A Blunt View of the Problem with Items

So, my youngest sister watches me play this game sometimes, and she is a person who doesn't tend to phrase anything diplomatically. And in her opinion (which I amazingly happened to agree with wholeheartedly once I heard her reasoning), the problem with balance in this game is the items. I'm sure it has been said before, but it seems to me that the problem with the items in this game, and with balance because of them, is that they do too many different things. For example, ADCs are a nightmare right now, because they can deal a ton of damage, with a high chance of critical strike, and huge attack speed, all while mixing in some lifesteal to sustain.

My sister's verdict: "It's stupid. You shouldn't be allowed to be good at everything."

In our view, simplifying items to a more focused identity would enable people to diversify their build paths more while making champions easier to balance in terms of abilities/scaling. And this applies to ALL roles, not just ADCs. So let's talk mid for a second.

is pretty much a MUST have item, simply because it gives the highest bonus to AP outside of deathcap (several items give 100 AP), PLUS mana sustain, PLUS 20% cooldown. Riot seems to base cooldowns on the assumption that people will get 20-30% cooldown by default. But maybe having high cooldown she could come at the cost of less AP/mana sustain.

It seems to us that items should be focused to making someone good at one thing, with a small bonus of something else, and maybe a useful passive or active. Or a mediocre bonus in two things. Or a small bonus to 3. And again, we're talking all roles here.

So here's a few very basic examples:

Axe of Damage: +100 AD, +5% crit chance. Pistol of Damage: +100 AD, +5% attack speed Vampire Sword: +100 AD, +2% life steal Bow of Speed: +50% attack speed, +5% crit chance Bow of Damage: +25% attack speed, +20 AD Bow of Soul: +25% attack speed, +2% life steal Dagger of Crit: +50% crit chance, +20 damage Sword of Crit Damage: +25% crit chance, +20 AD Dagger of Soul: +25% crit chance, +2% life steal Sword of Soul: +25% life steal, +20 AD Sword of Speedy Crit Damage: +25 AD, +10% crit chance, +10% attack speed. Katana of Everything: +10 AD, +5% crit chance, +5% attack speed, +5% life steal.

Of course there would be a ton more items and items would have passives, but this is a very simple set of items to illustrate the point (so obviously not all of the math is perfect). Obviously no one would want to waste their money on the last few, but it was just to show how doing too much at once would lose too much impact. The idea is that for any given role, you'd have to make meaningful choices between going full out on one stat, but doing this would leave you with a very small bonus to anything else. Or you could be pretty good at two different stats, Or sort of underwhelming at three, but more than that wouldn't really be meaningful.

So, as a midlane mage, you could NUKE people with super-high AP. But you wouldn't have much cooldown reduction, you'd have to manage your mana, and you wouldn't get much in terms of health, armor, MR, or other stats. Or you could have max CDR, but it would come at a hit to your AP, making your spells much less scary. Or you could do both moderately well. Likewise for other roles. Full Damage ADC? Great! You hit super hard, but not very quickly or with much chance of crit or life steal. Or you could attack pretty quick AND with decent damage, but almost no crit/life steal, or what have you. A tank could stack tons of health, or tons of armor/MR, or cooldown/sustain, or a decent amount of two of those, or a little of all three, etc.

Again, the examples I gave above are very simple, just to illustrate the point. But the idea is that item choices should MEAN something. You shouldn't be able to be super-efficient at everything. You want to deal maximum damage? It should come at the cost of your overall utility otherwise. You want to deal high, sustained DPS? A mix of damage and attack speed (or AP and CDR). You'd be pretty good at both, but not amazing at either. You wand to diversify more than that? It should come at further costs. Being a jack of all trades means you are a master of none.

So, a game example: Twitch is invisible and is going to join his friends at mid where a team fight is started. Now, instead of current games, where he would appear with his Runan's Hurricane, Infinity Edge and whatever else and simultaneously shoot three people at high speed for huge damage and almost guaranteed crits, his impact would depend on his build: He might appear, shoot one person for MASSIVE damage a few times, Or appear, hurling out multiple attacks at EXTREMELY high speed, Or pick his targets and deal virtually guaranteed critical strikes with every shot. More likely a mix of two of those things. Or a low amount of all three.

Maybe it's too simplistic a view. But it seems like too many items are too good at everything. A few items on a midlane mage and you have huge AP, good cdr, and excellent mana sustain. But specializing too much on one thing should come at a cost to others. Plus, as a bonus to riot, I think it would be easier to balance Champions when they didn't have to assume that every champion will have high AD/AP, PLUS high attack speed/CDR, PLUS high critical chance, PLUS a fair bit of lifesteal/mana sustain.

TLDR; The game would be healthier, I think, if items didn't provide bonuses to as many different stats, and if those bonuses didn't allow someone to be good at everything in their role. Make people choose between being AMAZING at one thing, decent at two, okay at three, etc.

Thoughts?