On Hit Itemization

A few weeks ago I saw a post on how on hit items should be an option that bridge the gap between tank and glass cannon, giving a decent amount of each. Looking at the current state of on hit itemization, I don't feel like on hits really have an identity right now.

Currently there are six major on hit items:, , (including all of the smites as one), , , and . Let's look at the identities of these items.

Wit's End: This item does a decent amount of on hit magic damage, gives a decent amount of magic resist, and gives a decent amount of attack speed. It also shreds magic resistance. All in all, it is a reasonable item that could use a small buff to make it more relevant but all in all fulfills my fantasy of on hits fairly well.

Runaan's Hurricane: It gives a decent amount of attack speed and crit, a small amount of movement speed, and a small amount of on hit damage. On the other hand, it allows the user to strike two extra targets with on hits. This is a far more crit based version of on hit, used more often for the ability to hit multiple people and crit than for its on hit effects.

Bloodrazor: Bloodrazor gives a large amount of attack speed and an on hit that does %max health damage. It is a good enchantment that allows attack speed junglers to be relevant. It is better against health stackers than squishies or resistance stackers.

Nashor's Tooth: A powerful item in its own right, with a large amount of attack speed, a relatively large amount of ap, 20% cdr, and a small on hit that scales with ap, this item is incredibly niche, only used on four champions with a popularity over 1.5% according to lolking.net. Of those champions, 3 of them have a winrate over 56% with this item. The other one is Azir. RIP Azir. All in all, Nashor's Tooth is a powerful but niche AP on hit item.

Blade of the Ruined King: Featuring ad for the first time in on hits, this item is the sustain and kite item of on hits. However, it is far more effective at killing health stackers than it is anything else as it does low amounts of %current health damage, with an active that does %max health damage, heals, and slows.

Guinsoo's Rageblade: Guinsoo's Rageblade suffers from a massive split identity. Touted as the infinity edge of on hits, it should make all other on hit effects significantly stronger in some manner as Infinity edge increases all critical strike damage. It does this, but does it in a weird way. For one, It starts out with zero attack speed, on an item that should magnify all on hits which scale only with attack speed. This is after it has 25% attack speed already in its components. On the other hand, it gives ad and ap right off the bat, making it more of a hybrid damage item than an on hit item. After it has six stacks, the item gains quite a bit of attack speed, with a small amount of ad and ap. The scaling on the item comes from Guinsoo's Rage, which doubles on hits every other basic attack. This increases the damage of the on hits incredibly while not really increasing the survivability of the user, which I see as a failure.

Looking at the class of items in general, it seems to lack things to me.

1. I do not think that Guinsoo's Rageblade fits its role perfectly of being a scale for other items in the class.
2. There is a lack of options for dealing with non-tanky options. For tanks, Blade of the Ruined King and Bloodrazor are very useful. For non-tanky targets, only Wit's End is immediately good, with Runaans and Guinsoos helping both mostly equally.
3. There is no option for resistance stackers.

To fix (1), I have two ideas.

Firstly, alter the scaling so that it keeps its 25% as with no stacks. Then it will only scale by 3% on each hit, up to a total of 43% as with full stacks.

Or, I would either replace it or add a new item with a different type of multiplicative passive. Instead of Guinsoo's Rage, this item would reduce the opponent's attack speed by 4% each hit, up to a total of 20% at 5 stacks At the same time, it increases the user's as by 4% each hit, up to a total of 20% at max stacks. This number applies directly, ie if they had 2.5 as they have 2.0 as at full stacks, and 2.5 as would go up to 3.0 as. It would also feature some amount of on hit damage.

This passive would scale with on hits because it increases the number of hits in a fight significantly. Similarly, it artificially increases the tankiness of the user against those who use auto attacks. On the other hand, it avoids many of the problems that Kog'maw had. It does not force the user to essentially be completely immobile because of a massive attack speed and also does not inherently benefit scripters more than the average player since it is still feasible to orb walk manually.

If this item was too strong for crit adcs, I would add in that all auto attacks now have 90% ad scaling instead of 1.0 ad scaling. However, I would probably shift power into the as gain, potentially causing the same issue that Kog'maw had.

To fix (2), I would also add a new item to the on hit family. This item would be a companion to Blade of the Ruined King, doing a large amount of flat on hit damage and healing for the same amount. In that way, it would be far more useful against squishies since it is a flat value.

Kagi's Siphon: Builds out of Vampiric Scepter, Recurve Bow, Chain Vest, and 700 gold for a total cost of 3400 gold.

It would give 20 ad, 25% as, 40 armor, 40 on hit damage, and 40 health on hit. This gives it a gold value of 3125 plus whatever the on hit healing is worth (not sure how to calculate that). This is an efficiency of 92%. I think this item would fill the gap I see in on hit items and help them to cement their role as tankier, less damage items. Although having ad, armor, and healing on the same item would normally be problematic, I think it is fine in this case since the ad is small and the heal is on hit.

For (3), I think that is a good thing. On hits should not be able to do everything and anything. It should be a class of items that has its own strengths and weaknesses. It should be able to give a middle ground between tanky and damage. It should not be able to do everything a tank and a glass cannon can do.

TLDR: I don't think on hits do their job of being a somewhat tanky somewhat damaging option. I would change Guinsoo's Rageblade into an item that effectively steals % attack speed from those you hit, capping at 20%. I would also add an item that gives a small amount of ad, armor, as, and on hit healing to give on hits a sustain armor option that is only really good for on hits, avoiding the issue of it being over used.