Patch 9.3 Feedback (Marksmen Items)
Now that the latest changes have hit live, I think I am ready to give some feedback on how they were on PBE, and the final state that they hit live with.
Crit Items in General They're pretty good. Despite looking like nerfs across the board, with increases in cost and decreases in stats, I actually think there is an important detail here. Crit users tend to have their power income largely in the form of gold, by shifting these crit items more heavily into the gold income region, and leaving them separate from the "Xp and Map Pressure" categories, like CDR and Health, it makes for a good distinction about who uses the items, why, and how.
Ideally, it also provides enough separation that these items can be changed more independently, without larger concerns that these will bleed over into edge cases, because of this distinction. More expensive items, means they will only be seen on high gold income champions, which can utilize their stats (Which is basically, current crit users, and that's it save for a few edge cases)
Individual Items
Essence Reaver - Never really played, and still don't play many ER champs. I like to run it on Renekton now and again. I'm concerned that this may make some sustain a little overbearing in certain matchups, where the ability of one lane to push allows them to largely negate any early threat. I can sort of see this being something of an issue on Draven, of all champs. It no longer wastes gold on CDR- a low priority stat for him due to resets, it provides mana for more W spam, which is more damage and more healing. Add in the crit, without investment in Attack Speed, it makes for a really strong one item spike, and I can see it would be remarkably oppressive especially in high kill pressure lanes. The enemy would never have a wave to hide behind, and would always have a wave pushing at them, they'd always be at a sustain disadvantage.
In lower elos, this would simply be obnoxious, where champions like Blitzcrank, Brand, Thresh, and the like can abuse this lane control for lots of threat, but also become potentially dangerous in higher elo, where more coordinated and intelligent junglers can take advatange of this, timing invades to deny and discourage bot plays from the enemy jungler, further cementing botlanes stranglehold on the enemy laners, and Dragon. Combined with a decent sponge toplane, and a midlane that can punish the roam, this makes for a fairly intimidating and low effort team comp that gains a lot of pressure and threat early, all off of a single items spike in botlane, giving remarkable sustain, and thus a lot of resource denial.
Dev team may want to keep an eye out for exactly this kind of usage on Essence Reaver, and perhaps consider reducing the restoration to .75% or .5%, and having its be doubled or tripled against champions and large monsters.
Infinity Edge- Good Item, well made, I like it. Simple, effective, and the boost to its Crit Chance makes it feel less bad as a two item spike, and scales well in way that is both numerically and subjectively better with marksmen itemization AND non-marksmen crit users. Not much to say, It's no homerun, but its certainly an onbase hit. Good work.
Kiercheis Shard- I'm wary of lowering its cost so much, while the item may not be overstatted or in any way OP on paper, I am worried that it would become the new staple of play safe botlanes. Instead of lanes picking up BF or zeal on first back (As they're in that price range along with Chapter and Tiamat) Shard might be picked up along side something like boots and cloth armor/dagger.
The decision to take boots, or a defense item, over something which will assist you in lane, is an important decision which is fairly deterministic of how you intend to, and are actually capable of playing out the lane. In marksmen matchups bottom, picking up a shard, boots and some defense may be a lower value purchase than the BF picked up on the oppsoing side, but may prove to be significantly more rewarding given the trading patterns of matchups with large range differences. For example, Caitlyn vs Lucian may start to heavily favor Cait after first back, simply because Caitly is more heavily rewarded for her long range autos, and in this way, having a bit more defense may actually prove a little too valuable.
Last Whisper (and its upgrades)- I have more to say on this later, for now, I think they're ok, but will need greater scrutiny later related to the relationship between numerous roles in the game, which I intend to detail in a second post, to keep the topics narrower
Phantom Dancer- Excellent change. I love it. Its able to be a more significant impact on AD paths, without being so much more powerful on Melee users (Who are pretty much the only PD users currently) who tend to have higher health values. It also means I can stop seeing SRO's "PD Mundo toplane with Conqueror" videos in my YouTube suggestions.
More broadly though, I see this being most useful for a first item in games where the AD is under larger threat of dive. This could be a decent first item, which protects them from tower dives and generally helps them ensure they don't hemorrhage quite so heavily. In this way, they can opt to reduce their impact, and delay their curve, in exchange for a little more security in high aggression matchups where it matters.
Secondly, I see it being used as a second item to secure a lead that an AD has established. I can even see this being a situational pickup on something like Lucian, where after having picked up a first item ER, and crushing lane, taking phantom dancer, and building crit, might actually be viable from ahead. Especially since PD is really good for cementing a lead, since once you have enough damage, defense is usually a good option.
Rapid Fire Cannon- Another banger of an item, I like that its given a reward on towers. This makes it a decent pick up on Tristana, and Caitlyn who with this may be able to pick up when they have a jungler that can gift them the lane pressure to hit tower at two items. I think that its not too incredibly useful before a third item pickup, when it would be especially relevant in teamfights where the energized charge increase becomes relevant to both chewing through tanks, and controlling areas to deny anyone looking for a cheeky angle or a good dive set up, along with wave shoving.
I do have a question about a single interaction, and its the energized attacks on towers, while you have shiv. I can see it being rather obnoxious to be hitting tower, and have shiv lightning draw aggro, forcing you to walk out, drop aggro, and then go back. It means a tank standing under the tower SIGNIFICANTLY slows down tower taking of RFC marksmen. That being said, I do like how it gives crit users a way to be relevant on towers, without just having a ton of raw AD, which lets them one shot everything.
Runaan's Hurricane- I think Runaan's is just explicitly better than other Zeal options in terms of raw stats, and just doesn't have much in the way of the special circumstances. This is especially noticeable for on-hit characters, like Varus, who get a lot of value off the passive. I think the item should be brought a bit more in line with a slight gold value increase.
That being said, if the item turns out to UNDER perform (because it doesn't provide much burst punish on squishy divers, who are out of position) it's tank/melee punish can be made a bit more accessible to RFC Shiv users, by retooling it to have an energized interaction, where the bolts count towards restoring charges on energized attacks. I rather like the idea of Triple Zeal RFC/Shiv/Hurricane, with IE, and a defense item as the full build for some marksmen, especially into lots of tanks.
Spear of Shojin- Nerf Jax, until then, get this bullshit away from me.
Statikk Shiv- It's always pissed me off seeing this item on long ranged marksmen, who could just instantly eliminate the wave, and then I couldn't get near them without taking a fifth of my health from 4 times my range. It definitely makes playing a split push comp less possible, and hurts playing a bruiser out of lane, since you're essentially useless thanks to this item. I really feel like wave clear should be one of the major weaknesses of marksmen in general, and as such I would like to see this do less to instantly clear waves. Perhaps wave clear is something Runaans can handle, but I really don't like having the burst/poke item for marksmen ALSO being the item which clears the wave and sets up the opportunity to poke safely and with the advantage.
Other than that though, Shiv does feel nice on Melee crit users, but that being said, they have Tiamat, and when I took a look at some of what Foggen was up to on Tryn, he built Tiamat and Shiv, so I think shiv should have some of its wave clear chopped. I think the best direction for this would be giving more flat damage to the energized proc, so that Shiv has the unique identity of doing the most, but reducing the ratio of the chain, and/or reducing its damage against minions.
Storm Razor- Good item, it certainly feels more interactive, and just generally better than it does on live, and making it built out of shard feels better and makes more sense given the thematic and mechanical similarity it shares with the RFC and Shiv.
The slow feels a little too steep. Just a little bit. I'd have to play against it more to be certain, but its definitely felt powerful when I had it. It made running down the enemy as melee far easier, and made kiting a lot simpler with shiv. It might be a little over tuner. Perhaps it needs a reduction from 40% to 30% on ranged champs, just something to blunt this, cause it feels a little bit much. Not certain though.
Looking to the Future As these items hopefully improve the state of marksmen, and changes the dynamics of longer lasting fights, I think it id time for Riot to turn a more discerning eye on what it means to be a particular role, more specifically what do broad categories of champions seek to accomplish, in order to win the game, how does that relate to adjacent and distant categories of champions, and how do all of these inform the balance of the mechanics by which individual champions accomplish the goals of their category.