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Picking Apart Rageblade

Carnicore·10/18/2018, 2:59:29 PM·5 votes·26,443 views

I heard that Riot still isn't happy with Rageblade. So, I'd like to talk about this item in-depth and why Riot wants to revisit it.

First, let's see who the item is for, and who is actually using it. To determine what champions are meant to use it, we'll look at its stats and features.

AD - AD champions

AP - AP champions

Attack Speed - Champions with high AD or on-hit damage

On-hit damage - Champions with high attack speed, or ways to apply on-hit effects quickly/uniquely (ex. Renekton or Ezreal)

Phantom hit - Champions with on-hit damage.

One other thing I should mention is that the passives require stacking before you unlock the item's full power. This firmly cements it as an item either for DPS champions, or splitpushers that can stack it before combat.

From all this, it's hard to determine just what champions should be using it. Is it AD+Attack Speed On-hit champions, like Master Yi, Vayne, Nocturne, or Jax? But then why is there AP on the item? The usefulness of this stat widely varies for AD champions. Master Yi has one AP ratio on Meditate, Vayne has none at all, Nocturne has minor scalings on E and his passive, and Jax scales rather well with AP. They generally don't want the AP, or view it as a minor perk. Fighters also don't like AD multipliers like Rageblade has because they don't build as much AD as a carry.

The attack speed and AP combination in particular is really weird. This is the core identity of Nashor's Tooth, used by Kayle, Kai'Sa, Teemo, Azir, Kog'Maw, AP Varus, and Diana. That's everyone; it's a niche item. AP is usually associated with burst, which is antithetical to attack speed, so only a handful of champions are designed to utilize both at once. However, just as AD champions don't want AP, AP champions usually don't want AD.

Last, I should talk about Phantom Hit. This is where the stat mixture of stats starts to make sense, because all the AD and AP champions I mentioned above value it. Many champions in the game have on-hit damage with no cooldowns (in contrast with Sheen, which does not work with phantom hit) and would want this passive. But it comes with strings attached; it's expensive, it has no utility, it probably has a stat you don't want, and it has to be stacked in combat before reaching full power. These qualities make it very unappealing for most melee fighters, who can't easily stack it in teamfights, can't afford it Rageblade, and don't want AP. I mean, you can make expensive items for fighters, but there needs to be some defensive stats included so that they're as tanky as they need to be when players start grouping.

Some of you might remember when Sheen and Trinity Force had AP instead of CDR. They were changed because the champions that liked Sheen and Trinity Force were all AD champions with varying AP scaling. Gunblade used to have a weird split of AD and AP, now it's more skewed towards AP. There's just not much interest in hybrid AD+AP items for most champions, very few want both and most just maximize one or the other.

So in total, we have 3 groups of champions that want this item or an item similar to it:

  • Marksmen (and Master Yi) that just want AD, attack speed, and phantom hit

  • Fighters that want phantom hit, AD, attack speed, and some defense or a cheaper item

  • AP/Attack speed champions that just want attack speed, AP, and phantom hit

It serves some champions very well, but it could be so much better as more focused item.

27 Comments

ModThe Djinn10/21/2018, 3:04:31 PM7 votes

It serves some champions very well, but it could be so much better as more focused item.

I think that's actually part of the problem.

Phantom Hit is, simply put, just a really strong effect. So strong, in fact, that it can single-handedly skew the balance on any on-hit champion who is able to access it reliably. This is, I think, part of why it's kept as the weird hybrid item it is -- so that, aside from a few champions traditionally balanced around its existence (Jax, Kayle), there's a decided cost to purchasing it, rather than making it the mandatory go-to for all on-hit builds, which would require rebalancing every on-hit effect in the game to account for the almost certain purchase of this item.

SlashStriker10/22/2018, 10:25:12 PM2 votes

Split rageblade into 2 items

Keep rageblade for hybrid champions Phantom hit on separated new item for on-hit champions (damage that scales with attack speed ain't bad idea since all on-hit effects provide attack speed)

No more stacking. Just phantom hit passive on every 2nd hit or so. When the item is stacked it may always come "overpowered" like Sated Devourer (60 magic damage on hit) and current Rageblade (that provides tons of stats). So Phantom Hit should be balanced without any stacking so the damage output be more clear. By default Phantom Hit is every 2nd attack so we don't need another stacking system to it

Carnicore10/21/2018, 5:04:11 PM2 votes

To me, the ideal solution is to create 3 items from Rageblade.

  1. An item like Rageblade but with the AP replaced with health, and the AD scaling on the item itself lowered a bit. This creates an item suitable for both marksmen and fighters. This is a worse item for Kog'Maw and Varus specifically because they liked the AP, but everyone else benefits from the change.

  2. An item like Nashor's tooth but with phantom hit. To further distinguish the two items, this new item could have something like mana or armor.

  3. An item with a sort of phantom hit that builds into the two items above.

Freljord Arrow

1500g - Builds out of 2 Daggers.

+24% Attack speed.

Unique: Basic attacks deal 15 physical damage on-hit.

Unique - Phantom Hit: Basic attacks build stacks of Rage. At 4 stacks, every third basic attack will trigger on-hit effects an additional time.

Guinsoo's Rageblade

3300g - Builds out of Freljord Arrow and Phage.

+40 AD, +30% Attack speed, +400 health.

Unique: Gain 20 movement speed on attack, 45 against champions (ranged champions receive half as much MS).

Unique: Basic attacks deal 15 (+5% AD) physical damage on-hit.

Unique - Phantom Hit: Basic attacks build stacks of Rage. At 6 stacks, every second basic attack will trigger on-hit effects an additional time. While at 2 stacks, Melee role melee champions' next basic attack will fully stack Rage.

Wizard's Scythe

3000g - Builds out of Freljord Arrow and Aether Wisp.

+70 AP and +40% Attack speed, and +200 Mana.

Unique: Basic attacks deal 10 (+10% AP) magic damage on-hit.

Unique: +6% movement speed.

Unique - Phantom Hit: Basic attacks build stacks of Rage. At 6 stacks, every second basic attack will trigger on-hit effects an additional time.

I like movement speed in combination with on-hit effects or attack speed, because autoattacks have a cast time and impair movement.

PandaNator4310/23/2018, 3:55:09 PM1 votes

Fantasy wise its unique among items in that it slowly ramps up attack speed and damage, tapping into that rage fantasy. But that fantasy is lost because so much power is coming from phantom hit.

The challenge is that phantom hit and AS synergize so well that it would feel bad to separate them.

I'd be curious to see what either of these solutions looks like.

  1. More power from stacks, less from phantom hit, try to emphasize the rage fantasy. More stacking, currently 6, go to like 15 max stacks. Tweak stats per stack as necessary to end up with max AS gained much higher than current. Phantom hit would be applied every fourth AA doubled rather than every 2nd.

  2. Again emphasizing the rage fantasy. Two separate items. The rage item would just be a ramping damage and AS item. The phantom hit item would be a flat AS + phantom hit item. Concern here would be the rage item would be too appealing to crit users as well, and dominate builds.

bonus idea) separate ramping "rage" items for divers: AS + Armor, AS + Lifesteal, AS + MR, AS + MS. AS + AA grant a shield scaling with some other stat...

As far as the the item having both AD and AP, its a little weird, but I don't think its an issue. Between the items stats and the champions ability scalings, there are enough balance levers that its not and issue. Could be wrong.

Jetboost10/24/2018, 3:22:23 PM1 votes

Don't think this point of view has been discussed yet.

What about just removing the damage from the extra aplied on hit effect but not the stacks that the on hit effect would give (vayne would still proc that passive every 2 AA Etc.) And make the item simply increase your bonus on hit damage by X%, lets say for example 20%~50%.

20% feels like average and 50% seems nice but might make it overpowerd.

Would this be something?

Seenan10/28/2018, 6:19:23 AM1 votes

What if you took the stacking AD/AP/AS off of it, so it becomes less attractive? (Keep the base stats and phantom)

Shahamut11/11/2018, 1:42:12 AM1 votes

Get rid of the on-hit damage and the phantom hit.

Just let it be a hybrid fighter item.

Quinnrate12/2/2018, 9:34:39 PM1 votes

Its an item to be built on Kayle, and pretty much just kayle

ModKnightsKemplar10/21/2018, 1:00:35 AM1 votes

Approved!

TakaDama12/29/2018, 3:32:00 PM1 votes

Phantom Hit is the big selling point obviously, with Attack Speed as a universal (yet temporary) way to turn on that buff. The Attack Damage and Ability Power are decent, but Hextech Gunblade is better in that regard.

This may be a good opportunity to provide adaptive force as a stat on items. Something like so:

Shoma Staff 450 Gold +20 Adaptive Force (12 AD |OR| 20 AP)

Guinsoo's Rageblade (Recurve Bow+Shoma Staff+Shoma Staff) 3000 (1100) Gold +50 Adaptive Force (30 AD |OR| 50 AP) +25% Attack Speed +6 to 15% (based on level) Adaptive Penetration Passive: Deals 20 Adaptive Damage on hit. (20 physical or 20 magic) Other Rageblade passives

450 gold would make Shoma Staff less gold efficient than either Long Sword or Amplifying Tome.

TheSingularity10/21/2018, 11:04:47 PM1 votes

Personally I don't think this item will ever work in league. In that it will be both viable and balanced for all of it's intended users.

In the past we had several items like it. And like guinsoos on release they broke the entire game by existing.

Feral flare: Destroyed the jungle and everything around it. Udyr, yi, shyvana, trundle and everyone else that could power farm. They had an infinitely stacking on hit item and eventually nothing would stop them.

After it's removal we replaced it with sated devourer. A similar item with a different problem. It had phantom hit like guinsoos. But was more accessible. The same champions abused it and dominated the game.

But what was the problem? The synergy. It's shocking what a simple ability does to champions. See udyr and yi for example, when they were in their prime. Phantom hit turned udyr's every 4th attack phoenix into every 3 attack. It turned yi's every 3 attack into ever 2nd. That is a drastic increase in dps and clear speed. But this item affects yi worst of all, allowing potentially quad procs of true damage.

Irelia Jax Kayle Kennen Shyvana Nocturne Udyr XinZhao AatroxMasterYi Vayne all became obscene balance problems during at least one if not all of these item peaks. Many of them were nerfed instead of the item.

It just causes more problems than it solves

DeathBurst10/23/2018, 11:50:36 AM1 votes

But then why is there AP on the item?

So, Djinn already answered that, mostly, but I think my way of explaining is slightly more intuitive.

You can see the AP on Rageblade as a tuning lever for balance.

  • The item is too generalist and bought too often? Increase the amount of AP, and less champions will be able to buy it.
  • Some champ that should be good with Rageblade doesn't buy it? Give them an AP ratio somewhere (or buff an existing one).

And the thing is, the item needs this tuning lever because Phantom Hit is too coarse-grained, you can't tune it finely. One phantom hit every 2 hits VS 3 hits, it's a 50% nerf already. You can play a little bit with how many stacks you need to activate it, but you don't have a lot of wiggle room there either.

So if you can't use the passive (the main quality of the item) as a tuning lever, you need another level somewhere else. And this is why the item has AP.

(And while I'm at it: It's the same reason Gunblade is an hybrid item. Spellvamp is super hard to tune properly, so instead they give AD to the item and use that as a tuning lever.)