There's a big problem with mages right now
This is half its own thread, half a response to Moody P's mage plague thread so if you haven't read it, check it out https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/1qE5yxUc-mages-are-a-plague
If you pay any attention to competitive play, you know that mages are huge, even stifling presence in most games. However, just playing through all the mages you get the feeling that certain ones absolutely suck and are never going to be meta. You also get the feeling that some mages are S/S+ tier with the vast majority being low A tier or below.
You'll notice a pattern. Aside from LeBlanc (who doubles as an assassin), burst mages tend to get the short end of the stick in a lot of scenarios. DPS heavy mages reign supreme and are usually the champions taking over metas. This comes from 3 specific issues.
1 - The amount of tools given to a champion
The nature of a burst champion's kit means they generally only need one setup tool to drop their entire combo. Maybe 2. DPS champions need tools to run down their opponent (similar to why you give ADs red buff in the late-game), and so they generally get more. Do a comparison of any old burst mage to a DPS mage. I guarantee you will see any new DPS mage and updated old DPS mages completely outstrip old burst mages in terms of utility and CC.
And during the old days, this was okay. Burst mages had enough damage tools that they came online MUCH EARLIER than DPS mages. Ziggs/Ori? You needed an Athene's to stall, then you needed a Deathcap and Void to be a significant threat. Ahri? Just slap on a DFG and you're ready to go. Now the role of damaging AP threat has been so diminished (I'll get to that in the next 2 points) that those damage spikes are less and less relevant and you're mostly picking these champions now for their utility/CC capability. While we're on the topic, you know what Ahri was building the last time she was relevant in pro play? Glacial GLP Twin Shadows. Riot realizes that burst mages simply aren't what they were anymore, and they're trying to remedy it through the addition of more tools to compete with these DPS mages (Galio, Neeko, Zoe, and Swain all have a lot more tools than anyone in their subclasses used to have). Sadly, while this does help these champions' viability it does nothing for the older champions whose power budgets simply can't hold it and it certainly doesn't do any favors for people who want that AD assassin-centric snowball-your-damage power fantasy.
2 - The way MR items function
It makes sense that armor is more functional against AD champions than AP champions. In that same vein of thought, it makes sense that certain items counter specific subclasses more than others. Aside from Adaptive Helm, MR items absolutely dumpster burst mages.
If I'm playing a burst mage, my gameplan is to hit you with a CC and then dump my entire burst on you. This burst has a moderately high CD but higher damage. The issue is I need to get it right the first time because if not, I'm extremely vulnerable.
Tank MR items give health and MR, both are exceptionally good at preventing death in a single burst rotation. Spirit Visage's healing is much better when you're healing up between a burst mage's rotation rather than continually eating Azir W autos. Banshee's stops me from hitting a big spell on you until a teammate pops it. QSS is more valuable against Syndra's one stun than Cassiopeia's Stun -> Rylai's empowered E spam.
Don't even get me started on the dreaded Hexdrinker. MR items do a fantastic job shitting on burst, but in the same way that armor isn't all that great against 2-3 item ADCs, MR items quickly fall off against DPS mages, whose marginally lower damage doesn't really matter when you can get 2-3 rotations off in the same time period.
The double whammy is that burst mages are reliant on getting off the ground mid-game. Buying 1-2 MR items early on completely wrecks their entire game plan. Buying 1-2 MR items against DPS mages just stalls them an item later.
This is probably the hardest hit burst mages have received.
3 - Introduction of CDR/removal of AP from most mage items
I think Riot has realized that with the increases to AP on deathcap as well as the introduction of Luden's as a mage's first item. However, AP values are a shadow of what they once were. High ratios have been traded off for abilities, keystones, and items with AP ratios and CDR had been injected to make up for the lost damage.
Zhonya's used to have 120 AP on it. Deathfire Grasp used to have 120 AP on it (for the newer users, DFG also had an active that hit a target for 15% max magic damage and increased all magic damage on that target by 20% for 4 seconds, it was pretty disgusting). If you needed an MR item you had Abyssal Mask, then Abyssal Scepter, which also reduced the MR of targets by 20.
The trade of raw burst for waveclear and CDR disproportionately buffs DPS mages. The best way to explain it is Syndra went from being picked for her R to being picked for her DPS inside of a teamfight and teamwide utility (she had early game priority in both iterations so it's not worth including). CDR is just much more valuable for spam skills and utility than it could ever be for burst rotations. All damage heavy champions who proceeded to get nerfed for CDR introduction only received nerfs because of what it did for their utility (Right off the top of my head I can think of Fizz getting nerfed the next patch afterward because of his E downtime).
So where does this leave burst mages? If they're not a burst mage blessed with Riot's recent love of utility, they're heavily dependent on the meta to be playable. It's simply a playstyle that can't exist unless you get CT to create tools so absurd the champ is immune to most of the class's traditional weaknesses. Until then, DPS mages will simply outpace them in terms of teamwide benefits with no real meaningful damage or powerspike setbacks.
