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Item Discussion Series - Midlane and Oldschool Mages

Pyro·7/25/2014, 12:07:11 AM·10 votes·932 views

http://i.imgur.com/gwcdS1f.jpg

##Previously on Item Discussion Series - Riot Delivered

Episode 1: Supports and the CDR Overload

Last discussion, highlighted the itemization problems of supports - long story short, supports became overencumbered with CDR, making their lategame builds waste this statistic. The solutions I've suggested weren't perfect, but at least it appears I've assessed the problem correctly. From the current PBE deploy:

item 3069 Talisman of Ascension

  • Health regeneration increased to 15 from 10.
  • Cooldown reduction decreased to 10% from 20%.
  • Now grants 20 movement speed.

This seems to at least partially solve the "true support" issue where Talisman, Mikael's and Ardent Censer granted excessive amounts of CDR. Those three still grant more mana regeneration than is required, but if above else you wish to spam your spells like a maniac, no stats will be wasted. Problems left are: lack of armor items (alternative Glacial Shroud upgrade wouldn't hurt) and no variety in mandatory items (Sightstone upgrades, alternati ve GP10 final items), not to mention the abandoned items like Banner of Command and Zeke's Herald.

##The Holy Trinity of Mage Items

item 3174 item 3089 item 3135 - 'nuff said.

In case you haven't been following LCS or pay no attention to what your midlaner buys, these are the three items that make over 50% of midlane builds, followed by Zhonya's Hourglass. Ziggs, Orianna, Lulu, Xerath, even Syndra - almost everyone will buy these items in almost this exact order. Exceptions include Kassadin, Kayle, TF and Fizz, who all have their infividual builds, but for a "typical" mage, there is no alternative item build:

item 3174 Athene's is the only midlane Chalice upgrade and Chalice is the best laning item to farm and trade. For most champions, Catalyst and Forbidden Idol aren't good enough and don't build into anything that pays off right away (RoA takes time to stack, Morellonomicon's passive is meh in most cases).

item 3089 Rabadon's is necessary for the midgame power spike. There is no better item to go "full agression" after Athene's, unless you gamble on killing a single target with DFG (but that works on very few champions like Syndra and LeBlanc) or desperately need Zhonya to survive enemy dives.

item 3135 Void Staff is the answer to enemies purchasing MR, but works against targets with no MR as well.

The dominance of Holy Trinity not only limits the options of available builds for the popular mages, but it also keeps the champion pool small. It will always be who utilizes the build the best who will get picked.

According to this poll, 70% people agree that we need more options, and only 20% are satisfied with the current state of midlane items.

##The Dead End Options

Let's start with the basics - what item can be rushed and purchased first? Unlike AD Carries, mages can't keep farming with basic attacks. This makes some sort of mana regeneration mandatory in every mage build. Some mages, especially assassins, make do with a Doran's Ring or two and a blue buff, but for any mage who needs two spells to clear a wave, that's not enough. What mana regen item to build, then?

  • item 3070 Tear gives zero offensive or defensive power in all-in trades. The only champions who dare to go for it are those with mana scalings.
  • item 3010 Catalyst used to be a thing, but Rod of Ages doesn't synergize that well with other AP items... aside from Archangel's Staff. And we just said that Tear isn't really a safe item.
  • item 3114 Forbidden Idol builds into only one AP item and that's Morellonomicon. Problem with Morellonomicon is that its passive is garbage in midlane and doesn't give any "power spike", making it worse to rush than Athene's.
  • item 3028 CHALICE, FOOL. Godlike passive scales up the mana regen with base regen, masteries, Doran's Ring, and blue buff. Also, it has MR, which can save your immobile butt.

So, this is the conjunction of two things: for most mages Chalice is the only good laning item and it builds into only one AP item. So all we need to break the Athene's monopoly is an alternative Chalice upgrade we can continue and from there.

Warning: The following concepts are merely that. Concepts. The important thing is that we defined the problem, below is simply a possible and probably imperfect solution.

##First Purchase: Athene's and Alternatives

First things first, introducing new items might be a perfect moment to repurpose item 3174 Athene's Unholy Grail, reverting some of the nerfs. Possible actions:

  • Lower the CDR to 15%. This highlights Morellonomicon as the best CDR option and allows to stack CDR from multiple items with no loss (considering 5% from masteries).
  • Revert the oldest nerf: to AP. With alternative Chalice upgrade, this item could be clearly redefined as the offensive option. Increase the price accordingly, possibly throw in an extra Amp Tome in recipe. Total cost of an 15% CDR / 80 AP version should be about 3000g.

Alternative Chalice upgrade, first draft:

item 3028 Chalice of Harmony + item 3113 Aether Wisp + 870 g = Ethereal Robe (total cost: 2700 gold) 60 ability power, 25 magic resistance, 10 mana regeneration per 5, 5% increased movement speed Unique Passive - Mana Font: Gain 1% increased mana regeneration per 1% of mana you're missing. Passive: For every nearby enemy champion, you gain 5 MR and 1% movement speed.

  • Passive is a rough sketch, but the theme is "safer in bigger fights". For most mages this will be fairly similar to Athene's, just with lower AP.
  • This is definitely the defensive option, without guaranteed mana replenish on kills and assist or CDR to help spam spells or keep ultimate off cooldown at all times.
  • Base MR in 1v1 laning is 30, in case of jungler gank 35. This is "I want safety" item.
  • Alternative effect: "Ethereal Form" active - root yourself in place, but gain bonus magic penetration and CC immunity (similar to Xerath's Locus of Power).
  • Other alternative effect: Gain up to 5% MS basing on missing mana. This is based on a joke about the "A New Dawn" cinamatic: Why is Ahri running and not casting spells? OOM.

Next step to broadening AP itemization is providing a mana regeneration in clash with AD champions. We've seen people, even pros, building Athene's even against Zed, because its mana regen is too stupidly good.

item 3191 Seeker's Armguard + item 3114 Forbidden Idol + 840 g = item 3056 Ohmwrecker (total cost: 2700 gold) 60 ability power, 45 armor, 10% CDR, 10 mana regeneration per 5 Active: Disables a tower for 2.5 s. 120 second cooldown.

  • My previous draft of Ohmwrecker got criticized for providing no stats useful for towerdiving. Well, armor seems to help.
  • This set of stats for such price is very efficient, so pairing it with a situational active seems like a good idea.
  • For midlaners, this becomes the "safety pick" against AD, but doesnt give that much AP.
  • Unlike Zhonya's, this item does not provide a huge "Now you can't kill me" button, so it gives some room for the likes of Zed.
  • Can possibly be used by toplaners with AP scalings (hello Maokai).

This breaks the core of the problem - lack of variety in rushable AP items for mana regen. With one new upgrade to Chalice and one new for Idol, I think we're good to go.

##Digging Deeper

item 3135 Void Staff is currently a must have in every mage build, pretty much regardless of what enemy they target. This makes late MR purchase on carries unsatisfying, since the midlaner will most likely already have VS to deal with the bruisers. Changes I'd suggest include:

  • Changing the effect from total MR penetration to bonus MR penetration, much like Yasuo's ultimate. This way the item becomes better in its niche - dealing with megatanks like Dr. Mundo, and worse where it shouldn't be too strong - bursting squishies.
  • Bonus MR penetration should be around 40%, with base AP possibly increased to 80 to keep in line with the new tier trend.

I would also consider the following change to item 3128 Deathfire Grasp:

  • Damage (15% health) removed
  • Debuff now increases all damage done to target (both physical and magical) by 25%

It's not exactly a good gameplay pattern when enemy midlaner can miss skillshots and still 100-0 you (see: Ahri in today's SHC vs SK game). It's completely fair, though, if enemy jungler ganks you and they 100-0 you in a 2v1 situation.

DFG should be a viable item for assassins, but it doesn't mean they should be able to roll over their lane opponent every time they come back to 1v1.

##Bringing Back The Old School

In Stattik's Q&A, my assessment of the problem was commented by Stattik:

This is definitely an issue that we have struggled with a lot internally. We call this class of characters the "Immobile Mid-Lane Mages" and I 100% agree with your identification and breakdown of the problem. (...) As far as itemization goes, I know the Systems team is looking into different the lesser used items such as Rylai's. The lack of Mana Regen in the Rylai's + Liandry's combo is interesting (I believe most stack a few Doran's Rings to try to get around this), but overall I think it might be pointing out a larger issue in our game which is our ever-growing pool of Resourceless champions and how we have maybe warped the game to allow Mana users to compete with the resourceless guys over time.

The sheer effectiveness of the item 3151 Liandrylai item 3116 combo on immobile "oldschool mages" such as Cassiopeia Malzahar Brand Velkoz made me rethink the whole issue. What if we're looking at this wrong? We're trying to make those "nukers" viable in their task to burn squishies in an AoE combo, but that's an assassin's job! Why not take the anti-tank DPS potential and go from there?

The problem with Liandrylai is that for 5800 gold it provides 800 HP, 130 AP and zero mana regen. And although not all of those immobile champions need CDR, they definitely need mana to clear minion waves as the game progresses. That much excessive health does not help at all, since once those champions get caught in the crossfire, they will die anyway, especially this early.

Stattik's response mentioned using Doran's Rings to get the necessary mana, but that's another 160 health right there and mana regen from rings is not that much. In the end, it's either Liandry rush and mana starvation, or Athene pickup and delayed power spike (Athenes + Rabadon on a popular midlaner is better than Athenes + one part of Liandrylai combo on immobile combo mage).

There's hope that Riot sees the problem, though. From PBE patch notes:

item 3116 Rylai's Crystal Scepter

  • Health reduced to 400 from 500
  • AP increased to 100 from 80

I don't know if that's enough, but at least it's something. I think, however, that we could rework Rylai's a bit more. Midlaners don't need that Giant's Belt - if they want health, they have RoA and Liandry's Torment. In top lane, the only bruiser using it is Rumble and the mages who would want his item outnumber him.

Rylai's could become a Blasting Wand + Chalice/Forbidden Idol item outright, or, if we want to preserve the HP option, there's also a possibility of making it an advanced item building into two alternatives - the AP version and the HP version. For example:

item 1026 + item 1027 + 140 g = item 3116 with 40 AP, 250 mana and the slow passive (reduced to 1s from 1.5s) item 3116 + item 1011 + 600 g = "the Rumble upgrade" with 60 AP, 300 mana and 500 health (possibly increased slow strength/duration to 2s) item 3116 + item 1058 + 200 g = "the mage upgrade" with 120 AP and 300 mana (possibly MR reduction on slowed targets)

The direction presented above can be applied with Ruby Crystal or any stat, really. Just take into consideration that Rylai's is currently a rather rare item in toplane (Iceborn Gauntlet provides a much better slow) and would fit midlaners much better.

The general note in here is tha Rylai's could use a change, and the current one on PBE is already nice, but still doesn't make the item as a good thing to rush as Athene's is for in-metar mages.

##Summary

Athenes' monopoly needs to broken - but not by nerfing the item to oblivion, since Chalice responds to core issues of "standard mages", which is the desire for safe laning and midgame power spike. The easiest way to do it seems to be introducing an alternative AP Chalice upgrade, with either Aether Wisp or Blasting Wand.

Other changes are optional, but could help broaden up available possibilities and fix some unhealthy interactions.

##Next discussion

With supports and mages out (we'll likely revisit them in the future), it's time to take a look at Jungle. Tank junglers still feel vulnerable and underwhelming, even with Quill Coat, and Feral Flare is both unsatisfying for its users (takes long to stack) and frustrating for their teammates (again: takes long to stack), waiting for that guy to finally gank somewhere.

Any feedback, positive or negative, is more than welcome. To people voting "The problem lies elsewhere", please do explain what do you have in mind, if you mind.

16 Comments

ModCaptainMårvelous7/25/2014, 1:54:01 AM3 votes

I gotta say that your assessment is semi-incorrect in the "holy trinity" group. Albeit it's a toss up, I'd argue item 3157 would fit better than item 3135 as part of the trinity. Why? Because Hourglass is pretty much the strongest defensive option AP mids have even against other APs. 2-ish seconds of invincibility to get cooldowns recharged, block burst, etc.

If anything, I'd say Hourglass should be looked at considering just how powerful of a defensive tool it is. All that said, however, totally agree with your assessment that mid-lane could use some diversity.

PhoenixUnreal7/25/2014, 12:51:33 AM2 votes

Always Galio left forever alone.

One of the first champions released and he now is known as

"The Urgot of midlane."

Nobody mentions Galio in these "Oldschool threads" :(

Sneak Dog7/25/2014, 12:33:40 AM2 votes

First of all: Banner of command is superior to morellonomirominomocon if you have any pets in your kit at all and you do not care about the mana regeneration, if you do care about the latter, then you might have to reconsider if you'd prefer 200g+2 mana/s (and the occasional grievous wounds) over 15% bonus damage on your pet and superior pushing power (and a splitpusher that is not a champion). The main issue with the item is that it's simply a mildly different morellonomirominomoromocon.

Grail is 117% gold efficient without the mana font passive, considering other items with similar costs, this might be fine? It is however giving a midlaner every single stat they need, is extremely convenient to build and scales well into lategame (Imagine a triforce without the sheen part for adcs?). The combination of these three might be too good. I don't think one should buff the ap on grail, it already is a defensive option due to it requiring the mr of chalice. I'd really like chalice to drop the mr somehow to put some risk onto it and allowing it to be an offensive item instead, but it'd be very similar to the tear.

I don't think chalice needs a third build path per se though. Mages will generally just want the offensive option anyway unless you get something really attractive onto the item somehow. For mana-hungry supports there already is the choice between the two upgrades. Also, void staff op.

sYe21ajYHk7/25/2014, 8:38:54 PM1 votes

I think you're on the right idea with tear, but I'm not convinced that the entire problem comes down to the stats themselves as much as it is how they cooperate with current champion kits. For the sake of argument, I'm going to sketch a rough champion design that I think would benefit from building tear without having any direct mana scaling.

Champion would rely on spammable abilities with high mana costs. Champion would have high base damages on their abilities. Champion would have low AP ratios on their abilities. Champion would have solid base health, armor, and MR.

I think this would solve the problem. If the champion needed to rely on their spammable expensive spells, the mana regen from a simple chalice would not be enough (it would take too much time to regen the missing mana and you'd be forced to rely on your awful auto attacks to farm/defend yourself). The high base damages, health, armor, and MR would ensure that they could trade well with other mid laners despite not building HP, armor, MR, or AP. This frees them up to spend their gold on mana as opposed to other stats. The low AP ratios and restrictive mana costs would actually cause them to scale better with mana than AP, due to their inability to sustain casting their spells with traditional AP builds, as well as just not receiving that much increased damage. This doesn't work like Ryze, where they directly receive more damage from mana. It's moreso that their ability to cast spells more frequently drastically increases their damage output. They would still scale, just not with a traditional build. In addition, because it would take a while to build up enough mana to cast your spells enough, they wouldn't be as much of a bully in lane as you'd expect for a champion with extremely high base damage spells (picture a champion that does say 50% more damage then other mids, but can only cast 2 spells to enemy's 3 - the damage output would be even).

While you could force open options with itemization, I think your suggestions are all highlighting the problem. We force all mages (Ryze excluded) to build AP in order to scale into the game. I think the flaw lies more with champion design and lacking actual variety in kits in terms of things like base damages, AP ratios, mana costs, etc. in order to vary itemization among mages.

Canastus7/25/2014, 10:17:13 PM1 votes

Item changes are good and all but they don't really solve the issue, at least not for immobile champions. Atfer all those items will be accessable to everyone else, so what does that mean? While the immobile champions may either get a bit more mobile or tanky, the already mobile ones will do so aswell. The gap between them will never change.

If you ask me, immobile champions like Cassiopeia deserve partial or maybe even full reworks. Their kits may have worked in the past but nowadays the MAJORITY of this game's roster is equipped with some form of gapcloser or dash, the mobility creep has already conquered this game.

I seriously doubt Riot is willing to nerf mobility on any of those champions since it's already part of their identity. Best examples are Kassadin and Lee Sin - no matter how often they try to nerf them, in the end they still refuse to touch their mobility. And since they're the best on this field, they'll always remain problematic.

Wouldn't it be far easier to simply rework the small champion pool (Cass & friends) which already lies in shambles before making them wait for some miracle in the meta which will probably never come?

Binxy Prime7/26/2014, 5:52:05 AM1 votes

I think most imobile mages need to get an earlier Zhonyas to compete with more mobile champs, it gives the ability to 'dodge' skills like they can but with the drawback of not being able to move for 3 seconds. It lets you get off a second round of AOE pretty often though which is definitely worth it in many cases. The problem is that most of the imobile characters have mana problems as well so going Athenes into Zhonyas is going to hurt their waveclear much more than someone who has the freedom to go rabadons into void, they are going to end up more mobile AND end up doing more damage until both players hit 4 items where theoretically the imobile mage should do much more damage provided they get into position to cast their spells.

Willahelm Fulber7/25/2014, 3:08:13 AM1 votes

Speaking on the topic of the next discussion, I feel that people underestimate the power of a free ward. I'm not speaking to the cost-efficiency of wriggle's/flare or quillcoat/SotAG, but if you use the ward you're given correctly, tank junglers are infact very far from vulnerable. One problem with this, though, is that tank junglers still rely on their teammates to help deny invaders. In solo queue, I'm certain most players understand that you can't always rely on your lanes.

As for feral flare farming, I think riot made a bad decision in designing an item like so anyways. I feel it would have been much better for AD jungles if there was an armour pen jungle item, perhaps.

JackYAqua7/25/2014, 8:01:25 PM1 votes

I agree with most of these propositions, except for the Rylai's one.
Giving Rylai's Mana doesn't seem smart to me, because of ...
Katarina Mordekaiser Akali Kennen Vladimir Rumble Zac
Nice thread though, sad that it's being down-voted.