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All I want for Christmas...

Randomonium··1 votes·353 views

...Is for Riot to revert the Zhonya's Hourglass nerfs on the PBE.

For those of you who are not aware, marksmen are getting a significant rework for season 6. You can read more about it here, but it basically has resulted in significant buffs across the board.

On top of this, Riot has also reworked the mastery system, reworked many AD items and added some new ones, making both marksmen and AD assassins much stronger.

This has caused many people to fear that season 6 will be dominated by marksmen and AD assassins. So what's Riot's response to all of these buffs to marksmen and AD assassins? They nerf Zhonya's Hourglass, the best item for AP casters to at least have a chance against marksmen and AD assassins.

And I'm not talking small nerfs either. First of all, they lowed the armor by 5. While not a huge nerf, 5 armor in a dueling situation can be the difference between getting a kill or giving one. More importantly though is they increase the gold cost by 500. While it may not seem huge, it is actually full 4 waves of gold (25 cs including siege minions assuming you have perfect CS.) This means that it will take you a MINIMUM of an extra 90 seconds to complete your Zhonya's, though for most of us it will be 2 to 3 minutes longer. Essentially what this nerf is doing is starting you out with a 25 cs deficit if you play an AP mage who needs Zhonya's. In a close match do you really think that you have any chance whatsoever if you purposely start off 25 cs down? These nerfs are going to make it near impossible for AP casters to compete with marksmen and assassins.

I'm not calling for nerfs to marksmen. I'm not calling for nerfs to the reworked or new AD items. Hell, I'm not even asking that you never nerf Zhonya's ever. All I am asking is you wait to see how all these drastic changes to marksmen and AD assasins change the game before you go nerfing the best item AP casters have to defend against them.

Please revert the nerfs, let us see how powerful all these changes are, and then re-evaluate whether or not Zhonya's truly deserves a nerf in this new meta.

16 Comments

VeigarIsTall2 votes

If AD will constantly be picked:

Chogath TahmKench Zac Volibear Skarner Sion Singed Olaf Renekton Nautilus Galio Darius Garen JarvanIV Alistar Amumu Maokai Mordekaiser Rammus

You get the point.

Randomonium1 votes

And meanwhile most mages will not be picked. Making a large percentage of the champion pool unviable and then saying "oh, there are plenty of other champions" is not exactly a great argument.

redniwediS1 votes

You say they should re-evaluage whether or not it needs nerfs, but isn't that exactly what PBE testing is for? What you're suggesting they do has already been done.

Randomonium1 votes

No, what I'm suggesting is let's have a patch or two where we don't touch Zhonya's to see how good the changes to marksmen and AD assassins are. If you make both at the same time then its more difficult to tell which is the problem (assuming ADCs and AD assassins go out of control like they are on the PBE.) Once you figure out the balance of marksmen and AD assassins then you look at tweaking mages to fit in the meta.

disregardable1 votes

Why should core AP items be more gold efficient than core AD items? They're supposed to do an equal amount of damage over the course of a 40 minute game.

Randomonium1 votes

where exactly are you getting your information from because Zhonya's is not more gold efficient than common AD items?

Zhonya's Hourglass: 105.83% http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Zhonya%27s_Hourglass Infinity Edge: 102.1% http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Infinity_Edge Bloodthirster: 113.7% http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/The_Bloodthirster Phantom Dancer: 123.1% http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Phantom_Dancer

If these nerfs go live Zhonya's gold efficiency will drop to 90.7%

disregardable1 votes

new infinity edge's cost efficiency is 92% before passive

65 ad=2340g 20 crit=1000 g 2340g+1000g=3340g 3340 (cost of stats) / 3600 (new price)=92%

Randomonium1 votes

PBE is down at the moment but surrender at 20 has the new cost at 3,500, making it 95% gold efficient. Maybe that changed though.

Regardless what the cost is, how exactly does this prove your point? Your argument was the AP items were more gold efficient that AD item. I proved that as false.

disregardable1 votes

I proved that Zhonyas is just being put in line with IE, the major AD core item. /shrug No reason for it to be worth more, which you haven't argued. The same is true for the deathcap price increase, puts it at 92% efficiency.

Nomicon is still 120% god efficient, roughly matching PD, and Rod is still 110% gold efficient, roughly matching BT, before it's even stacked.

Randomonium1 votes

Because inherently AD champions will always outdamage AP champions because AD also improves their auto attacks. On top of that AD champions have the ability to crit, which can multiple their damage far more than an AP champion. Furthermore, AD champions have better sustain considering that have easy ways to obtain lifesteal (as opposed to spell vamp) and because a significant portion of their damage does not cost mana.

CreationFlaw1 votes

I don't think anything is wrong. It's an item the effectively rendered assassins useless in a teamfight if they chose the apc, and the assassin blows up because of it, especially if it's talon or akali, etc. It had no real weakness to build, as it gave you lots of AP, lots of armor, and that ridiculous active.

Randomonium1 votes

It does have weaknesses, its not super gold efficient (even in its current state) and its a rather clumsy build path. On the flip side, its pretty much a requirement to build against AD assassins. A mage without a Zhonya's is pretty much an instant kill and there's nothing they can do.

I'd also argue that Zhonya's does not render assassins useless. First of all, it takes the APC out of the fight for 2.5 seconds, allowing your team to get that first kill or two that can win the team fight. Second, it provides some counterplay so assassins have to be selective when they try to burst the APC rather than just all inning them anytime they want. Third, Zhonya's is also hard countered by CC, giving a great reason to have tanks/supports with CC rather than just straight up damage dealers.

CreationFlaw1 votes

{quoted}

It does have weaknesses, its not super gold efficient (even in its current state) and its a rather clumsy build path. On the flip side, its pretty much a requirement to build against AD assassins. A mage without a Zhonya's is pretty much an instant kill and there's nothing they can do.

I'd also argue that Zhonya's does not render assassins useless. First of all, it takes the APC out of the fight for 2.5 seconds, allowing your team to get that first kill or two that can win the team fight. Second, it provides some counterplay so assassins have to be selective when they try to burst the APC rather than just all inning them anytime they want. Third, Zhonya's is also hard countered by CC, giving a great reason to have tanks/supports with CC rather than just straight up damage dealers.

Clumsy build path? It's great. It's one of the better paths in the game. You literally build into seekers which gives good early game stats for a fairly low amount of gold, 30 armor, with a passive of an extra 15 after csing 30 units, + 25 ap? For 1200 gold, that's pretty solid, almost 150% with the passive. And then the flat needless, which any big AP item builds with.

Randomonium1 votes

Its not horrible but its not great. Against non AD lane opponents its gold effectiveness plummets but its pretty much a must buy against mid assassins.

Care to comment on more than just one sentence of my entire response?

DrCyanide1 votes

More importantly though is they increase the gold cost by 500. While it may not seem huge, it is actually full 4 waves of gold (25 cs including siege minions assuming you have perfect CS.) This means that it will take you a MINIMUM of an extra 90 seconds to complete your Zhonya's, though for most of us it will be 2 to 3 minutes longer.

Starting gold, gold per 5, and gold for kills and assists are all being changed. While Riot does indeed intend to make it a little harder to get Zhonyas, I don't think you're factoring in all the changes to gold generation that are going into the preseason.

On the current Summoners Rift, without CSing at all, you can get the 500 gold in under 4.5 minutes. The average wave has a value of 118 gold. Assuming you only get 1/2 the wave each time, with the rate of minions spawning factored in, without the preseason gold-gen changes, you earn the extra 500 gold in two waves of minions (exact value at that point is 460 gold, so you either wait 20 more seconds or you last hit slightly better).

Randomonium1 votes

You make a good point about the gold changes. However, since everyone benefits or suffers from the gold changes equally, I don't see how this really counters my argument that the nerfs to Zhonya's is going to hurt mages a ton.

I did not factor passive gold into my equations, you are right. This would allow you to get Zhonya's earlier but it still effectively results in a 25 CS deficit in order to get the same item. That seems rather harsh considering all the buffs marksmen and AD assassins are already getting.

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