I see no reasons why marksmen should be better than mages at BOTH killing tanks AND turrets

SSShutTheDuckUp··7 votes·557 views

So tanks, fighters and assassins seem somewhat reasonable: tanks do not deal damage, but are tanky, assassins (should) deal tons of damage, but are squishy and fighters are somewhere in between. There is more on the table like mobility, crowd control and so on, but let's simplify things.

Meanwhile: Marksmen are better than mages at killing tanks, killing turrets, have better synergy with supports (item 3504). What are mages supposed to be better at? Burst? Well, first of all item 3087 and item 3094 exists, second of all assassins are supposed to be better at than mages at that. Also marksmen are better against burst, because item 3046 + life steal exist. CC? Well, tanks are better than mages in that and marksmen are still better than mages against that, because item 3140. Wave clear? AOE? Well, item 3087 + item 3085. On top of that marksmen enjoy better scaling, because the itemize AD+AS+Crit+CDR, while mages increase their damage with AP+CDR. So tell me, please. At what aspect of the game mages are supposed to be better than marksmen?

11 Comments

Mens Hair Club2 votes

utility, many mages have invaluable utility

SSShutTheDuckUp1 votes

Yes, but many marksmen have as well - ashe, varus, kalista... And on top of that supports and tanks usually have better utility than mages

Teridax682 votes

I think even in an ideal game state, marksmen should still be better at dealing with tanks than mages, because tanks are innately strong against burst and weak to DPS due to their large, mostly static health pools. Mages tend to be quite vulnerable while their spells are on cooldown, which should give the tank plenty of time to get in range and disable them, whereas marksmen can output damage constantly until they or their opponent die.

With that said, I agree with you that currently marksmen also often deal a lot of burst, which isn't great, and I also agree that pushing should not be exclusively the domain of persistent damage-dealers. A big issue right now is that turrets are made immune to direct ability damage, which simply favors marksmen even more, as the latter can use their own abilities to accelerate their pushing power via stat steroids. Because of this, I think it could be useful to get rid of that immunity, while also increasing their health pool and taking out the AP-to-damage ratio on turrets, which would give mages the ability to siege structures, something many marksmen can already do.

SSShutTheDuckUp2 votes

{quoted} pushing should not be exclusively the domain of persistent damage-dealers.

Exactly. There is a lot that could be done - damage could scale fot 0,5 of the AD for ranged attackers for example. The whole game revolving around one class is simply not fun

Ralanr2 votes

DPS beats durability.

Ideally this is the strength of marksmen.

SSShutTheDuckUp1 votes

In theory - yes. But when we take into the account turret killing, sieging, life drain and so one the strengths become too many

DizTheGreat1 votes

the thing of it is, if a markman buildsitem 3155 early they will have a wonky build, unlike a fighter mid. marksman have always served the same purpose as a mid laner, due to getting damage from their auto attacks as well as scaling on their kits, marksman are squishy and have to build squishy to have any real effect. the way to beat them is to pick them off and avoid extended fights with them.

Geshultz1 votes

Mages can literally be summarized to high area of effect damage with crowd control and typically longer range then most marksmen. Great sieging tools or diving tools typically that most marksmen don't have. Normally have the best waveclear on a team as well; besides that they are needed to have mix damage on a team, because without it armor stacking team will win majority of games if the full ad team comp doesn't snowball really hard.

Teémò1 votes

Teemo Kennen Ekko Evelynn Gragas TwistedFate Rammus item 3100 item 2139

boo9101 votes

What about having mages autos against turrets scale the same way they do with marksmen, but with ap

Or have it apply a mark that stays for one second then explodes dealing damage to the turret scaling of ap

SSShutTheDuckUp1 votes

Mages AA on structures have AP scaling, however most of them they do not build AS. That's why their DPS on structures is way lower than marksmens'

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