Mages not getting armor.

Khristophoros·Oct 4, 2017·104 votes·4,157 views

What are we supposed to do about Zed/Yasuo? Oh right, I can pick a rune for 3 ENTIRE ARMOR. Phew.

But that isn't the only thing that bothers me here. What if we want to play Vel'koz or Brand support? Zyra and Zilean got armor. Why not our other mage supports? Does this mean Riot doesn't like them as support? Ironically, this might actually help Zyra in mid because she got some armor to go against AD mids.

Meanwhile Diana gets both an HP boost and Armor boost (presumably because she needs it to jungle). But Kassadin doesn't get both even though he has a similar, if not weaker laning phase. So let's say you're picking against a Zed or Yasuo, you will choose Diana instead of Kass because she has a bunch of fucking armor because reasons. Is that where this game is going?

It's flawed to just toss armor at champions because they jungle, but not give armor to champions who commonly lane against AD assassins or sometimes go bot lane.

I'd suggest moving the jungle armor bonus to the jungle starting items like you did with the attack speed. It's better than saying "Well Diana regularly plays in 2 positions so she gets more stats than champions who have less diverse position choice to begin with." like think about how unfair that is.

Or just give literally every champion the armor. idk

110 Comments

GrievousFetusOct 5, 201732 votes

item 3170 YOU KNOW I'M WAITING RITO

KhristophorosOct 5, 201729 votes

The more I look at this list the more triggered I get.

Kennen Base armor increased from 24.3 to 29.3 HP growth increased from 79 to 84 Base HP increased from 535.72 to 540.72

This is legit trolling.

RevaliOct 6, 20171 votes

Could I get a link to the list of changes sorry I can't seem to find it...

LankPantsOct 5, 201716 votes

Zyra was already a surprisingly solid pick into assassins mid due to her strong control keeping them down and all those assassins are losing some MR too.

I think Riot may have just accidentally given Zyra mid the buff she needs to function while trying to buff her support. Given how clueless Riot has been on Zyra's balance as a mid laner up to this point this honestly doesn't surprise me.

Spank the FoxOct 5, 20173 votes

And how would you balance her for mid? It's a kit problem (primarly E's utility and low effort plant harass), not a numerical one.

And I swear to god if you say lower her base damage for stronger ratios...

LankPantsOct 5, 201710 votes

And I swear to god if you say lower her base damage for stronger ratios...

No shit Sherlock. This is the really simple way to fix this issue, you just create a Zyra who does less with less resources and more with more. It's not a super hard concept.

That wasn't the point of this post though. The point was that the 9 armour probably does more to help her mid than bot, mostly due to the fact that almost no other mid lane is gaining that. After this change she'll likely be one of the few midlaners with a positive matchup into AD assassins, which is something she already has but being one of the only potential mids to get +9 armour really solidifies this.

Spank the FoxOct 5, 20172 votes

This is the stupidest thing I've heard.

Zyra's base damage is already on the lower end for a mage since she has to rely on AI to do her damage. Harass you can easily just walk away from (there is a reason why the other AI champion, Heim, is primarily played top now)

For point of reference, when Kassadin's damage got gutted, his Q and E were reduced to 180 each. The difference with Kassadin is his damage is unavoidable.

Zyra on the other hand is all skillshots and sitting at 200 base damage. She is not guaranteed damage like a lot of other champions. Decreasing her base damage will only keep her bot since she will have zero kill pressure in a solo lane and will only be played as a root/AoE knock up bot.

Zyra needs kit changes to function mid. Lowering her base damage will cause her to not even function at all early game.

LankPantsOct 5, 20176 votes

Zyra's base damage is already on the lower end for a mage since she has to rely on AI to do her damage. Harass you can easily just walk away from (there is a reason why the other AI champion, Heim, is primarily played top now)

No it's not. If it was support Zyra would deal almost no damage all game. Since she clearly deals quite a bit of damage and doesn't build AP the only reasonable conclusion is that her bases are quite high.

Everybody who tries to make this argument ignores her plants. Her plants are part of her base damage, oddly enough. Plants have the highest AP to double ratio of any spell on a mage I know, it takes Zyra 760 AP to double the base damage on her plants. If that's not a high base and a garbage ratio I don't know what is, and that's the majority of her damage. This is also where I'd like to see changes, I'd like to see her plant ratio buffed by about 0.1 and the damage/level dropped by about 2.

Spank the FoxOct 5, 20172 votes

It's almost as if you ignored the part where I said they can just walk out of your plants range.

Most of the midlane roster can outrange them by a massive margin. That is why she doesn't function mid. You can change the numbers all you want, but if she excels in about a few zoning areas in the game where she can set up, she is better off utility bot and someone with reliable damage can go mid.

PaletongueOct 5, 20174 votes

He's speaking against AD assassins being played mid. Obviously bonus armor is gonna do not good against a Syndra.

AD mid assassins are close ranged, meaning they can't walk out of the plant range so easily. Now she is even better at her anti-assassin role in mid with more armor.

NiaphimOct 5, 20172 votes

Did I miss something? Zyra used to be free food for Zed in the past, and not particularly stellar against Yasuo (who is generally good against skillshot based mages) or Talon either (who has very strong early game nowadays).

LankPantsOct 5, 20172 votes

Zyra does really well into Zed especially but generally has some pretty solid strengths into melees in general. It's just really hard to deal with Zyra's plants as a melee and she can always stay at a long enough range that these champs need multiple gapclosers to get to her and while doing that they need to wade through her CC which is great for catching them out of their dashes and Zed's telegraphed blink.

As for why she does well into Zed in specific, her ult when used correctly is a hard counter to Zed's. Zyra can easily root Zed out of his R and knock him up before he really gets a chance to combo her. With an Hourglass it's even worse for him since her pressing R and Zhonya's leaves him no proper response other than to give up entirely which isn't always even an option. Quite often Zed ulting Zyra just turns into him getting mauled by plants and/or Zyra's teammates while she's in Zhonya's and he's knocked up by her R. With good enough reaction time she can also do this to Talon when he tries to jump her as well.

She also does fairly well against Yas because she can attack around his Windwall with her plants. Her E is also about the perfect projectile for catching him at the end of his E, it's just wide enough and fast enough that it's incredibly hard for him to dodge without a summoner at the end of his dash.

Another thing to remember is the page you'll be running into Zed and Yasuo, IMO probably this

http://oce.leagueoflegends.com/en/featured/preseason-update/8200-8214?build=20202326

Aerie allows you to poke mobile champs better than Comet and from my understanding can be fairly frustrating coming off Zyra as if any of her plants are attacking you when it snaps to her their first attack will send it onto you. As a melee laner VS Zyra this means you're in for a lot of "she just Q>W AA'd me and the plant auto proced Aerie". Basically I think with the amount Comet misses mobile champs and the frequency Zyra can apply Aerie you'll make up for it being half the strength by hitting it over two times as often. The other option would be Electrocute, which although better is in a much worse tree.

The other important rune is Perfect Timing, which allows you a very early Zhonya's as well as the free Zhonya's effect, allowing you to make the Zhonya's plays with your R that screw over assassins so hard far earlier and a little more often.

kitcat300Oct 5, 201710 votes

They are not all in yet.

https://twitter.com/moobeat/status/915696078590275584

KhristophorosOct 5, 20172 votes

{quoted}

They are not all in yet.

https://twitter.com/moobeat/status/915696078590275584

Nice hopefully this means every champ is getting similar stats.

RocketRelmOct 5, 201710 votes

I saw that, but I thought that just meant the fact that one of the champions was missing a stat update entirely, not that the champions who got updates were incomplete.

I wish I'm wrong on that, though.

RebonackOct 5, 20179 votes

May not totally mitigate things, but Zed won't be able to start with a Lethality runepage anymore, either.

5 Stacks GGOct 5, 20172 votes

or get MR blues.

mages will be stronger next season and yet they still complain lol

ShiznyteOct 5, 20178 votes

Look at the new item 3157 changes. Zed will not be a problem if you can get a 1 time use Zhonyas for 600 gold that is a component that builds into the Final Zhonyas.

KhristophorosOct 5, 20178 votes

{quoted}

Look at the new changes. Zed will not be a problem if you can get a 1 time use Zhonyas for 600 gold that is a component that builds into the Final Zhonyas.

Literally only matters against his ult. That's not really the issue with Zed. It's his extremely powerful poke/zoning. The stopwatch will be better than nothing but it won't really change how oppressive Zed is against a lot of champs.

Besides, like I said, Zed is not the only AD mid and there will be different ones that move in and out of mid as the meta changes.

DurzakaOct 5, 20172 votes

By extremely powerful poke/zoning, you mean his shadow which is on a 22 second cooldown early game, right? Wow, so powerful.

KhristophorosOct 5, 20174 votes

{quoted}

By extremely powerful poke/zoning, you mean his shadow which is on a 22 second cooldown early game, right? Wow, so powerful.

His Q has a short CD and it's hard to dodge. When he has his shadow he gets a stronger burst-like poke so having a longer cooldown doesn't excuse it, unless he had no pokes in between maybe

KloqdqOct 5, 20175 votes

I'm more scared of the Marksmans who got buffed and can already bully out most mages. Now Mages get less armor? Pff that's just better for the Marksmans.

Zëd LęppelinOct 5, 20173 votes

MARKS_MEN_. AAAAAAAA.

LeetriOct 5, 20172 votes

You won't lane against an ADC in most games if you're a mage, unless you're playing the mage bot as a support or something I guess. Most mages aren't played as support though. But as a Viktor main, I'd appreciate any buffs I can get. :)

x Wyvern xOct 6, 20171 votes

Tell that to the lucians mid, ezreals mid, corki's and even tristanas mid, they take carries wherever they want because they are busted.

LeetriOct 6, 20171 votes

Lucian is terrible mid, he's hovering 46% win rate. He's also not as rampant as you think, 9,4% pick rate and in only 19,5% of the cases he goes mid. Corki isn't even classed as a botlane carry anymore, he's been a mid champion for a while now. He has a 2,3% pick rate and a reasonable 49,6% win rate. Tristana's pickrate is 22,6%, but she's only played mid in 0,6% of those games. And even then she's got a 46,9% win rate so hardly anything to cry about. Ezreal's pickrate is 19,7%, but he's played mid 9,1% of the time and his win rate is 44,8%.

So out of all those champions you complained about, only Corki is even remotely close to a 50% win rate and he's rarely picked. And even still, he's not a botlane carry anymore as he's only played in mid. The only thing "busted" here is your argument.

x Wyvern xOct 7, 20171 votes

Yeah, winrates... its not like you can trust them... Ryze has a really low winrate and people that is g ood with him is still breaking asses.

Lucian always won lane no matter what in all the matches i found him, in my team or enemy team, and usually tower diving at lvl 6 taking 3+ hits + orianna full combo and still alive.

He can be hovering at 46% but zed was at 47% too and he is still breaking asses if played decently...

I dont trust winrates, specially if pro players play them in lcs and often in mid.

LeetriOct 7, 20171 votes

That isn't exclusive to Ryze, anyone who's really good at their champion can kick ass. I've seen Aatroxes utterly destroy a game when everyone on the boards were joking about how he's literally useless. You only have anecdotal experiences, stats are un-biased. Lucian could be absolutely dreadful mid, but if the other mid player has no idea how to play against Lucian or they're a bad player in general it would appear that Lucian is busted OP. As I said, I've seen Aatrox, what many considered an objectively terrible champion, utterly destroy and carry games. Stats don't lie, it's all about how you interpret them. If Lucian was so busted OP mid you'd see him way more often and he'd have a way higher winrate.

And don't even bother talking about pro play in this, they're playing a completely different game. Just look at how people tried to copy support MF in solo queue and they all failed miserably. Ryze is a monster in pro play because they have super low ping and high coordination, he's terrible in solo queue because most people have high ping and there's 0 coordination. Lucian mid might work in pro play, but he's certainly a fair bit below average in solo queue.

GarekkOct 5, 20174 votes

I dont really see the issue with Kassadin not getting armor, personally. He isnt meant to do well against physical damage champions, he's designed to be an anti-mage.

As for the rest, most mages absolutely need an armor boost. I tend to run flat armor runes for laning as squishy mages like Veigar and Brand, and I cant imagine how in the world I would deal with Zed or Talon without them. Their damage is disgusting even with a Seeker's Armguard + runes, losing the bonus armor before I can buy an armguard is going to make most squishy mages virtually unplayable.

KhristophorosOct 5, 20175 votes

{quoted}

I dont really see the issue with Kassadin not getting armor, personally. He isnt meant to do well against physical damage champions, he's designed to be an anti-mage.

As for the rest, most mages absolutely need an armor boost. I tend to run flat armor runes for laning as squishy mages like Veigar and Brand, and I cant imagine how in the world I would deal with Zed or Talon without them. Their damage is disgusting even with a Seeker's Armguard + runes, losing the bonus armor before I can buy an armguard is going to make most squishy mages virtually unplayable.

He was designed to counter AP champions in 2009 and since then his kit has been completely gutted. Now he's literally just another generic assassin. His antimage features are so watered down they barely matter at this point. He doesnt really have a strong lane matchup vs any mages anymore, he's just generally good in against squishy champs with low pre-6 kill pressure. Diana has a really similar power curve but more generic durability instead of only magic damage durability. But I guess Kassadin gets played over her right now for his unrestricted mobility.

Anyway it doesn't mean that he doesn't need the same adjustments for his laning phase that every other mid needs. Why wouldn't he?

KloqdqOct 5, 20172 votes

He was designed to counter AP champions in 2009

Doesn't change that this is still what Riot believes Kassadin should be.

KhristophorosOct 5, 20174 votes

{quoted}

Doesn't change that this is still what Riot believes Kassadin should be.

Every time they designed a champion intended to counter an entire class it was a huge failure and they had to dial back the concept and make the champion more generalist. Galio, Veigar, and Kassadin are all good examples.

KloqdqOct 5, 20172 votes

Galio could have worked as a counter and they even tried to keep it. Thus making him stupid because his a generalist who is ALSO a counter to mages. Kassadin is still very much a mage counter since the changes they made didn't remove any of the mage counter elements. Veigar's ultimate was stupid the way it worked anyways and it's just a lot better now than before.

kalima994Oct 5, 20174 votes

Vel'Koz and Brand aren't supposed to be supports ever....The only reason they ever get played bot is to poke and burst the fuck out of the ADC without providing any real utility.Yeah Vel'Koz has a knockup and Brand has a stun BUT they use them to stun the target while they burst them to 0 hp, not for the ADC to do damage to them.

sobi999Oct 5, 20171 votes

Lvl 7 Brand support. I can tell you that brand is made for bot lane. His stun and AOE ult is there for bot lane and his disgustingly bad clearing prevents him going to mid. If anything, he has better rating as support than as mid laner. He goes rylais first and that provides so much utility (5 second slow, 8 second with liandries) and he is really good against tanks as well as squishes after 2 items. I never lost a lane against an enchanter, be it soraka, janna, nami or whatever and i usually carry my team. Don't talk about supports being there for assists bullsht plz. Don't even talk about how i obliterate thresh and braum in bot lane, just blitz is hard to lane against but even then brand is a better supp than my go to soraka. Don't forget he procs all 3 procs of spell thief with just one spell. He is perfectly made for bot lane and rito did this, and yet they refuse to acknowledge it and just make things more complicated. The balancing team should not be called "balancing" anymore. Its a darn right compliment to them.

kalima994Oct 5, 20173 votes

{quoted}

Lvl 7 Brand support. I can tell you that brand is made for bot lane. His stun and AOE ult is there for bot lane and his disgustingly bad clearing prevents him going to mid. If anything, he has better rating as support than as mid laner. He goes rylais first and that provides so much utility (5 second slow, 8 second with liandries) and he is really good against tanks as well as squishes after 2 items. I never lost a lane against an enchanter, be it soraka, janna, nami or whatever and i usually carry my team. Don't talk about supports being there for assists bullsht plz. Don't even talk about how i obliterate thresh and braum in bot lane, just blitz is hard to lane against but even then brand is a better supp than my go to soraka. Don't forget he procs all 3 procs of spell thief with just one spell. He is perfectly made for bot lane and rito did this, and yet they refuse to acknowledge it and just make things more complicated. The balancing team should not be called "balancing" anymore. Its a darn right compliment to them.

Brand's ult is for TEAMFIGHTS not for bot lane and also what you described is just being a second midlaner...

sobi999Oct 6, 20171 votes

I will repeat. Setting as many people blaze and allowing the passive to burst does considerably damage to enemies that are clustered. He works better at bot lane because his ult will bounce off from support to enemy adc, doing considerable damage and not to mention if both of them are set ablaze the passive will do even more damage if they are close together. This cannot happen in mid lane as the enemy laner is alone although the ult will bounce off from minions but that is some of the ult damage wasted on minions. His ult works in cluster of enemies and bot lane is the only lane with more than 1 enemy and usually the jungler and mid gank there as well.

The point of my previous comment was that he works better in bot than at mid, where he was designed to be but failed. You obviously didn't not read my previous comment fully. What i described was the traits of a support and not a midlaner. Most midlaners have burst and good AOE wave clearing which brand lacks. He excels in DOT and his wave clearing is inferior to most mid laners. Nonetheless his Q is an amazing ability that can stun from range but obviously you need to stack a blaze on enemy first. The point is that in bot lane the tanks will try to get close to you or adc and this stun is very useful than say in mid lane where it can be easily dodged by ranged midlaners. Rylais is usually the best first item and it gives him 5 second slow. it works wonders at bot lane especially with your ult, supports and mages have utility but since he excels in AOE, he can slow the entire enemy team for 8 seconds. I am only mentioning the good points of brand but he obviously is inferior to current ardent supports but nonetheless works better than velk, lux at bot lane in my opinion. I main lux, velk and brand at bot lane and i found brand the easiest and most effective to use.

kalima994Oct 6, 20173 votes

{quoted}

I will repeat. Setting as many people blaze and allowing the passive to burst does considerably damage to enemies that are clustered. He works better at bot lane because his ult will bounce off from support to enemy adc, doing considerable damage and not to mention if both of them are set ablaze the passive will do even more damage if they are close together. This cannot happen in mid lane as the enemy laner is alone although the ult will bounce off from minions but that is some of the ult damage wasted on minions. His ult works in cluster of enemies and bot lane is the only lane with more than 1 enemy and usually the jungler and mid gank there as well.

The point of my previous comment was that he works better in bot than at mid, where he was designed to be but failed. You obviously didn't not read my previous comment fully. What i described was the traits of a support and not a midlaner. Most midlaners have burst and good AOE wave clearing which brand lacks. He excels in DOT and his wave clearing is inferior to most mid laners. Nonetheless his Q is an amazing ability that can stun from range but obviously you need to stack a blaze on enemy first. The point is that in bot lane the tanks will try to get close to you or adc and this stun is very useful than say in mid lane where it can be easily dodged by ranged midlaners. Rylais is usually the best first item and it gives him 5 second slow. it works wonders at bot lane especially with your ult, supports and mages have utility but since he excels in AOE, he can slow the entire enemy team for 8 seconds. I am only mentioning the good points of brand but he obviously is inferior to current ardent supports but nonetheless works better than velk, lux at bot lane in my opinion. I main lux, velk and brand at bot lane and i found brand the easiest and most effective to use.

Whatever floats your boat, fact is he doesn't bring any real utility besides a stun, just damage.Yeah yeah rylai....so he needs rylai to have any utility apart from his stun?Great, then why not play swain support with rylai? He has his w and DoT damage doesn't he?

sobi999Oct 6, 20171 votes

If you think supports are only there for utility then maybe brand is not the go to support for you. Also brand procs all 3 stacks of spellthief with one spell and therefore doesn't have a lot of money issues. Although coin is stronger than spellthief at the moment. Brand has high base damage in his abilities so he can do considerable damage with just his passive and without getting any item. Same with velk and somewhat lux (who works great against squishes). Swain is made for top lane where he needs his xp and farm. There is a reason why zyra also works at bot lane. TBH, thats the only place where she works, she no longer goes mid. Some supports are damage oriented so they do not need to have tons of cc/utility and shield/heals.

PB4UAMEOct 5, 20171 votes

Um, you have rank 7 as Brand yet claim he has "disgustingly bad clearing prevents him going to mid."

Either you have never actually read your abilities, don't get how blaze works, or never thought about using your W and E together with the proper blaze effects, to instantly clear waves.

Brand was designed as a midlaner and was at first extremely fucking dominant Like, he quickly became the number 1 mid lane APC pick due to his insane waveclear (that can also harass with how his E works) that he could also use safely from range; coupled with his utterly untouched AoE teamfight burst.

If there is literally 1 thing Brand is good at, it is AoE clear from range.

KhristophorosOct 6, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Um, you have rank 7 as Brand yet claim he has "disgustingly bad clearing prevents him going to mid."

Either you have never actually read your abilities, don't get how blaze works, or never thought about using your W and E together with the proper blaze effects, to instantly clear waves.

Brand was designed as a midlaner and was at first extremely fucking dominant Like, he quickly became the number 1 mid lane APC pick due to his insane waveclear (that can also harass with how his E works) that he could also use safely from range; coupled with his utterly untouched AoE teamfight burst.

If there is literally 1 thing Brand is good at, it is AoE clear from range.

I also have mastery 7 on Brand and I think he sucks at mid. His AoE clear is inefficient. There are other reasons too but I don't wanna go into it for the 100th time.

Your history is wrong too. Brand was only a solo queue champion even when he was first released. He was pretty popular but didn't see any pro play.

I just checked your op.gg and you don't even play Brand.

sobi999Oct 6, 20171 votes

Thanks for backing me up buddy.

PB4UAMEOct 6, 20171 votes

I played brand when I played mid in seasons 2-4, haven't played Brand lately seen he was retooled to be a more generic 3 hit combo champ.

Also, I never said he was picked competitively, but he absolutely was hugely fucking dominant in solo queue supplanting Annie mid who was the go-to and dominant mid pick for months prior to his release; but remember again, this was Season 2, competitive league was still a joke played between only 2 regions.

Do remember as well, that I was saying he was designed as a midlaner. Now, since then he's lost a lot of damage due to using spell thiefs, the addition of DFT, etc etc, the MYMU did fuck over his midlaning by weakening his W and his E in favor of his passive modifications, but its still possible to clear minions with him relatively more effective than many midlane mages.

Sure, he won't waveclear like a Ziggs or Anivia post 6, but you can't deny that he mops the floor, at least in AoE wave clearing capacities with mages like Annie, Ahri, Lux or Lissandra.

YuGiHoOct 5, 20174 votes

Jungle items should make you take less damage form jungle monsters

CowseedOct 5, 20173 votes

OP forgetting nobody getting mr :T

VanjieOct 5, 20172 votes

They cannot even be bothered to work on AP itemization. What makes you think they would give us armor? Shocking.

DeadUnbornOct 5, 20171 votes

not arguing for or against what you are proposing, but at least for Zed you can take the StopWatch rune in combination with mana sustain, rush Zhonias and completely counter him. Yasuo is just BS against mages in general.

To me it makes sense to have the jungle items give you damage reduction from monsters

KhristophorosOct 5, 20172 votes

{quoted}

not arguing for or against what you are proposing, but at least for Zed you can take the StopWatch rune in combination with mana sustain, rush Zhonias and completely counter him. Yasuo is just BS against mages in general.

To me it makes sense to have the jungle items give you damage reduction from monsters

Zed has a lot of poke so it's not really that easy.

SnugglePuggle94Oct 6, 20171 votes

But on top of that, they gave Zyra the armor because all the "supports" were getting it, so the see her more as a support when they balanced her for mid and sup in the MYMU. Even then they balanced her more for sup than mid, and people hate it. They want her to be viable mid, and hate Riot pushing mages to support and balancing them there just because the meta is doing well with them there.

So even if the armor will help her mid, they still are seeing her as a support by giving her the support changes.

KhristophorosOct 6, 20172 votes

{quoted}

But on top of that, they gave Zyra the armor because all the "supports" were getting it, so the see her more as a support when they balanced her for mid and sup in the MYMU. Even then they balanced her more for sup than mid, and people hate it. They want her to be viable mid, and hate Riot pushing mages to support and balancing them there just because the meta is doing well with them there.

So even if the armor will help her mid, they still are seeing her as a support by giving her the support changes.

It just shows how poorly thought out that iteration of changes was.