How do I counter Hexdrinker/Maw?
I like playing Mages. I also like playing some of the AP Assassins.
A lot of those rely on burst. So at some point in midgame I usually get some decent One-Shots on the enemy ADC (which ever role they are in). Naturally my enemy will then try to counter this by either not getting caught, or buying certain items against it happening.
There are some items they could buy:
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Banshee's Drawback: no offensive stats, mainly is about the shield that can be poped beforehand.
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Guardian Angel Drawback: again, no offensive stats, and still gets punished for 'dying' due to the revive-time.
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(situational) QSS (Against things like Lux, Fizz, etc) Drawback: no offensive stats, often won't safe you from actual burst but is mainly about CC.
There are more options, but as you can see they most of the time simply sacrific Offensive stats for defense, which seems completely plausible. Additionally, all of those feel like they got some way to get around them. Don't get me wrong, those items still provide decent protection against most burst champions, but I, as burst Champion, feel like I can find my way around them if putting in enough efford, and more importantly: they have a tradeoff. (no offensive stats)
But sure there are items with offesive stats too:
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Bloodthurster (just for completions sake) That one... won't really stop me from bursting someone, makes it a bit harder, but I wouldn't be scared of not Managing.
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Frozen Mallet/Steraks While seen sometimes, those are not too common. Most likely due to them simply being subpar. (compared to the next item)
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Maw Everyone buys it atm, and the reason is rather simple: It stops (most) AP bursts, and there is little drawback/decision to it, the stats are quite decent.
But... is it really important that those items have a drawback? Wouldn't AP burst be OP if all had a big drawback? And this is what I thought a lot about before doing this thread, and for myself I could come to this conclusion: When my enemy buys an item, that pretty much denies me (unless I'm missing something), I'd quite like to see my enemy having to sacrific something else for it.
Now, when I say "denys me" I'm mainly thinkig about 3 Scenarios:
DPS or Low CD Mage: Those are bothered the least by it, it will take a bit longer to get them, but there is not really mroe efford involved. Worst case they can simply focus others too and simply swap to the ADC when they come in range.
High CD Mage: With this I mean Champions like E.g. Lux, who has 1 Combo, and if it doesn't kill is useless for quite a bit. When playing one of those and my enemy has hexdrinker... I feel like I can't ever go for them. (unless my Team can follow right away, but that goes for other items too) If I try my burst on them, they will survive, and heal back up unless one of my teammate gets to them quite soon. Which I guess you could say is decent counterplay... but it's the same counterplay you'd use for a lot of the other defensive items, and as mentioned above, Maw doesn't have the drawback all of the others have. (additionally there is the healing back up)
Assassin: If I get them 1v1, it most of the time isn't a problem. But in a teamfight I have to dive in, and most of the time I'd end up dead before they are. (again, only Thing to do, as above, rely on Team)
So... why not just got for their AP? Or Support? They surely won't have Maw? Most games this is what you settle for. However... AD mid is common, Tank Support is common, and on the other 2 positions you either have someone tanky, or someone who could go for Maw too. (there are some expections, but they are not that common) AP damage will currently be supplied by things like Tank Ekko and Akali, or maybe a Corki.
After all I end up with one question, which I hope some of you could help me find out the answer: What can I do against Maw?
A quite logical thing would be Void Staff, but I feel like... it's not enough most of the time. That might just be my experience, but I'm someone who usually goes for a 2nd item Void Staff (after 1 AP item) and it still leaves me unable to burst through it...
