Phantom Dancer Rework

Stacona··3 votes·796 views

I am going to come out and say it, I hate Phantom Dancer's design, it has always been about a ball of stats item with nothing fun about it. Now this is fine for some items, but when 3/4 Zeal items have interesting and fun passives and are damage orientated Phantom Dancer should be as well to create the quadra of Zeal items bought for their unique elements rather than out-stating one of their breathren.

The unique utilities can easily be: Rapid Firecannon for range and single target burst Statikk Shiv for AoE burst Runaan's Hurricane for AoE sustain damage Phantom Dancer for single target focus damage

This creates each item in their own unique spectrum bought for their passive rather than their stats, and you can make each item all have fun passives to use. As I said items don't have to have fun, cool passives but because the Zeal items are all along the same line they should be damage based and all have the fun, cool passives to use.


Phantom Dancer: Recipe: Recurve Bow (1000g) + Zeal (1300g) + 300g = 2600g

Statistics: +40% Attack Speed +30% Critical Strike Chance +6% Movement Speed +UNIQUE Passive - Waltz of Death: Your main basic attack applies a dancing phantom that swirls around your target for 6 seconds, up to 4 dancing phantoms. Upon reaching 4 dancing phantoms they choke out the target to deal (+50%AD) magic damage, which can critically strike, disappearing afterwards.

Attacking another target causes all dancing phantoms to disappear from your previous target.


If you are confused on how this works, it is basically the same mechanic as Vayne's Silver Bolts where you have to focus down one single target to get that bonus damage. With main basic attack for the sake of Hurricane, so again works like Vayne's Silver Bolts which is a cool mechanic, but it was not at all about have a Vayne esq mechanic but forcing the item to be about single target focus and leave room for a cool, fun effect rather than have something like single target on-hit damage.

One last thing, of course the duration resets when you apply a new dancing phantom to a target, but if you fail to attack the same target within 6 seconds then all the dancing phantoms just leave and you need to start from ground zero again.

12 Comments

FantasySniper1 votes

The ratio may be too high, but this seems like a pretty cool idea.

Stacona1 votes

Its every 4th basic attack do not forget basic attacks already deal 100% AD ; if shiv does 120 and can crit then you need 240 ad to match shiv damage without factoring AoE but you can get more single target attacks in

FantasySniper1 votes

OK then, in that case it should actually have a base damage of like 30 - 70 based on level.

Stacona1 votes

recurve bow would be 60 bonus damage in 4 attacks which i made it you lose that passive when upgraded; a ratio has natural scale and early game restrictions especially since the item doesnt have AD directly on it. Also if you make it base damage only then it would feel like an on-hit item rather than a basic attack modifier for any marksmen to buy. the point with having 4 zeal items is to buy what you need rather than have a best (even though hurricane is more exclusive to certain champions, but that is fine).

Anyways, having an AD ratio just felt like the best form for the damage on the proc you know. And Shiv has upfront burst where as PD makes you have to commit to a target, and would not be very good if the enemy has no tanks or at least not significant tanks.

FantasySniper1 votes

If you were to compare Lich Bane and Luden's to (your) PD and Shiv respectively: Lich Bane does a lot of single-target damage and Luden's does collectively a lot more in multi-target damage. PD won't really compete against Shiv if it doesn't do significantly more damage to a single target, even if it scales harder into the late-game. (By my estimate, it's only around twice the damage Shiv does to a single target without the initial lightning proc.) This issue would be even more pronounced than in the Bane vs. Echo situation because PD and Shiv have almost the same stats.

Stacona1 votes

It isn't to replace shiv, it is more like "Do I want to kill that hyper tank Sion, Malphite, Mundo?" then you get Phantom Dancer to take down a beefy target. Shiv will be for AoE burst adding to a wombo combo and help take down lesser health targets, also it helps your damage if you are unable to simple get off a lot of autos and have to constantly go in and out of the fight maximizing how Shiv stacks up and get off more bursty pot shots.

So it is adding to the "This item is needed for this situation!" rather than "This item is better so I buy it...". The Zeal items are meant to have the same stats and bought for their passives to buy what is needed rather than mindlessly buying the same Zeal item every game; shiv will be the safer option and hurricane more the cliche item.

FantasySniper1 votes

You don't seem to understand. Your PD has much less damage potential than Shiv, even to a single target. The initial lightning proc from Shiv introduces more damage to the system that'd require at least two procs from PD to overcome with a normal build. The chances that you'll get to use more than two procs is pretty low, even in optimal teamfight settings.

What's the point in getting a single-target focus item if the AoE item right next to it performs better against a single target anyway?

Stacona1 votes

You were the one that said the damage be too high, now you are saying its too low. Only way to find out is by gameplay testing, but tanks take quite a bit of hits to kill and if the passive damage would need to go up some more then it would go up some more. Do need to blend balancing on paper and in gameplay, but most balancing is done by gameplay.

On that note, Statikk Shiv would be the point of where to balance the other Zeal items around, with shiv still being the safer item to buy (and a slightly higher buy rate because of this). Anyways, if my version for PD is weak the passive can always be buffed up, but I just wanted my idea out there for a healthy item for the game and then balancing comes later; both a healthy item and one that fits in with the other Zeal items for a quadra of Zeal items to choose from.

FantasySniper1 votes

I said that on a whim. Then I did the math on it. You'd need 133 - 320 AD (based on level) to beat Shiv on the first proc. Lucian or Sivir will build this much, but that's an end-game build. You'd need 83 - 200 AD to beat Shiv on the second proc. Every ADC has this amount easily, even without being ahead. The 10% difference in AS was ignored here, but just so you're aware, the more total AS one has, the less of a difference it makes, so champions that stack AS actually benefited less from deduction in AD requirement. Which why I'm saying it needs at least a small base to better synergize with AS focused champions, and to offset the unforeseen decrease in attacks required to proc the lightning due to movement.

That'll be all. It's still a good idea.

Stacona1 votes

shiv is 35% attack speed; total AD has base AD included. For all we know the correct value could be 100% AD or even higher I just want it as an option to buy rather than mandatory to buy so starting low and buffing in the future is usually the better way for balancing because that way we don't have an OP item on our hands for a patch.

Of course you would try something like this in smaller testing grounds first where changes can be made on the fly to see how the power exactly feels and then do larger scale tests on PBE and LIVE to find out if something is too weak or too strong.

DrNova1 votes

I don't think "choke out" is good terminology

Stacona1 votes

Why not? Whatever wording really does not matter when these creatures are murdering someone to death

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