Mid-Year Mage Update - Itemization Rework
I created a theorycrafting video for the MYMU - was wondering if any Rioters (and other community members ofc) have anything to say about it? :3
21 Comments
i would like single path items to get more options - > 
Vladimir, Mordekaiser, Kennen and Akali are the reason spell vamp can never be good.
Marksmen are allowed to have power in lifesteal because they have mana costs. Riot has stated, quite plainly, that they never intend to make a marksman who does not use mana.
Meanwhile, some mages do not use mana. Those that do not, can buy spell vamp and gain sustain all day for free. When spell vamp is good, Vladimir and Mordekaiser become unbreakable walls in lane, while Morgana and Akali scale ridiculously well into late game and become almost unstoppable.
While spell vamp is bad, no one can use it.
As long as energy exists, spell vamp cannot. Period.
As for your Seeker's rework, I dislike that as well. Zhonya's may grant immunity to all types of damage, but it also has the stipulation that you cannot take actions during that time either. (You can't move as well). Your Seeker's rework gives you total immunity to half of all damage, but also allows you to carry on as normal. Playing super aggressively with this item would be a nightmare, not to mention how it would be on Tryndamere or Kayle, who would use it back to back with their ultimates to absolutely decimate a team.
Hell, if Master Yi could become immune to physical damage for 1 second while picking up some armor for just 1400 or less gold, he would. And then he would get pentakills.
Flat penetration stacking on mages - This is why Abyssal is the way it is now, instead of giving flat penetration. Too much flat penetration on mages is a very bad thing. The reason that flat penetration can be stacked on AD champions is because AD champions have to get up close and dirty in order to fight enemies (ranged AD champions are designed to need crit and attack speed too much to build any flat pen).
If Lux had 50 MR Pen, she would be able to wipe the enemy squishies off the map from an entire lane away, and then her entire kit would need to be nerfed to compensate, which would create a crutch where she NEEDS to build those items in order to function and has no item diversity, and then if those items get nerfed or removed, she is left powerless. Apply the same logic to Karthus, Ziggs, Twisted Fate, and every other AP champion with insanely long range.
Your ideas aren't bad, per se, they just don't really fit in with the type of game balance Riot has been using for years.
You make to many assumptions in this video and personally i would not intentional watch another one from you again. You are changing things and seem not aware of the problems they would cause in game, they are just a build up for your later items.
Certain things are not healthy, like mages sustaining in lane, but to paraphrase you "it should be a choice." Mages are supposed to have windows of vulnerability and should make sacrifice to sustain.
Last thought, you put the most thought about abyssal's removal from the game, the problem with it is that you have 6 months worth of material and PBE testing where riot is talking about how the item is not health as is. You are pretty much acting like these are original ideas that do not have a source, which they do. You are a plagiarists and if you really have anything to do with DIG, should be fired. You could of easily mentioned how riot as talked about some of X and partly formed your thoughts as a acknowledgement or nod to others work. Instead you pass of the whole thing as yours.
Everything's pretty good, but I disagree with giving Seeker's duration scaling based on armor. Why? Because, since Seekerms has to build into something with the same active/passive, Armor Tanks such as Malphite, Rammus, and such will buy it and get around 4 seconds of physical damage immunity, which is huge, allowing them to rush a Seeker's in lane and get both offensive power and MAJOR defensive power. Perhaps increase the base duration to 1.25-1.5 seconds and remove the armor scaling. Or DRAMATICALLY reduce the armor scaling.
Overall I disagree strongly with all your ideas. For me having items that pull in a couple different directions is a good thing because it creates more diversity in builds game to game so that build paths are dynamic based on your enemies comp rather than just a static build. These items reward players for understanding the strengths of their champion and their opponents champions by being more gold efficient if you will actually be taking advantage of every stat and less gold efficient than other items if you aren't. Taking away areas that players can demonstrate mastery in the game through knowledge of matchups in favour of only rewarding mechanical skill seems like a poor choice.
no ?
Disclamer: Opinions, not whines
As a Xerath main I didn't like any of the changes you proposed so far except maybe the one and the change of active on the . Right now there is no "pure" mage that builds spellvamp except Vladimir of the big six and most of the times you use as examples AP assassins. As I understood (english not being my primary language so I might have missed some words) you focused on making the items in the video less wanted for them or removed the ones you thought were problematic on them. Fair enough, but you should have something up your sleeve to compensate immobile mages for the huge chunk of stat and damage loss.
And I'm gonna start playing more Veigar in this patch >:D
I totally agree with everything you said and I like your suggestions and ideas as well. Good job!
They're not the "Traditional mages" they are "Immobile mage"