AD and AP

I’m pretty sure that everyone knows that Ad and Ap are the two core things that damage dealers build into.

I’m also pretty sure that everyone knows that Ad is far more versatile than Ap (play style wise).

As a result of this versatility, Riot released more versatile items for Ad champs, such that there was an Ad/MR item for each individual role (Maw for Bruisers, Night for Assassins kinda, Mercurial for Adc), or an Ad/Penetration item for each role (Black Cleaver for Bruiser, Lethality for Assassin, Last Whisper for Adc).

And because Ap is entirely casters or assassins, Ap has.... (well maybe the defensive side isn’t as good), but one Ap/ Penetration for each role (Morellnomicon and Boots for Assassins and Void for Mages).

The issues arise, however, when an AD champion uses an item that isn’t “designed” for their class, but ends up doing fine. For example: Lethality and Black Cleaver on ADC’s. In contrast, there is no “Stacking Magic penetration” AP champions can do past sorc, void, and morell, and by buying sorc’s you are losing tabis (will touch on this later).

The same issues arise with the Mr/Ar side of things. Ad has two items to choose from to get Mr and Attack damage, so if you get both, you have a huge boost in utility, which in turn allows you to deal more damage. Magic users have Zhonyas and only zhoynas... which has effectively no armor due to penetration. The reason you can’t just build tabis is because you are losing one of your only sources of penetration.

If you look at the average team comp, there is rarely more than 1 Ap damage dealer on a team, while there are always at least two Ad damage dealers, either in the form of Adc and Jg, or Adc and top, or even because of Pyke you can have a viable all AD team.

Lastly, there is the issue of Ad just being stronger conceptually. While AP is rendered moot while cooldowns are ticking, AD can still deal damage through autos.

So I am asking three questions:

1. Is there a new role for AP damage dealers that could usher in a new era of AP items?
2. Is there any way to diversify the AP damage role through the item base?
3. Can AP and AD ever be balanced?