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Lets talk AP V AD.

HongChongDong··35 votes·2,493 views

Alot of the community seems to be agreeing that in the current state of the game AP is becoming less viable of a stat for damage than AD and I thought I'd share my opinions on it and see if maybe I could find the root of the issue. I would like to state that no I'm not challenger and no I don't believe I know everything, I'm simply stating opinions from my point of view without objectively saying they're right.

Sense the changes in the pre season 6 patch nerfing AD items and adding a slew of buffs to AD items and off tank it's very obvious that AP is suffering heavily, but when you look at it what is the root cause of it? Is it simple decrease in AP? Is it simply a change in meta picks? Is it simply direct nerfs to champions?

I think it's lack of MR counters. Obviously MR is made to counter magic damage but with the new off tank meta there are so many items adding loads of tank level MR to otherwise squishy champions that AP Champions and their lack of counters to MR.

AD champions have been the better pick ever sense season 6 simply because of the fact that AD now has so much more utility and flexibility compared to AP. AD champions are getting such good package deals in terms of items like Mercurial, Maw, Steraks, hell AD champions are even starting to do hybrid damage with popular items like Rageblade and Sated and there are so many other amazing items for AD champions to even count.

Meanwhile what does AP have? Nothing really. AP as in itemization only offers mainly raw damage with not a whole lot of versatility or usable utility items. As it's going AP champions now adays are shifting more towards defensive builds just to survive but they don't really have a whole lot of choices or great flexible items like AD does.

Lets use maw as an example. Could you imagine what it would be like if AP champions had an item that gave them raw damage, a large chunk of defensive stats, flat pen, sustain, and a defensive passive to go along with it? Instead AP has nothing to really counter against AD like AD champions do and instead get raw damage items with a few things tacked on like alittle HP or something.

Now alot of people could argue about different builds that are possibly usable but the biggest issue with the state of AP atm is that it's in such a rigid state that if you stray too far away from very binary build paths then you will likely suffer even worst and possibly become useless as a whole.

I would really like to see AP get more items that offer more utility stats and passive/actives without punishing AP champions from straying from builds that almost all AP champions have to use. I would also like to see a larger variety of Penetration items added in for AP to finally give them a chance when the enemy decides to build 2 off tank MR items and suddenly nullify the AP champion entirely.

Honestly this entire post is actually more geared towards the heavy lack of anti MR and AD items AP has but I guess I went off and starting discussing alot of other things.

79 Comments

Nameless Voice11 votes

Mages, by their very nature, tend to be bursty, or at least deal damage in chunks (one spell rotation, then nothing while waiting for cooldowns.)

That means that defensive items are more effective against them, since there's a limit to how much damage they can do at one time, whereas AD champions can usually continue autoattacking for a little longer to cut through the extra defences.

In particular, mages have no way to cut through health stacking or shields. Liandry's is geared somewhat to fight against HP stacking, though it's not especially effective since it uses % current health - and chopping the upper few percentages off the health of a tank doesn't usually mean much to them. However, Liandry's is completely ineffective against shields, which, while technically effective health, do not count as % current health and therefore don't increase Liandry's damage. That means that shields become more effective against mages when the target is at lower health, even if the mage builds Liandry's (which isn't that common anyway.)

Most of the heavy defensive items of season 6 are shields that activate automatically at low health. Effectively, bonus health that negates mages' burst/chunk damage pattern, while not even being affected by the single mage anti-tank item (Liandry's) because they don't affect the target's current health percentage.

The other anti-defence item that mages have is Void Staff, which only works against ~~bonus ~~ MR. That's nice in theory, but the problem is that it's the shields that are keeping champions safe from mages, not the MR itself.

Serevas10 votes

Actually void staff still works against total MR. It was only the Last Whisper items that got changed to penetrate bonus resistances.

Furthermore reducing the MR makes the shields less effective, still doesn't solve the whole problem, but it does serve to reduce the effective health of a target, which also reduces the effective health provided by a shield as well.

Nameless Voice3 votes

Oh, my bad, I forgot Void Staff was still against total MR and not bonus MR. Let me cross out the word "bonus" up there.

Anyway, yes, the Void Staff reduces the effectiveness of the shield, but not really by enough to be that significant.

Lady Hammerlock2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nameless Voice,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gKKWbdZW,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2016-04-03T11:44:53.671+0000)

Mages, by their very nature, tend to be bursty, or at least deal damage in chunks (one spell rotation, then nothing while waiting for cooldowns.)

That means that defensive items are more effective against them, since there's a limit to how much damage they can do at one time, whereas AD champions can usually continue autoattacking for a little longer to cut through the extra defences.

In particular, mages have no way to cut through health stacking or shields. Liandry's is geared somewhat to fight against HP stacking, though it's not especially effective since it uses % current health - and chopping the upper few percentages off the health of a tank doesn't usually mean much to them. However, Liandry's is completely ineffective against shields, which, while technically effective health, do not count as % current health and therefore don't increase Liandry's damage. That means that shields become more effective against mages when the target is at lower health, even if the mage builds Liandry's (which isn't that common anyway.)

Most of the heavy defensive items of season 6 are shields that activate automatically at low health. Effectively, bonus health that negates mages' burst/chunk damage pattern, while not even being affected by the single mage anti-tank item (Liandry's) because they don't affect the target's current health percentage.

The other anti-defence item that mages have is Void Staff, which only works against ~~bonus ~~ MR. That's nice in theory, but the problem is that it's the shields that are keeping champions safe from mages, not the MR itself.

Think you completely forgot that there are AP champions who burst and there are those who are consistent

And the % hp melting champions a few champions who can tear apart tanks with shear force of dots and % hp dmg Malzahar Brand

there are those who dish out dmg constantly(and possibly burst at the same time) Azir Swain Cassiopeia

then ether are those that just kite and burst with cc Lux Anivia

with item 3027 being so abundantly gold efficient and such a good item matching its base AP with rabadons a lot of mages are also quite frustratingly tank

then there are those who have low frustrating cooldowns who can still deal dmg constantly(melee) Fizz Kassadin

also lets not forget good'ol Vladimir tanky,and can dish out dmg

AurelionSol tbh aurelion sol can kite quite well with his W and item 3116 assuming he has blue tanks without mobility will suffer heavily

OurLestrade9 votes

Outside magic damage, there's pretty much zero reason to pick an AP assassin over an AD one since AD assassins can auto attack too. I mention it a lot but it's perfectly valid: There's a ZzLegendary video where he's playing Kalista, dodges an entire Zed combo, and then the Zed just auto attacks him once and kills him :P

YumaS2Astral3 votes

{quoted}

Outside magic damage, there's pretty much zero reason to pick an AP assassin over an AD one since AD assassins can auto attack too. I mention it a lot but it's perfectly valid: There's a ZzLegendary video where he's playing Kalista, dodges an entire Zed combo, and then the Zed just auto attacks him once and kills him :P

Keep in mind that some AP champions have ways to empower their auto-attacks. Fizz for example, can deal magic damage thanks to his W giving him an on-hit effect that scales with AP. He can actually out-trade AD champions early just by auto-attacking (unless the AD champion himself has a powerful on-hit or on-attack effect, such as Darius)

Catastrop1 votes

That is true, but it still doesn't make it comparable to AD because of poorly it generally scales, requiring large amounts of AP to rival physical attacks and even then AD champions have access AA amps such as Crit and Lifesteal. You could argue that AP has spellvamp, but on-hit magic damage doesn't apply Spell vamp except in minor cases. This is even further exacerbated by how much of a poor stat spell vamp is outside of about 3-5 champions at best.

ChaddyFantome1 votes

Its because AP assasins do WAY more damage than AD assasins. So its a trade up of AP and damage/Burst, versus Physical sustained damage.

That is the dichotomy.

Nameless Voice13 votes

In theory, add AD assassins are supposed to have less damage in their abilities to make up for the fact that they can also autoattack (and to require them to do so.)

In practice... not so much.

HongChongDong4 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nameless Voice,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gKKWbdZW,comment-id=00060001,timestamp=2016-04-03T15:58:58.670+0000)

In theory, add AD assassins are supposed to have less damage in their abilities to make up for the fact that they can also autoattack (and to require them to do so.)

In practice... not so much.

A few people are missing the point as a whole of the post but this isn't actually true. Most AD assassins don't actually outdamage AP champions normally but like this post discusses AD anti AP itemization is really strong right now due to lack of ways to counter it through AP itemization.

Nameless Voice5 votes

Yes. They do technically have less damage, but the current state of affairs means that they tend to have equal or more effective damage when compared to their opponent

Tridem1 votes

Glad that Fizz is an exeption!

HongChongDong3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sun Yat,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gKKWbdZW,comment-id=00060002,timestamp=2016-04-03T17:52:53.992+0000)

Glad that Fizz is an exeption!

If you're referring to a specific comment which one is it? If you're referring to the post as a whole fizz is just as heavily affected by the issues with AP items if not he's even more worst off due to the fact he's an all in assassin so if you fail to 1 shot a carry it will most likely mean your death.

KushDid4201 votes

Kassadin if you're sure the game will stall to late game, he will pump out obscene amounts of damage. Arguably more than Fizz due to his burst being on shorter cool downs.

I do agree though, he did get indirectly nerfed because of those damned AP item nerfs, especially his key diving item item 3157

But if you want an AP assassin that can blow up anything with relatively low cool downs late game and has good tower taking potential with his W passive and item 3100 synergy Kassadin fits the bill.

Troy2426218 votes

AD is also completely superior to AP in terms of taking objectives. Literally any objective, AD is better.

TurquoiseYoshi1 votes

Actually, with the AP buffs against towers, Nashor's Tooth and more AP gives as much tower damage as AD. It's somewhat relevant to take AP to defeat towers. For Baron/Dragon, you're right, AD is usually better. But, to be fair, both should probably be there to take it down more quickly and reliably.

LeprechaunJinx6 votes

Part of the problem with AP turret destroying is that the two major AP-to-structure damage items (item 3100 & item 3115) don't fit well with most kits on mages. Since both rely on autoattacking to activate the items' damage, a conventionally squishy class is put in a very disadvantageous position to do almost what another class can do inherently.

Mhihnj8 votes

imo i feel that ad has way too many armor penetration options like item 3142(20) item 3071(5% armor reduction) item 3147(10) item 3033 and item 3036(45% armor penetration)

Also armor stacking is not really that effective unless you are RammusTaric Poppy orMalphite for example:

item 3742 50 armor and 500 health + ms passive cost: 2900 generally for tanks

item 3026 this is self explanatory

item 3075 100 armor + rammus passive cost: 2350 built on ashe tanks such as Rammus

item 3025 65 armor + a slow cost: 2700 abused by ezreal usually built on auto-attack utility tanks such as Blitzcrank or very less cc champs

item 3056 50 armor + health regen + cdr + a passive that disables turrets cost: 2650 Very good item but again meant for tanks _ note: Steaks gage is not an armor item. it gives health and a shield _ mr penetration is mostly just item 3135 which gives 35% i can't exactly point out more( because tbh this is the only one i see)

then there is the mr stacking:

item 3102 gives you 70 mr + a shield(which has a stupidly high cooldown) cost: 2900 Very good mr item for almost everyone

item 3139 which gives ad + 35 mr + an active that removes disables cost: 3700 this is for squishy adc or ad assassin

item 3174 which gives around 25 mr + mana regen cost: 2700 mostly for ap mages dependent on mana

item 3156 50 mr + ad cost: 3250 basically a middle finger to most ap mages(mostly mid game not sure about late game)

so this is my list of the most prevalent armor items and magic resist items as well as armor and mr penetration.

My opinions(not facts):

  1. armor for classes outside of tanks is very limited except for bruisers
  2. MR items are more diverse(shields + ad etc.)
  3. there are many armor penetration options available in contrast to mr penetration.
  4. Also armor penetration also is pretty diverse( for example mortal reminder and lord dominik's)
  5. many problems are occurring due to the high amount of shields against ap
  6. Also life steal vs. spell vamp

but these are just my opinions and yes AP generally goes higher than ad so i can see why such strong passives are necessary. I would like more feedback about this please

EndGamer117 votes

I think the problem is that in the AD item revamps, Riot gave AD items almost every stat.

Mercurial now has lifesteal. PD has flat damage reduction now for some reason. The new lifesteal item that causes damage to bleed out while providing physical vamp. Duskblade giving everyone a zed ult. Essence Reaver, which used to be the niche caster item, being thematically trashed to include Crit so that it's more inviting on ADCs. And almost all of the intermediary items giving great stats or bonusesitem 3133 item 3155 item 2015 item 1043 item 3134

Meanwhile, AP items have not been changed recently and you could consider them outdated.

Edit: also abusing Sterak's.

Aniela7 votes

I'd like to also mention that most AP items are boring as heck.

If we look at ADC Last whisper paths, you get anti-tank and anti-regen/healing options. This means that the effective amount of slots needed for an AD champion to fullfill that need presented is much greater and offers space for more options rather easily not to mention becoming highly effective and potent for all AD champions.

Compare this to morellonomicon. Manaless AP champs have little use for this item and it feels kind of bad to build it on someone like Akali, Vlad, Kennen, etc. We also get void staff instead but in my eyes Void Staff is really boring compared to Dominick's or Mortal Reminder, which all offer the same things but more slow efficiency.

HongChongDong2 votes

{quoted}

I'd like to also mention that most AP items are boring as heck.

If we look at ADC Last whisper paths, you get anti-tank and anti-regen/healing options. This means that the effective amount of slots needed for an AD champion to fullfill that need presented is much greater and offers space for more options rather easily not to mention becoming highly effective and potent for all AD champions.

Compare this to morellonomicon. Manaless AP champs have little use for this item and it feels kind of bad to build it on someone like Akali, Vlad, Kennen, etc. We also get void staff instead but in my eyes Void Staff is really boring compared to Dominick's or Mortal Reminder, which all offer the same things but more slow efficiency.

That's what I meant when I was talking about versatility in the items. AD has for more utility and flexibility than AP so much so that AP pales in comparison.

The Bearded Bard6 votes

Should also bring up that there's no keystone specific to AP champions. AD has Fervor and the lifesteal one, on top of using thunderlord's and sometimes even dft better than most AP champions. Tanks have bond of stone and ages, traditional supports have tidecallers, juggernauts have grasp.

10Tickler1 votes

Stormraider's Surge is good on people like Akali, Fizz, Ekko and Diana, who don't normally /need/ the extra burst that Thunderlord's gives, or the extra DOT that Deathfire offers. It's a Great MS buff that allows the assassin-type playstyle to be a little safer

The Bearded Bard1 votes

Sure, it's great on veigar, but it's not specifically for ap champions. Not a single keystone is specific for ap, while ad has two.

Stained Spear4 votes

wheres the arpen boots?

HongChongDong1 votes

{quoted}

wheres the arpen boots?

Could you clarify your question abit?

1 800 MID LANE1 votes

He's implying that mages have magic-pen boots whereas AD has no arm-pen boots. Pointless argument that will go nowhere, honestly.

Nameless Voice4 votes

Which basically means that mages almost always have to build Sorcerer's Shoes, while AD champions are free to build the boots of their choice.

LankPants2 votes

The same place as the good M-Pen items.

TurquoiseYoshi2 votes

The shop?

ImmortalBloodCY3 votes

rip arpen boots.

Moesnd4 votes

-Abyssal scepter -Void staff -Mr pen boots -Void staff (more pen than ad items) -liandrys

Dont tell me youre lacking mr pen Also tanks have way more armor items

HongChongDong5 votes

{quoted}

-Abyssal scepter -Void staff -Mr pen boots -Void staff (more pen than ad items) -liandrys

Dont tell me youre lacking mr pen Also tanks have way more armor items

When compared to AD itemization those options are very linear with poor stats compared to AD counterparts and you can only build them on certain champions. Granted a majority of mages build Sorc Shoes but at most the only common item on there is Void and even then that's still not always able to be built due to certain mandatory builds on champions.

Cryo001 votes

Void staff gives 35% mr pen while mortal reminder and lord dominiks regards give 45% armor pen.....

Ziovi2 votes

total vs bonus, though... you should say that too, to be fair.

Moesnd2 votes

Dominks and mortal reminder give BONUS armor pen. Almost all of the time this gives less pen even against tanks

Cryo002 votes

Well shit...didn't read it properly. My apologies

Niaphim4 votes

Also AD being strong is part of the reason why turrets look like they are made of paper. There is so much wrong with AD being overbuffed this season.

Hatless Casual4 votes

The main issue I see with ad vs. ap is consistent damage (via autos) vs. quick burst (spells/abilities). Ad should be the semi weaker brother due to it's very nature, whereas most ap uses a resource and can be made useless if you run out of mana, ad just keeps on going.

1 800 MID LANE1 votes

Honestly, the only thing Riot needs to do to make mages decent picks again is give them an item that they can rush for defensive purposes against AD that doesn't sacrifice so much. A lot of mage mains wouldn't mind the complete removal of Zhonya's if there was something more viable early on that didn't set them behind so hard.

Another thing they could do, and I'm assuming they are doing, is make mage build paths more interesting like they did with AD, but MYMU isn't too far off and that's when they'll do it, if at all. Although, I've heard mixed timeframes. From as soon as the end of May to as late as mid August.

HongChongDong2 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, the only thing Riot needs to do to make mages decent picks again is give them an item that they can rush for defensive purposes against AD that doesn't sacrifice so much. A lot of mage mains wouldn't mind the complete removal of Zhonya's if there was something more viable early on that didn't set them behind so hard.

Countering AD itself is less of the problem as it is that AD has too many great items to counter AP while AP champions have no way of overcoming that counter.

1 800 MID LANE2 votes

Agreed. As I stated when I edited that post, it's just not that interesting to build mages. Save for a few select ones here-and-there, the build path is generally:

item 3174 / item 3165 > item 3020 > item 3285 > item 3135 > item 3157 > item 3089

You could literally build every mage this way and be fine aside from a select few that use Lichbane or Nashor's.

TurquoiseYoshi4 votes

Which was a problem with ADCs before the marksman rework (everyone just went item 3031 item 3087 item 3006 item 3035 item 3072 item 3046). Making me very intrigued for how the mage rework will change itemization.

XPL Turdong1 votes

{quoted}

Agreed. As I stated when I edited that post, it's just not that interesting to build mages. Save for a few select ones here-and-there, the build path is generally:

item 3174 / item 3165 > item 3020 > item 3285 > item 3135 > item 3157 > item 3089

You could literally build every mage this way and be fine aside from a select few that use Lichbane or Nashor's.

AD champions used to be exactly the same way, especially adcs. Back then people complained about not having options just like people are complaining about mages not having options now.

There is a mage update coming soon™ and it will provide exactly what the AD updated provided, more options and more viable build paths.

All you have to do is wait for it, for years I got sick of building BT>PD>IE>BOOTS>LW>BANSHEES/GA on every adc because nothing else was viable, for mages it was just as binary as AD but the only difference is AD got the update first, the updates were most likely made to coincide with each other to be balanced but they weren't released at the same time. Naturally if one set of items is updated and the other isn't the updated is going to be better. Just wait for the mage update to see how the items are, it will most likely be a lot more balanced when both item sets have been updated.

1 800 MID LANE1 votes

[{quoted}](name=cash in or tilt,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gKKWbdZW,comment-id=0005000000000002,timestamp=2016-04-04T08:23:09.025+0000)

Just wait for the mage update

Way ahead of ya. Okay, not "ahead" of you, but we're on the same page here.

Dar Raksada1 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, the only thing Riot needs to do to make mages decent picks again is give them an item that they can rush for defensive purposes against AD that doesn't sacrifice so much. A lot of mage mains wouldn't mind the complete removal of Zhonya's if there was something more viable early on that didn't set them behind so hard.

Another thing they could do, and I'm assuming they are doing, is make mage build paths more interesting like they did with AD, but MYMU isn't too far off and that's when they'll do it, if at all. Although, I've heard mixed timeframes. From as soon as the end of May to as late as mid August.

Fiddlesticks would need a rework. Swain Morgana might have issues too.

1 800 MID LANE1 votes

I think that would still fit the bill of "a lot." You're right, and they would all need something to compensate, but it was only a theoretical thing anyway. They shouldn't actually remove it.

Verdade1 votes

Issue is ADCs having multiple strong hybrid damage/defensive options. Also, IE/BT/PD nerfed heavily so building straight damage on ADCs is not viable.

HongChongDong2 votes

{quoted}

Issue is ADCs having multiple strong hybrid damage/defensive options. Also, IE/BT/PD nerfed heavily so building straight damage on ADCs is not viable.

The issue is covers AD itemization instead of just 1 type of class of character.

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