This Patch Is A Train Wreck!

There will be a TL;DR for those that don't want to read the entire thing

This is mostly my opinion, but I'm so disheveled by this that I can't write it as such

Honestly, the only thing "major" that came out of this patch that wasn't horrible, was Tahm Kench. That being said, what's wrong with this patch?

First of all (working straight down the patch notes), the Death Recap is still jacked all to hell. You know what would SEVERELY increase the viability of the Death Recap? I honestly don't care WHO is doing damage to me... I really don't. I don't care if a minion got an assists, I don't care if there was a turret involved... What do I care about? How much of the damage was magic, how much was physical, how much was true... and who ACTUALLY got the kill (on the off chance I didn't notice on the right of the screen when it popped up.) Should be easy enough to do to be honest.

Not talking about the champion buffs/nerfs because I don't play half of them and they're kinda whatever.

Itemization

The AP item changes (we'll start here and then talk about Devourer, Righteous Glory, Runeglaive, and Spirit Visage) were needed to some extent, but they went about it COMPLETELY wrong.

In the Patch Rundown, Zirene mentions that a lot of the AP items are now 80 or 100 AP, 3000 Gold, and that you're paying the same amount of gold for different utility on different items.

This was a buff to the following items: (Item) - (AP) - 20 AP buff - (seems to be same base AP), now Scales 2x AP per minute (40 after 10 minutes) - 30 AP buff - 10 AP buff - 20 AP buff - +5% bonus AP from passive

This was a nerf to the AP on the following items: - 20 AP nerf - 20 AP nerf - 20 AP nerf

And this had no affect on AP for the following items:

This is a total AP buff across the board of 20 AP:

80AP buff - 60 AP nerf = 20 AP across the board.

So the entire purpose of this was to make it so you can still reach (roughly) the same overall AP levels without abusing the "3 NLR build" like every AP midlaner has been doing as of late. You still get the (roughly) same overall AP, but now you get various utilities that you have to actually decide to purchase in hopes that your decision was meaningful, and will give you the best chance at winning.

I have one problem with this approach... GETTING UTILITY SHOULD BE A TRADE-OFF! It should not be some bonus that you just have to decide which one you want, it should be a straight up trade-off. That was the original intent behind utility items for AP champions, and it made sense.

The decision way back when was "oh, should I get Rylai's for the slow? I'll lose out on some damage somewhere, but that utility might help us out." That decision makes sense as far as build choices go. Utility, or damage, not both. Damage, or tankiness, not both.

The reason nearly all AP players abused the 3 NLR build, was because the damage potential from that build was far greater for the team than any of the utility options. Simply buffing all all the AP items, and nerfing the 3 NLR items, was not the way to change up the build options you have. People will still get Rabadon's, which means the increase on the passive will still get them close to the AP levels prior to this patch, they'll still get Zhonya's because the active is just too strong in most scenarios (2 seconds of invulnerability while my CD's still count down?), and they'll still get Void Staff (WHICH GOT A BUFF).

All Riot has done with these item changes is offer AP champs more... They'll still hit close to the same AP they got before this patch, now they just get to add on some utility into their builds, and in the case of some champions (), he'll just be able to hit 1k AP AND have added utility.

Moving On

Devourer:

Pretty solid rework, the fact that it stacks on monster assists as well as kills is pretty nice for the team as a whole, since the midlaner can now get their blue buff with a devourer jungler, and the jungler isn't stressing about whether they are the ones that dealt the killing blow to drake (although, with smite, that shouldn't have been much of an issue in the first place).

SATED DEVOURER:

Seriously, Riot needs to think some things out before they make items because this one is absolutely dreadful (not as bad as FF on it's own, but REALLY bad). Riot even said in the patch notes that they are "very aware of the potential craziness that can come from it." Referencing that BotRK's on-hit effect would proc twice. Well, after having seen a Sated Devourer Vayne, with BotRK and LW (and some other juicy items), chunk a 500 Armor Malphite for nearly a quarter of his health with 2 auto attacks...

Seriously, why would you implement something that you ARE AWARE could cause some serious issues in-game?

Moving on further...

I like the changes to Spirit Visage, and the changes to Righteous Glory seem somewhat justified. That being said, I'd happily take a complete revert of this patch (with the exception of Tahm Kench), and have Riot make proper changes to AP itemization, and hopefully never have to see a Sated Devourer Vayne ever again.

Thoughts?

==========TL;DR==========

The AP itemization changes are horribly flawed, you should have to trade-off damage for utility.

Sated Devourer is HORRIBLE!

Tahm Kench is amazing.