It's not that GA or Zhonya's are bad, per se...

DuskDaUmbreon·Oct 13, 2018·24 votes·11,991 views

But I find myself wishing that there was just at least one more armor option for adcs and mages.

There are plenty times when GA's revive and Zhonya's stasis just aren't optimal effects, but you need the armor anyways, but you're not really able to justify buying tank items.

Doesn't even need to have any special effect, tbh. Just a basic armor and AD/AP item.

For those who worry about people stacking said new item with GA/Zhonya's, I honestly don't think people will. Nobody gets both and except into full AP teams, so I don't really see it occurring here, either.

80 Comments

Need Gold 4 TentOct 13, 20185 votes

How bout you just build a full defense item like any other class who wants to survive? Back then ADC built Banshee's that used to be a fully defensive item or the fully defensive GA.

Z3SleeperOct 13, 20181 votes

That was back then. Item balance has shifted heavily since then and it's no longer viable to rush Thornmail on Ashe.

Automated RivenOct 13, 20185 votes

Tbh, defensive options for adc's and mages should be buying a defensive item. Not buying an offensive item with defensive stats. Old ga and old banchees were good IMHO. And I miss when those were standard on players.

saltranOct 13, 20181 votes

One of the reasons why kai'sa is that strong is that she can buy defensive items like Zhonyas or Banshees without losing that much dmg compared to other adcs, literally the best adc in the game is the one that can abuse the mage's defensive items and yet the Boards think that these are weak items.

PopcornBunniOct 14, 20181 votes

Old Banshee's especially. It had good duel purpose by giving a spell shield for squishies while granting the most raw MR for tanks, especially ones that had a significant amount of Health from other sources.

ShadWoooOct 13, 20184 votes

Would be nice if mages were actually doing some dmg and not having to wait for full build with item 3089 + item 3165 + item 3135 +luden/archangel/ROA+ item 3020 . If they were doing damage they could buy item 3742 or item 3026 .

ankoanko19Oct 13, 201813 votes

{quoted}

Would be nice if mages were actually doing some dmg and not having to wait for full build with + + +luden/archangel/ROA+ . If they were doing damage they could buy or .

Dont know if this is ironic considering the characters who deal the most dmg in game are mages..

Daddy AntsOct 13, 201810 votes

{quoted}

Dont know if this is ironic considering the characters who deal the most dmg in game are mages..

https://i.gyazo.com/37bb02905e6e9f911eed0aaf2c959620.png

You're right.

In the top 20 on champion.gg **FOR DAMAGE DEALT ** there is

4 AD - Ezreal Twitch Zed Illaoi

1 Hybrid - KogMaw

12 AP - Corki Heimerdinger Teemo Xerath Ziggs Vladimir Velkoz Viktor Swain Karthus Kennen

** But... AD is superior according to all them Mage mains! **

ankoanko19Oct 13, 20187 votes

{quoted}

https://i.gyazo.com/37bb02905e6e9f911eed0aaf2c959620.png

You're right.

In the top 20 on champion.gg there is

4 AD -

1 Hybrid -

12 AP -

** But... AD is superior according to all them Mage mains! **

Notice also that that there are only 4 champs with real mobility ( zed, ez, ziggs and corki) yet mobile champs are apparently far superiour in every aspect including dmg than non mobile champs according to the boards. https://imgur.com/gallery/ojrQv

Daddy AntsOct 13, 20187 votes

{quoted}

Notice also that that there are only 4 champs with real mobility ( zed, ez, ziggs and corki) yet mobile champs are apparently far superiour in every aspect including dmg than non mobile champs according to the boards. https://imgur.com/gallery/ojrQv

Yeah indeed.

Mage bias at it's finest.

NevrankroatonOct 13, 20183 votes

Did you know that mage having to manage mana is actually a huge nerf and ADC are broken character with broken waveclear and Riot doesn't know anything? After all, mage are never picked in pro games and you can see in the world championship that Syndra is never pick, for example, because of her pressure early and the way she can shove lane.

Automated RivenOct 13, 20184 votes

Give me a break. Mages haven't had to manage Mana since like season 2. Riot has consistantly buffed Mana to the point it's a fucking joke beyond one back. Mages would feel almost identical if riot just limited spell useage before first back and then made them resourcless.

Violet FieldsOct 13, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Automated Riven,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=hgrXTX8E,comment-id=0000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2018-10-13T19:37:51.393+0000)

Give me a break. Mages haven't had to manage Mana since like season 2. Riot has consistantly buffed Mana to the point it's a fucking joke beyond one back. Mages would feel almost identical if riot just limited spell useage before first back and then made them resourcless.

Azir still has to manage mana, you can only use your E twice before you have like 25% mana left.

PB4UAMEOct 14, 20181 votes

They've actually been nerfing mana, especially for the last two years. You're entirely talking out your ass. Compare the mana stats: mana per level, base mana, base mana regen, and mana regen per level of champions from season 1-4 to now, its completely down across the board, in some cases its half or less of what it used to be. Then, look no further than current itemization to see how drastically they fucked over that too.

I mean, did you receive a serious blow to the head recently to where you forgot all the mage item updates recently, the MYMU, the sweeping mana nerfs to mages, the mana regen nerfs to mages, the flat mana gutting of supports, the massive guttings to mana itemizations, etc?

It used to be easier to stack mana than health and to much larger numbers. I would know, I used to main Ryze, Kassadin, Yorick and Urgot when the former two were manatanks and Urgot and Yorick still had good mana ratios/a definite NEED for mana items, and relied upon manamune + IBG. Notice how no champions rely upon building up fucktons of mana, and mana ratios are all but gone and shadows of their former selves? I mean, clearly RIOTs just been buffing mana LMFAO

Automated RivenOct 14, 20182 votes

Riot has been nerfing Mana, now. However that was after years of buffing Mana costs. Remember when basic abilities on most mages could cost over 100 Mana? I do. Remember when ezreal q was like 80 Mana? I do. So ya, Mana management is a joke compared to what it used to be.

Sire HippingtonOct 13, 20186 votes

Not disagreeing in general, but Corki is AD even though he does magic damage...

Daddy AntsOct 13, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sire Hippington,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=hgrXTX8E,comment-id=0000000000000001,timestamp=2018-10-13T10:51:09.208+0000)

Not disagreeing in general, but Corki is AD even though he does magic damage...

80% magic damage so I consider him a Magic damage dealer.

AyzevOct 13, 20189 votes

{quoted}

80% magic damage so I consider him a Magic damage dealer.

By that logic, Braum is a mage

Slythrin UmbreonOct 13, 20182 votes

Wait, you mean he isn't? Holy shit, I've been doing this wrong this whole time... Or... Very right.

Z3SleeperOct 13, 20182 votes

Magic damage dealer =/= mage.

Kaisa =/= mage (pure AP build possible? (not counting Nashors Rageblade build)). Varus =/= mage (see above). KogMaw =/= mage (can be mage or on-hit ADC).

DrCyanideOct 13, 20186 votes

Damage Dealt is measured over the entire game. AoE is naturally going in inflate those damage numbers, even if it's from a tiny bit of splash damage in every so often.

I mean, you've got Teemo on your list of highest damage dealers. How often do you worry about Teemo killing you in a team fight?

InfernapeOct 13, 20185 votes

It's almost like AoE damage will do more damage over time than single target damage!

AyzevOct 13, 20184 votes

Not going to argue about whether or not mages suck, but your point is flawed. Just because you deal a lot of damage over the course of a game that doesn't mean you actually accomplish something, especially when it comes to poke champions and even more so when it's Teemo.

RanmaruOct 13, 20183 votes

{quoted}

https://i.gyazo.com/37bb02905e6e9f911eed0aaf2c959620.png

You're right.

In the top 20 on champion.gg **FOR DAMAGE DEALT ** there is

4 AD -

1 Hybrid -

12 AP -

** But... AD is superior according to all them Mage mains! **

Ad champs normally have better resistences.

SwiftKitten88Oct 13, 20184 votes

{quoted}

https://i.gyazo.com/37bb02905e6e9f911eed0aaf2c959620.png

You're right.

In the top 20 on champion.gg **FOR DAMAGE DEALT ** there is

4 AD -

1 Hybrid -

12 AP -

** But... AD is superior according to all them Mage mains! **

AD has vastly superior single target damage and burst than mages AP champs do it in an AOE so they hit more enemies at once. that's why most AP champs are higher.. because if they hit 2 champs with the spell they get twice the damage points..

its also why Karthus is number 1... because OBVOIUSLY his ulti hits all 5. its also why Illaoi one of the best AOE AD champs is on the list, when she is a bruiser

its really pretty simple..

[REMOVED BY MODERATION - ULANOPO] you would really that don't.. they just hit multiple targets when they do that damage, so it counts more than once.

ShadWoooOct 14, 20181 votes

By this logic lets make a team of 5 mages and lets see how it goes. I wonder why pro players doesn't play mage in every lane. But playing 5 ad champions is quite a standard.

Hell look at worlds, Irelia is cutting through mages so easily it is not even funny, Aatrox and Urgot the same deal. Ate full ability rotation from syndra (except the stun didn't land) and took 20% hp. Or another game when they had Sion mid. He stayed fking 100% whole game, that little poke Syndra could do on him was mitigated by his spammable non-decaying 6 fking seconds shield that does aoe damage on recast. 1 fully charged Q paired with W during which mage is zoned out takes whole wave. And good luck killing him with corrupting + time warp tonic. Hell, in current meta everyone has corrupting in mid and by the time mage does enough poke to burn these 3 charges out he runs oom and has to recall because tanks, assassins and fighters doesn't the have same issue (even when mana based that corrupting is more than enough with their low mana costs on abilities).

Seriously if you don't understand what I mean by "dealing no damage" don't bother post these nonsense charts. Of course mages, especially those with DoT (and teemo and corki aren't mages) will on average do more damage because their abilities are aoe and they do more damage during lane phase in which they score zero kills than anyone else. But their whole ability rotation with few exception like full AP Vlad, Velkoz that proc passive or Brand with his %hp damage, deals laughable damage compared to fighters/assassins or right-clickers.

SociaI JusticeOct 13, 20182 votes

its almost like there's a difference between aoe and single target damage.

5050BSOct 13, 20184 votes

item 3156 auto triggers and you can move and act without hindrance.

item 3157 You have to time and if there is any ping issues you may die from lag, You cant move or act and often can lead to just delaying your death 2.5s

DuskDaUmbreonOct 13, 201812 votes

I don't see the correlation between this and my post.

ﬂooOct 13, 20184 votes

item 3156 gives you a magic shield and lifesteal as long as you are in battle.

item 3157 makes you immune to everything except keeping up chain spells.

Z3SleeperOct 13, 20184 votes

item 3157 gives you 2.5 seconds to cooldown spells, have allies get in position for peel/followup and completely evade major damage spells such as Zed ult, Fizz ult, Nocturne ult, etc.

ﬂooOct 14, 20181 votes

That as well

HügöOct 13, 20183 votes

And why not buy a item 3742 or item 3143 ?

DuskDaUmbreonOct 13, 201811 votes

Okay. Go ahead and buy a item 3742 on Lux and tell me how that goes.

HügöOct 13, 20182 votes

With other words you just want to be more tanky and still getting more damage?

DuskDaUmbreonOct 13, 20185 votes

I want to be slightly more durable without gutting my damage.

ApollyonBainerOct 13, 20181 votes

You could do frozen heart and grab the cdr runes so when you go over 40 or 45% cdr its converts into ap if you want more armor

ShadWoooOct 14, 20182 votes

Okay so basically a must build for mage includes: item 3020 + item 3089 + item 3165 + item 3285 (or archangel/seraph for some of the mana based mages). Usually you will want to buy item 3135 as 5th item because you will be dealing no damage unless enemy team doesn't know what magic resist is. But lets assume they will be building adaptive helm, mercury treads, maw, mercurial scimitar, spirit visage and banshee. So your 5th item is void staff and you are now sitting on 30% cdr. Normally you take banshee or zhonya as last item. Vs heavy AD team, banshee is not an option, if we opt into Zhonya we get 45 armor and 75 AP. If we opt for frozen heart we get 100 armor and 20 ap from cdr runes as we exceeded 40% by 10. That is just not a good trade for slightly higher movement speed and 5AP from just boots + luden echo or adaptive focus. And even if it was good trade, without hitpoints 100 armor is completely useless. So there really are only 3 tank items that classic mage can consider to build vs heavy AD teams: item 3075 , item 3068 and item 3742 . And the passives of first two are not useful for mage at all + neither item grants cdr.

Tl'dr. There are no real options to get armor for mages. Only a handful of mages could possibly build something like: item 3020 + item 3003 + item 3027 + item 3110 + item 3089 + item 3157 / item 3165 / item 3135 and they are all extremely abusable in early game. On top of that, you either remove rabadon and lower your damage significantly, or Zhonya and you lose 45 armor and so much needed active vs AD teamcomp, or you deal no damage because without morello/void staff all they need to do is stack mr+ad items to be able to ignore you completely. Most of the time I tried to stack tear on mage vs Zed/Talon/Irelia mid we lost before my Archangel staff transformed into Seraph.

ApollyonBainerOct 14, 20181 votes

That makes a lot of sense. But dont you think its a good trade for survival? Less burst for life? Idk glass cannons are called that for a reason

ShadWoooOct 15, 20181 votes

Thing is. When do you want to build it? The biggest problem for mages right now is early game. They are completely smashed in lane by assassins and fighters. Even rushing Zhonya is just noob trap, that little armor it provides is halved by lethality they get from serrated dirk/duskblade/ghostblade+sudden impact and as I said before, without hitpoints armor is meaningless. On top of that you will be doing so low damage that other than you survive maybe 0.5 second longer you just make youself free kill target.

What mages wants mainly besides AP is CDR, mana and hitpoints. If you look at armor items, only 3 items matches the criterias: item 3800 , item 3056 , item 3109 - ohwrecker has best base stats but its useless active makes this item a no-go. Knight's Vow's stats are worse than Zhonya. That little hitpoints are not worth it. Rigteous glory has even less armor than Zhonya and its active is again unusable by most mages.

Really, the only real option that actually does make a sense is item 3742 but that item is missing cdr and also mana. Rushing this item is really not a choice because not only you don't get higher damage from your abilities, you will also get no CDR (which would essentially increased your damage and defense indirectly) and no mana so you end up oom after 2 trades.

Mages suffered many nerfs and almost every mage must rush item 3070 or item 3010 or item 3802 , sometimes even combination. Rushing anything else, you are going to have big mana issues.

The worst thing is that even when you build that deadmans, randuins or thornmail you still get steamrolled by full ad anyway (been there done that). So I am not sure if it has any sense.. Again the biggest problem is early game where building armor will not help you because lethality and low hps. So this is just lose-lose situation.

If I see full AD teamcomp, I rather take malphite into middle rather than mage.

ApollyonBainerOct 15, 20181 votes

Alright fair I do see your point. Actually if my buddy sees that he is playing against a zed or such in mid he always picks malphite.

Its pretty rock solid

Slythrin UmbreonOct 13, 20182 votes

Low key, I want to now. Zoomman's plate is so fun,I wish other speed items had visual effects like that.

Janna item 3009 item 3742 item 3512

MrHaZeYoOct 13, 20184 votes

I've built item 3194 on LB before and still proceeded to merk the game.

Using your 6th item on a tank item really doesn't hinder your damage that much.

Z3SleeperOct 13, 20181 votes

Shoulda built a item 3065 instead. +100 more health and 10% CDR. Don't think you need to worry about multiple of the same spell being landed on you as LB.

MrHaZeYoOct 13, 20182 votes

item 3194 Gives CDR as well lol, and I was against Teemo so stepping on a mushroom without it usually meant I was F'd.

Z3SleeperOct 13, 20181 votes

Sire HippingtonOct 14, 20181 votes

asumeing you're on your 6th item, if you need that defense while beeing on you're second, getting a full tank item can screw you're damage alot.

Moody POct 13, 20183 votes

This isn't gonna happen for 2 reasons.

One is that neither of these champions are particularly meant to be durable. And mages are already kind of twisting that rule since a good chunk of their items have fairly generous HP offerings; particularly burn/DOT focused mages can get about 2.7-2.8k health with Ryliandry's and Morello.

Two is that, if there's an AD+armor item that's worth having, fighters are almost definitely going to use it, too, and likely they'll use it to much better effect since their build paths are much more flexible than a marksman, who has really only like 1 luxury slot after they get all their crit and pen items.

Z3SleeperOct 13, 20182 votes

Yeah and if you watch pro play, mages are most definitely utilizing those defensivish items for a reason. Defense on mages is extremely strong.

Z3SleeperOct 13, 20183 votes

I think the point of itemization is so that ADC's don't get defensive stats other than shields and lifesteal.

Mages on the other hand just have dicked itemization. But it's that way by design because the majority of mages are homogenized spell casters with nuanced differences thus any one item that is vastly unique could serve to break the balance between them.

That's why Zhonyas is the only armor defense. There's a high chance that any other armor item would be abused by x class of mages and be useless on every other mage since it will then be balanced around the highest abuse cases.

If they can circumvent this and introduce an item that doesn't break the balance, then I'm all for it.