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AD vs AP itemization and why AD itemization is annoying

Anonagon··26 votes·2,665 views

Lets look at the typical jungle Rengar build:

  • Trailblazer's/Skirmisher's + Devourer/Warrior
  • BoRK
  • Youmuu's
  • Last Whisper
  • boots
  • defensive item

this build is very similar to what a Master Yi or Nocturne jungler would build. A damage oriented top laner like Fiora would build the same thing except with Hydra instead of the jungle item.

What I've noticed is that all these items that are core on both Assassins and ADCs, and many bruisers, are very strong against both Tanks/Bruisers and against Squishies. All these items have some kind of tank-killing quality - magic/true damage on-hit, %hp damage, armor pen. Yet the champions who build these items still excel at assassinating squishies, because even without their tank-killing stats, all these items have substantial damage for their costs, and the tank-killing passives aren't actually specifically anti-tank. I have always noticed that AD damage-building champions are typically much more snowbally than other champions, and I believe this is part of the reason why - AD itemization is generally good against everything, but there is no situational building and no counter-building.

AD players often complain about the lack of good AD itemization, or the homogeneity of AD builds. I believe this is the core of the issue. AP champions have items that let you react to who you are playing, who you are playing with, and who you are playing against. Going against AP? Get Athenes/Abyssal. Going against AD? Zhonya's/Iceborn. Snowballing and want to do tons of AoE damage? Deathcap. Snowballing and you really want to kill their fed ADC? DFG. AP champions have the options to react to any situation, while AD champions have... their usual go-to build. Riot's recent changes aren't helping this problem. They removed Atma's, the only AD/armor item, and they also removed Executioner's Calling, the AD anti-healing item. They could have tried to buff these items to make them work, but instead they decided to remove them, further pushing AD champions to just build their usual build and hope they snowball hard enough.

I've always wondered if this discrepancy between AD and AP itemization is meant to exist - AP itemization having more options whereas AD items are generically more powerful. Its annoying to play as the AD champion and not have the AD/Armor item to run to when you are behind. Its annoying to play against an AD assassin, see they rushed BoRK/LW, and have them 100-0 the squishy you in 2 seconds despite them building for tank killing.

35 Comments

FalconPawwwwnch8 votes

AD is a much more overpowered stat than AP is for a few reasons:

  1. AD scales multiplicatively with Crit/AS/Armor Pen/Crit Damage Whereas AP only scales with CDR
  2. AD works on abilities and on autoattacks on a majority of champions that build AD because of the ever increasing popularity of AD ratios whereas AP (for the most part) works on abilities only

Basically AD has to be balanced around the fact that it CAN be combined with crit/AS/Crit damage etc and not has a stand alone stat, whereas AP can be balanced on its own which is why there's so much more room for a wide variety of item choices on AP champions.

Basically ADCs screw up AD itemization for everyone else

Kuroi863 votes

AD: Crit Chance/AS/ArPen/lifesteal/IE AP: CDR/MagPen/Spellvamp/Deathcap

The problem with AD for the most part is that outside of assassins (and even then it's debatable), AD is worthless without crit damage on top of it.

But then you run into another aspect that makes it difficult to compare AD/AP. AP is meant to burst. AD is meant for DPS. But the only way to win is hope that when you're up against an AP, you land a few lucky crits early so you can sustain through their damage, while as AP, you're hoping they don't get those crits so you can pop them.

It's a balancing act that is just plain ug.

Sammystorm2 votes

AD: Crit Chance/AS/ArPen/lifesteal/IE AP: CDR/MagPen/Spellvamp/Deathcap

The problem with AD for the most part is that outside of assassins (and even then it's debatable), AD is worthless without crit damage on top of it.

But then you run into another aspect that makes it difficult to compare AD/AP. AP is meant to burst. AD is meant for DPS. But the only way to win is hope that when you're up against an AP, you land a few lucky crits early so you can sustain through their damage, while as AP, you're hoping they don't get those crits so you can pop them.

It's a balancing act that is just plain ug.

As a whole magic pen is not as useful as armor pen. Spell vamp is not even worth it on 95% of ap champs because of the fringe abuse cases that use it well. Death cap and IE are comparable but can give burst and dps. Where Cap only gives burst. Crit chance is interesting because it is generally bad on melee champs and generally good on ranged champs. Attack speed is very similar to Crit and goes hand in hand. Someone who benefits from crit always benefits from atk speed. It also usually goes the other way as well. ARpen as a whole is much stronger then MRpen. ARpen has more viable options for item choices (Cleaver, LW, Youmous compared to liandries and void staff). Also if a ap champ is going to burst you they will usually still do a lot of damage where as armor can and does make a lot of champion feel like a wet noodle unless they buy ARpen. Lifesteal is good on every single carry oriented ad champion. It is also very good on many ad bruisers that inhabit the jungle and top lane. It is a fringe case when a ad champ doesn't benefit from life steal.

Crit damage is really only good on a small sub-set of ad champions. A lot of ad champions do just fine without crit. Zed and lee sin are good example or jayce as a range version of those 2. In fact a lot of ad champion benefit heavily from raw ad. What crit chance does is it allows auto attacks to scale. Without crit chance adc's would basically just be there to push towers at range.

Usually AP does burst and usually ad does dps. However the problem here is that AP will only allow champions to burst (a few exceptions like teemo and kayle). However AD allows champions to burst and do good dps. So a AP has to rely on bursting but a ad can rely on bursting then following up with dps.

I could go into more detail on why certain stats are good on certain types of champions but as a whole ad is a better stat then ap.

Leaf of the lake1 votes

Considering that ranged champs don't get any mr/lv besides runes and usually don't build any MR outside of GA, I would say spell pen is considerably more effective than armor pen, if specifically looking at percent damage increase. Sorc shoes + haunting guise = almost doing true damage against a squishy target.

Sammystorm1 votes

Well the reasoning is that if you are someone that a mage targets you are squishy enough that the little amount of mr you have well not stop the burst. Where as if you are ad the armor will considerable lower the dps unless they have pen.

Kuroi861 votes

As a whole I agree with most of what you said. I made my statement because while certain factors are not as prominent in an equation, they should still be taken into consideration in order to gain the full picture.

The only point I would argue is this.

ARpen has more viable options for item choices (Cleaver, LW, Youmous compared to liandries and void staff)

You're partly right. For plain penetration, armor does have more options. Though for magic damage, there are other items that do grant stats similar. item 3020 is one I think you missed on accident or didn't think worth pointing out, item 3001 & item 3091 While both situational, both do give passives very similar to magpen and should be taken into account.

Sammystorm1 votes

I usually forget item 3020 because I never build them on Anivia and she is the main champion I play. The other 2 are so situational that they are really only viable on a very small sub set of champs. Wits End is only good on a few dps oriented champion and even then their are better pen options. Abysal Scepter is better then Wit's End but still not good because most mages will be too much at risk to use it or against a target that they don't want to focus if they want to use it to its full potential.

Kuroi861 votes

Agreed, though I do love Wit's End. xD

Envy Sin1 votes

AD: Crit Chance/AS/ArPen/lifesteal/IE AP: CDR/MagPen/Spellvamp/Deathcap

The problem with AD for the most part is that outside of assassins (and even then it's debatable), AD is worthless without crit damage on top of it.

But then you run into another aspect that makes it difficult to compare AD/AP. AP is meant to burst. AD is meant for DPS. But the only way to win is hope that when you're up against an AP, you land a few lucky crits early so you can sustain through their damage, while as AP, you're hoping they don't get those crits so you can pop them.

It's a balancing act that is just plain ug.

It's funny that you think spellvamp is good, It's not. For two reasons Vlad, and Mord. These two champs abuse it SO FUCKING MUCH that they nerfed the SHIT out of it. A ADC with a BT can clear one wave and be back to full, A APC with any kind of spellvamp is lucky to hit Half hp.

AD: Crit, AS, ARpen, Lifesteal, CDR (ad casters let's be honest.) AP: CDR, Magpen.

Kuroi861 votes

I never said Spellvamp was in a good spot. You pointed out the exact reasons why spellvamp has had to be nerfed so hard.

However, it does still factor into the equation. It's a minor factor, but it still needs to be taken into account.

Sire Hippington5 votes

The peoblem is that BotrK is generally very strong, and not only a counter vs healthstacking, while it'S active makes it way to attracktive for assains, especially if combined with yomuu's. There is also a problem with crit beeing to dominant, while LW always is kinda must buy(well, same with Void for ap though)

However, I'm not realy agreeing on the ap thing. AP item is also pretty stale. Void/Grail/Raba/Hourclass is a mustbuy for most, leaving only one slot for reactive builts.

The main difference is that ad-items serv dps and help tank-killing while still beeing very effecktive vs squishys, while mages usually don't have alot dps and not really itemisation towards it(lich bane usually is more used for aditional burst rather than dps), so they don't destroy tanks as hard, while also the lower base mr than armor makes a difference so that Voidstaff is less efficient than LW vs squishys(probably still to much though)

Anonagon7 votes

The peoblem is that BotrK is generally very strong, and not only a counter vs healthstacking, while it'S active makes it way to attracktive for assains, especially if combined with yomuu's. There is also a problem with crit beeing to dominant, while LW always is kinda must buy(well, same with Void for ap though)

Yeah, thats one of the things I was getting at. BoRK is good against everything. Its good on everyone. Its a very general item despite looking like what should be a health counter. It really should be % bonus health, not current health. Its a very similar situation with Last Whisper. What really should be a counter to armor stacking is made a must-buy because it does % armor rather than % bonus armor.

Junkο1 votes

% bonus health would not work, as it would either shut down champions like Vayne or Twitch that require it early over IE or simply make them build Youmuu which can, combined with their abilities, be even a worse problem early.

aperson14 votes

Vayne and Twitch's entire deal is that they have weak early game itemization in exchange for being comparatively more powerful late game. Getting a major powerspike with one item kind of defeats the purpose...

Besides, if a change to an item improves the game for all but a few champions, those champions should be adjusted first, not the item.

Junkο1 votes

Sadly we all know Riot will not adjust any champion to make them stronger unless they are getting a VU or a skin.

The5lacker3 votes

The problem is abilities have variety and autoattacking has no variety, because every autoattack is functionally the same costless, 100% AD scaling targeted auto-cast ability that applies on-hit effects and can crit.

Because all autoattacks are functionally the same, all autoattack-centric champions tend to function in pretty much the same way: Right click the enemy. Don't die. That means AA vs AA lanes are always going to devolve into the same thing: Who can whittle the opponent down for the kill fast enough.

Honestly, if supports didn't exist, bot lane would be the single most boring slog in the game. That's just how Autoattacks work, especially at high attack speeds. They are functionally the lowest counterplay ability in the game.

Hex the FenFen2 votes

The thing is AD champs have an almost endless pool of offensive capabilities, gap closers and sustain, with the exception of a few AP champs who can utilize the already weak and annoying spell vamp (Vladimir, Katarina, Akali, Swain, Fiddlesticks). AP champs are very much bound and held back by mana and CD's constantly when AD champs can keep on attacking and healing. It is also really REALLY easy to build against AP, even as an ADC or Assassain.

Kowe The Ewok1 votes

Considering the squishy / tank skilling issue: Champions like Zed / Riven / Lee have rediciously AD ratios. So even if they couldn't give less fks avout a stat like health regen or attackspeed even the slightest AD even grant a huge boost and allow them to build these items for their actives.

Junkο3 votes

Zed doesn't really have huge ratios, i guess his ult can technically do a shit ton of dmg, but you would most likely die at that point anyway. His passive deals tooo much dmg though.

aaronconlin1 votes

With the new jungle items making junglers have more options, I think new items should be added for different roles too. Bruiser and AD tank builds should be different from ADC builds, and there should be enough situational items to apply to most scenarios. The same goes for AP items.

Maybe adding things like: Something like the old Executioner's Calling to apply Grievous Wounds to counter high-sustain champs Something like Wicked Hatchet to apply a damage-over-time effect to melee attacks/critical hits

vinnythetaco1 votes

people forget that along with what others here have mentioned ad also pushes turrets and objectives better then ap. all ap can do is kill champs. u can't use abilities on turrets.

no1cur1 votes

I've always seen that as a huge problem. Even though I've managed to wave clear with massive aoe burst and pushed all the way up to the enemy inhibitor turret while the rest of the team was fending off the enemy by our base it makes no difference because I won't even have the turret down to half health by the time the entire enemy team respawns because I do about 20 damage with my autos.

An easy fix would be to apply some percentage of your AP for "mage" class characters to damage against buildings.

The5lacker1 votes

That "easy fix" already exists. Champions deal damage to structures equal to either 100% of their AD or 100% of their base AD + 40% of your AP.

supes the lost1 votes

wait, so if I play a hybrid champ, what do I scale off when I hit towers?

Tannhäuser Gate3 votes

Whichever is higher i believe

NorthernDruid1 votes

About BotRK, it's the only item which combines Lifesteal and attack speed.

:O

How about we add some Lifesteal to the Phantom Dancer, or make a new item with similar structure to it and the Statikk Shiv, AS+Crit%+Movespeed +lifesteal

Hullabaloo9071 votes

Phantom dancer is really strong already, its just a little over shadowed by ghostblade and shiv because both of those have an avarice blade and both offer some combination of flat damage and damage multipliers, making them really strong early.

Lategame it only takes a couple attacks for phantom dancer to catch up to the initial damage shiv does.

PrinceArchie1 votes

If you believe AD offensive itemization is not as varied as AP itemization then I can agree with that. Ap itemization tends to have items you can use to give you more AP, MR, Penetration, HP,etc and usually in a single item with at least two of these aspects. For example if I play a champ like Diana against a heavy AD team comp I can just build zohnyas and then choose from there if I want to really crush through any of their MR with a void staff. With these two items alone im given great utility in one of the best actives for a carry I feel in game with Zohnya, great defense boost and void staff a AP version of last whisper essentially to greater solidify my presence.

Then if I want more defense and AP I can build a GA which nearly puts my armor to 200, gives me a revive and start building a abysall scepter to greater lower thier MR and increase mine, making me more tanky. As a AD bruiser carry like fiora I build much like a Zed and hope I can delete them, before they can respond to me, rather then feeling secure in a multitude of item options that sure up weaknesses and heighten my strengths.AP carry's get the opportunity to become hyper damage tanks while a lot of AD's stay glass cannons, whose life steal may or may not keep them in a fight.

One is definitely more risky, both very rewarding however I must say I feel more safe as that AP and much more versatile in a team fight. Dont have a tank? No problem, with zohnyas I can initiate like one and give my team a fair chance to follow up. So I see where you are coming from.

Sammystorm1 votes

Well the thing is like ad champ, most ap champs have a optimized build that everyone builds. However unlike ad champs their aren't really very good dps options for ap champs so most build very similar.

Ad champions have 2 routes to go, dps or burst. Also AD champions have more offensive stats to work with and ap champs have more defensive stats to work with.

Earl Eulrich1 votes

What I've noticed is that all these items that are core on both Assassins and ADCs, and many bruisers, are very strong against both Tanks/Bruisers and against Squishies.

that really highlights the core issue right there. It´s really showing that most AD-Assassins go straight for Brut->LW, despite having no intention to deal primarily with high-armor-targets...so if someone is rushing an item that is ment to counter armor to fight sth. that does not want to build armor at all, there´s something really problematic about the design. My prefered Solution would be to offer Flat-pen to go vs Squishies and Stacking-%arp (think BC, not LW) to deal with tanks (and no, those diferent types of Pen should absolutelly not stack with each other).

Crit is in a similar bad Spot...as Crit offers the highest scaling for DPS aswell as Burst for AD-Carries. It´s one of the reasons Lucian is as popular as he is...if you just step onto someone and get 4lucky IE-crits in a row in less than 1sec then you just outburst a LeBlanc, while not really stopping to deal dmg for the next couple of seconds...so again, it totally amplifies your power vs Squishies - while still offering you incredible sustained dmg vs tanks. * My prefered Solution here would be to change Crit into sth. like Weapon-Mastery...increasing your dmg with AutoAttacks by Crit%. So the mathematical DPS Crit offers wouldn´t be touched at all, but the Burst-spikes would be gone, making it a little less effective vs Squishies.*

Botrk then is the last offender I´m going to talk about - but lets say if Zed rushes this Item to specifically assassinate Mages that don´t ever go to build some maxhealth, especially early on...that just shows that this item offers just way to much dps overall with it´s mix of AD. AS and the procc (+ the brust-spike from the active), but doesn´t really do much specifically for it´s intended niche of countering high-hp-builds.

A Solution would be to just get rid of all the AD on the item and focus more on the maxhealth-dmg, making it an actual bad-rush vs anything that doesn´t rush a warmogs itself, but a lategame-option to deal with sth. like a 4warmogs Mundo. Also, possibly split it into two Items - 1 new bloodrazor with the %maxhealth-dmg and 1 item that focuses onto kiting/mobility with the active. The mix right now just overloads the item instead of making it a really interessting buy.

Sammystorm1 votes

Well I don't really agree with you on anything but I want to touch on stacking pen.

If we change the pen changes back to how they were in season 2 it does a couple of things. It makes tanks alot stronger it also makes bruisers a lot tankier. It makes it so you can get away with a lot less health as long as you stack resists. This usually extends games and extends fights and can push out several strategies. Now I agree that rushing the armor pen and nuking everything is unhealthy but I think it is more the items fault and less the interaction of how pen works.

Linna Excel1 votes

AD players having good items means ADCs have good items. ADCs are OP enough as it is right now.

Hullabaloo9071 votes

your leaving out a bunch of really strong items that are really good on different types of champions. The most glaring example is item 3078 , but there are others.

Penetration will always be best on ad castors, because penetration allows them to boost there base spell damage, adn there scaling is usually a lot less than ap champs due to deathcap and due to the fact that most ap champs cant aa pretty much at all.

Plasma Servant1 votes

The real problem is that ad items proc on auto attacks. When you compare that to AP items, they generally don't proc on auto attacks, and nashor's tooth might put a miniscule part of the ap items on auto attacks, it is nowhere near as effective as ad items. You might be tempted to say: "But ap items are so much more powerful .... " Not when you factor in the ratios for ad champions vs ap champions. Wukong as a 400% ratio on his ult. Caitlyn, has 130% on her q and 200% on her ult. So a champion with IE, BT, LW, and PD is doing a ton of damage. Conservatively estimate the ad = 180 ... every auto attack is doing 180 unless it crits ... make it they 450 ... which if you are hitting even a slow 1.8 times/second means you crit almost every second (at least 55% just from items) so every other shot is probably 450 damage (minus armor) squishies melt under ad attacks like warm butter on a skillet. And that is for auto attacks, no skill shots needed (though many ad's have hard cc they can push to make the kill even more sure).

It just shouldn't be that way. AD champions are way over balanced compared to ap champions. Don't believe me? Play aram ... that is where the difference shows up in spades.

MLDzXnRRR1 votes

Who builds BoRK on assasin Rengar???

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