Is Ravenous Hydra too strong?

Letler·2/21/2014, 5:40:50 AM·1 votes·386 views

The answer is probably.

It has a lot going on for it. 75 bonus attack damage, the most in the entire game. The build path is very accessible, each item is rather cheap compared to other high attack damage items that require b.f. sword. It is very gold efficient costing only 3300 all together, 600 gold recipe is very low as well.

My biggest issue is with the active. 100% of attack damage in an aoe that also lifesteals due to it's special passive and it can be cast at will without interrupting or costing an auto attack. Every 10 seconds.

Just feels a bit like too much GREAT is going on with this item especially for those increasingly tough to kill bruisers that seem to love it.

easy to build
gold efficient
very high attack damage
high life steal
very powerful active
very low cooldown

My opinion is that this item is too strong. What do you guys think and what would you change about , if anything?

3 Comments

Linna Excel2/21/2014, 8:12:49 AM2 votes

It's not too strong. BT can do more damage with stacks. Infinity edge does a lot more on crit. Bork scales up when your opponent has more health. It's good at what it does but it costs so much for a good reason.

There's also a few problems with it.

First of all, not everyone wants this item right away. Someone like Jax or Irelia won't even think about it until they've got their first two items done. Tanks usually want to rush something tanky first. Then there's the little problem in it takes up a lot of inventory space if you are getting it piecemeal. Yes that helps if you are behind (a reason for keeping it as is) but hinders a little when you are ahead. Finally, while the sustain is nice, it won't help you from getting burst down nor does it give you any Armor pen. Most champs who want this need that armor pen based on their lane.

I think it's pretty competitive for what it does and who needs it.

Marthian2/21/2014, 6:40:56 PM1 votes

It might just be favoritism on my part, but I don't think Ravenous Hydra is the reason why bruisers are too strong. It's more of the fact they can build 1 or 2 damage items and do a lot of damage and be very difficult to kill.

12% Life Steal isn't that high, alone, and I'm not sure if it's just the cleave or everything, but the AoE gets half effect for lifesteal. It can heal you for quite a bit if you have a large number of enemies around in your AoE, but that can be countered by staying away/spread apart in team fights.

The active is just a free AA from my knowledge. 3.3k is still very expensive.