Boards›Gameplay

IEM shows that Athene's was massively over nerfed.

Nausicäa ··58 votes·6,375 views

Pretty much everyone just builds Morellonomicon instead, even against assassins like Fizz. Riot nerfed Athene's because they thought that it limited item diversity. Well now everyone merely builds a different item instead and there is still no diversity in AP item purchases.

Morellonomicon has more regen, more AP, is 600 gold cheaper and has a situationally powerful and underated grievous wounds effect. Meanwhile all Athene's has over Morellonomicon now is a mediocre amount of Magic resist.

I think that the items are currently in a decent spot in terms of stats, with Athene's being a more defensive item and Morellonomicon being a more offensive item. The main problem is that the cost disparity is way too high. To solve this i would suggest slighly reducing the cost of Athenes to 2500 and slightly increasing the cost of Morellonomicon to 2300. This way there might actually be a reasonable choice rather than Morellonomicon automatically being the superior option.

Edit according to lol Wiki Statistical Value

80 ability power = 1740g
100% base mana regeneration = 720g 20% cooldown reduction = 633g Total Gold Value = 3093g

60 ability power = 1305g 25 magic resist = 500g 50% mana regen = 360g 20% cooldown reduction = 633g Total Gold Value = 2798g (The new Athene's passive is significantly worse than 50% base mana regen so its safe to assume its gold value is roughly around 250g, even with this passive included Morellonomicon's stats have a higher gold value)

Mana Font: Mages average between 1100-1200 Mana at level 18. If you have 0 Mana you gain 18 regen, if you have 50% mana you have 9 regen. The extra 50% base mana regen on Morellonomicon gives you 10 mana regen AT ALL times at level 18.

Morellonomicon is way too gold efficient.

109 Comments

FyshinaTux33 votes

Ironically enough, what limits item diversity in LoL... is a lack of Item diversity... smh

They even removed Negatron Cloak... Such diversity, much wow, very decision. -_-

Nausicäa 10 votes

Ironically enough, what limits item diversity in LoL... is a lack of Item diversity... smh

Yes exactly. Its not like nerfing Athene's will suddenly making old Athene's users buy items like Tear or Rod of Ages. I knew the moment i saw these changes that they would accomplish nothing other than to make Morellonomicon the new go to item. The fact that Riot's balancing team didnt have the foresight to realize the same is troubling.

FyshinaTux8 votes

I almost literally want to just redo the entire item list that Riot has and see what the boards think... I'm just wondering if I want to condemn myself to spending that much time on something... >.> idk...

Tapu Fini6 votes

Negatron is back on the PBE, probably going live next patch.

FyshinaTux6 votes

Excellent, I'll still probably end up spending the majority of my free time this month reworking the entire item system to see what the Boards community thinks... I know the chances of Riot implementing it if it's loved are slim to 0, but I doubt my work will be loved by the community... we'll see.

Lord OwlBear3 votes

Im pretty sure its only back for item 3026 none of the other build paths will be reverting

DeathToEcchi2 votes

It's also gonna be part of Abyssal Scepter

Pyro2 votes

And Zz'Rot Portal.

HexTechBomber1 votes

From what I'm getting is that anything that built Negatron Cloak before will have Negatron Cloak build into it again but Null Magic Mantle will be building into the Negatron now too.

Lord OwlBear1 votes

only things on PBE that are having the build path change back are item 3026 and item 3001, and I think Zz'Rot portal is on hold and wont be in this patch

HexTechBomber1 votes

They said they are bringing back Negatron Cloak and that Negatron Cloak will build out of Null Magic Mantle, thank GOD

FyshinaTux1 votes

I'd rather have a flat Negatron cloak from the store, not have it build out of Null Magic... Just my opinion, but I feel it's healthier that way personally. I don't know though, we'll see what I come up with while I'm reworking the item set that LoL has... I'll probably post it around New Years (give or take).

HexTechBomber1 votes

Honestly I feel it's a bit better to still build Negatron Cloak out of Null Magic Mantle because it can give diversity slightly to if you want to get a bit of MR to get into the larger MR. Like Cloth Armor building into Chain Vest. Except now you can create changing to the building of where you would want to take it or such. Get my drift? I hope I'm making sense, typing this all up while at work and what not.

FyshinaTux1 votes

You made sense, and your argument is valid, and a good one.

However, my thoughts on it, are more along the lines of the whole "Bruiser vs Tank" thought process. If you're a Carry or a Bruiser, and you need some MR (or armor), then you build the smaller defense item, and finish it into a "bruiser" item. Examples would include the Hexdrinker, Abyssal Scepter (even though it built out of, and apparently will again, a Negatron Cloak), or Wit's End.

I think the fact that a Carry would build a full tank item (pretty much the only option at the moment, given that Banshee's is just too good right now) is absurd. Likewise, if you're playing a tank, you'd want to build into the bigger ticket item to start, and finish it off into a full tank item like Banshee's, Warmogs, etc.

That's my personal take on it.

HexTechBomber1 votes

I completely agree that the TANKIER items should have least like Negatron Cloak built out of them compared to ones that provide some protection.

FyshinaTux1 votes

That's my point, I find it silly (personally) that you would build a "bruiser MR Starter" item, and then change it to a Tank item later. This could mostly be due to the fact that I find carries building full tank items to be silly, but hey, we're all weird in our own ways. :D

HexTechBomber1 votes

Yeah, anything building extremely tanky should least build from the null/cloth into the 2nd stronger and there on continuing while the others leave you options to various larger weaker bruiser stuff but yeah heh

Teridax6817 votes

item 3165 was always massively gold efficient, way before item 3174 got nerfed. I think the change in preference has more to do with the changes to mana regen: before Preseason 5, Morellonomicon and Athene's had the same amount of flat mana regen, except AUG also had Mana Font and its regen-on-kill/assist passive. Now Morellonomicon's 100% base mana regen is a buff to its late-game regeneration, whereas AUG's 50% base mana regen and different Mana Font passive makes it a less attractive choice for early game mana sustain.

While Morellonomicon perhaps needs a price increase, I think Athene's has more of a problem here: for all intents and purposes, it's pretty much a Morellonomicon that trades 20 AP for 25 MR (or, alternatively, Morellonomicon is an AUG that ditches the small amount of MR for a more straightforward AP boost), so they're both competing for the same niche. When AUG is strong, Morellonomicon gets rarely picked, and vice versa. However, from the past seasons AUG was a consistent mage pick because of how item 3028 was practically compulsory to getting an edge in lane. Its MR allowed you to take less poke, and its mana regen allowed you to poke without having to worry too much about mana conservation, so an AP-versus-AP mid lane tended to be an arms race where the first one to get a Chalice could out-perform their opponent on every level. Grail exacerbated those issues by letting the wielder cast stronger spells a lot more frequently, all while mitigating the enemy's magic damage. Making Grail the dominant pick again would just reinstate the arms race, whereas the build path for Morellonomicon doesn't immediately solve the wielder's mana issues, nor does it guarantee defense against the enemy's damage.

Nausicäa 3 votes

Morellonomicon don't immediately solve the wielder's mana issues

Forbidden Idol, a component in Morellonomicon has 60% base mana regen for 600 gold.

Grail is 1000 gold and has 50% base mana regen. Mana Font is terrible, its overall worse than 50% base mana regen. Meaning that Morellonomicon has MORE regen than Athenes at literally all points in the game.

Morellonomicon was always massively gold efficient

And yet they added 360g worth of extra stats while also reducing the price by 100g. Terrible idea.

Teridax686 votes

item 3114 used to give 8 flat mana regen. To give that same amount now, your champion would have to be between level 9 and 13, and Idol is usually a component you get before that. I agree that Mana Font isn't particularly strong, but then again I don't think it should be. When Mana Font is sufficiently strong on its own, particularly in the early game, it just means your champion doesn't have to worry about mana problems at all. It's a remnant from a time where item-based mana regen didn't scale into either the early or late game, where it was the only item capable of increasing your mana regen as you leveled up. Now that mana regen got reworked, its effect is redundant.

Nausicäa 1 votes

item 3114 Has 60% base regen for 600g item 3028 Has 50% + Mana Font for 1000g by the time you build this you will getting about 4.5 extra regen from Mana Font if you're missing 50+ % of your mana.

Your claim was that Morellonomicons component items do not solve mana regen problems as well as Chalice. This is clearly false as of patch 4.20

At level 18 Morello gives you 20 mana regen At level 18 Athenes gives you 10 mana regen + Mana Font (under 55% missing mana, Mana Font gives LESS THAN 10 mana regen)

Arveanor5 votes

That wasn't really his claim...

Teridax684 votes

As Arveanor pointed out, that wasn't my claim. My claim was that, prior to Preseason 5, Chalice was the only mana regen item that scaled into the late game, which coupled with its strong early mana sustain made it pretty much the end-all to most mid laners' mana issues. Now that all mana regen scales into the late game and that Mana Font has been nerfed, its effect is redundant. Morellonomicon, on the other hand, received a buff to its late-game regen. I'm saying that Morellonomicon now offers better mana regen than Grail, but also that Morellonomicon never completely eliminated mana problems on its own, and still doesn't. Athene's is undeniably the weaker pick here, but I don't think that's entirely a bad thing.

Nausicäa 1 votes

As Arveanor pointed out, that wasn't my claim. My claim was that, prior to Preseason 5, Chalice was the only mana regen item that scaled into the late game, which coupled with its strong early mana sustain made it pretty much the end-all to most mid laners' mana issues. Now that all mana regen scales into the late game and that Mana Font has been nerfed, its effect is redundant. Morellonomicon, on the other hand, received a buff to its late-game regen. I'm saying that Morellonomicon now offers better mana regen than Grail, but also that Morellonomicon never completely eliminated mana problems on its own, and still doesn't. Athene's is undeniably the weaker pick here, but I don't think that's entirely a bad thing.

Actually that was exactly your claim

Making Grail the dominant pick again would just reinstate the arms race, whereas the build path for Morellonomicon don't immediately solve the wielder's mana issues, nor does it guarantee defense against the enemy's damage.

Maybe you should read what you actually wrote before suggesting im not accurately representing what you said.

Teridax688 votes

Um.

How to put this in a manner that does not sound offensive.

... I don't think that quote means what you think it means. Lemme make myself clear on my opinion:

Before Preseason 5, Grail was the dominant pick because it used to solve the wielder's mana problems on its own in most cases. Now, after Patch 4.20, it no longer does, mainly because the Mana Font passive got nerfed. However, I don't think it's worth buffing Mana Font or Grail, because doing so would put Grail back in the situation where it singlehandedly eliminated most mid laners' mana problems, and would relaunch the Athene's arms race that used to heavily influence mid lane.

Before Preseason 5, Morellonomicon used to offer less mana sustain overall than Grail, but after Preseason 5 it offered more. Before and after Patch 4.20, Morellonomicon offered great mana regen, but never enough to completely remove a champion's mana issues.

Does that clarify things?

SmokinSickStyle10 votes

There's only one item who isn't in a decent spot, but godlike, and it's Zhonya's way too much AP for a DEFENSIVE item.

Ratbert6 votes

that's like saying mercurial has way too much ad for a utility item.

SmokinSickStyle8 votes

Mercurial is much weaker.

Reason?

On how many AD mids or AD in general you see building it first, literally RUSHING the item without losing the effectiveness of your core items?

QSS is totally different from Zhonyas, it is not Zhonya's counterpart at all.

QSS is mostly taken against Zeds and suppressions, even rarer against heavy CC teamcomps, sadly they are mostly in built of displacement (knockups etc..), guess what, can't QSS those.

Khristophoros5 votes

Mana/mana regen itemization, and AP itemization, are both very shallow. You can't have variety with how shallow it is because it just comes down to whichever item is the most gold efficient.

FyshinaTux5 votes

It's not even that to some extent, if you want the most Raw AP, you get Rabadon's. Want more raw penetration? get Void Staff. Need mana regen? get nomicon (used to be athene's). Need pure Mana? get RoA if you want some tankiness, or Tear.

The itemization is an issue on a whole with League of Legends, it's not JUST AP itemization...

Nausicäa 4 votes

Mana/mana regen itemization, and AP itemization, are both very shallow. You can't have variety with how shallow it is because it just comes down to whichever item is the most gold efficient.

Yes, there is a very limited amount of variety that can be had when the item has the same 2 or 3 fundamental stats, particularly with Riot opposed to the creative and sometimes crazy itemization style of DOTA. I think Riot at least achieved some variety with the current Athene's (defense) and Morello(offensive) in terms of stats, however the huge price difference just makes makes Morellonomicon the no brainer go to option.

Chronomancy4 votes

I made a thread about my feelings on the issue so I wont go too in depth but the issue I think they had with Athenes is that items are a bad/lazy way to fix the mana management issue. Not all champions are equally in need of a resource fix. Champions at the top end of the mage meta, like Syndra or Orianna, have very manageable mana cost and low cooldowns. Champions like Lux or Malzahar who are yet to have their kits modernized were the intended recipients but the item to make them viable had to be so powerful it became a staple for a huge swathe of mid laners.

tl/dr: They need to go through and dramatically reduce the cost of mage abilities in second and lower tiers. It will take way longer and be way more work but if you use an item fix then a buff to a tier 4 mage will also buff a tier 1 mage.

Nausicäa 4 votes

I made a thread about my feelings on the issue so I wont go too in depth but the issue I think they had with Athenes is that items are a bad/lazy way to fix the mana management issue. Not all champions are equally in need of a resource fix. Champions at the top end of the mage meta, like Syndra or Orianna, have very manageable mana cost and low cooldowns. Champions like Lux or Malzahar who are yet to have their kits modernized were the intended recipients but the item to make them viable had to be so powerful it became a staple for a huge swathe of mid laners.

Syndra and Orianna can both easily oom. No idea what you're talking about.

Chronomancy5 votes

I at no point said they can't go OOM. I said that they have manageable costs and cooldowns. This means that they can use their abilities to poke and clear to a reasonable level without a ton of mana regen and their cooldowns are not prohibitively long (3 second CD/50 mana Q for Orianna and 4 second/40-80 mana Q for Syndra).

There is a reason these champions are top tier and these values are a big contributing factor. Compare this to Lux main waveclear/poke in lane at 70-130 mana per cast and 10 second cooldown at all levels or Malzahar's DoT spell which is 60-120 mana and scales from a huge 15 second cooldown at level one to 7 seconds at level five. Doing a full rotation of spells on Zilean costs 565 mana using a single time warp whereas a full Syndra combo is 330.

Basically the idea is that in an age of Zeds and Syndras there is a certain expectation of availability when it comes to spells. Every champion they will release from this point on will have some sort of mechanic you constantly employ from level one on and Athenes was designed to push mages into the modern era all at once. The problem is that some champions only needed a little help (tier 1) while others needed a lot (tier 2 and below). Using an item fix is inappropriate to the challenge.

Mana management is a good thing for LoL, it just shouldn't be shaping the meta.

Essorance4 votes

Riot take the same line to balance items as they do to champions; If something is good enough to be used, make it worse than whatever is bad. diversity ftw

CJ Entus CoCoa3 votes

still every korean mid laner prefers chalice over morello. still wondering why that is. faker, coco, nagne, ggoong, and gbm all build athenes unless vs ad.

MrBuffington1 votes

Yea, I've been building chalice still because of that; I don't know why they do it either, but because they still build it, I'm assuming there's some nitty-gritty aspect of the game that still has Athene's being better, at least at their level of play; they're able to do more with less, so maybe they prefer the survivability that Athene's gives even though they get less AP and mana sustain (ie. they can still do what they need to do with the less AP and mana).

CJ Entus CoCoa4 votes

the 15% mana regen on kill or assist is pretty crucial for a lot of mid laners imo, going oom on someone like syndra or ori is a death sentence at the end of teamfights

Linna Excel3 votes

IMO Athene's and Morellonomicon need to be buffed/nerfed as one. They fulfill the same set of roles for a similar cost. If riot doesn't do that, then people will just flock to the buffed or unnerfed item of the pair.

Nausicäa 5 votes

IMO Athene's and Morellonomicon need to be buffed/nerfed as one. They fulfill the same set of roles for a similar cost. If riot doesn't do that, then people will just flock to the buffed or unnerfed item of the pair.

they should both have a niche, one as a defensive item and one as a more offensive item. The problem is that the gold disparity is just too high. Morellonomicon at 2100 gold is just insane, i mean what other core item costs so little.

Angry Monster2 votes

Mages will never get a defensive item that does not help their combat stats. This is why every defensive mage items always has some form of offensive benefit. Merellos and athens both can not exist in the same game and be both viable.

Matthevv2 votes

You have a massive misunderstanding of how mana regen works if you think the chalice passive is worse than 50% base mana regen.

Athenes is still the item with the most mana regen in the game, that will never change.

S H A Y C 01 votes

Yeah...I liked how he ever so discretely passed right over the Mana Font unique passive 1.5% of missing mana restored every second...not per 5...per 10... 1!!!

Nausicäa 1 votes

Yeah...I liked how he ever so discretely passed right over the Mana Font unique passive 1.5% of missing mana restored every second...not per 5...per 10... 1!!!

Unique Passive "Mana Font" changed to "Restores 1.5% of missing mana every 5 seconds"

I like how you have no clue what you're talking about and decided to post anyway. I guess reading isnt your strong suit.

S H A Y C 01 votes

Reading may not be my strong suit, but being a jerk certainly is yours. And while i made a mistake, the math still works out that athenes is still far superior mana regeneration and it was still overlooked in the original post. So maybe i misread, but you chose to completely ignore that it even existed just to fit your idea.

Nausicäa 1 votes

Reading may not be my strong suit, but being a jerk certainly is yours. And while i made a mistake, the math still works out that athenes is still far superior mana regeneration and it was still overlooked in the original post. So maybe i misread, but you chose to completely ignore that it even existed just to fit your idea.

Mana Font: Mages average between 1100-1200 Mana at level 18. If you have 0 Mana you gain 18 regen, if you have 50% mana you have 9 regen. The extra 50% base mana regen on Morellonomicon gives you 10 mana regen AT ALL times at level 18.

Math isnt your strong suit either.

S H A Y C 01 votes

ok...you want to do this lets do this.

1200 max mana

at 0 mana you will get 1.5% of missing mana per 5. 1.5% of 1200 is 18 mana per 5 <---thats just mana font

50% base mana regen at level 18 is about 4 in addition per 5

so if 50% is 4 then 100 is 8 in this scenario

so base of 8 plus 8 bonus= 16 total...not ten at all levels, so math mistake 1

18 plus 8 = 26 which is greater than 16 so wrong again...i dont know how to say this, but maybe you got too excited at your golden opportunity to be asshole that you made a slight miscalculation?

Drunk Rummate3 votes

At level 18 Syndra, for example, has 1184 mana At level 1 she has 6 mp5 with a growth scaling of 0.8 per level. This means at level 18 Syndra has 19.6 base mp5

Morellonomicon will give an additional 19.6 mp5 at level 18, up to a total of 39.2 mp5 or 7.84 mana per second

Athenes will give an additional 9.8 mp5 at level 18, up to a total of 29.4 mp5 or 5.88 mana per second. The breakpoint for Athenes providing more mana return is at (39.2 - 29.4) = (0.015)(missing mana), or missing mana = 653.33

653.33 mana is 55% of syndra's total mana pool. This means for the tooltip-stated athenes to work at efficiency when compared to Morellonomicon. This leaves 531 mana for syndra to work with in order to maintain item efficiency, but now let's look at her mana costs:

Dark Sphere - 80 Mana, Cooldown 4s (reduced by 25% with athenes + mastery = 3s) Force of Will - 100 Mana Scatter the Weak - 50 Mana Unleashed Power - 100 Mana

Analysis:

I listed the cooldown of her Q because this is essentially Syndra's auto attack in the later stages of the game. You can expect almost 100% uptime on this ability when it is off cooldown in fights. All 3 abilities are often used for waveclear and poking. 330 mana is required for her 'full combo' and therefore must be conserved. 410 if you want to consider that most Syndra players will Q twice before ulting. So this leaves, generously, about 854 mana that can be expended before Syndra is forced to stop using her abilities for a little while to regenerate.

Keep in mind that when the value goes lower than 653.33 Athenes is no longer the efficient choice. So you essentially have a 200 mana gap to work with between what is considered efficient use of athenes versus blowing your entire load and becoming useless for a really long time regardless of your mana regen item.

With Athenes you get 42.21 mp5 if you are missing 854 mana. The theoretical maximum. With morellonomicon you have 100% uptime on 39.2 mp5. So you tell me, which is better? I think the answer is obvious.

S H A Y C 01 votes

so in your analysis you have to be at 45% or less mana for athenes to be better? ok sure ill just go with that. Mana regen when youre above 50% is non essential in most cases and the time you really want mana regen is below half where athene's shines...so its still better when it matters.

Drunk Rummate3 votes

so in your analysis you have to be at 45% or less mana for athenes to be better? ok sure ill just go with that. Mana regen when youre above 50% is non essential in most cases and the time you really want mana regen is below half where athene's shines...so its still better when it matters.

That's not what I'm trying to say here.

There's a window of about 200 mana where athenes is better than morellonomicon and it actually matters

Anything below 330 mana for syndra? You're about as useful as an ADC that can auto attack every 3 seconds. Good players manage their mana to keep it above that threshold in the event that a fight breaks out. Therefore theoretically you should never be below 330 mana unless you're playing poorly on syndra, or unless that fight literally just happened (in which case you have plenty of time to conserve mana anyways).

So are you spending so much time in that 200 mana threshold that athenes is better? For 500g more and 20 AP less and no Grievous Wounds? I sincerely doubt it.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Nausicäa

ADCs are 'too weak' and Riot is planning buffs.
Gameplay170 comments
227
votes
Is it safe to say now that the ADC rework was a complete and utter failure?
Gameplay174 comments
225
votes
Mages getting nerfed meanwhile all i play against mid is....
Gameplay195 comments
203
votes
Proof that Riot has abandoned their design values on Counterplay
Gameplay139 comments
183
votes
Riot wants to make it easier to win stalled out games
Gameplay98 comments
154
votes
What happened to reducing damage in pre-season Riot???
Gameplay52 comments
151
votes