Please don't nerf Abyssal Sceptre

AquariusGine·Feb 22, 2016·75 votes·3,543 views

It is the only reason AP is still enjoyable..

58 Comments

NavyDiveaFeb 22, 201622 votes

Haven't seen any notes but since its so gold efficient and sees regular play I wouldn't doubt that they would fuck it over.

Hello I am BirdFeb 22, 201614 votes

item 3070 item 3174

SquidsmastahFeb 22, 20164 votes

#RITOLogick

AbyssphereFeb 22, 201615 votes

Ab Scep is also a reason AP isn't enjoyable. It's really annoying for it to be rushed against you when you're a mage, and it turns into a pretty boring arms race because if one mage gets Abyssal Scepter, the opposing mage kinda needs to get it too.

I don't get why the pre-season gutted every AP item and then randomly buffed Abyssal and Rod of Ages.

Masala ChaiFeb 22, 20162 votes

item 3115 ?

Vistha KaiFeb 22, 20162 votes

Abyssal had only 100g taken out from the cost. Hardly a significant buff.

Also, that "buff" to Rod of Ages shifted it from a "AP/HP" to "AP/mana" item. Way to go for one of two, maybe three, defensive items for APs.

AbyssphereFeb 22, 20165 votes

[{quoted}](name=Vistha Kai,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vapfrgAA,comment-id=00030001,timestamp=2016-02-22T21:49:43.737+0000)

Abyssal had only 100g taken out from the cost. Hardly a significant buff.

Also, that "buff" to Rod of Ages shifted it from a "AP/HP" to "AP/mana" item. Way to go for one of two, maybe three, defensive items for APs.

Getting 100g from your cost is a big deal when items across the board are having their cost increased. Abyssal was already completely fine but it got a major buff in the price decrease.

Not talking about the old Rod of Ages changes, either. I'm talking about the pre-season giving it 20 AP in exchange for a 300g increase when, again, items were getting cost increases across the board regardless.

Right now if you use AP and you're against even one non-support with magic damage, you take Abyssal - even if you don't use the aura very well. Rod of Ages is often taken on people even if they're also buying something like Morello for their mana needs because the stats are just crazy - it's supposed to be weak early in exchange for being crazy late but 80 AP, 300 HP and 400 mana at 0 stacks is more than acceptable for 0 stacks.

Vistha KaiFeb 22, 20161 votes

Nobody builds Morellonomicon for mana regen. It's there for cheap 20% CDR and 80 AP.

If you can't use Abyssal's aura well, you could get Rylai's instead.

RoA is weak early as you are forced to dump a lot of gold into health and mana, before being able to utilize those 80 APs.

OyddAWqJ5rFeb 23, 20162 votes

Actually literally everyone that builds it builds it for the regen as well. There's a reason it's rushed as a laning item on alot of champs.

Vistha KaiFeb 23, 20161 votes

Yes, there is a reason.

It's the fact that gold-wise you can never fail rushing it.

Back in the season 4 when it was built out of amp tome, fiendish codex and faeire charm and before out of Kage's Lucky Pick, it was "that other CDR item not being Unholy Grail".

Changes to Morello(a bunch of massive buffs in a row) plus a number of nerfs to Athene's are a reason it's rushed on a lot of champion, even those that shouldn't.

Mana regen is a bonus, just like it was on old Nashor's.

SeargentAnusFeb 22, 20163 votes

Play Velkoz and kill them even if they have 300 MR

XilixerFeb 23, 20163 votes

i logged in just to upvote this. simply because its so true.

item 3135 , item 3285 item 3151 item 3020 item 3001 what is this Magic resist that you speak of?

Robbit MangFeb 22, 20164 votes

it actually gives SO MUCH for how cheap it is.

tankiness, AP (damage), AOE flat pen (more damage for you and your team)

how much is the flat mpen really worth though?

sorc shoes cost 1100g, you're paying 540 for the 45 movespeed, so thats 560g for the mpen. that means each point of mpen should be worth around 37.33 repeating gold.

so 20 mpen is worth 746.6 gold. Best case scenario you getting this on all 5 champions on the enemy team, which ill say is unlikely, but the potential gold value of JUST the aoe mpen is 3733 gold(actually quite possible to do on a tank such as malphite and rammus)

so the items POTENTIAL value is ~ = 6155.5 gold WORTH OF STATS (calculated using abyssal scepters gold efficiency, and the efficiency of one point of mpen.) Im going admit a mage getting the full value of the mpen is very unlikely, but something this good should be balanced around the best case scenario.

all for 2350.

Voluug13Feb 23, 20161 votes

Yeah but a flat nerf is lazy and stupid.

Modify the aura for diminishing returns or for personal use only. Either make 1/2/3/4/5 enemy champions get 25/20/15/10/5 reduced MRes, or make your spells ignore X resistance. Or even nerf it buf add a goddamn AP scaling to it so it needs moderate amounts of AP to work.

But a plain nerf is simply silly. Abbyssal doesnt give you ''tankiness'', it simply gives you MRes, and without HP to pair that MRes, its useless. If you build RoA/Rylai, you arent likely a long range mage, and if you are a short range mage, you generally need the tankiness to survive.

PrometheSFeb 22, 20163 votes

They wanted to rework it eventually into some sort of Black Cleaver like tanky AP Bruiser item but that's a totally different niche than it has now so I also hope they won't replace it. Why do you think they'd nerf it though? Did you see any notes about it?

TakanuvaFeb 22, 20161 votes

{quoted}

They wanted to rework it eventually into some sort of Black Cleaver like tanky AP Bruiser item but that's a totally different niche than it has now so I also hope they won't replace it. Why do you think they'd nerf it though? Did you see any notes about it?

I can remember reading some notes back then about them changing abyssal into a pulsing aoe ap mr reducing bruiser item. i would love to see this, but last i checked, they've had it iceboxed for quite a few patches. oh well. a man can dream.

with that said, if they DO change it, i want a max build of item 3068 , item 3020 , item 3001 , item 3075 , item 3512 , then item 3083

tons of wavepush and tankiness. \o/. oh yeah, and im building it on Shaco

Mama SorakaFeb 23, 20163 votes

Abyssal is probably the best AP item right now considering its cost and utility on AP bruisers like Ekko. Ideally though, I'd like to see other AP items brought up to its level rather than abyssal nerfed.

PrometheSFeb 22, 20162 votes

That's true but it also isn't as slot efficient as other items and doesn't scale as well.

CerealBoxOfDoomFeb 22, 20162 votes

no links? I just wasted my time clicking into this thread only to find there are no links. Now i have to waste time on laggy sites and not even be sure if this poster is up to date or whatever

CerealBoxOfDoomFeb 22, 20162 votes

ok so i found nothing about an abyssal nerf after wasting time on these sites. Where is the info

A LiberalFeb 22, 20162 votes

As much as I like it, ap assassins are abusing it. Its a rush on leblanc and katarina now.

Only Play DariusFeb 22, 20162 votes

It's also the best counter to LB if she is beating you early

DªyFeb 22, 20162 votes

remember when they nearly reworked it into a tank item?

tbh i still think such an item should exist but as a seperate item while keeping abyssal

SoMNiaFeb 22, 20162 votes

Eh? Who said it's being nerfed? Honestly, I'd rather have the tank version that got iceboxed a while ago.

BeMyFriendPleaseFeb 23, 20162 votes

ONLY AD CAN HAVE GOOD PEN ITEMS

VerdadeFeb 23, 20163 votes

Actually, MRpen is far more potent. It's not possible to bring someone to 0 armor, and wasn't since Black Cleaver nerf... While mages can get 0 effective MR very often with just 2-3 items

BeMyFriendPleaseFeb 23, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Actually, MRpen is far more potent. It's not possible to bring someone to 0 armor, and wasn't since Black Cleaver nerf... While mages can get 0 effective MR very often with just 2-3 items

I'd get into the scaling between the two and explain why the ad pen items are better

But you have your mind made up, so go along now

The GovernerFeb 23, 20163 votes

Please do. I would love to see your flawed reasoning.

Flat armor penetration has also been an illusion in terms of effectiveness. Percentage armor penetration has been nerfed to the ground. You can no longer have percentage total armor penetration in Last Whisper. Last Whisper's effectiveness has also been nerfed, as opposed to popular belief. Armor also scales per level regardless of champion, making penetrating armor harder.

All ranged champions and Yasuo have standard 30 magic resist without any scaling, which means they have to invest in magic resist runes/masteries/items or else they can easily be wrecked by any AP mages with just Sorcerer's Boots and Abyssal Scepter and some magic penetration.

So please, tell us how you delude yourself into thinking this isn't the case.

BeMyFriendPleaseFeb 23, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Governer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vapfrgAA,comment-id=0013000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-23T02:09:43.819+0000)

Please do. I would love to see your flawed reasoning.

Flat armor penetration has also been an illusion in terms of effectiveness. Percentage armor penetration has been nerfed to the ground. You can no longer have percentage total armor penetration in Last Whisper. Last Whisper's effectiveness has also been nerfed, as opposed to popular belief. Armor also scales per level regardless of champion, making penetrating armor harder.

All ranged champions and Yasuo have standard 30 magic resist without any scaling, which means they have to invest in magic resist runes/masteries/items or else they can easily be wrecked by any AP mages with just Sorcerer's Boots and Abyssal Scepter and some magic penetration.

So please, tell us how you delude yourself into thinking this isn't the case.

You're too much of a typical toxic league asshat to listen to logic

Look up the maw stats and scaling early on Look up zhonyas

Look up armor pen vs mr pen Do some work yourself you toxic scumfuck, i know you're not capable, but my "flawed logic" will never reach down to you, and that's just life. Fuck this community

The GovernerFeb 23, 20162 votes

{quoted}

You're too much of a typical toxic league asshat to listen to logic

Look up the maw stats and scaling early on Look up zhonyas

Look up armor pen vs mr pen Do some work yourself you toxic scumfuck, i know you're not capable, but my "flawed logic" will never reach down to you, and that's just life. Fuck this community

I admit I was a bit snide but I was angered by the delusions that the Boards and a lot of low elo people are holding and I am willing to apologize. The fact that they think that armor penetration is better than magic penetration in terms of accessibility and effectivness baffles me. Do they even notice the rework of Last Whisper last year?

Apart from Jhin, name me one AD champion that can reach more than 500 AD and have stellar scaling like Veigar and Ekko (like his ultimate). There is a reason why you can get more magic resist on an AD item than armor on an AP item. There are plenty of champions whose abilities do not scale with total AD but bonus AD, essentially a worse type of scaling than total AD. So to balance it out, flat armor penetration becomes more easily attainable.

The reason why flat armor penetration is more accessible than magic penetration is that they are in small amount. Youmuu's Ghostblade is the only item that has 20 armor penetration. The rest are all 10. At most you can gather 30-40 (40 is actually hard because it means you need 3 item slots for AD items that provide little to no resistances) flat armor penetration from items. It's an illusion of choice. Comparing one item to another item which bears no resemblance apart from the fact that they share resistances is delusional.

Percentage armor penetration/reduction comes in the form of either bonus armor penetration (which really sucks, compared to pre-reworked Last Whisper), or conditional percentage armor reduction (you need to do physical damage 6 times or use "physical bleed effect" on a single champion in order to reach full potential of the Black Cleaver).

Apart from that every single champion has scaling armor except Thresh (due to his passive). Disregarding Thresh, the lowest attainable base armor at level 18 goes to Gnar, sitting at 66.5 armor (plus he can switch form to gain base armor anyways), but even that value is higher than the highest base magic resist on a champion at level 18 being 53.4, and that's the base magic resist on tanks and melee assassins. More than half of the champions have only 30 base magic resist, like I said before. Void Staff is still in the form of percentage total magic penetration, making it more favorable than Last Whisper and its upgrades.

Therefore, It's relatively easier to penetrate all the magic resist on a champion than to penetrate all their armor on a champion. It is possible to penetrate and reduce all of the armor on a champion but it's not viable (full armor penetration rune page against a squishy champion is possible but very stupid).

Titanium70Feb 22, 20161 votes

As gladly I buy Abyssal on my Swain.. this Item basicly causes the same problem on AP-Assassins like Steraks on ADCs - Champions supoosed to be squishy become quiet hard to kill. It's a 50/50 on the one hand this Item is needed on short range APs Swain(sometimes), Kennen, Rumble, Vlad. on the other hand when used by LB, AP-Ekko... hell I've seen Lux with Abyssal... than things are getting really awkward really fast.

That's why I'd not be surprised if Riot actually Nerfs it, but I just hope they find another solution if they consider Abyssal a probem besides Nerfing it to the ground.... item 3174 sigh.....

SkelenthFeb 22, 20163 votes

I play Vel'Koz with Abyssal. Mostly because I buy every Magic Pen item on him It works

VerdadeFeb 22, 20165 votes

It's really bad on Vel', he's long-range poke/combo mage, every his ability has longer reach than Abyssal debuff aura...

You'll want 30 MRpen with only one pen item (sorcs). You can reach this treshold by either marks+glyphs of marks+quints, if you got with glyphs you'll have extra damage from AP quints, but if you go with quints you gain 12 MR from glyphs... depends on what is better for you, but i usually go for AP quints...

This treshold is very important because many supports run non-MR glyphs, allowing you to deal true damage (So Sorcs are huge power spike, even more if you get them at same time as level 6... that ult does like 700 total damage at 6), and even if enemy has MR glyphs they're screwed when you get Guise

With Sorcs+Guise+runes+precision+void staff, you deal true damage to targets with less than 80, which is also very important treshold, as both Maw and Abyssal grant 50 MR, so someone without MR runes takes true damage no matter what Running full MRpen page increases this treshold to 90 MR, but it's not really required...

SkelenthFeb 22, 20162 votes

My Vel'Koz build looks like this: Dorans Ring (cause there is no MPen item below 500g) Sorcerers Boots (if I don't have 1600 when I go back) Haunting Guise (if I have the money) Void Staff (Around here I upgrade Guise to Lyandris) Abyssal Scepter Ludens/Zhonyas/Rylais (this is situational)

The idea is, to give a sht in all manner on the enemies resistences. Also, Abyssal isn't even that bad on Vel. Despite the aura (which also helps allies and is another help against meelee champions) it provides magic resist and Ap. It's more of a fun build

mason waterFeb 22, 20162 votes

does the magic pen do anything with his true damage?

SkelenthFeb 22, 20162 votes

No, but his basic scalings aren't very high so you focus on building magic pen

VerdadeFeb 22, 20162 votes

His basic scalings are quite good, but his R scaling sucks badly

XilixerFeb 23, 20163 votes

well actually the scaling for his abilites are meh. however his scaling with magic pen is pretty dang good.

VerdadeFeb 23, 20162 votes

If you make a sum of his ratios, it's pretty high...for such spammy mage. His Q chunks squishies HEAVILY, especially in mid game and with Luden's. It's not rare to see taking off like 1/3 of Lux' hp with single Q. And that's skill with 1550 range and 4.2s CD! His W is extremely good with just bit of AP, it can clear waves very safely and it can be compared to Viktor's Beam's waveclear. W+E combo is just disgusting if it lands, 670+1.175*AP, it's higher than any ultimate, including Veigar's... at very low cost, pretty low CD and and the best part: it's AOE!

His R scaling just sucks, it has 1k base damage with 0.6 AP ratio... that means, if you fire it at target with like 80 MR, you need over 1660 AP to double its damage, which is unreachable... but MRpen doubles its damage with just 3 cheap items - sorcs, guise and void staff, making MRpen way to go.

Of course MRpen and CDR will increase Vel's damage output far more than buying AP, but AP is really not wasted on him.

OyddAWqJ5rFeb 23, 20161 votes

They're actually ~~obscenely~~ bad -- leading to CDR + Magic Pen builds being best on him.

His ratios are: Q - 60%, W - 52.5%, E - 50%, R - 60%.

But his bases are: 205 true damage passive, 240 on Q, 275 on W, 190 E, 900 Ult

Lower CD's on his skills also makes him amazing at kiting alongside getting more passive procs off, leading to an altogether higher damage output than via a full AP build.

Especially since his ult is the best thing about him and it has a low ratio -- building CDR is best for it.

VerdadeFeb 22, 20162 votes

Spellblade is better think, it gives more regen and more importantly, gold. It doesn't matter if you go support or mid with it. Also first recall is far less punishing if you have to go b early, its only 500g and it's good item on its own.

And void staff so early? I often build Luden's before Void staff just because it adds like 40% damage to Q poke, and makes waveclear even easier

TeCoolMageFeb 23, 20161 votes

I usually take Abyssal because Vel'Koz is the Mage who has range but is expected to get dived on cus it's not Xerath or Lux level, gap closers can easily get him.

Also, his W gives me the urge to angle myself in a way that hits as many enemies as possible. That's velgeometry for you.

LlaniteFeb 22, 20168 votes

The aura has ~~600~~ 700 range which is slightly larger than your AA. Your spells don't get the benefits, your allies don't get the benefit unless you dive so deep into their back line, at which point you're already dead.

HextenFeb 23, 20162 votes

Its 700 range.

LlaniteFeb 23, 20161 votes

Thanks for correction.

LadyRenlyFeb 22, 20161 votes

I really don't want HP shoved onto Abyssal. If you want an ap tankish item, make a new one or something. Sure, anyone who has AP can run it, like Rammus Amumu or Sejuani, but I think it was meant for the like of Ahri/Vel'Koz/anyotheraverageAPmidlaner who need damage, but are kind of getting wrecked. This item at least keeps them somewhat relevant. Health on a lot of ap midlaners is a wasted stat so I'd rather not see it changed so tank ap junglers have something to maybe buy if they are ahead

The Yetii RiderFeb 22, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I really don't want HP shoved onto Abyssal. If you want an ap tankish item, make a new one or something. Sure, anyone who has AP can run it, like Rammus Amumu or Sejuani, but I think it was meant for the like of Ahri/Vel'Koz/anyotheraverageAPmidlaner who need damage, but are kind of getting wrecked. This item at least keeps them somewhat relevant. Health on a lot of ap midlaners is a wasted stat so I'd rather not see it changed so tank ap junglers have something to maybe buy if they are ahead

That's why it got ice boxed. The AP mages who are close range need a new item to make up for it being taken away.

ARequestOfDeathFeb 23, 20161 votes

you dont know what ap being enjoyable is.

item 3089 item 3135

PeachsPropertyFeb 23, 20161 votes

If i recall they are/were messing aroudn with it on PBE.

iirc last i saw was they had the aura deal periodic damage :o

Best chance of it being nerfed would prolly end up being the mage update later on. (for better or worse)

Maximum MordeFeb 23, 20161 votes

We here at rito HQ spotted an issue that some ap based champions were still able to deal with ad based champions rushing hexdrinker. The issue will be fixed.