wit's end idea

Great Ozymandius·May 12, 2016·1 votes·333 views

Ravenous Hydra can be switched with Titanic Hydra at any time.

What if we made an ad/armor variant of wits end and allowed players to switch between them costlessly.

For example, the ad version of wits end would do 40 physical damage on-hit, provide attack peed, buff armor by 5 per auto attack and reduce target armor by 5 per auto attack up to some cap. So basically the mirror image.

This could be nice for making the item a little less niche and giving it more optionality. Early game the armor would help with jungle sustain. Midgame switch to mr to deal with that fed ekko. Late game switch back to ad version b/c need more armor to deal with enemey adc.

Thoughts?

2 Comments

masterdragon481May 12, 20161 votes

Ravenous hydra and titanic hydra can't be swapped anymore and haven't been able to be for several patches at least. It looks like it was an experiment that went bad; I don't think riot will be making any "free swap" items anymore, it makes them too hard to balance.

There is no reason to make an ad version of witts end because no one would buy it. Physical damage on hit is generally called ad (attack damage) and there are many better attack damage items one could pick up. For example, blade of the ruined king is an item that is doing basically what you want and providing lifesteal and a slow at the same time. Sure, its not taking off 25 armor, but who cares?

Reducing armor is less effective than reducing mr because generally it is much harder for champions to acquire magic resistance. This means that champions in general have lower MR than they do armor, making the flat penetration much more effective. Since all champs gain armor, that shred matters less and less.

Oh, and dealing with the adc? There are at least 3 different actual armor items I would pick up first before I even considered an item like this: Randuins, thornmail, Frozen heart. Hell, If i want more armor, I can get ninja tabi, dead mans, and a sunfire just to "round out my build."

It wouldn't be useful for jungle sustain because there is no way to get the item fast enough. Your first ~2300 gold is in your jungle item and boots. At this point, its generally around level 6/7 and the first towers are starting to fall; you better have your jungle sustain taken care of way before you could even consider picking up an item like this.

Bottom line? There is no point of an item like that.

Great OzymandiusMay 15, 20161 votes

Physical damage on hit is generally called ad (attack damage) and there are many better attack damage items one could pick up.

No. Recursive crossbow provides physical damage on-hit but no AD. Runaan's hurricane provides physical damage on hit but no ad. BORK provides physical damage on hit plus some AD. The big different between physical damage on hit and AD is that physical damage on hit does not scale up spell damage that scales on AD. This means you can tune physical damage on-hit items to auto-attackers without scaling up the ability damage of champions, helping you to tune the item around a particular class.

better attack damage items one could pick up. For example, blade of the ruined king is an item that is doing basically what you want and providing lifesteal and a slow at the same time. Sure, its not taking off 25 armor, but who cares?

Synergy. AD wit's end would make BORK stronger, and visa-versa. Verses an AD opponent, the the extra armor would be quite beneficial. The fact that the armor is gated around attacking an enemy means you can make the item more gold efficient for when the item passive is stacked.

Reducing armor is less effective than reducing mr because generally it is much harder for champions to acquire magic resistance.

Maw and duskblade each provide 10 flat armor pen (and flat armor pen is the same as armor reduction if the target would not have been brought below 0). Youmuu's provides 20 flat armor pen. 25 armor reduction would be extremely valuable, but of course you need to auto attack the target to acquire the pen.