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Athene's Unholy Grail issue

Seraphic Heretic·7/31/2014, 11:49:07 PM·11 votes·925 views

Alright, this is my first post in the forums, i honestly dont think this is going to change anything, but im going, to make it anyways so you cant say i didnt try.

This goes directly to whoever at riot is covering itemization. In the most recent patches, you decided to repeatedly nerf Chalice of Harmony and Athene's Unholy Grail because you're apparently not pleased with this option swallowing up other options. I think it's a great idea to add more decision making and trade-offs to in-game itemization, but especially when it comes, to mana items, simply nerfing the most popular one isnt enough. You've got to remember that the only mana items available to AP champions that aren't considered support items are Athene's, Morellonomicon, and a tear which would build into and Archangels Staff (for a hefty price). Having 3 different items centered around mana regen looks good on paper, but in reality, only one of them actually functions well on most champions. This is Athene's. And this is why.

  1. Tear of the goddess I think this is a great item concept, for champions that like to spam abilities with somewhat low mana costs like Ziggs, however any champion that doesnt rely on spamming their abilities constantly in lane (most of them) cant use this item very effectively at all. It takes far too long to stack, and you end up having to still be very conservative of your mana because you just run out anyways.

  2. Morellonomicon Again, i like this item a lot. It give 20% cdr, 10 mana regen, like the other items, but it's just not enough on a lot of champions. Plain and simple. At least on tear you have a steadily larger mana pool in addition to the rengen. With this item you dont even get that.

  3. Athene's Unholy Grail Athene's gives you two incredibly useful passives for keeping you from running out of mana later in the game. The first of course being the increased mana regen for the amount of mana missing. Neither of the other items can compete with that. The second is most important, after a champion kill or assist you are awarded 15% of your maximum mana. This is essential for making sure your mana pool lasts until the end of teamfights and for making sure you still have mana to fight them should they respawn and having the mana to push their towers down after the fight. It gives 20 less ability power than the others, but gives free magic resist, 20% cdr, and is the only item where you can feel sure you wont run out of mana at important times as an ap champion.

Nerfing the magic resist on Athene's is not going to make people stop buying it. It just makes squishier AP champions. You to add other itemization chioces for mana regen for ability power based champions that has one or both of these passives, or add the passives the existing other options to make them more viable. I'll levae the rest to you.

If there's some hole in my logic or something you think i missed feel free to comment. If you think im dead on feel free to comment on that as well. Hopefully this can catch riot's attention eventually and they can fix this issue. Thanks.

11 Comments

ShadowNinetails8/1/2014, 12:13:53 AM4 votes

The changes aren't designed to make AP's buy Grail less, They're designed to make it less of a "one item fits all" with offense, defense, and utility. Before you had two scenarios with champs like Ziggs : A) Oh I'm really rolling this Ahri , better finish my item 3174 to keep rolling even harder. B) Oh I'm not doing too well against this Ahri , better finish my item 3174 to help shrug her off.

Now scenario A is still viable and rewarding for you to show skilled play against your opponent, but scenario B might require you to get a item 1057 for aitem 3102 , making it more rewarding for Ahri to show skilled play against you.

Old Man Teeto8/1/2014, 3:29:23 AM2 votes

Tears requires too long to stack, and offers weaker mana regeneration when stacked that it doesn't work for long seiging as effeciently.

Morellonomicon only works on champions with minor mana regeneration requirements (Twisted Fate, Lulu)

Athene's either needs to give terrible CDR (0% imo) but greatly boosted mana regeneration (insane levels), or very good defenses + mana regen, but poor offensive power.

Tears and Morello's have weak niche's while Athene's is just a "derp" item that is never a wrong buy if your an AP mana using mage.

In general, this game has horrible itemization, with a bunch of trap items that are wastes of gold and only about ~2 items per build of situational worthwhile building. The best itemization is on AP Bruiser/Tank as they get a ton of items to choose from. If more things had their quality of itemization, game would be amazing.

Cloud Potato8/1/2014, 7:34:14 AM2 votes

I've hated Grail for a while now. Here's my take:

Tear ends up having top tier AP (usually a bit above 120). It also has the most powerful defensive aspect, an activatable shield. Additionally Mana items you buy will provide a bit of extra AP. Overall it's the most powerful item, but it is very weak until it's fully upgraded, which is a hefty tradeoff to make. Morellonomicon is a cost efficient item for countering healing. The AP and Mana Regen are decent, and the 20% CDR is exactly what a mage needs to help fight high healing champions.

Grail steps on Morello's niche because its cost is only slightly higher but provides more stats overall. Sharing the 20% CDR is the number 1 thing keeping Morello's down, as the 20 AP isn't enough to differentiate them. As for Tear, Tear has an internal tradeoff for being very slot efficient but taking time to get that far, making Grail a better rush option. Grail's problem is that it's far, far too good at being a sustain item. The highest Mana Regen as well as MR and CDR mean you can sit in lane for a lot longer than if you bought any other item. That is its problem.

Something to consider is that Mana as a gating resource is something that has caused issues with Champion balance when compared to non-Mana champions. The sheer power of Grail is seen by some as a way for Mana users to compete. I'm firmly against keeping a type of champion viable only through broken itemization, others will probably disagree. However, consider that Mana dependent AP Champions are a huge subset of the game. Keeping such a large amount of champions in line through one item seems like a bad idea no matter which way you spin it. It's not like we're talking about a handful of champions here.

Changing how Mana gating is used in general is pretty large in scope, so I think it would be more productive to bring other items up to Grail's level for now (although I'm not against trimming some of Grail's excess power). Here are some general changes I would like to see the items go in:

Grail: I think the #1 change is to remove the CDR. The CDR alongside the powerful Mana Regen just make the item too good. Mikael's has no offensive stats and Morello's doesn't have the Mana Font passive attached; Grail on the other hand should really drop it. Instead I think the sustain part should be embraced and Grail should get Magic Resist put back onto it. At the moment we only have Grail and Abyssal Scepter as AP/MR items, and with Grail's nerfs that leaves only Abyssal Scepter as a good option, and that item has other problems. A potential build path could be Chalice + Blasting Wand + Null Mantle.

Tear: I think changing Archangel's Staff to build out of a Needlessly Large Rod while tuning down the AP/Mana scaling would be the way to go. Tear + Blasting Wand leaves far too little power until item completion, and it helps tone down the Mana stacking abuse cases which bring down AA Staff's power level on its own.

Morello's: Should stay the way it is. The Grevious Wounds passive means that if the item becomes too generally good it will warp the game against healing champions, so leaving it a niche item seems like a better idea.

Rod of Ages: Hasn't been mentioned yet, but while this item doesn't have Mana Regen it does have both high AP and high Mana, so I think it should be put here. It has the same problem as Tear in that it's very powerful but has a lot of delay on its power, except it's even more powerful (650 HP is HUGE) and even more delayed (instead of just being built, it needs an additional 10 minutes after that!). It even has a shittier build path, having Catalyst the Craptector. I think improving Catalyst to be more Mana friendly would be a cool move to make it a better rush item. Something like Mana restored per kill would make it a competitor to Chalice by providing less Mana but bring the more useful Health instead of MR.

Wow that is way too much typing. I should probably stop now.

Hirok08/1/2014, 9:49:17 AM2 votes

My thoughts... I play a lot of Ahri Akali Anivia Alistar Amumu Blitzcrank Braum Fiddlesticks Heimerdinger Karthus Katarina Lissandra Lux Nami Sona Soraka Veigar Zilean Zyra Ziggs AP / Supp. For each, I would consider usually the following:

Tear: Weak early game for strong late game. Requires ability to be conservative with mana, and requires the game to reach lategame. If you lose your lane with this item path, it is not as easy to come back as with other paths. Many mids that burst half their mana pool can still go this route effectively if they are ahead or not losing lane. A few supports work with this item very well too. Ahri only if I completely outclass the team in skill and they have low CC Blitzcrank If I can't buy chalice at the time, or if I am ahead in lane. Lissandra again if i ooutclass their team Lux if I don't need to spam spells to maintain my lane and enemies don't have serious gap closing capability. maybe 20% of games it is viable, but I choose it less than 5% out of timing familiarity.

Morello: A medium ground of sorts. It is better early than tear and of near equal strengths with chalice. It has a stronger siege/damage than chalice but can not maintain it. As it stands, Morello works best specifically against heal champs, and on longer ranged champions with relatively low mana costs. Ahri Lissandra if I don't need the defensive stats and enemies are more sustain-oriented Lux if I don't need the chalice in order to not be pushed down. I use this maybe a third of my games.

Athene's: Siege mode. The problem is that it has too many different strong buffs to it. The only static impression we get with this item is that we will rarely drop so low in mana that we can't cast a skill. The CDR is a strong synergy with that mana thing, and likely belongs with it. Many champs that get Athene's over Tear do it for the CDR, because they can afford to lose 60-80ap there and build other high-ap items with no-little CDR but other utilities. Instead of suggesting a nerf to Athene's, it needs a more solidified role. Anivia Fiddlesticks Heimerdinger Karthus Nami Sona Soraka Ziggs Zyra Always. Mostly because they need mana sustain and cdr. Veigar ZileanLissandra Lux Ahri Most of the time, because the AP is still pretty decent, the CDR is top tier, the regen is top tier, and the MR helps laning phase a whole lot more. Blitzcrank if im not winning lane or mid is fed. Amumu if i don't get blue buffs.

As is, Athene's offers 2nd tier MR which is ideal against most mids, 2nd tier ap, 1st tier (a higher tier than any other really) mana sustain, 1st tier CDR. Where else do you see so many strong stats rolled up in one? There are a few, yes, but they are not as well-rounded as Athene's. RoA for example is 1st tier AP/HP/MP. It is a cushion that needs to be refilled after each engage. Trinity is pretty niche on which champions can make the most of it, and those champs do make incredible use of it, but it generally has tier 2-3 stats for the things a champions needs. There are reasons that these items are better or worse for certain champions, but most items in the game have a general philosophy of one tier 1 stat and a tier 2 stat and a utility. Athene's doesn't really apply that concept.

So again, what is it that makes Athene's what it is? It is not a defensive item. It is a sustain item. It is not an offensive item. It is sustain. Sustained mana, and sustained spell spamming. It needs a change to it's AP/MR. I would opt for 40 ap, 0 MR, and replace the passive to reduce mana cost of skills when spamming (spells cost a percentage less with each spell up to a max of 50% for a few seconds).

Earl Eulrich8/1/2014, 1:34:45 AM1 votes

I totally agree here...Chalice in it´s Form is the only reason mana-champs are playable currently. Otherwise even the midlane would be dominated by ressourceless-champions - as currently there´s not a real trade-of in power for being ressourceless and most manachamps really struggle heavily over a prolonged laningphases if they don´t rush any item that solves their mana-issues and makes them basically ressourceless aswell.

Dragonheart NA8/1/2014, 4:45:48 PM1 votes

Lets be fair then, why don't they nerf Trinity Force. That gives tons of power too. Now with the nerf on Athenes I have to sometimes by an extra magic resist item when I used to buy an AP item first after Athenes. it just makes me not want to play AP mid as much as I used to now that I am much more squishy and more open for ganks.