It's 80.31% efficient without passive. Gunblade is 140% efficient without active. Protobelt is 95% gold efficient without active. Abyssal is 96% gold efficient without passive.
I get that it becomes too good on artillery mages if ut has a ton of AP, so why not buff the movement speed? The passive is only significant early on anyways, so higher MS would encourage its intended users, the AP assassins, to push mid and roam.
The Lost Marbles13 votesJust knock 300 gold off its combine price.
That puts it at around the same gold efficiency as Statikk Shiv and gives it the same cost as Morellonomicon.
It's kind of silly how much more you get out of Morello than Luden's for 300 less gold.
Arakadia1 votesI'd rather it get an APbbuff considering the vast majority of AP items give CdR, or mana, or pen, or utility, or health, or something else. And for being an all damage item, Ludens doesn't give that much AP.
Erockandroll5 votesI'd rather it get an APbbuff considering the vast majority of AP items give CdR, or mana, or pen, or utility, or health, or something else. And for being an all damage item, Ludens doesn't give that much AP.
With the exception of Deathcap, Riot pretty much set the upper limit of AP items at 100. And frankly, I remember when the 120 level AP items were must buy, pushing out all other options, and frankly, I don't want to return to that.
Rather, I would simply see the passive getting buffed, or just having something else added to it.
Arakadia1 votesThe passive buff would be nice; it would make it stronger but not must buy.
Paquay2 votesI think the thing that makes Morello's really attractive is the build path. The items seem to give better return for their value. Don't get me wrong, having a bunch of AP is nice early on, but having lane sustain or CDR is pretty dang nice.
Also, if you get killed early, or a fight breaks out and you have to back sooner than intended, it's easier to slowly build the components rather than be forced to frown and take some consolation boots, lol.
MunchCrunchLunch9 votesmages main source of damage output is burst. ludens gives extra burst of base damage and scaling. thats why. the item is purchased frequently.
ZerglingOne5 votes10% persistent movement speed is more than any other item in the game.
You aren't paying for gold efficiency. You're paying for slot efficiency.
Sire Hippington3 votesBuff the MS? The current 10% are already kinda insane and the main reason it's goldefficiency is kept so low. Good luck catching an artillery mage that runs around with well above 400 ms. The only buff for ludens would support is increasing the number of targets from the proc, or even making it damage on the entier aoe.
But if you buff the AP or lower the cost, it will be to strong as a rush item, especially wehn picked up by someone who's already ahead. If you buff the MS, have fun with mages speeding around like YI with perma ult.
Head Connoisseur3 votesThe thing with movement speed passives, is that they becoming more and more efficient (gold-wise) with each step you take after you buy the item, and luden gives a huge amount of ms.
yung swisher2 votesThe thing with movement speed passives, is that they becoming more and more efficient (gold-wise) with each step you take after you buy the item, and luden gives a huge amount of ms.
That's..... not how an item becomes gold efficient
Head Connoisseur1 votesI understand how items become gold efficient based on their total stats given compared to the price/stats given by the base components. However movement speed items have no statistical way of judging how much added value you get by purchasing them, because it scales with how much you move around the map.
Head Connoisseur2 votesI understand how items become gold efficient based on their total stats given compared to the price/stats given by the base components. However movement speed items have no statistical way of judging how much added value you get by purchasing them, because it scales with how much you move around the map.
DeathBurst2 votesNo it doesn't. You don't say an AD item becomes more "efficient" every time you auto-attack. A MS item doesn't become more efficient either with every step you take. That's just not what "efficient" means.
Head Connoisseur1 votesOkay, if that's the case, then give me the actual gold value of the 10% ms from luden's. Ms passives have varying levels of stats given to begin with, since champions do not all have the same base movespeed. Luden's ms would be greater on Lee Sin (as stupid as the item would be on him) than it would be on morde or naut. However, you can't actually judge how much use you gain from it through the course of a game, or even in a single teamfight because there is no "total distance walked" or "average speed during game" stat, whereas with ad or ap you can see direct correlations to the bonuses you are getting to your autos or abilities. "Oh, I see that my 60% ad-scaling ability just increased by 6 damage when I bought this longsword". The only champions who gain measurable stats or buffs from movespeed (with how the end-game stats are) are hecarim's passive, and warwick's ult range (correct me of I missed one).
TwinkiePro2 votesWhen you speak of passives, you mean both the 10% MS and the Proc? If so, then you do not understand how powerful both of those are. When charged, it allows the next spell to do a bonus 100+10% of ap, which for some champs, is a significant amount of burst.
Also, it is unfair to compare it to gunblade as the item itself isn't as generalist as ludens. If you do not make use of both the AD and AP in the item, nor have decent DPS, it is a horrible item.
GayFluffyUnicorn1 votesLeblanc says hi.
A Basic Island2 votespart of me makes me wanna say it's really hard to determine how much the 100+10% ap proc should cost
then again i look at gunblade and see it does nearly 300dmg just by itself (ap from gunblade+base).
idk... Then agin gunblade you're kinda upgrading an active you already have
LyingOnLine2 votesThey had to nerf it down after it was introduced.
Turns out giving more burst and a massive amount of movement speed to a class designed around their innate mobility statistics ended up kind of wacky.
Vekkna1 votesUhh...no. It wasn't even popular at release. At the time, Luden's, Zhonya's, and Rabadon's all had 120 AP and a similar price point, with Luden's being cheapest of the three. Luden's also had 8% MS passive, and the damage proc recharged at a dramatically faster rate because it charged from spellcasts and movement.
Even then people hardly ever built it! What you're saying just isn't true. They nerfed Luden's because it's a mage item, and mage items have seen nothing but nerfs across the board (with the exception of Liandry's and Morello). It's core now because the nerfed, gold-inefficient Luden's is the only early power spike available to mages anymore.
LyingOnLine1 votesI remember the events surrounding the release of Luden's rather well, thank you. And it was most definitely popular upon release. Practically every mage built it, and it sent AP Kog into the stratosphere overnight.
GayFluffyUnicorn1 votesDude ludens at the beginning at something like 0,5 AP ratio and was must buy on every mage. It's passive was easily another empowered vlad Q for example or ori Q or syndra AND it stacked with like two abilities or three secs of walking on top of 120 AP. Riot ofc nerfed that immediately. Now look at the AP ratio left.
Danjeng2 votesGold efficiency is not a good indicator of item's power, since some stats aren't so easy to attain, even if cheap. Using Boots of Speed for reference, one point of movement speed cost 12 G. Then the slowest base MS (325) champion in the game could keep up with the quickest (355) for only a measly 360 G!
However, only a few items give movement speed outside of boots. Using boots to measure the gold efficiency of MS isn't accurate, because of how rare MS items are. Also how is % MS calculated in terms of gold efficiency? I call bullshit on these cost analytics.
_Ohmwrecker becomes 124.78% gold efficient when near turrets. _
chipndip11 votesLuden's is a big ass stat stick. That's why.
If it had a different passive or something, then maybe it could afford better efficiency, but for now it's just 100 ap, some movement, and some tacked on damage when you damage someone.
junglerboy161 votesThe passive has no cooldown and since the majority of the damage is weighted in the base rather than the scaling it allows otherwise low damage champs (i.e. supports, utility mages) to increase their personal damage quite dramatically. Additionally, on poke or burst champions, if it were more efficient as an item (considering it is already one of the top tier items for raw AP) it would skew damage output in an excessive way, akin to how DFG (what Luden's was designed to replace) used to make burst mages instant delete champions, or more visibly for poke champs, every nidalee spear would have that much higher chance of killing you outright. Keeping the item weaker allows balance to be focused more on the actual play patterns of the champs who use it, rather than having to flat out nerf all of them because they might use it.
BLACK REALM GOD1 votesmovement speed is why it's so costly. the AP is actually secondary.
SteelMankind1 votesI think part of the reasoning behind keeping it weak is because of how easily the passive is granted. Yes, you have to move around, but consider how most AP mages/assassins fight: they hang back, strafing left and right as we are all prone to do since it's ingrained to us that standing still in League = death, and look for an opportunity to use their CD's to oneshot.
This is markedly different from Statikk Shiv or RFC's similar effects because a single auto attack from the purchasers of those items is never THAT significant, while a single spell from a Ludens user could potentially enable a oneshot with a full rotation. I think, given the nature of how spellcasters approach combat, the Ludens passive is granted too easily, forcing it to be perpetually mediocre. Hopefully Riot gives it something good soon; I could use a clear "buy this" first item for Ekko lol.
Spoofghoul1 votesdid you calculate in the free pair of boots? the extra 100 base damage and 10% ap ration you get into your kit
because its not a bad item at all since it scales further with additional ap purchases
granted gunblade and protobelt do that too, but not every mage wants to dash into the middle of the enemy team nor needs the ad from gunblade
meanwhile having both more range and more movement then most opponents is always useful
SteelMankind1 votesIts not a "free pair of boots", part of the cost of the item is the movement speed. Nothing on the item is "free" lol.
For Ludens to be 100% gold efficient, the passive must be worth 600 gold. Whether it is or not is pretty difficult to say exactly.
Automated Riven1 votesThe value of the passive highly depends on how many enemy champs you can hit with it.
Frightning1 votesIt's passive is REALLY strong, especially if rushed. A flat 100 extra magic dmg (+15% AP) on up to 4 targets, that charges up fast from movement? That's like a free rank 2 spell of extra base damage.
Joseraph1 votesFree if you pay 3k gold
Kappa
Sohleks1 votes10% movespeed is kind of a lot already
It was probably more gold efficient back in the day it was a 120 ap item but it's now tuned to a cutting edge with the proc dmg being accounted for because Riot taxes and counts damage power very hard.
They are much more lax when it comes to defensive or team based power budgets because GAME HEALTH bla bla
It's still a strong item compared to deathcap.
Lady Hammerlock1 votesSame like Rabadon's basically now of course I'll be counting the passive bc by logic it's actual value spikes tremendously that way, effectively more AP=more Luden's value, Why? Because it's passive scales with AP Although shaving 100-200 off it's price probably wouldn't be to monstrously broken considering AP's downward AP spiral lately
SteelMankind1 votesScaling is terrible though. 10% means at 700 AP, it will do 70 more damage (170 total). The passive is really only significant if its purchased first.
ExternalLink1 votesIt already has 10% MS buff, the only offensive item with a higher MS buff than that is Phantom Dancer, and that's situational. Just to put it in comparison, Triforce and Lich Bane, both traditionally built on bruisers/assassins who want and need to move fast, only give 5 and 7% respectively. And please don't act like you want it buffed for 'ap assassins' - the only real AP assassins in this game right now are Akali and Fizz, and you literally just started off with a QQ about their core items. (Could lump Diana in there too I guess, and no, I didn't forget Ekko or LB, it's just that they're not really 'assassins', they're this weird mage, bursty, (in ekko's case, bruisery, fighter thing)
Vekkna1 votes"100 base damage is so super strong, y'all! Dat passive so much gold value!"
Damage-wise, 
passive + active + aa reset shits on Luden's passive in every conceivable way, and it's on a component.
The Lost Marbles1 votesContinuing off of my first post, if Luden's rush was made too good with it being a bit more affordable, you could just make the base damage on it scale with level like Shiv and the Hextech items do.
Just Blame Jenny1 votesBecause movement is awesome, and the passive is huge early.
Sure, it falls off a bit late, but early game it gives you loads of snowball potential.