Can we please give Athene's back to mid lane mages?
The support role is already oversaturated with CDR + MR items.
and has tons of appealing items that give resistances or cdr. Buying Athene's as a support is asking to go well over the 40% CDR cap. You can buy only 1 10% CDR item after Athene's + your eye item...
On the other hand, mid lane mages have no access to no mana regen at all aside from
. Athene's was changed so drastically because it shared a niche with morello and they were never bought in the same game. Now that morello is completely changed into a mana + high AP item there's really no need for Athene's to be a support item.
Champions like Oriana, Syndra, Lux, Karma, Morgana appreciated the high mana regen over the flat mana. Oriana and Lux might have been able to use new Athene's well but they are terrible supports so they waste the blood charge passive until 25+ minutes when there is no more solo play. The new athene's even has an identity crisis with support mages. Janna doesn't do enough damage to stack blood charges, Nami and Soraka already heal practically as much as they damage, Sona's build is ruined by the 20% CDR from Athene's, causing her to miss out on powerful aura options or waste CDR over the 40/45% cap.
This basically leaves Karma, Lulu, and Morgana who might actually be able to utilize the new Athene's, and none of them are buying it because it's still not strong enough to outdo other options.
tl;dr
The 20% CDR from Athene's dooms it to be unviable on all the champions who can utilize it, so give it back to mid laners or remove/lower the 20% CDR, preferably the former because the mages who needed it are suffering without it.
or
work quite fine, and 80% of the time I actually prefer either of those paths to old Athene's. The AP on old athene's was so gutted, its nice to get some AP with my mana item at the cost of a bit of spammability.
the increased max mana helps.. but what i really like is the 25% mana refund cost.
vs an AP caster is
or
or
.
midlane then I am likely to get