Building defensive items should not be a newb trap

Yenn·Jul 21, 2019·2 votes·690 views

For anyone unaware, any sort of carry should usually never build any defensive item until your third item, even if you're losing, barring a few specific scenarios (i.e. Hourglass vs. Zed).

In almost every case, it's better to rush offense and hope you can either kill your opponent before they kill you, or do as much damage before you die, so your team can clean up. Building defensive items just makes you lose harder; you do no damage and often still won't survive.

This is a pretty terrible state for the game to be in, and further devolves it into 'who can kill who faster.'

3 Comments

YennJul 21, 20191 votes

This is an example of how ridiculous this is.

https://i.imgur.com/tBjPCGw.jpg[]

Despite the fed Rengar, I had to rush a Deathcap after Luden's so I could maintain my advantage over Irelia. If I had built Hourglass early to counter him, even with my gold advantage, her offensive itemization would have quickly overpowered me.

Zero ShingetsuJul 21, 20191 votes

To be honest, I've found I do best when I don't build any defensive items. It's gotten to the point where AP Sejuani performs leagues better than Tank Sejuani. Even Leona is being built with AP these days...

Posui GartJul 21, 20191 votes

Well, if rushing defensive items would not have a damage tradeoff, there would be no reason to build offensive items.

hope you can either kill your opponent before they kill you, or do as much damage before you die, so your team can clean up

Well, that works with whatever you build. You either die or kill everyone else before dying. You are not supposed to 100% survive every fight just because you rushed item 3157 / item 3102 / item 3156 / item 3047 whatever.