Why did Warwick lose his AP ratio if he does mostly magic damage?

xxxMadLionxxx··3 votes·1,435 views

Don't get me wrong, the WW rework is awesome. I just don't get why he lost is AP ratio if he was suppose to be a highly accessible champ. He also does mostly magic damage.

See, old WW could build item 3115 item 3100 item 3043 item 3089 and be effective. It might not be the best build but it gave players options to mess around with.

I would have loved to see Riot further improve on his AP kit, instead they completely removed it. The funny part is he can't even build Armor pen items either because he does so much magic damage it would be pointless.

It seems like the only thing good on him is attack speed and tank items. Crit, armor pen and even AP won't work.

I feel like riot is slowly killing hybrid champs with the reworks. The only case where they improved a hybrid champ was Shaco. They kill AP Fiora/Poppy/WW/Kha zix, instead of improving their build diversity.

With the champion pool ever expanding, hybrid champs offer something that helps identify them as niche champs. Most of my fun playing lol comes from testing different builds.

Lately I've found item 3078 item 3071 and Armor pen items to be extremely good on MF

But it seems like riot doesn't really care about that. Most champs simply have 1 build path. RIP Runeglaive EZ.

Wheres the fun in that?

17 Comments

Ralanr4 votes

I think it's to make his builds easier to balance and still allow him to deal mixed damage.

OurLestrade1 votes

{quoted}

I think it's to make his builds easier to balance and still allow him to deal mixed damage.

Pretty much, especially with his attack speed.

Big Lincoln2 votes

runeglaive ezreal ruined mid lane

warwick does pretty good hybrid damage with titanic and triforce. seems like a strong build but its pretty tiresome how every single fighter basically has triforce as a core now.

WoonStruck1 votes

Tri-force is kind of a waste now.

His CDs/mana costs are too high to use it all that efficiently. Probably better off with the AS jungler builds.

item 1419 item 3153 item 3748 item 3022 item 3065 item 3742 item 3143 item 3800 item 3053 item 3068 I see these being most common on him.

item 3078 will probably be a CDR option, mostly. Maybe a burst heal tool with his ult (W->R).

Big Lincoln1 votes

he can double proc sheen with his ult combo R Q. it isn't a waste; that's about 430 extra damage late game

Bork is pretty shit, from what I've been feeling for it

Ralanr1 votes

So I guess run titanic and Mallet if you don't want triforce?

I personally dislike triforce, especially when I'm jungling because it requires me to snowball so I can spike it by mid. Again, I'm bad in fast jungle metas.

Big Lincoln1 votes

i agree, I would rather warwick have been kept best with on hit and attack speed, but RN my game plan is to burst as fast as possible so W passive kicks in.

titanic active + the double sheen doubles your hit base damage, plus whatever AD you buy is multiplied into it too. I like warrior enchant for this purpose

Ralanr1 votes

Honestly it's probably because of all the burst in the game that going melee dps just isn't a safe or rewarding build.

Sad really.

Big Lincoln1 votes

it's just that you can't activate the attack speed otherwise

seems like the better game plan to me, since you're just kinda wasting gold building attack speed with that enormous attack speed steroid, even if its conditional

WoonStruck1 votes

On champions that scale with Attack Speed, BotRK is good again.

BotRK is only bad vs high armor; shouldn't be buying it in games with a lot of armor if you don't get armor pen. A lot of people make that mistake and call the item bad because of it.

Unfortunate part is that this meta has a LOT of armor.

WoonStruck1 votes

Crit, Armor pen, and AP aren't good on most melees.

yoshi27901 votes

Gangplank Disagrees

WoonStruck3 votes

One champion isn't 'most' melees, sorry to inform you.

Big Lincoln1 votes

armor pen is good on melees though

crit should be but muh ADC overlords

WoonStruck1 votes

Most melees? Absolutely not. Most can't delve into it without giving up too much in return. A significant amount don't even scale decently with it.

Juggernauts/assassins are the exception, not the rule.

Altonius Amakiir1 votes

I wouldn't say armor pen is useless on him now, his kit damage is still highly focused on autos so he should still do about 50% physical, 50% magic. Therefore armor pen and magic pen would be just as important as the other. Crit would still be just as effective as before the rework on him for the same reason(although it definitely wasn't effective before). As for AP, they got rid of it most likely because you want to build life steal as Warwick, and almost all those items are AD based, so having AP ratios would not be helpful and would either be ignored completely in a build, or built for some cheese that doesn't really work 80% of the time(like old mage Warwick). In addition it would make him slightly less accessible to new players, as they would not understand which they should be building for if he had both ratios, and accessibility was a big goal with his rework.

Oleandervine1 votes

They mostly changed him from having AP ratios to AD ratios because he was a bit of a relic from the age of "AP is for abilities, AD is for auto attacks," and as the game progressed, AP became awkward on him as it didn't actually make him an effective jungler due to his autos not hitting as hard as they could. Plus, with the removal of Spell Vamp, shifting him over to AD gives him access to Life Steal, which can proc from his Q and his R. Furthermore, there are a lot more options for beefy offense that keeps him relevant all game if he builds AD, as he can build things like Black Cleaver, Titanic Hydra, Iceborn Gauntlet, and Sterak's Gauge.

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