Udyr and Adaptive Force - One of The Problem of Jungle Phoenix Udyr

1M Gold Udyr XD··37 votes·20,894 views

TLDR; Phoenix needs the AP from the Adaptive, it gives AD instead. Putting points in Phoenix should give you the AP.

As the game is becoming more and more mid to late game focused than in S8 early game, I believe that Phoenix is going to have a comeback, but there are certain sit backs that still keeps it bad. And here is one problem that riot never managed to handle ever since the new runes was introduced, as it was not priority. But hopefully they will listen to us loyal Phoenixer and do something about it.

As you know, Phoenix Udyr scales with AP. While Tiger obviously with AD. The thing is with Adaptive Force, and Adaptive Damage, is that they mostly start with AD, unless you buy an AP item.

However, for toplane P.Dyr, you can easily either get a Doran's Ring item 4203 or a Dark Seal item 1082 and you can get your AP straight up from what have you of Adaptive. Meanwhile on in Jungle, you either get Machete item 1041 or Talisman item 1039 for you starting item.

Phoenix loves four things, attack speed, ap, cooldown and the mana to spam it, but neither Machete(used to have Attack Speed, but that's without the Mana, so it was really good on Tiger) nor Talisman provides any of them. And only Talisman provides Mana Regen. Thus, making Adaptive force negligible on Udyr as it doesn't provide the AP boost that it desperately needs. While other AP jungler and AD Casters straight up has huge bursts in their kit that makes it fine not to have Adaptive force before buildingcomponents. And AD jungler are fine as they heal back up better with the extra AD they get while lifestealing with Machete. It is simply unfair for AD champions to have an advantage over champions that prefer AP at earliest as possible. Other AP champions (already have inbuilt % damage, like Nidalee, Eve, Gragas and what have you) while Udyr doesn't in the early set.

Nevermind that where there are occasion where you want to go Cinderhulk item 3751 , you will still have no AP scaling in any of the runes you choose.

Even items like Trifroce item 3078 has AD, and it is a good item whether we build Phoenix or Tiger, but it bottlenecks Phoenix and Turtle by shifting all the Adaptive scaling to AD.

Phoenix as a spell isn't effective well before its final fifth point, where it finally does a sizeable damage to camps and champions and otherwise and have built a Runic Echo item 1402 at that point. And by this time, _he is coming pretty late into the game. _

So how do players went around this? Taking Tiger first. But this delays our 4th spell level up. Delaying Udyr even more.

> **So what's the solution? **

You ask. If we take the first point in either Turtle or Phoenix, we get the AP instead of defaulting it to AD, this is in case Riot doesn't want to bother giving AP to AP scaling champions. It helps tons more than the AD we are getting. Sad that we don't get to choose if we want the AP or the AD, unless and until we have an item that scales with it in the early phases.

21 Comments

Ulkusus9 votes

"Freedom of Choice" apparently doesn't include adaptive Force. I've been asking for this change as Leona was given AP instead of AD for reasons unknown before they changed it a few patches later (given her AP ratios are bad and her spells have low CD, you get much more out of AD).

I'd be all for the possibility to determine your adaptive force either whenever in base or at least at game start. It could even reuse the UI element Kindred etc. use for the enemy team or the overlay Kayn uses for his passive.

1M Gold Udyr XD3 votes

One another thing with the old rune system, we were able to have full stack of Attack speed runes from the start of the game, which really boosted Phoenix's clears. You either start 27%(from Reds and Quints) or 18% Reds with 4.5% MS quints IIRC.

What do we got this time around? 9%. And a precision tree rune that has to be stacked.

This is sad. Very sad, infact.

EndlessSorcerer2 votes

Minor corrections:

  • Flat Attack Speed Marks only provided 15% attack speed
  • Alacrity provides 3% Attack Speed without stacks

Rather than going from 18% to 9%, it would be more accurate to say that we went from 15% to 12% at level one.

Still, I miss the flexibility of the old rune system.

1M Gold Udyr XD1 votes

Flat Attack Speed Marks only provided 15% attack speed Alacrity provides 3% Attack Speed without stacks

Makes sense. Then I am correct remembering having 18% percent.

TLF brubie1 votes

Not quite as much but the attack speed is going up to 10% :) meaning you have 13% at level 1

brø6 votes

I don't play Udyr but this sounds like a pretty important quality of life fix going to upvote goodluck [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Jackom12 votes

shouldn't phoenix stance scale with AD already? Who every bought AP on udyr anyway, besides troll builds?

Sacrifice Rebel2 votes

Phoenix scales with AS and AP. It is not a troll build. Phoenix grants waveclear without needing to buy item 3077 or item 3025. AP also increases Turtle Stance's shield. item 2139 , Red buff, item 3100, and item 3115 makes him chunk towers incredibly fast. Add in an item 3056 and he can completely backdoor a tower.

1M Gold Udyr XD1 votes

He is not wrong though. Like Shyvana which has Magic Damage that scales from AD. If Udyr's Phoenix had a good AD scaling, it would allow on-hit items like Bork and Trinity to work just as well(in fact, those were one of his old core builds for Phoenix pre Sated/Feral Flare - i.e Ancient Golem into Tri-Bork).

Sacrifice Rebel1 votes

Phoenix indirectly scales with AD since it is AA reliant. Tiger, Turtle, and Phoenix all scale with AS, so just build AS if you want to buff all three; in fact, Riot specifically cited that as their reason for the changes to Udyr in 7.8.

Udyr has long been known as a jungler with extremely diverse build options. If Phoenix scaled only off AD, there would be little reason to pick up AP. Since both Phoenix and Turtle scale off AP, he can viably pick up AP items. Stance-dancing and that item diversity are pretty core to his identity; I don't think Riot wants to take that adaptability from Udyr.

Bork and Triforce both still have value on Phoenix Udyr, but you have to keep in mind how Phoenix and the items changed. As for Phoenix, it hasn't granted an AP and AD buff since patch 3.5. Furthermore, although I do not recall the scaling on Phoenix at the time, I am pretty sure that even back then it did not scale with AD. Bork has always been a better buy for Tigerdyr than Flamedyr. Admittedly, it used to give more AS and less AD; this made this far more valuable on Phoenix than it does now - in fact, I think those stats were essentially swapped around. The AS nerf made Bork less appealing to Flamedyr. Trinity Force had some changes as well; it used to grant AP, but it no longer does. However, it grants the three stats Udyr values most regardless of stance choice: AS, CDR, and MS. Again, the AD does not completely go to waste in Phoenix stance to indirect AD scaling.

Shyvana was not designed to have the same versatility. She does have some AP scaling, but not on her primary damage skill. Most skills in the game are designed to deal the same type of damage as the items you buy; few physical damage skills scale with AP and vice versa. Burnout just happens to be one of those skills.

Hibeki1 votes

red buff doesnt hit turrets anymore

gabetheguy1 votes

udyr can already do all of those things.

Séance2 votes

Am I the only one who thinks that adaptive power should be given in the form of a toggle that can be opened and adjusted out of combat somewhere on the HUD?

ModUlanopo1 votes

Approved.

SanKakU1 votes

Considering that Udyr has a lifestealon-hit heal+shield stance, they could fix this problem by making a 150 gold AP item. Although it would make more sense if it was the 150 gold AD item instead and he started with adaptive AP since he has 2 abilities scaling with AP and only 1 with AD.

1M Gold Udyr XD1 votes

Considering that Udyr has a lifesteal+shield stance

I don't like being pedantic.

But Udyr's shield (W) lost lifesteal with the Tiger rework.

It's more or less like a Grasp of Undying that doesn't do damage(Heal based on % health and missing health). In fact, if they kept the W as lifesteal, it would have been much better for AD Udyr, since lifesteal scales with AD. It's more of an On-hit ability right now, it scales better with Attack Speed, since it comes with every third hit like the offensive stances, instead of each Auto attack.

SanKakU1 votes

No, that's fine. I was being inaccurate and you're correcting me. That's how discussions should go. It would be nice if his W was a combination of what it is now and what it used to be.

Naramiel1 votes

I'd be in favor of this, but really all the AP junglers should have some way to make their adaptive force into AP - either by giving all characters a choice, or by making a tiny AP variant of the starting jungle item.

Mimr1 votes

I agree, but I think a far bigger problem is that with the current AP item range it's simply impossible to create a solid AP bruiser build for Phoenix Udyr. You can go tanky with AP, but that leaves you with shitty AS. You can go AS with AP, but that makes you incredibly squishy. And going something like Bloodrazor + Rylais leaves you entirely without CDR. Maybe something like this: item 1402 item 3078 item 3001 item 3143 item 3157. Still seems suboptimal compared to simply going Tiger Udyr instead though...

1M Gold Udyr XD1 votes

You are not wrong. AP Udyr was ever a thing because of three items - The first iteration of Runic Echo with 10% MS, Iceborn Guantlet when it had 125% Base Damage and ZZ'Rot when it was useful and had movement speed.

It made Udyr way too OP and had his first ever major nerfs come to him. And Tiger was a different iteration than what it is now.

As for that Build, I think Hecarim did a similar thing once before, but you are right. Udyr's build are too inefficient for him.

Hibeki1 votes

I don't see much a problem, Udyr is a huge problem champion in that his base power is disgustingly strong since hes designed around not having an ultimate.

In an early and mid game meta, hes one of the most reliable and frustrating champs in the game. His consistent damage output is disgusting no matter what he builds.

Besides item 1402 item 3078 is huge on pheonix and is still AP on adaptive force.

If you want QOL buffs on Udyr, I want to see some nerfs to Tiger and Pheonix first.

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