what choice do melee carries have in their itemization?

MunchCrunchLunch·May 17, 2016·3 votes·397 views

building crit is not viable due to. well. you have to go glass cannon and its not an option. what other option do we have. rageblade and botrk ? such a diverse build path?

5 Comments

DehitayMay 17, 20161 votes

If you're a bruiser, you get to choose black cleaver, ravenous hydra, or titanic hydra for damage. Randiun's, sunfire, or deadman's for armor/health mix. Banshee's, spirit visage, or locket for MR/health mix. Iceborn or frozen mallet for sticking. Maw or Wit's End for MR/damage. Steraks for health, damage, and survivability. And that's just the basics of it.

If you're an assassin, you get to choose from pretty much anything in the adc line or the bruiser line in addition to duskblade and ghostblade.

ViiLLAiNMay 17, 20161 votes

what champs specifically do you mean thats to broad of a term

coeurloyalMay 17, 20161 votes

To be clear, there are very few instances in which you should be building glasscannon as a melee champion. If you're doing that in most cases, you're asking to be squished.

That being said, your build should still be driven by the enemy comp. You still have access to Yoummu's, Black Cleaver, and Last Whisper for armor pen, you have an entirely open field for armor options, and you have basically any MR/Maw for MRes. How tanky you choose to go should be reliant on the number of burst champions are present on the enemy team; playing any bruiser/diver/offtank should be a constant tug-of-war between damage and tankyness, and sometimes damage isn't the proper response. You also have to choose between split pushing and team-fighting, which leads to different itemization in some cases.

Buff Jax pleaseMay 17, 20161 votes

Melee carries are shit...don't play them.

Riot only wants ranged ads to be viable.

Also somehow the community is under the assumption that if Lucian, Jinx or Caitlyn rightclick you to death from 600 range it is skill but if Yi or Tryndamere or Jax go into melee range and kill you by rightclicking they are easy and braindead champs.

DeathBurstMay 18, 20161 votes

Melee carries usually have some semi-OP mechanic that helps them and that allows them to keep carry-level damage without building totally glass-canon, or that helps them to survive even if they build glass-canon with one very strong defensive ability.

Yasuo has free Crit, free ArPen and Windwall Trindamere has free Crit and his ult. Yi has true damage and a huge AS steroid, and AlphaStrike/Meditation as very powerful timed defense (Strike makes you untargetable, Medit has a huge damage reduction component) Fiora has true damage and plenty of aa-resets, and sustained healing if she hits her marks and Riposte for defense.

So now, what choice do you have for items? Well, Crit is still viable on Trynda and Yasuo, and for the rest, the fact that you can (and should) build some defense opens up a lot of diversity, but it depends if you are scaling more with AD or AS.

For AD, you can have Death's Dance, Youmuu, Ravenous Hydra, Bloodthirster, Duskblade for certain champs.
For AS, you have BotRK, Witt's End (currently buffed on PBE), Bloodrazor if you're Jungle, Guinsoo if you are somewhat hybrid.
On the defense side: Melee carries also love semi-defensive items that still keep good offensive power: Sterak, Maw, Frozen Mallet, Titanic Hydra (especially if you scale with AS or have many ways to apply on-hits). Jaurim's Fist is a pretty good component. Deadman's or Sunfire if you really need Armor, usually defensive Boots too, unless you really need another one. Spirit is your go-to item if you need heavy MR and Maw is not enough, especially since it increased your built-in healing and lifesteal. Warmog may be an option in some cases, not sure about that.
Finally you have specialized items that you have to decide on a champ by champ basis. Black Cleaver can be good if you can apply the stacks rapidly, Triforce if you have a skill you can spam, Gunblade if you are hybrid.

Note that Triforce got more AS and CDR, but no more Crit on PBE. Not sure it will go out to Live, but if it does go out like that, it will become much more viable on lots of Melees, both aa-based and caster-like, and less attractive for ADC/Yasuo.

Also note that a few AS-based champs got new or improved AP ratios recently, so the balance team will probably push Guinsoo as a core item for most AS-based champs over the next few patches.