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Is anyone else starting to think IE is an extremely unhealthy item?

Spice POWAH··80 votes·4,473 views

I suddenly realized this. Think about it--so many complaints about champs and their crits are mostly because of this item, when you get to the root.

"Yasuo does way too much damage" item 3031 pretty much nullifies the crit balancing.

"Jhin literally 1-shot me" --2.5x damage 4th shot. Cancels out reduced crit damage.

"Cait's Headshot+Crit dealt 1000+ damage"--she wouldn't without the crit amp.

(haven't seen this as much anymore but still) "Vayne literally 1 and/or 2 shot me with a crit" ...You get it by now.

It also increases damage output that applies Lifesteal too, which gives a ton of (potential)In-combat sustain that no one bothers to build item 3123 oritem 3033 against, indirectly making lifesteal stronger on champs that build both. Infinity Edge is very much contributing to the complaints regarding crit damage(well, damage in general), but the champs are blamed more in spite of the crit amplifier being the root. Jinx Draven etc. all feel unbeatable when far ahead enough when fed if they have lifesteal and at least 50% crit

If IE gave something besides the 2.5% crit damage, all of those above complaints would be addressed in one swoop. This is just guessing since I haven't thought about what effect it could give, but maybe some sort of Ramp-up like guinsoo's for ADC and Attack speed+AD champs? I'm not sure what it could give besides an amp, but it's a guess so far, and champs could be balanced around not having that.

EDIT: perhaps a solution to make it stay the same late game would be to make the crit damage amp scale with level(thanks Erockandroll), to hopefully prevent more abuse cases from happening so several champs don't get nerfed instead.

I know it's been around for a long time, but there has to be some better way it can be in the game so there wouldn't be such high damage crits. People are complaining about damage creep, and this would lower ADC's damage across the board, with weaker champs being addressed individually.

111 Comments

Big Lincoln18 votes

it's all garen has left though

item 3070 Garen item 3070

Spice POWAH3 votes

I know the feel about Garen [zombie-nunu-tears]

I want to dispense justice to the whole team at once again.

LankPants4 votes

Garen item 3089 , don't tell him, you'll break his heart.

LegenDariusGaren18 votes

I love item 3031 on Garen. I buy it every game. Helps me one shot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XDLzierYZg&feature=youtu.be

AninLegions7772 votes

Lool. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO [zombie-brand-mindblown]

LegenDariusGaren2 votes

We won the game off of that play. I proceeded to get a triple kill. But notice how building tank would not have done shit when my team was feeding.

LegenDariusGaren1 votes

Check out what the syndra said before I made that play. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbwfokME2xI

Spoofghoul2 votes

yea since the item 3147 change i have to rely on item 3031

though i agree with op that infinity edge is unhealthy

Spicy Rice2 votes

To be fair, adc's shouldn't have been able to build old duskblade in the first place

Shaco my BFF15 votes

IE isn't the problem. Problem is Riot wanting "MOAR DAMAGEE!!!". Marksmen are supposed to be constant damage per second dealers. People who attack enemies from range and take enemies down in MULTIPLE attacks. Right now every meta marksman can 2K crit and basically 1-2 hit a squishy and 5-10 attacks for a tank who fully built to counter them. This means a squishy is dead in aprox. a second and a tank in 3-5 seconds.

Sometimes it's even stupid to build heavy defensive stats, if you're falling behind, on some champions (who are meant to be damage dealers) because your defensive stats will be peeled anyways. Might as well go all damage and hope you get to kill them first.

WoonStruck11 votes

item 3085 and item 3031 are both unhealthy, along with Warlord's.

Spice POWAH22 votes

IMO item 3085 should get a cost increase to make it less of an early game item (300 combine cost -.-) against it's abusers.

Erockandroll17 votes

[{quoted}](name=Spice POWAH,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vcsu455L,comment-id=00080000,timestamp=2016-12-11T08:13:46.919+0000)

IMO item 3085 should get a cost increase to make it less of an early game item (300 combine cost -.-) against it's abusers.

  1. it's stats are too good, simply being a zeal item. (Better AS that Shiv or RFC) 2) As a result, crit based champions are getting an inappropriate amount of wave clear, with not nearly enough costs, and 3) leaving the On hit champion, who supposedly synergized with it completely in the dust. (Given the only major On hit items for ADs is Guinsoos' and BotRK.)

As for IE, I'm pretty okay with it, when it's not a rush item. (General trend I notice is, you get the AD components, Rush your AS item next, and then finish IE as a second item.) The reason it shouldn't be a first item is simply because of the burst it offers. Crit damage always seemed to be more of a problem than crit chance. And as an Early buy, you didn't have a large amount of As or crit chance to average the damage out, you relied on it's bursted.

Not sure if IE became a first buy in your games. (Generally, I hold off on Crit chance because it didn't help you take tower. I get the AD and AS components first.) But if you think it's still too problematic as a second buy. I don't think the active would be a good choice, because it would give ADC's, really weird windows of power. (Imagine before the GB changes, when it still had AS on it's active, it would have felt like that.)

If you wanted to preserve late game power, you could make the crit damage scale with level. The potential issue with that is, abuse on solo laners, who will have higher XP than the ADC.

Spice POWAH5 votes

The problem isn't that IE is bought early, the problem is that it's the root cause of several problems people have complained about(like the infamous 1-shot vayne build, for instance), but the champion is blamed all the time, even while several crit damage complaints are going on.

Instead, people just say "OMG NERF YASUO/JHIN/CAIT/JINX" or whatever.

Just like with Devourer, it's several abuse cases rather than one champ abusing one item, but the champs get nerfed anyway.

The crit damage scaling with level sounds like a good idea actually(I suggested an active because I just tend to lean more towards them), I'll edit the post to include that one.

a special one10 votes

nah. its the item that makes adcs hyperscale in the late game, its always been around.

LatetotheRace2 votes

Then it needs to not be a rush item.

a special one1 votes

its not a rush item. every adcs gets a zeal item before it

Astôlfo9 votes

I play the damn champions that (ab)use IE, and it's honestly fucking absurd how much it increases damage.

It's basically like Rabadon's on steroids for ADCs, in terms of importance/core/strength.

Spice POWAH2 votes

I know it increases damage by a lot, and is useful even as a first buy sometimes. The biggest problem with IE is that it's been in the game for so long, it's hard to imagine it differently and find a successful solution.

Astôlfo1 votes

Possible ideas are nerfing the numbers on the stats/passive, and reducing price if it'd be too harsh of a nerf otherwise. Alternatively, changing the passive into a temporary active maybe (with greater numbers if NECESSARY in return for short duration). Stuff like that?

More drastic ideas could be reworking the passive altogether into something else that'd help ADCs.

Spice POWAH2 votes

The only problem with outright nerfing the passive is that it would hurt lategame, but that could also be a solution. IMO I'd want it to be a bond-active like in another comment chain, but that could just be me since I tend to lean towards active effecs.(Besides, adcs usually only have one active anyway...)

I REALLY hope riot addresses it before the Crit rework that's probably a long time away, it's almost always better to solve problems at their roots.

LatetotheRace3 votes

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/a/a8/Deathfire_Grasp_item.png/revision/latest?cb=20130731230043

???

JackMcSnipeyz7 votes

Thats like saying we should nerf deathcap for increasing AP And spirit visage for increasing health regeneration.

IE has been perfectly fine for a long time stop trying to look for things to nerf and blame.

Yasuo isn't annoying because IE, he's annoying because he gets 2x critchance and is spammy as hell.

Jhin pays for his 4th shot burst by being the only ADC who cant DPS and has to reload his basic attacks

IcyPepper6 votes

Why not an offensive version of Phantom Dancer's Lament? Make you deal X% increased damage to a target, but a cooldown between switching targets (kind of like J4's passive). Another way to do it is borrow a portion of DFG's active, and allow the player with IE to select an enemy champion (like bonding with Zeke's Herald, but with an enemy and definitely more range. I'm talking about least 900ish range since you wouldn't want to "bond" during a fight...) that they permanently get a damage boost against until they switch (with a longass cooldown between doing so). Promoting the ADC to pick a focused target (either a tank if the frontline is a thread, or their laning partner). Or make the bonus damage work with crit I guess, but requiring the ADC to choose and focus a target for maximum dps instead of having their damage increased against everyone.

Just spitballing here. No way in hell do I think this is a great idea on its own, but perhaps something out of the shit I wrote could be useful for further discussion/speculation.

Spice POWAH2 votes

The bond thing could work nicely with some adjustment. Maybe give it a 5-sec startup time before the damage amp applies so we don't get the exact same problem of "X just 1-shot me out of nowhere", so there's some warning that they're targeted, or the adc can't just be like "oh, jinx backed, i'll just swap it to morgana as soon as we engage". This mght actually be an ideal way to address it until crit gets updated, since it'll lower damage across the board and leaves most of their lane strength intact.

Spacesuit Spiff6 votes

Ya know what? Yeah. You've got a point. AD, AS, Crit, and Lethality all feed into each other and lifesteal already, so I don't see why the 2.5 crits are necessary.

I won't shit out replacement ideas, but I reckon a bfs item that gives crit is necessary.

Spice POWAH2 votes

I made this post to hope that people are directed to the actual problem because I don't want to see several champs get nerfed when one item could get changed instead and just buff a couple of champs that start doing badly afterwards if it hurts them. You know, he Devourer case. I'd rather the passive get reworked or changed to an active to erase the problems from it than the stats get immediately nerfed though.

Rozzeta6 votes

Crit itself has no place to be in a game where dodge has already been removed.

Drugoth5 votes

The main problem with IE and its empowered crits is that it's too easy for people to get 100% critical chance. IMO they need to tone back critical chance majorly so that it's impossible to reach 100% maybe tone it back so the max people can get is 25%. That way IE won't be too oppressive. The whole point of crits is that they're supposed to be an RNG based luck system. If you can get 100% critical chance then it completely negates the point of it being called a "critical strike". The only other game that I've seen where it's possible to get a 100% crit chance was Ragnarok online, but that is an MMO, not a MOBA.

Phoenixcresset3 votes

The boards complain about RNG, then say there shouldn't be 100% crit chance... You can't make everyone happy. What is the point of comparing a MOBA to an MMO ? In some FPS, you can get melee crit chance, but I am not saying there shouldn't be in Ragnarok online because of it, that's stupid.

invisiblecat13 votes

Really bothers me how you only need 4 items to get 100% crit instead of 5 like you needed to. If someone wants 100% crit they should have to devote their whole build to getting it and have no utility from items Yasuo

Champion Skin5 votes

"Jhin literally 1-shot me" --2.5x damage 4th shot. Cancels out reduced crit damage.

Not quite... Jhin Crit with IE is 250% (IE crit) reduced to 75% which is 187.5% AD (though the 4th shot also deals like 25% of missing health or something like that)

Faie4 votes

IE is an outdated item, but you have to realize that it is a very core portion of ADCs damage. Replacing it would require heavy buffs to other items or champions individually.

Spice POWAH2 votes

I know that, but Riot said they want some alternative to crit some time in the future, but that doesn't necessarily mean IE can't be addressed sooner rather than later. That's why I gave a suggestion to what it can do instead, but there's probably some better way to handle its passive.

TakaDama3 votes

The issue concerning IE compared to Deathcap or (if you want another scaling example) Cinderhulk isn't the crit damage modifier alone: it's the fact that the crit damage modifier can be combined with many aspects core to an ADC's gameplay.

For example, alongside crit chance to use the IE's crit damage modifier, there is also attack speed to gamble more often on crits, life steal for some kind of survivability, calling for anti-health, lethality/armor reduction/armor penetration/giant slayer to make those crits hurt much worse, runaan's and shiv effects to make yourself super relevant in teamfights, etc.

In fact, it is actually crazy how, at end game, ADCs scale the hardest, particularly hypercarries like Kog'Maw and Twitch.

Now, my suggestion for fixing IE would be to encourage its use more for AA-reliant ADCs as opposed to caster-ADCs, since Essence Reaver is still a thing for mana-hungry ADCs.

HazyCloud73 votes

It's not an IE problem, its just a yasuo problem.

yoshi27903 votes

item 3143

People just don't buy it. It helps ALOT.

Wolfram Oxford3 votes

As long as we have champions who have thousands of health and can stack armor into the hundreds making them practically unkillable we need to keep the damage that ADCs have.

SteelMankind3 votes

Crit plays a pretty necessary role in League. ADC's and the few other champs who build crit are essentially ticking time bombs - win before they finish their extremely expensive 5 item builds, or prepare to face 700+ damage autos every half second. AP and AD caster champs get the benefit of a stronger early/mid than crit champs. This is because AP and AD casters can itemize two stats to increase damage: the raw AD/AP, and penetration. CDR can rarely be thought of as a damage stat due to how infrequently skills are used the instant they come off CD (Cass is an exception that comes to mind). Crit champs, however, can build FOUR stats to increase damage: AD, AS, Crit chance, and pen.

In math terms, the damage curve of AP/AD casters can be thought of as a quadratic polynomial with positive coefficients, while the damage curve of crit champs is like a 4th-degree polynomial with positive coefficients. While the 4th-degree polynomial will always eclipse the quadratic eventually, depending on the coefficients, the quadratic can be higher initially. In League, the coefficients are like the cost efficiency of items. Most AP/AD caster items have a higher cost-efficiency than any single crit item, but with a five item build, the multiplicative 4-th degree nature of crit itemization will really kick in.

Kharn Skyshatter2 votes

{quoted}

Crit plays a pretty necessary role in League. ADC's and the few other champs who build crit are essentially ticking time bombs - win before they finish their extremely expensive 5 item builds, or prepare to face 700+ damage autos every half second. AP and AD caster champs get the benefit of a stronger early/mid than crit champs. This is because AP and AD casters can itemize two stats to increase damage: the raw AD/AP, and penetration. CDR can rarely be thought of as a damage stat due to how infrequently skills are used the instant they come off CD (Cass is an exception that comes to mind). Crit champs, however, can build FOUR stats to increase damage: AD, AS, Crit chance, and pen.

In math terms, the damage curve of AP/AD casters can be thought of as a quadratic polynomial with positive coefficients, while the damage curve of crit champs is like a 4th-degree polynomial with positive coefficients. While the 4th-degree polynomial will always eclipse the quadratic eventually, depending on the coefficients, the quadratic can be higher initially. In League, the coefficients are like the cost efficiency of items. Most AP/AD caster items have a higher cost-efficiency than any single crit item, but with a five item build, the multiplicative 4-th degree nature of crit itemization will really kick in.

But if ADC's are considered the best at taking towers then why should they be some of the best at killing as well. Lot of items in league now has Attack speed and crit unlike in the past where it was one or the other in terms of item spikes. They aren't the only source of sustained damage though since there are some magic sustained carries in a few mages and even a couple marksman. Right now ADC's get their spike by third item and some even as low as second after boots.

SteelMankind2 votes

A 3 item ADC is going to have trouble 1v1ing anyone except other ADCs unless they outplay. Just think how much stronger a 3 item mage is (who also likely has 2 levels on the adc) at that point in the game; the mage would just oneshot with a single ability rotation while the ADC maybe crits for 300 at best every three autos. What I assumed people were complaining about was the full build adc damage insanity that happens around 40 minutes.

3 item ADCs are definitely significant teamfight threats, but you can't exactly say they're the best at killing in general when they need so much support at that point in the game.

Espy Psyche3 votes

Why don't we just nerf crit as a stat (as per the Yasuo model)?

Critical strikes now do 170% damage (down from 200%). Infinity Edge increases this to 200% (down from 250%).

Yasuo's crits now deal 160% damage and his Steel Tempest crits for 145%.

This doesn't harm assassins (who don't build crit) in the least. It only harms ADCs with three exceptions: Gangplank Yasuo Tryndamere

Garen doesn't normally build crit. He usually builds similarly to a Darius or Illaoi with item 3071 item 3156 item 3742 etc.

If it becomes a problem that ADCs can't deal any damage, we can add AD to non-IE crit items. Remove item 1051 from the game because it only builds into Zeal. Make the recipe for Zeal item 1036 + item 1042 and give the crit to Zeal as part of the combine, like how all Cooldown Reduction items work.

Rebonack3 votes

From a topic way back in 2012.

Why funnel all the gold bottom lane to your Ranger? Because Infinity Edge makes anyone who can use it without exploding godly.

Why does every Ranger build IE/Dancer? Because Infinity Edge's passive is insane and not utilizing that passive would be silly.

Why is Riot having so much trouble making an AD Caster item? Because it would scale too strongly with Infinity Edge.

Why do Rangers keep getting nerfed over and over and over again? Because their kit has to be sacrificed to compensate for how powerful Infinity Edge is.

Infinity Edge is the main cause of stale itemization, Ranger nerfs, and the lack of AD Caster itemization. Infinity Edge is the reason why OnHit builds are so terrible. Infinity Edge causes global warming and famine in impoverished nations. Infinity Edge pushes little old ladies off the curb and takes up two spaces in the parking lot. Infinity Edge kicks kittens and listens to Nickleback.

Infinity Edge is the root cause of all that is wrong and vile in this world.

Infinity Edge is the reason why we can't have nice things.

Rivuo2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Spice POWAH,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vcsu455L,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-12-11T05:26:10.807+0000)

I suddenly realized this. Think about it--so many complaints about champs and their crits are mostly because of this item, when you get to the root.

"Yasuo does way too much damage" item 3031 pretty much nullifies the crit balancing.

And he does too much damage because he gets so much free crit chance that he can build straight damage.

"Jhin literally 1-shot me" --2.5x damage 4th shot. Cancels out reduced crit damage.

Jhins 4th shot ''literally 1-shot me'' because it does % missing health. At level 5 if you are around 250 health in lane, Jhins 4th bullet will do 180-200 to you with a dorans blade..

"Cait's Headshot+Crit dealt 1000+ damage"--she wouldn't without the crit amp.

Caits headshots scale with crit. It'd still hurt hard if there was no IE.. Headshot and crits arent the same. She will still do 150% bonus AD damage to you ( which is still a lot ) without IE

(haven't seen this as much anymore but still) "Vayne literally 1 and/or 2 shot me with a crit" ...You get it by now.

Implying vayne doesnt have major balance problems right now. Shes a ''late game high skill capped champ'' who has the highest adc play rate and 53% win rate. That has nothing to do with IE thats just vayne being busted.

Twitch has a 57% win rate and IE doesnt even come into his build till mid-late game.

It also increases damage output that applies Lifesteal too, which gives a ton of (potential)In-combat sustain that no one bothers to build item 3123 oritem 3033 against, indirectly making lifesteal stronger on champs that build both. Infinity Edge is very much contributing to the complaints regarding crit damage(well, damage in general), but the champs are blamed more in spite of the crit amplifier being the root. Jinx Draven etc. all feel unbeatable when far ahead enough when fed if they have lifesteal and at least 50% crit

If IE gave something besides the 2.5% crit damage, all of those above complaints would be addressed in one swoop. This is just guessing since I haven't thought about what effect it could give, but maybe some sort of Ramp-up like guinsoo's for ADC and Attack speed+AD champs? I'm not sure what it could give besides an amp, but it's a guess so far, and champs could be balanced around not having that.

EDIT: perhaps a solution to make it stay the same late game would be to make the crit damage amp scale with level(thanks Erockandroll), to hopefully prevent more abuse cases from happening so several champs don't get nerfed instead.

I know it's been around for a long time, but there has to be some better way it can be in the game so there wouldn't be such high damage crits. People are complaining about damage creep, and this would lower ADC's damage across the board, with weaker champs being addressed individually.

  • Fervor now nerfed to a weak version
  • Courage of colossus makes adcs damage non existent for 3-4 autos +
  • No more armor pen for adcs
  • Assassin rework brong tanks back ( Tanks counter adcs for the first 30 minutes of the game )

And you say you want to lower adcs damage across the board..?

Oh boy lets see what rank you are.

Ah silver 3 and you've had your time in bronze.

Im diamond. You have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

PaladinNO2 votes

I always think IE is extremely unhealthy...

https://screenshots.en.sftcdn.net/en/scrn/318000/318673/internet-explorer-10-for-windows-7-16-535x535.png

But on a serious note, exactly what does squishies (other ADCs, mages etc) have to protect themselves against those who specifically can put the Infinity Edge passive to good use?

I mean, there's the Randuin, but I don't think anyone expects that to be a go-to item for everyone. And even with it...well, -10% isn't exactly a lot when you get crit-hit for 1K+ damage in a single shot. Are there even other, or indeed any, defensive items available for "everyone" against critical damage?

I guess we're soon over with the "tank meta", but are we now turning to a damage meta? Despite Tencent stating they don't "create" metas deliberately in any way, obviously.

Adriqnohee2 votes

Crit is a mostly unhealthy stat.

AninLegions7772 votes

Remove crit chance from the item. Problem solved. OR

Give passive similar to Essence Reaver. You need 50% Crit form OTHER sources to reach 250% damage.

BatchBustsMeta1 votes

Maybe... But it seems weird to me that an item that has been around for literally ever, is just now grabbing attention as unhealthy. :-/

Kharn Skyshatter1 votes

{quoted}

Maybe... But it seems weird to me that an item that has been around for literally ever, is just now grabbing attention as unhealthy. :-/

Actually when Dodge was removed there was a push for Critical to removed as well. Riot liked it even though their reason to get rid of Dodge was due to RNG.

BatchBustsMeta1 votes

Well sure crit in general has been something of concern for a lonnnngg time, but never IE specifically, to my knowledge.

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