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The only arguments I've heard against an AD/Armor item haven't been consistent at all

FalconPawwwwnch··12 votes·2,415 views

So I thought I'd list them while also asking the community members what their opinions are.

Argument 1: You can't have an item that defends against the same damage type that it provides in the game at all or else it'll be overpowered.

Response: See Abyssal Scepter and Athene's (I also would've mentioned Spellblade but that isn't for 5s).

Argument 2: It'd be abused by AD carries.

Response: See Ravenous Hydra melee only clause, see relic shield melee only clause, etc.

Argument 3: Look how problematic Atma's was in the past!

Response: Atma's was problematic because of a few reasons, none of which were because it was an AD/armor item. 1) It was a statstick without any meaningful gameplay, so it either was gamebreaking or useless at any given time. 2) The cost implied it was a mid game item, but the unique passive did not (it was meant to be a late game item but wasn't slot efficient late game due to mid game stats). 3) the health scaling made it too hard to balance because you could either balance around the mediocre case or the extreme case. Notice that none of these were because it was an AD/Armor item.

Since these are the main arguments I've heard against it, can you guys tell me why you think there should or shouldn't be an AD/armor item in the game? Let's get a discussion going.

OFFTOPIC:

I've also heard some ideas on this forum about an AS/armor item, one that I actually really liked specifically but I forgot who suggested it. Something along the lines of Dagger + Dagger + Warden's Mail + Recipe Cost. The item would give attack speed, armor, and have a unique passive that steals the enemy's attack speed when they hit you or something. Another variation of this idea was to add a low/mid tier item that upgrades from a dagger which gives attack speed and deals magic damage on hit. This item could then upgrade into wit's end, the AS/Armor item above, and even Nashor's. Thoughts?

30 Comments

Rock MD7 votes

Frankly, I'm not worried about ADCs abusing it.

I'm worried about Zed with it.

Either way it'd be interesting to see.

killd0zer7 votes

Athenes vs Athenes rush was a horrible thing that created extremely boring farm lanes. Hell it's still an issue, because you just play Ziggs v Orianna and no one does anything because both of them can instantly clear a wave with no repercussions.

The biggest reason is #1, and you don't really provide a counter for it. Abyssal can only be used by a few select champions effectively, and it's a pretty poor purchase on anyone who can't.

You either need to make an AD/Armor item relatively niche, otherwise it just becomes the best purchase for both parties, and nobody really accomplished anything. It isn't that you CAN'T add one, it's just that you can't just throw an item like that in and expect it to not cause issues.

Rock MD9 votes

Athenes vs Athenes rush was a horrible thing that created extremely boring farm lanes. Hell it's still an issue, because you just play Ziggs v Orianna and no one does anything because both of them can instantly clear a wave with no repercussions.

The biggest reason is #1, and you don't really provide a counter for it. Abyssal can only be used by a few select champions effectively, and it's a pretty poor purchase on anyone who can't.

You either need to make an AD/Armor item relatively niche, otherwise it just becomes the best purchase for both parties, and nobody really accomplished anything. It isn't that you CAN'T add one, it's just that you can't just throw an item like that in and expect it to not cause issues.

You're kidding, right?

Athene's vs. Athene's wasn't horrible because it gave MR. It was horrible because it granted the user ungodly amounts of mana regen, CDR, and AP (aka everything you could possibly need to waveclear everything to death).

killd0zer1 votes

And the fact it gives MR, means that when both Mid lanes buy an Athene's, there is less incentive to poke or even fight each other because you both deal less damage.

Thus the optimal strategy when both people buy Athene's is to just farm until you get more AP. AD champions aren't usually as mana gated, especially Melee v Melee. The mana issue is a non factor, but of both people bought AD/Armor as first item, there is less of a reason to actually fight eachother.

FalconPawwwwnch2 votes

Athenes vs Athenes rush was a horrible thing that created extremely boring farm lanes. Hell it's still an issue, because you just play Ziggs v Orianna and no one does anything because both of them can instantly clear a wave with no repercussions.

The biggest reason is #1, and you don't really provide a counter for it. Abyssal can only be used by a few select champions effectively, and it's a pretty poor purchase on anyone who can't.

You either need to make an AD/Armor item relatively niche, otherwise it just becomes the best purchase for both parties, and nobody really accomplished anything. It isn't that you CAN'T add one, it's just that you can't just throw an item like that in and expect it to not cause issues.

I agree with you. But here's the thing, Abyssal Scepter is Exclusively Niche. It's niche (and pretty powerful) on short range mages or ap bruisers that need to be in the front line to be useful. It's always been good on champs like kennen/swain/morde/vlad/rumble/singed/amumu etc while not being abused by long ranged mages. The ONLY time abyssal was a huge balance problem was when all ranged mages could abuse it because the aura range was so high (It used to be 1000 afaik).

Therefore, Abyssal Scepter Works. You could just as easily find a way to make an ad/armor item not universal but still be useful on certain champs.

killd0zer3 votes

Exactly, Abyssal was an issue when it was good for everyone, just as a AD/Armor item with no special circumstances would be.

The last paragraph addresses this. I'm saying it's not impossible, it just can't be an essential item on a lot of champions.

SmokingPuffin5 votes

Therefore, Abyssal Scepter Works. You could just as easily find a way to make an ad/armor item not universal but still be useful on certain champs.

I think it's a difficult design challenge.

There's more similarity amongst bruisers than any other class in the game. If it's good for Shyvana, it's probably going to be good for Trundle too.

Even among "light fighters", which is a pretty ill-defined term in League jargon, it's hard to create an AD/armor item that Pantheon wants but Fiora doesn't.

Ratbert6 votes

Because Athene's is an abomination, and we shouldn't even have one corresponding stat item. Armour is also much easier to itemize for than MR (I mean BV, mercs and SV) Relic shield isn't melee only really, it just loses its execute function.

Rebonack4 votes

The Warden's Mail attack-speed stealing thingy was mine. I've been suggesting this item off and on for years now. Just don't forget the OnHit magic damage so Wit's won't be so lonely anymore.

For an AD/Armor item, build out of Chainmail and Brutalizer. The flat 10 penetration gets converted on combine into a -20 armor shred aura with, say, 500 range or so. That'll keep it from being particularly attractive to Rangers, but a great pick for Fighters that like building tanky.

Messaiga4 votes

I love the idea of an AD/Armor item for AD Bruisers but there's gotta be an interesting unique passive or active put on it so it doesn't have the same problem Atma's did (being a stack-stick and nothing else). Perhaps the passive/active could have something related to mobility, perhaps to help out all the immobile bruisers out there (Darius, Garen, Voli, Nasus, etc).

Rebonack2 votes

I love the idea of an AD/Armor item for AD Bruisers but there's gotta be an interesting unique passive or active put on it so it doesn't have the same problem Atma's did (being a stack-stick and nothing else). Perhaps the passive/active could have something related to mobility, perhaps to help out all the immobile bruisers out there (Darius, Garen, Voli, Nasus, etc).

The problem with an item that grants bonus mobility is that folks who are already mobile can grab it and become even more mobile.

Messaiga1 votes

Got an idea, what if we lower the base attack speed slow of warden's mail to 10%. When upgraded into Randuin's or Frozen Heart the attack speed slow increases to 15% (whether its the aura or when attacked).

Then we make this AD/Armor Item build out of Warden's Mail and Pickaxe + 1175 gold (or if we're talking PBE gold numbers, + 1125 gold). Stats of the item: 50 Armor, 30 AD, 10% CDR. Unique Passive: Cold Steel - if you are hit by a basic attack, you slow the attacker's attack speed by 10% and their movement speed by 10% for 2 seconds.

Yes/No?

Edit: Swapping Brut for Pickaxe due to lack of armor pen, which would increase the combine cost when you have both components.

FalconPawwwwnch1 votes

You could easily make it build out of phage

So like phage + chainvest so the champs can be mobile

Tis a nice day1 votes

How about this: +Armor +Damage Unique: Grants an increasing +damage buff that grows more powerful the longer you are damaged by an enemy champion.

Similar to a cross between grave's passive combined with Spectre's cowl except for damage rather than resistances/regen.

SmokingPuffin3 votes

You can't make good AD/armor itemization because bruisers. Top lane interaction is already problematic in a world where bruisers buy tank items. It leads to wet noodle fights where neither side has realistic kill potential. If you create good AD/armor itemization, you turn the wet noodle draw into a stompy snowball for whomever buys the thing first.

AP/MR itemization has a similar problem, but mage kits have more counterplay than fighter kits. You can juke their skillshots. You can exploit the asymmetry in zones of control. The result here is that making a kill and buying an item like item 3174 or item 3001 doesn't end the lane in the way that an AD/armor item would end top lanes.

This is just another reminder that bruisers remain a serious design problem in LoL. Every change you make in the game, you have to think "but how does this work with bruisers?"

Rebonack2 votes

This is just another reminder that bruisers remain a serious design problem in LoL. Every change you make in the game, you have to think "but how does this work with bruisers?"

Why are they a serious design problem?

Why are 'wet noodle fights' bad?

SmokingPuffin6 votes

Why are they a serious design problem?

Bruisers, as currently implemented, lack both play and counterplay.

When a bruiser lanes against another bruiser, the winner is the bruiser with more stats. The abundance of targeted stickiness and lack of ability to juke or make opposing bruisers miss means that the lane is typically decided by first blood. As a result, we end up with two unhealthy metagames that we bounce back and forth between:

  • If offense beats defense, the only viable bruisers are lane dominant bruisers like Renekton.
  • If defense beats offense, the only viable bruisers are hyperscaling ones like DrMundo.

When a bruiser lanes against a ranged champion, the fight becomes a race between ranged poke versus bruiser sustain. Only ranged champions that can peel a bruiser all-in see play, and bruisers don't have any counterplay against the likes of Ryze. The only thing you can do is soak the damage until you can't anymore, go back, and do it again. Frustration ensues.

The underlying issue with both of these unhealthy matchup dynamics is that bruisers do not have much room for differentiated gameplay. The classic bruiser kit has a gap closer, a steroid, some sustain or mitigation, and a CC to stick to the target. The problem with this kit is that it's very linear; once you've made the decision to attack target X, your decisions are straightforward and uniform. There isn't much room for you to play Renekton in a way that is different from any other Renekton player, which means it is almost impossible for Renekton to outplay opponents of comparable skill.

Why are 'wet noodle fights' bad?

They're not exactly bad. Wet noodle fights caused by excessive sustain are relatively healthier than snowball tops caused by insufficient sustain.

They aren't exactly good, either. A lane that reaches wet noodle stage is uninteresting to play. The gameplay that top laners enjoy is the battle for 1v1 lane dominance, which has tension only so long as it is impractical to just sustain all the damage that was dealt in the trade back from minions or kit effects. A wet noodle lane is also quite uninteresting for either jungler to visit, making the top lane a pretty lonely and boring place from 10 minutes on.

It would be better if we could tone down bruiser sustain, so that the trades in bruiser matchups matter and can wear down the opponent over time. Unfortunately, bruisers rely on having sustain to hang in lane against ranged champions, so we have to be content with high sustainy bruisers if we want them to be present in the lane at all.

Dar Raksada3 votes

Why are they a serious design problem?

Bruisers, as currently implemented, lack both play and counterplay.

When a bruiser lanes against another bruiser, the winner is the bruiser with more stats. The abundance of targeted stickiness and lack of ability to juke or make opposing bruisers miss means that the lane is typically decided by first blood. As a result, we end up with two unhealthy metagames that we bounce back and forth between:

  • If offense beats defense, the only viable bruisers are lane dominant bruisers like Renekton.
  • If defense beats offense, the only viable bruisers are hyperscaling ones like DrMundo.

When a bruiser lanes against a ranged champion, the fight becomes a race between ranged poke versus bruiser sustain. Only ranged champions that can peel a bruiser all-in see play, and bruisers don't have any counterplay against the likes of Ryze. The only thing you can do is soak the damage until you can't anymore, go back, and do it again. Frustration ensues.

The underlying issue with both of these unhealthy matchup dynamics is that bruisers do not have much room for differentiated gameplay. The classic bruiser kit has a gap closer, a steroid, some sustain or mitigation, and a CC to stick to the target. The problem with this kit is that it's very linear; once you've made the decision to attack target X, your decisions are straightforward and uniform. There isn't much room for you to play Renekton in a way that is different from any other Renekton player, which means it is almost impossible for Renekton to outplay opponents of comparable skill.

Why are 'wet noodle fights' bad?

They're not exactly bad. Wet noodle fights caused by excessive sustain are relatively healthier than snowball tops caused by insufficient sustain.

They aren't exactly good, either. A lane that reaches wet noodle stage is uninteresting to play. The gameplay that top laners enjoy is the battle for 1v1 lane dominance, which has tension only so long as it is impractical to just sustain all the damage that was dealt in the trade back from minions or kit effects. A wet noodle lane is also quite uninteresting for either jungler to visit, making the top lane a pretty lonely and boring place from 10 minutes on.

It would be better if we could tone down bruiser sustain, so that the trades in bruiser matchups matter and can wear down the opponent over time. Unfortunately, bruisers rely on having sustain to hang in lane against ranged champions, so we have to be content with high sustainy bruisers if we want them to be present in the lane at all.

Why is this dude downvoted? he hit the nail on the head. And even if you disagree this is a problem riot sees in bruisers as well, someone asked why they were bad and he illustrates it perfectly, wether you agree or disagree.

Kingsgrave3 votes

Honestly it just seems like you cherry picked all the easy to shut down poorly constructed arguments, but to your credit that is pretty much the majority of posts you will find on here. I just find it puzzling because you usually provide much higher quality of post. Maybe you have new boards-itus or something. Anyway, Mages have lower health pools, lower health regen, and they have a lot more factors than pure intimidation factor, and actually have spells that do more than just damage or push people away. They also typically have less utility and their play patterns are far more different so comparing why they get AP+Defense is far different than why Bruisers don't have those options, and why AP bruisers typically don't work and are either Mages or Tanks. (Gragas being one of those problems because he has a terrible winrate and is only picked for R)

The Mages that do pick up Athenes usually suffer in other areas and the ones that don't generally can't afford to spend gold on those stats. For some reason this is totally fine for both camps to exist, but in Bruiser land this doesn't happen. Its an arms race no matter how much they change the design of each individual problem case in Bruiser camp, the camp itself is an Arms Race for the entirety of its existence, past present and future. Even nowadays, the only bruisers picked are the ones that can abuse the newest item on the block the best. The ones that can't don't exist.

Bruisers are also one of the only classes that are entirely designed and balanced based on other classes rather than based on themselves. AD+Defense items not only makes Top lane more defensive and passive, and same with Jungle, but it makes top laners just forced to prepare for late game in order to fight Carries directly. They already do that, but they have to choose between being better at laning or mid game or teamfighting specifically with the "limited" item choices, which is actually a good thing. If there were AD+Defense as efficient and non-limited items, they would become core and no top laner would be sacrificing mid game, early game or even late game ability and any character that couldn't use this item effectively would forever become obsolete and "underpowered/need of rework."

All the AD+Health items have been nerfed to the ground or made so inefficient they are only useful in certain matchups.

He'll even Maw is mostly too costly and borderline inefficient.

Ever wonder why? People used to just rush Phage top lane, whoever got it first pretty much won the lane and there was nothing to do about it. Nowadays if they rush Ravenous they have no defenses and if they rush Sunfire they have no damage. If they rush Cleaver or Trinity they have a small amount of power and defense but not enough for either to overwhelm you, and it cost so much it mostly doesn't matter at that point. Mostly same reason for Frozen Mallet being inefficient on purpose and giving shitty AD.

When Atmas was good the person who rushed it won in 2 areas. Bruisers are far different in how they fight than Ranged and Mages. The only defining factor in a fight between bruisers is Stats and below that as a sub factor is Skill. No other Class functions like this.

This is why we can't have AD+Defense without major drawbacks and limitations.

Tis a nice day3 votes

For all those worried about the item being abused by ADCs or AD assassins, here's a potential passive idea:

<ItemName> +Damage +Armor

Unique: Grants an increasing +damage buff that grows more powerful the longer you are damaged by an enemy champion.

This way you'd have to get wailed on for a few seconds (something tanks do) before you unlock the full damage potential of the item.

Done252 votes

Fighters could really use a good AD armor item to help them dive turrets. As of now the only real armor items they can use are Omen, Sunfire Cape, and Thornmail. And only Sunfire increases their damage.

AtheosisX2 votes

An AD/armor item could easily be introduced that wouldn't blow up game balance. I mean 50 AD and 50 armor with a minor passive like health regen is not going to ruin things unless you make it too cheap. Yes AD bruisers will want it. So what? AD bruisers are not going to become overpowered due to such an item. They already mix tank and AD items anyway. At most it will simply make their choice to mix the two smoother. If it's determined that it's too good on ADCs, especially as a late game team fight item, just make it melee only. If assassins build it they will be trading away their kill potential. Besides AP assassins can build Zhonya's ffs. That's a much bigger deal than a 50 AD/50 armor item would ever be.

7ha7guy7771 votes

ranged supports can still use the gold share +healing of relic shield, they just can't execute minions. i've done weird build like buying hydra and runaan's on kayle (bot game, not trying to do weird stuff like that when wins aren't guaranteed) and the items act as they should depending on whether she's using E or not. as far as i know, Gangplanks Q is the only exception to having Hydra's splash damage be melee only. so ranged champions could buy the item, but unless the armor portion of it was a melee only passive or something like that, they'd still be able to abuse the stats. if Riot can find a way to implement this in a way that doesn't break the game, i would support said item(s)

Champion Skin1 votes

ADC's are unlikely to buy it unless they buy it for lane dominance or because it gives enough AD that it doesn't lose too much damage compared to other ADC items Or if you can swap out your defensive item for this item it will also be used

Kuroi861 votes

The only real issue I saw with Atma's was bruisers. An Ad/Ar item is possible in the future, but I'm not holding my breath. I expect if we see one, it will be a high/low ratio, high Ad/low Ar or high Ar/low Ad.

shindaiwa211 votes

I think the reasoning here is the difference between physical damage and magic. Magic tends to be either harassment damage or burst, while physical damage tends towards sustained and consistent bashing. A little bit of MR on say, Hexdrinker, Abyssal, Witts End, or Athenes, can prevent a 100-0 or be helpful with poke, while still providing mostly offensive stats.

When two AD's bash eachother, it ends up being much more about DPS, EHP and the efficiency with which these stats can be purchased, as opposed to say Kha'Zix with hexdrinker jumping on sydra saying "I need to live if she ults me."

There is in fact, already an item something like what you describe in Iceborn Gaultlet. If we compare a champion with IBG to one with Triforce (damage) or Randuins (pure EHP,) I feel like it's clear that both Triforce and Randuins will be better. Granted IBG is more of a ultility (CDR, AP, Slow) item, but even with somewhat better damage stats it'd probably still lose out.

Even with effective cheap items like Brutalizer, seeing brutalizer into chainvest is very rare. Armor synergizes with HP, damage synergizes with more damage. Either the item would be ungodly cost efficient and everyone would get it, or most likely it would not be puchased (with the possible except of as a last or near-last item, one the stats to synergize with it were already in place, and it was a sort of halfziez choice.)

Espy Psyche1 votes

So AD carries build the item. I don't see why that's a problem. I say it gives more options, and makes certain carries newly viable.

Let's go with the on-hit steal attack speed option, since that's the one I like the most. Let's build it from Warden's Mail + The Brutalizer, which gives it AD, Armor, Armor Penetration and CDR as its stats. Now let's add a unique active that causes it to steal Attack Speed from its target on-hit (up to a cap).

I can name a few bruisers that would love it. Jarvan IV and Xin Zhao come to mind with their attack speed steroids. They get in, use their steroids, and steal even more attack speed, comboing with Blade of the Ruined King to deal additional damage.

But Tristana, Graves and Kog'maw would abuse the everliving shit out of it. And I like it. Graves and Kog'maw can come back into viability, and Tristana can just get hit with a nerf bat to bring her back in line after the item is released.

FantasySniper1 votes

Here's a simple and minimal list of champions who could exploit this item to great effect: Renekton JarvanIV Gnar Darius Olaf Malphite Pantheon Sion MonkeyKing Quinn Jayce Vayne Gnar (again)

All of which are found in top-lane and some can even jungle.

It would be a nightmare to balance the introduction of an item that supplies to them both the damage they desire and the defense that will only help their progress.

You want to do it, gl with that, because I doubt it will be balanced before it becomes a problem, if ever.

Bruisers are too much of a problem to deal with, and you'd have to practically neuter them and introduce this item to make up for it...

Actually, why not? If we can fix the bruiser problem once and for all with the "compensation" of an item that's otherwise unbalanced, I could see it working.

Xrusa

I think a major problem about AD+Armor items is that a lot of AD bruisers are given AD ratios that would make it far stronger than intended, opposed to a lot of AP bruisers, especially because these AD bruisers also get a lot of extra damage through auto attacks and not just waiting on spell cooldowns to attack. It's better the way it is, making them build one or the other first.

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