Guinsoos Being Removed? Riot pls! Hybrids should make a comeback in the rift!
As a player since beta I have seen a lot of changes to the rift, items, balance, champions, flavor of the month. Hybrid balance was a big issue, when Jax, Nidalee, Akali, Kayle, Teemo and just about anything with hybrid scaling being incredibly strong mid-game and beyond.
It was arguably a step in the right direction to crack down on hybrids, there's been many times when a class of champions outclassed others and was bad news for the rift's balance.
With the present, I think most will agree stagnant,standard, uncreative metagame of summoners rift; standard item paths, standard 9-10 flashes per team. I think shaking up the foundation of this stagnancy is what's needed, and riot has actually done a decent job in this with new champions, like gnar.
The meta has actually been shifting in a positive way, and a lot of it DOES have to do with champion design, and Riot design in general. As a long time player I never thought I'd see a melee AD carry be a viable mid laning champion (yasuo), Ranged champions like Ryze and Nidalee have shaken up top lane. What I'd really like to talk about though is items. This game is more healthy the more control, choice the player feels they have.
The keyword, I think is FEELING you have variety. Hybrid itemization, or interesting itemization, summoner spells, masteries, runes, champion combinations not only add to this variety but open up opportunity for innovation and mastery, mastery being one of the main factors that Riot's team has come up with as to why we keep playing.
I'd like to say also that every season league HAS improved, not always drastically but it's improved! As much as folks are nostalgic, wearing rose colored Gunnars season 1 was terrible (sorry riot). I'm perfectly willing to embrace the future of the rift, but please show us that future is as bright as a Solar Flare, a glorious evolution of the league! Don't take away our freedom of choice without providing a rock solid alternative!
**TL:DR keep Guinsoos Rageblade on the rift, or come up with some new and interesting items and make season 5 the best league has had. ** Especially so I can build it on Corki like back in the day.. Good times.
go, I think hybrid items offer reduced options, rather than more options: as an AD/AP hybrid champion, you have the option to go full AD or full AP already, whereas other champions can't. On top of that, if you feel like it you can choose to mix and match AD and AP items for a hybrid damage build, even if hybrid builds tend to be inefficient. A full AD or a full AP item is therefore not constrained to non-hybrids, since you can still have a hybrid build with just specialized items. AP/AD hybrid items, however, only truly work on hybrids, and aren't good on dedicated AP or AD champions (so far fewer champions can make use of these items). On top of that, hybrid items don't fully fit into a dedicated AP or AD build (even if you only get one hybrid item in your inventory), so they also impose constraints to your build options. Hybrid items also tend to be overloaded with stats just to be attractive to hybrid champions (
especially), which still doesn't make them universally appealing to hybrids but also runs the risk of making hybrid champions dependent on those items to work (
needs Gunblade in every match, for example).
or 
, I feel its niche (ramping up power over time in combat) is amazing, and could offer interesting item-based gameplay. I feel there could be a niche for an AD/AS item that ramped up in power when fighting champions: not only would it work on pretty much every champion who uses Guinsoo's now, but it could also become an attractive choice for marksmen and autoattacker-focused champions in general.