Abyssal Scepter Suggestions

The Problem: Abyssal Scepter has gone from one of the more popular items in season 2 to an item that is never rarely seen in season 4 (at either a competitive or solo queue level). There are a three primary reasons for this: the rise of athene's unholy grail, the range nerf, and the changes to penetration priority.

The Solution: The first fix that would put it into a more balance-able state is similar to how penetration priorities were changed in the pre-season. Flat magic resistance reduction should be applied after percentage magic penetration. Alternatively, as that change is unintuitive (and affects other champion abilities), abyssal scepter could provide magic penetration against all enemy champions within the range of the aura. This leads to the same result, while being more intuitive, but is slightly more confusing.

Why would this help? Currently abyssal scepter's magic resistance reduction aura has an dissynergy with void staff, making it an inefficient buy for nearly all mages in the current (and all past) meta(s). This is in contrast to flat magic penetration, which has its effectiveness increased by percentage magic penetration. This change would put the abyssal scepter aura act in the same way as other magic penetration items and make it a more viable item, while also making it balance-able in the same way as other flat penetration items. Example: Enemy with 100 magic resistance. You have a void staff, the percentage penetration mastery, and an abyssal scepter. Your multiplier is then: 100/(100+(100-20).6) = .676 Without void staff: 100/(100+100-20) = .556 For comparison: Enemy with 100 magic resistance. You have a void staff, the percentage penetration mastery, and a haunting guise. Your multiplier is: 100/(100+100.6-15) = .725 Without void staff: 100/(100+100-15) = .541 Summary of Comparison: Clearly, there is a much larger difference in the damage reduction when you have a source of magic resistance instead of a source of magic resistance reduction. This is something that is a relic of the time prior to the changes to penetration and reduction prioritization changes, and I think that it's something that needs to be changed before abyssal scepter can be balanced well.

Other changes: Abyssal scepter is a hybrid offensive-defensive item, but it falls short as an offensive item late game (even in comparison to other hybrid AP items, such as rylai's crystal scepter). I think an easy fix to this would be to buff the ap up to 80. This would make it an acceptably slot efficient item, and this would leave price as a balancing lever (as well as the amount of magic resistance reduction). This would also help solidify it as an item that can be effectively built into later on with solid ap, while allowing it to compete with chalice of harmony as an early MR source (negatron vs chalice). I realize they fulfill different niches (and for that reason the range of the aura makes sense), but the current tradeoff is too high currently to build abyssal scepter. NOTE: This is merely a suggestion to put the item in a better place after fixing its over-arching problem, not one that I consider necessarily essential to making the item viable again.

Conclusion: Thank you for all who read this; I realize this deals with a relatively subtle aspect of itemization, but this is a problem that I think prevents abyssal scepter from being a truly balanced item after the penetration changes. Please upvote to try and get some attention for the problem.

TL;DR: Abyssal scepter's aura has an dissynergy with percentage penetration. The way the aura functions needs to be changed to make it act more like magic penetration.

Edit: Fixed never to rarely, thank you 12TALES.