal upgrade. Let's also assume she completes DC at level 10, which is my rough estimate based on completing DC and Ludens at lvl 15 in this game. Actually I think it would be lvl 11, but I didn't want to be unfair by having the base dmg of rank 2 ult.

At lvl 10, ori will have:

rank 5 Q: 180 + 50% AP
rank 3 W: 160 + 70% AP
rank 1 E: 60 + 30% AP
rank 1 R: 150 + 70% AP

For a total of 550 + 220% AP.

15 runes + 100 morello + 120 deathcap = 235 AP

220% of 235 AP is 517 damage, so without either passive, a full combo deals 1067 damage.

Deathcap passive gives 35% bonus AP, or 83 AP.
- 220% of 83 AP is 181 bonus damage
IE passive gives 25% bonus dmg on crits. With 50% crit, that affects half your aa's, but it affects the half that crit, so the % total damage increase actually affects 2/3 of your damage output, not 1/2 -- overall it's a 16.5% increase.
- 16.5% of 1067 damage is 176 bonus damage.

So, you're right, at least as a rush item, deathcap passive adds more damage than IE passive would (barely). It also increases shield values and other AP scalings.

However, I remain unconvinced that this is worth deathcap's large combine cost and IE's better late-game scaling (if I'd done the above numbers at 80% crit, it would have beaten DC).

GamerThinkAug 11, 20171 votes

You should add not only AP from runes, but also from masteries and maybe a item 1056 or some similar inventory-filling item. I guess at that point you should have around 300 AP without DC's passive. This means:

660 damage from AP
1210 total damage
Bonus 231 damage from deathcap, that is 19% increase on total damage

I'll do again the correct math for IE (yours is fine but I check it again so we are good): half of the times you deal 200% damage, half of the times you deal 100% without IE, that is an average of 150% the normal damage. With IE, the split becomes 250%/100% for an average of 175%. The increase on your damage is thus: 175/150 ~ 1.165 = 100%+16.5%.

Also, critical strikes don't affect on-hits like item 3153 's passive and this counts too for many adcs.

Let's redo the math for when you reach 750 AP:

base damages at level 18 are 180/240/180/300 for a total of 900
220% of 750 is 1650 damage from AP
2550 total damage
Bonus 578 damage from deathcap, that is 22.7% increase on total damage: pretty much similar to IE, counting 25% bonus is ONLY for basic attack damage (and not on-hits/abilities that are very common among marksmen, first of all the already mentioned that is a consistent part of damage dealt against high HP tanks in lategame).

I'm quite sure you are overrating IE passive, if you say you still are not convinced, but it's just my opinion.

In conclusion, by the way, you did a good analysis.

Hyrum GraffAug 11, 20171 votes

I only hinted at it above because I was on mobile and tired of typing, but there's a huge big caveat of "these items are not as comparable as we're making out here." The items don't exist in isolation; a full analysis would also consider the kits of the champs building the items and how those items interact with the rest of the item ecosystem (synergy and counters).

Quick example: AA hyperscaling (AD x AS x Crit x Pen; kind of LS and LDR passive) and the way AA stats are distributed on items:

Zeal items have exclusively multiplicative stats. They aren't effective without AD first, but their late-game impact is unrivaled (only offset by their cheap price; a 3k+ zeal item would be absurd).

AP carries have no Zeal equivalent. CDR is somewhat like AS (and even there we're ignoring utility), and there's no equivalent of crit*. The most Zeal-like AP item is Morello's, except it also gives 100 AP.

As a result, AP's care far more about their early midgame spike. The few rare exceptions (Cass, Azir) are the result of how their kits scale (passives particularly), not their items.

I'm not interested in spending the time to do a really in-depth analysis that touches on everything, so I'm not going to make a serious rebuttal to your argument, just a couple comments.

{quoted}

You should add not only AP from runes, but also from masteries and maybe a or some similar inventory-filling item. I guess at that point you should have around 300 AP without DC's passive.

15 from d_ring, at lvl 10 natural talent gives 19 (math below), so that's around 270. 290 if you toss in an amp tome. There's room to dispute, although I will not do so, since my level<->item estimate was pretty rough to begin with (and also level vs item scaling changes based on how well you cs, towers taken, etc).

||| |- ||| |||/|0.13 / lvl||1.9||| |(||lvl 10 * | -------------------|=|----/lvl||)|* lvl 10 = 19 AP at lvl 10| ||||lvl||lvl|/||

counting 25% bonus is ONLY for basic attack damage (and not on-hits/abilities that are very common among marksmen, first of all the already mentioned that is a consistent part of damage dealt against high HP tanks in lategame).

There's also a subset of adcs who lose dps from using abilities (cait, jinx), so whether ability damage is a consistent part of damage dealt is debatable. Again, place I'd respond if I wanted to dive that deep.

pretty much similar to IE [...] I'm quite sure you are overrating IE passive, if you say you still are not convinced, but it's just my opinion.

We've established it's a bit silly to try to make an exact comparison without going super in-depth, and I don't want to put in that kind of effort right now. This begs the question,

||| |- |||

What's the point of comparing them in the first place?

Overall I agree with your conclusion that they are approximately equivalent in terms of power. My point is that, for roughly comparable items/passives, IE's build path is much, much better.

I don't think people are passing DC by because it's numerically bad. I think it's because the item is very hard to build without sitting on piles of gold and delaying your mid-game power spike, which most AP champs value highly. It's also sad for both items that you have to sit on 3 components, so they're harder to build the later the game goes -- somewhat counter-intuitive for the premier big ticket damage items.

In conclusion, by the way, you did a good analysis.

Thanks; you too. I've enjoyed this conversation. A welcome change of pace on the Boards :)

GamerThinkAug 13, 20171 votes

Overall I agree with your conclusion that they are approximately equivalent in terms of power. My point is that, for roughly comparable items/passives, IE's build path is much, much better.

Actually, I was pointing out that RD passive is MUCH better than IE one.

To make it simple, for RD's bonus you can say that there are a lot of base damages which are not affected by it, BUT symmetrically you must cross out on-hits, abilities and non-critting AA from IE bonus; and then, what happens is:

You have a +35% bonus damage with RD but only a +25% bonus damage with IE Thus, for every 1000 damages from raw AP you get 350 bonus damage with RD's passive, while for every 1000 damages on a critting AA (with no on-hit involved) you get only 250 bonus damage.

To me, it seems indeed worth the higher cost of RD's completion cost, but again it's just my opinion because things are actually more complicated than this and my only purpose it to make this opinion clear to you.

Hyrum GraffAug 16, 20171 votes

Seems reasonable. I think at the core of our disagreement is: how important are bases vs onhits, AD spell damage, etc. Perhaps at some point in the future we will both have the time for a deep dive on that :)

Hyrum GraffSep 1, 20171 votes

Hey, turns out I did the original "What if spells could crit?" analysis I mentioned in a post, not a comment, and I just stumbled across it. Thought you might find it interesting: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/Xhs4G5yr-can-crits-be-compared-to-the-magic-damage-of-a-spell

GamerThinkSep 2, 20171 votes

I see... still there is the problem that you don't consider the fact crits don't apply to a lot of the damage from ADCs, but you give instead the spellboost ability complete buff to ALL magic damage dealt.

Hyrum GraffSep 4, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I see... still there is the problem that you don't consider the fact crits don't apply to a lot of the damage from ADCs, but you give instead the spellboost ability complete buff to ALL magic damage dealt.

That's because in the build I had 100% spellboost. I wanted it that way to make calculations easy. The AD build I was comparing to didn't have 100% crit, but I also didn't include either deathcap or IE passive in my calculations, so the average damage evens out.

Hyrum GraffAug 12, 20171 votes

The analysis I did a while back that I referenced in my first reply to you was, "What if we took crit away from AD and gave it to AP, so apc's are the hyper-scalers instead?" The result was that if AP itemization mirrored AD (ie, an AP Zeal with cdr and AP crit), you could cut the raw AP on all items by roughly half, and they'd still do more damage.

It was part of me thinking about agency of different roles in the game, and how it's possible to balance adcs when they are the late game gods of everything (fastest objective-takers, need their dps to win teamfights, best at sieging because of how they can sneak in aa's safely) -- maybe this way you can make ap's the lategame teamfight gods and make late game AD about sieging and objective-taking. Huge game system overhaul and I never thought through all its effects enough to make a post.

It's still on my mind occasionally. I like it because spells are so much more interesting and varied (skillshots, ammo systems, mana/energy, utility) than autoattacks. That also means they have far more tuning levers (base damage, ratio, cooldown, cost, utility, each of which can be adjusted with points in the spell). I believe that would make them easier to balance, although I'm not confident in that conclusion because you also have to make it fair for opponents when the carry casts all their spells at the same time -- the whole "sustained burst" deal.

HyperiönAug 3, 201713 votes

The cost of rabadons isn't the issue. Games don't last very long, and alot of times you need other items before you can get your Rabs.

Most of the time, I can only get Rabs as a last item because I need x.x.x.x.x first.

NineTailedMysticAug 3, 201711 votes

It's build path is shit, has an insane combine cost, even worse if you can't slot in all 3 components, and its the most expensive item in the game. Building Dcap is a chore.

TwitchInMyPantsAug 3, 20175 votes

Rabadon's when strong historically (like around the time the items was made) can be a 2nd or 3rd slot item, I think some champs could use it in these short games like ADCs use IE if they're given a smoother path to it

notice me Sin piAug 3, 20178 votes

im amazed how u only had to say that the numbers are not final. Only once. And still got upvotes.

Board community usually downvotes stuff like this to oblivion just because they see an example with numbers that they dont agree with, even if the general concept itself is brilliant.

SohleksAug 3, 20176 votes

Plus a minicap would be neat to potentially help bridge backline supports into having real AP. This is good as it's power that works through their champion's abilities making them more satisfying to play, rather than stacking "add on" items that don't really enrich their character.

Support items need to be changed to feel like you're building up your character's innate abilities, rather than grabbing flat activatable peasant stuff that goes on Alistar or Janna just the same. And then maybe they could be more powerful because a character without heals or shields cannot build it. Synergizing with abilities like Ardent is also the right direction. Athene's is also OK, if not terribly effective for most...

For a tank strictly something like locket seems okay, because a tank character I imagine can appreciate the protection of their items. It's just when a enchanter like Janna does it but their own direct power suffers for it it kinda reduces the fantasy of the character unless the fantasy is someone who holds neat trinkets anyone can buy.

Going deeper I've thought about changing the AP plus "shields/heal power" to a new stat similar to AP along the lines of divinity... willpower... faith... piety... And functionally it would be extremely similar to AP but better for heals and shields and maybe certain other stuff. It could come in a large amount but a low % of it can apply to offensive spells. But this is a thread about deathcap and that direction unsynergizes that line from AP.

Illâoi Evê SiônAug 3, 201710 votes

I love the name minicap.

DuskDaUmbreonAug 4, 20173 votes

Deathcap isn't meant to be easy to purchase. It's meant to be a pain in the ass, because it's so damned powerful.

BloodbornSAug 4, 20176 votes

Actually it is fairly weak because of the whole ap nerfs recently so void staff is better in almost every situation (especially with the new mr scaling on all champs)

Laxfan52Aug 4, 20173 votes

I think it is supposed to be hard to build. It is supposed to be the infinity edge for mages.

BobaFlautistAug 3, 20172 votes

I've been toying with the idea of doing this for Zhonya's, eg Zhonya's Eggtimer: item 1029 item 1052 +365g: 30 armor, 20 ap Unique Active: Stasis Put yourself in Stasis for (0.5-1.5, this would be the back lever) secondsring yourself untargetable and invulnerable for the duration, but also unable to move, attack, cast spells, or use items during this time (120 second cooldown, shared with Zhonya's)

And hen Zhonya's would be the same but with a lower combine cost.

As it is, Zhonya's is powerful and seeker's armguard is a strong early item, but during the time between the two you're sacrificing a lot of stats for the defensive powerspike the active would give.

If the time was tuned correctly, I can't imagine that the active would completely remove kill pressure, it would just give immobile mages a tool against repeated, sloppy dives by an assassin mid and durable jungle. Besides, 120s is a long time early, so if baited you have a good window to kill them.

Thoughts?

DeerGreenwoodAug 3, 20175 votes

Zhonya's Pocket Watch?

Sozan5Aug 3, 20172 votes

The active is super powerful, regardless of duration. A lot of players would just buy it and forget about Zhonyas.

BobaFlautistAug 3, 20171 votes

It is extremely powerful, but a shorter one is less useful when waiting for cooldowns or as a "save me" tool.

If you're being dived, .5s is a huge deal, but they can just back off and jump back on you or save their cooldowns to burst you (in place) when you get out.

If you're being ganked, .5s does almost nothing for you. 2.5s buys time for a countergank, for cc or escapes to come back off cooldown, for things like Fizz ulti to expire; .5s just gives them a place to put their skillshots.

At a lower duration, it's a powerful reactive tool to block abilities like Syndra Ult or Anivia E (which are currently a little lacking in counterplay) but at 120s cooldown you better use it well.

ExcitableOysterAug 4, 20172 votes

Or, because the .5s is so short, you could use it to dodge potentially killing abilities (and ults) without making you sit still and become an easy target. Its actually much more powerful than Zhonya in its own way.

TwitchInMyPantsAug 3, 20171 votes

Given AP champs don't get to have crit and IE basically has a mini crit item and 2 big AD items, it'd make sense to combine a smaller item that either builds out of blasting rod or needless. Sounds reasonably fair to me.

OMGSoAnnoyingAug 3, 20172 votes

One other bit to keep in mind is that IE is really only truly powerful when put together with a zeal item - another 2600 gold. 20% crit in and of itself isn't very reliable, so your dps does go up, but it's streakier than a naked level one Tryndamere. Once you have a zeal item done and get that crit up to 50%, then the bonus crit damage from IE gets better and more gold efficient.

Rabadon's doesn't have that issue, it's full-power from the get go.

That being said, I do agree that the build path is absolutely horrid. I'd rather have to build two NLRs, a wand, and then pay the remaining combine cost. The tome being in there is what screws the pooch.

Wildlife1Aug 3, 20174 votes

Actually rabadons is best when paired with other items, no one buys its cause its too expensive at the moment and the build path isnt very efficient. But the 35% plus ap is what makes it decent, but isn't worth it buying any time before your 5th item.

OMGSoAnnoyingAug 3, 20175 votes

I'll not argue that one too much. Right now Morello is the go-to first item for most AP mids, and it's simply too good not to be. After that, boots, then something with utility usually comes out. I see it fourth item a lot more because of the build path. Granted, I tend to play more Veigar when I mid, so for him the rabacap is a must get, and sooner rather than later.

However, IE is rushed as first item by some. Rabadon's never would be. Well, unless the mid is being really dumb or is supremely overconfident (or both).

PrinceOfStormsAug 4, 20173 votes

Vlad gets deathcap as his third item because he scales so hard with it- 1.0 AP scaling on his E, and his %missing heal scaling with his Q. That's about it though.