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A new Magic Resist item that solves a lot of problems

ChoGathsSon··8 votes·2,185 views

Let's face it, MR values in league 2015 suck. But the reality is, having anything too high for values in magic resistance can completely nullify the burst of any burst mage. While I think that's a somewhat silly approach to have (sorry I think there's something wrong with a full tank losing 3/4th of their HP to the press of a button from one mage), there the fact that after a certain point, that's true. And in reality, 150mr + is usually going to help front liners survive initial burst from APs.

The real problem doesn't result from burst mages, it's easy to itemize against them because it's a matter of having enough MR to survive their burst. It's more of a problem with mages/ap bruisers with low CD, spammable spells and after next patch, dot champions. We often refer to them as machine gun mages, dps mages, John Cena mages, etc. The reality is, think of extremely high dps mages like Ryze, Cass, Karthus and the next tier is along the lines of an Azir, Vlad, even Rumble. The fact is, 150MR vs these champions means absolutely nothing. Their spells are high in damage, virtually no cooldowns and have itemizarion that can also enhance their safety and durability. These are the champions that MR feels extremely lackluster against (and pro tip, next patch, it's only going to feel worse). Because you'd need in the neighborhood of 200-250 MR to even withstand just a few of their combos without totally being zoned out of the fight or killed just due to how fast they are outputting their damage. It's huge, it's low CD and it adds up and it adds up fast.

I've seen some people say things like AP Thornmail but that's a terrible idea, that would feel extremely shitty to play against. I've even seen people suggest a Frozen Heart style of MR item that increases cooldowns of champions in an aura (like frozen hearts slowing auto attacks/increasing auto attack animation CDs). That's also a terrible idea, that would feel even worse to play against. The only item at the moment that can prolong your fight against magic damage is Maw/hexdrinker with it's magic damage shield. In theory spirit visage should too but healing during battle is never reliable, not to mention Morellos exists and is common on all mana based mages.

I propose an item along these lines: over the course of time, the more magic damage you receive, your MR begins to increase by a percentage of the damage you've taken. Cap the gain at something along the lines of the value of 100MR (or just make them take reduced magic damage over the course of eating a bunch of low cooldown spammable magic damage spells). This helps with a few things and most importantly: it does not nullify burst mages as their magic damage is upfront usually in the course of 1 combo with a few spells. But this also helps you deal with late game powerhouses in magic damage dps and MR doesn't feel like complete shit and John Cena is lame and predictable. But this also allows you to still have a decent amount of armor so ADCs don't two shot you for investing in so much MR.

21 Comments

darkdill2 votes

This would work very well. An item that gives you increasing MR over time so that Cassiopeia's and Malzahar's don't disintegrate you as easily, but doesn't make Veigar rage, would be perfect for tanks.

ChoGathsSon2 votes

Hell just froze over

I got upvoted on gameplay and balance

FyshinaTux1 votes

It's actually kind of humorous because of your name... Kappa

RetroRage962 votes

I love it!

Mandang01 votes

How about just stacking health? Spells don't scale as hard as crits, and It's not like (most) mages have any decent way of dealing with health (item 3151 no, that passive isn't doing much). Health still works against AD too, so you're not selling out against the ADC either.

ChoGathsSon4 votes

{quoted}

How about just stacking health? Spells don't scale as hard as crits, and It's not like (most) mages have any decent way of dealing with health (item 3151 no, that passive isn't doing much). Health still works against AD too, so you're not selling out against the ADC either.

You're acting like blade of the ruined King, liandrys and the shit ton of Max %hp spells out there don't exist. And liandrys is getting BUFFED this patch. Stacking health doesn't work in League 2015, it's just begging to get destroyed by the plethora of Max %hp damage out there. And sorry, late game Ryze, Cass, Azir, Vlad and Karthus shouldn't be auto win.

Mandang01 votes

They're not autowin, and defense is SUPPOSED TO fall off relative to damage lategame. That's the game working as intended.

As for the %HP, sure it's a lot more common, but if your concern is mages, you itemize toward what they're weak against (if Liandry's is good, it'll be despite its passive). Besides, there's a lot to be said for a stat that works against both physical and magic damage. Building health is at least as good as building MR in most cases, especially considering how often %pen gets built.

ChoGathsSon2 votes

{quoted}

They're not autowin, and defense is SUPPOSED TO fall off relative to damage lategame. That's the game working as intended.

As for the %HP, sure it's a lot more common, but if your concern is mages, you itemize toward what they're weak against (if Liandry's is good, it'll be despite its passive). Besides, there's a lot to be said for a stat that works against both physical and magic damage. Building health is at least as good as building MR in most cases, especially considering how often %pen gets built.

Building nothing but HP is leaving you open to shread from botrk, crits, %hp damage, and yes liandrys damage on spammable spell based champs. And I'm aware that damage is supposed to be the stronger power late game, but not in the margin it is currently with mages who've spammable spells.

You're vastly overrating the effectiveness of HP stacking, it's mostly done on high regen based champions (Mundo, Garen, Volibear) or champions with natural defensive steroids via % damage reduction or resist increases. Any champion that doesn't fall under those lines are prone to being absolutely destroyed by hp% damage.

And if it gets to a late game where Karthus, Ryze, Vlad, Azir or Cass (she takes skill so low elo wont usually pull it off, no offense) get items, they're basically going to win the game. There's a reason why some people refer to these champions as "hyper-carries."

Mandang01 votes

...Well be smart about it. I'm not saying that you absolutely can't build MR, but maybe if MR is a suboptimal stat to buy, then.... don't buy so much of it?

I also think you're still pretty far off on the relative values of magic resist and health. As a mage, I can do jack against health. I have to scale my damage up by AP and AP alone, which is a slower process than ADCs have scaling up their autoattacks due to the lack of AP crit (or a decent %HP damage mechanic counterpart to BoRK). Anytime I see someone stack MR without health I smile, because I know immediately I can shave off a large% of your magic effective HP by just building Void Staff. Also, I know that I've done this all while that MR does NOTHING against the physical damage on my team. Some mages do more damage than others, but the argument I just made applies to all of them. Azir and Cass might do more damage to you, but they'll still have an easier time of it if you stack MR at the expense of health.

Health is the better stat early when your base health lags behind your base resists in a defense per gold optimization, and it's the best stat late when %penetration lowers the value of resists. %HP does this to an extent as well, but the options for casters are crap and to be completely honest, ADCs aren't prioritizing BoRK these days either. The Vayne will, but beyond her it's mostly IE+PD+BT+LW.

Hypercarries carry hard? You don't say.... It's almost like that's what they're SUPPOSED TO DO.

ChoGathsSon2 votes

{quoted}

...Well be smart about it. I'm not saying that you absolutely can't build MR, but maybe if MR is a suboptimal stat to buy, then.... don't buy so much of it?

If MR is a suboptimal stat to buy, don't you see that as a problem in the first place?

I also think you're still pretty far off on the relative values of magic resist and health. As a mage, I can do jack against health. I have to scale my damage up by AP and AP alone, which is a slower process than ADCs have scaling up their autoattacks due to the lack of AP crit (or a decent %HP damage mechanic counterpart to BoRK). Anytime I see someone stack MR without health I smile, because I know immediately I can shave off a large% of your magic effective HP by just building Void Staff. Also, I know that I've done this all while that MR does NOTHING against the physical damage on my team.

Again, you're making the assumption that I'm saying this applies to all mages, I'm not. It's for heavier dps/low cooldown spamming mages that hp stacking does jack shit to. And if they can build liandrys, Vlad or Cass as an example, their low CD spammable spells will shred hp stackers even more.

Again, I'm not looking for high value mr here, I don't want to shit on burst mages

Health is the better stat early when your base health lags behind your base resists in a defense per gold optimization, and it's the best stat late when %penetration lowers the value of resists. %HP does this to an extent as well, but the options for casters are crap and to be completely honest, ADCs aren't prioritizing BoRK these days either. The Vayne will, but beyond her it's mostly IE+PD+BT+LW.

If I'm stacking HP, they will buy a botrk. It's that simple.

Hypercarries carry hard? You don't say.... It's almost like that's what they're SUPPOSED TO DO.

Yes but that has to come within reason. If there's not meaningful counter itemization, then playing against them feels like an inevitable loss, which is shitty. Hyper carries like Vayne or Kog can still be blown up/dove, AP itemization helps these champions deal with that MUCH better.

Mandang02 votes

I guess I should have spelled it out - MR isn't ALWAYS optimal or ALWAYS suboptimal. If you're getting up to 150 MR knowing full well that Void Staff exists in the game, then you should probably have a metric fkton of health to back it up. The calculations for optimal +EHP/gold have been done to death, and you can go look them up if you're so inclined (they skew even further to health if you have cinderhulk).

As far as BoRK: Yea, it's a good item, but it's not going to suddenly invalidate you the instant you build health (a % current HP damage proc that hits after your normal attack ensures this). As before, build within reason: try to hit the stat optimization, get warden's mail, get ninja tabi too if the autoattacker is what's threatening. Also, when are these BoRKs getting purchased? Before LW? Before PD? Are they even being bought, or is the ADC getting BT?

Those heavier DPS mages are SUPPOSED TO deal heavier DPS. Idk what to say - that's what they're supposed to excel at, so of course they do a better job of it than their burst brethren, it's only fair. Burst should beat sustained should beat durability should beat burst. Sustained overtaking durability is intended gameplay and completes the triad. There might be some specific champions who seem to cheat here (Cass gets huge burst AND huge DPS), but that's a champion problem, and fixing it with itemization only messes up the balance of the rest of the DPS mages.

There is meaningful counteritemization, and it's all the items you've already discussed. The Vaynes and (AD) Kogs of the game benefit from much better sustain in the form of lifesteal than mages benefit from spell vamp (aside from the 2 champs that actually buy it). This is a very real weakness to mages when facing off against poke. Sure, your champion of choice might not be able to exploit that weakness, but well... you can't be good at everything. It sounds like you expect to be able to blow up the ADC, shrug off the burst mage, and still not have to respect the point of the game when a hypercarry is supposed to actually carry. What exactly is your weakness supposed to be? What class is supposed to beat yours?

Erockandroll2 votes

{quoted}

How about just stacking health? Spells don't scale as hard as crits, and It's not like (most) mages have any decent way of dealing with health (item 3151 no, that passive isn't doing much). Health still works against AD too, so you're not selling out against the ADC either.

I agree in most respects. AD scales hard with AS, Crit Chance, and Armor pen. While the only thing that AP really scales with is Magic pen. You could argue CDR but that caps much harder than Either AS or Crit chance. So yeah, you don't really need a ton of defenses just to counter AP. Burst or DPS.

To be honest. DPS and DoT mages are really freaking finicky. They don't typically have as much CC as other mage. They're less apt to 1 shoting a squishy. And unlike Bruisers and ADC's they don't have much in the way of turret sieging potential. (with the exception of Azir.) So they have very little working for them except for their DPS, so making an item effective against them will hurt them way too hard.

ChoGathsSon2 votes

{quoted}

I agree in most respects. AD scales hard with AS, Crit Chance, and Armor pen. While the only thing that AP really scales with is Magic pen. You could argue CDR but that caps much harder than Either AS or Crit chance. So yeah, you don't really need a ton of defenses just to counter AP. Burst or DPS.

To be honest. DPS and DoT mages are really freaking finicky. They don't typically have as much CC as other mage. They're less apt to 1 shoting a squishy. And unlike Bruisers and ADC's they don't have much in the way of turret sieging potential. (with the exception of Azir.) So they have very little working for them except for their DPS, so making an item effective against them will hurt them way too hard.

Are you kidding me? Cass ult? Ryze perma snare? Karthus wall of pain? Azir's Azir? Vlads aoe damage amp? They offer way than just dps, they bring utility too but their utility isn't their issues, it's that you can't effectively itemize against than as a front liner without sacrificing a shit ton of armor. The only way you could is if you're a champion with % damage reduction (hello Alistar, Maokai) or someone that gets increased resistances on spells (Leona, Rammus)

ChoGathsSon1 votes

Btw if this becomes an actual item, I'm calling dibs on the name. HateDaddy's Tunic. Yeah.

IcyPepper1 votes

How about Tunic of the Void?

An item that "eats" up the magic inflicted upon you, building up a resistance toward it?

ChoGathsSon1 votes

{quoted}

How about Tunic of the Void?

An item that "eats" up the magic inflicted upon you, building up a resistance toward it?

no, it must have my name on it....

But shit that's good.

It might be too good. But let's shorten it to Void's Tunic. And it's actually just Gentleman Cho'Gaths ripped blazer.

IcyPepper1 votes

Void's Tunic it is.

And Gentleman Cho'Gath (or maybe just Cho'Gath?) gets a little easter egg buff like "Piltover's Finest" and whatnot.

Outdated1 votes

Your suggestion of stronger MR itemization is predicated on the basis that certain AP champions somehow exceed the damage application of their contemporaries and completely ignores the relationship between theoretical dps and practical dps. Your thread suggests Casseiopeia & Karthus somehow break the game with their dps and yet they don't, statistically, seem to be any more successful than other mages.

The existence of higher armor than resistance items exists with the tacit understanding that attack damage is just stronger than magic damage because auto attacks and crits. There's a reason why the champion dubbed the Attack Damage Carry is exactly that, reasons why top MR caps at around 60 and top armor items go from 70 to 100 armor. And in all this time high-dps mages have not managed to consistently out-damage attack damage champions.

I haven't observed any evidence to suggest any mage champions apply consistently higher damage to a single target than any high-sustained- dps AD champion. Without evidence to support that preface this thread appears to be nothing more than a rallying cry to fuck over AP champions.

ChoGathsSon2 votes

{quoted}

Your suggestion of stronger MR itemization is predicated on the basis that certain AP champions somehow exceed the damage application of their contemporaries and completely ignores the relationship between theoretical dps and practical dps.

The existence of higher armor than resistance items exists with the tacit understand that attack damage is just stronger than magic damage because auto attacks and crits. There's a reason why the champion dubbed the Attack Damage Carry is exactly that, reasons why top MR caps at around 60 and top armor items go from 70 to 100 armor. And in all this time high-dps mages have not managed to consistently out-damage attack damage champions.

I haven't observed any evidence to suggest any mage champions apply consistently higher damage to a single target than any high-sustained- dps AD champion. Without evidence to support that preface this thread appears to be nothing more than a rallying cry to fuck over AP champions.

If you actually read it, then you'd realize it's more about having effective MR against higher multi-target and single target DPS champions. And these champions will do just as much damage with their items as a late game ADC will, the difference is what you stated - AD is stronger than AP due to the scaling AD has with crits. I'm not asking for extremely high value MR itemization, I realize the flaw in that and how it is effective against everything AP, not just dps/low CD Mages. It's why I suggested even just taking reduced levels of magic damage over the course of taking a certain % of magic damage because late game full dps, low CD mages ARE going to be outputting multi targeted damage that's pretty damn close to that of an ADC. The difference here is not only will they have damage, they'll have utility to boot (not that there don't exist utility in adcs either). And the issue here is that HP stacking isn't effective against them and anything short of 200 MR will feel underwhelming as well. And go ahead and build to have 200+ MR and watch how fast you die to an ADC because you only had 100-150 armor.

I don't want to fuck AP champions over, it's ironic you speak in this tone when their itemization just got massively fucking buffed, and these buffs will spike up the power of low CD DPS mage champions more (specifically Vlad, Cass and Rumble).

Please read what I'm suggesting and actively discussing as opposed to making dimwitted assumptions.

Outdated1 votes

5% more AP on the Rabadon's passive, 20 AP on ArchAngels - 20 less AP on Zhonya's. 10 more AP on void staff, 20 less AP on Luden's echo. Where is the "massive buff" now? Other items altered don't really come into play in max damage builds. And you keep mentioning Vladimir and Rumble despite them falling having less potential dps than Karthus, Anivia, Brand, Zyra, Syndra, and Swain.

most recent comprehensive dps comparison and it assumes a lot of things that aren't going to happen in an actual match like targets standing in AoE ground effects for full durations and getting hit 100% by all skillshots: http://www.reignofgaming.net/blogs/a-different-view/gentleman-gustaf/23264-ap-ratios-an-overview

Let me re-iterate the important part: How are sustained dps mages more successful than AD alternatives?

How are the Higher DPS mages not fulfilling a meaningful role in the current meta

There's a fairly long list of AP mages that do high sustained dps. Casseipeia and, to a lesser extent, Karthus do outshine them all but considering their vulnerabilities neither has become a maintsay of ranked picks or even found a significant ban rate. With that in mind, is not not balanced that these champions be particularly good at something?

Outdated1 votes

I've given it some thought and matches and I think the only way an itemization gap could be filled that could give some greater durability vs MR without countering all AP champs might be something that increased in efficacy with more targets hitting the wearer with spell damage. Such an item might have niche purpose as most team fights include more incidental magic damage than physical.

Contested points of individual mage dps is more a question of the potency of those individual mages since any item that would be effective against high dps characters would inevitably be effective against lowest dps mages or ineffective in all cases.

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