Riot may make many mistakes, but the AP itemization change was fantastic

Now there are many AP champions in which I don't need to build to deal high amounts of damage, I can focus on magic penetration and tankyness and still be able to burst down squishies very fast. For example, on ; I don't need to build Rabadon. All I need is + + + + + (not necessarily on that order). Now not only Vlad is capable of bursting squishies; He IS able to take down tanks, be sort of a tank himself, and deal tons of damage without having to build Rabadon to achieve said amounts of damage. Same thing on (although I usually replace Void Staff with an and Zhonya with ).

That said, if I ever want to use Rabadon, this item now gives a lot more damage than before, thanks to the passive giving higher amounts of AP. So I can replace Liandry with Rabadon on the above build and be able to do tons of damage, even though this isn't necessary (but recommended against teams where there aren't really a lot of tanky champions)

Also, I no longer feel the need to build on every AP champion. Now if I want, I can build other items; for example, is way better now that Liandry gives 80 AP instead of 50, now he can actually rush Liandry, and deal insane damage thanks to this item's passive.

Also; people used to complain about a lot because his laning phase was really oppressive (and it still is somewhat) he could snowball very easily, and it was hard to counter-itemize against him since Zhonya was so expensive and could set you behind if you have to rush it. But now, thanks to being cheaper and much easier to rush, you now have a way better time against Zed. This was somewhat of an indirect nerf to him, something that people were always asking.

The only change that I don't like was the change to - now this item gives less HP, making it a worse purchase for some champions. I still use it on the likes of because they really need the extended mana pool, but the nerf on the HP amount that this item gives after it is fully stacked was completely unecessary on my opinion.

That said, overall the changes were great. Now AP itemization is a lot more diverse, builds that focus on magic penetration and tankyness instead of raw AP are now a lot more viable, and you don't feel the need to use Zhonya + Rabadon + Luden's Echo on every AP champion to be able to do tons of damage. Also, Liandry is more viable and Zhonya is cheaper, both were indirect nerfs to tanks and to Zed, respectively, something that we were in need.

Riot did a great job and I can only be thankful now that AP builds are better and more diverse.