Wits End and the Future (Caution: Lengthy Read) (@Riot?)

Suasive·3/11/2014, 4:02:20 AM·2 votes·291 views

##Disclaimer & Intro:

This is a little more than the typical “Riot Please” post, and I’m not sure I can sum up the main idea with good reasoning in a concise statement. Apologies for those who do not have the time to read a lengthy post at this time. Those who do feel like reading, thanks for your attention.

In a past metagame where even the summoner spell Surge existed, Wit’s End was once a core item on the builds of many top laners. This item in its most familiar form (no mana burn!) has been changed over the years, and is largely irrelevant today. However, Wit’s End actually embodies many of the ideals for a healthy game and I’d love for you to hear me out (and hopefully support its return to relevancy)

The motive for this post: I believe Wit’s End is an item that is healthy for both champion diversity and game flow. To use an MtG term, I think Riot “pushing” this item forward such that this item has more gravity in the metagame will yield positive results for the game overall.

##Why do this? What does the game gain from such a change?

Issue One:

Early game and late game are very real phases of any match. The same applies for the mid-game, but no option exists for players to actually invest into strength at this point! (You could buy 3 elixirs? Don’t settle for that!) To a lesser degree, could also influence the snowballing of games.

Issue Two:

The overwhelming majority of itemization choices are for either carries or tanks (you buy offense or you buy defense). Both types of items naturally have synergy with themselves that makes staying away from max damage or max defense way safer than any combination of mixing and matching items. The return of a dedicated fighter item that actually focuses on the part of the game where fighters are relevant can be positive overall.

####My first point is the mid-game, and let’s start off with what Wit’s End actually is compared to other items.

Wits End was the poster child of a mid-game item. It builds out of components that are terrible for laning, but have a great power spike once completed. However—You can’t buy this item if you want to hard carry, and it’s not defensive enough if you want to tank a team. This is rare among the items in this game!
It gives relevant mid-game defenses, new utility from the mr reduction (a great change in my opinion!), deals a lot of on-hit damage which all sound really powerful. In practice, the application of these stats already decreases over the course of the game making it a prime candidate for a mid-game fighter item.
Parsing this out further: This item encourages top laners who actually use their auto attack over raw spell damage, and rewards players for staying in combat! There are a lot of items that turn the enemy top laner into “the guy you can never duel again ,” but Wit’s End has a window of vulnerability; you’re sacrificing your early game by building things like recurve bow! I think this is a fair tradeoff.
Despite the power spike, it’s not easy for the Wit’s End player to continue investing into offensive stats that mesh well with the item. This dampens the threat of an unstoppable damage snowball that would arise from fighter items that grant AD or AP. To summarize this point, Wit’s End in today’s metagame should propel the midgame as a solid phase of the game, while hopefully avoiding uncompetitive pitfalls of previous mid-game items (WRIGGLES).

####My second point comes to fighters and itemization.

Wit’s end was once a prominent item on fighter champions, who thrive during the midgame. As a fighter, you would start the first half of the game a little more damage focused, and the second half a little more defense focused.

Unfortunately, players found the best path was to choose champions that can get by with building straight defensive items, then getting to the point where they are unkillable late game. This of course leads to the metagame of super-tanks we have at the moment (it’s not as bad as before though)
Referring to Issue #2 above, this is because building only damage -OR- defense is very safe from how items work together. It’s dangerous to be caught being a champion does tries to build both but does neither. Some defense can get you a few more autos in, but this idea should be unified (carefully!) in a single item.
As a result, a dedicated mid-game fighter item is appropriate. Lane bully champions are historically a very narrow niche, and the mid-game is when the map really opens up to do different things before late-game scaling kicks in.
Wits End serves to be a prime candidate for the role in question, dealing mixed damage and having many checks from becoming dominant. Both are accomplished in interesting and healthy ways.
Fighters and attack speed: A lot of fighters have attack speed steroids or bonuses for auto attacking (because auto attacks is pretty interactive with other players, pretty good for the game), but never see much benefit from it. This can be addressed efficiently with Wit’s End, which will be powerful when it should be, and can’t be abused by other champion roles.(A lot of fighter reworks involve giving them attack speed! Need good outlets for it!)

##Examples of Possible Champion Returns (I am perhaps over-romanticizing this particalular section, but I do hope with the right changes to a single item that overall champion, build, and game flow diversity will grow wonderfully)

Magic Damage Bruisers: Skarner, Warwick, Diana (Wits End + Haunting Guise could sound pretty good on her)
More player-interactive builds for champions such as: Irelia, Teemo (non-mushroom build sounds better to me…).
Players opting in for mid-game power as their role for the match: Xin Zhao, Shen, Shyvana (spike earlier, scale less? Supertank vs fighter sounds fine)

Comparisons to Similar Items:

Blade of the Ruined King: Notable competition for the “only going to buy one damage item slot.” Perhaps many of you came into this thread satisfied with BotRK as the replacement, as it also does relatively independent on-hit damage and provides good utility. Notable differences are item cost, scaling, and damage type.

Starting with cost, BotRK is a super-powerful item that also costs like a super powerful item. With the goal of the mid game in mind, this doesn’t help much The components are good, aren’t the threat of a finished item. Continue reading for better reasons.
Blade of the Ruined King also does % damage health. This is fantastic later in the game with the “free” power you are getting, but isn’t quite as strong early on. The components, which give lifesteal are definitely a safe buy in lane, and are a big contrast to what Wit’s End makes you go through, focuses on the intermediate phases of the game. I’m not trying to replace one item with other, and I don’t expect Blade of the Ruined King to ever disappear from the metagame—but making a new alternative based off of an open niche sounds good to me.
Since Wit’s End does magic damage, it will often do much better than a Bilgewater Cutlass at fighting ranged champions, who do not get MR per level, allowing for more control over the midgame as described. However, Cutlass will eventually scale better due to its upgrade and synergy of AD with other stats. While the magic damage and magic pen will mostly be used by champions like Irelia to scale their auto attacks over time and later support their teammate’s damage, champions like Diana who lack good auto-attack boosting items will also finally have a real item to use according to their design. Despite the similarities, I hope I can convince you that both of these items are different enough to coexist in the same meta.

Hexdrinker (and maw too I guess): Probably the most similar item. This argument comes down to the attack damage stat.

Hexdrinker is a viable purchase for AD assassins and desperate AD carries, and that makes it ineligible for the “premiums” that could exist on a balanced fighter item. By design, AD is meant to scale with crit, lifesteal, last whisper, AD abilities, etc. and that keeps it from having balanced midgame damage without being too good later as well (another plug for the non/low scaling of on hit magic damage from Wit’s End!)
Furthermore, this item is much more defensive than Wits End was. Hexdrinker is usually built when an enemy is getting out of control or as a preventive measure against that. A lot of the value of this item lies in the shield that people can’t really play around, which is fine and fact. Recall that Wit’s End as a midgame item however, has most of its value from the unique nature of the damage it deals. Contrary to hexdrinker then, players with Wit’s End would instead be the ones taking initiative instead of being responsive to take advantage of their mid-game boost.

Sunfire Cape: Also similar with the steady magic damage. This is what we saw/still see as what a bruiser item would do by giving both defense and offense at the same time. A lot of people rushed this item on top laners.

However this item is less healthy for the game when strong. Unlike Wit’s End, the defensive stats have 100% uptime, and the damage is unavoidable—you and your nearby minions constantly take damage without much effort from the opposing player. Since Sunfire scaled so well and was recently nerfed, the space for Wit's End has been opened some more as well.

Black Cleaver: Brutalizer is a good item, and Black Cleaver is a decent scaling upgrade too. There’s a reason BC also gives health as a stat.

In practice, however Black cleaver remains far more effective on AD assassins and casters with fighters taking a backseat role. This leaves a whole slew of auto attack focused fighters with nothing as well.

##"Wasn’t this item nerfed for being too powerful? What are you thinking?"

I actually think that Wit’s End was the least impactful player in the “metagolem” age we knew. Items such as Atma’s Impaler and Warmog’s Armor (which are different—being late game items that are completely dependent on other items = stack HP) were actually the biggest offenders, and Wit’s End was just an item to hold them over until then. Many of the offending items and champions have since been made healthier, and now that the game is in a whole different bubble, an item like Wit’s End with clear strength and weaknesses could work out.

"Didn’t Riot say that they removed mid-game items because they stretched out the game?Players suddenly found themselves unable to actually end and win!"

This is a valid concern. I am inclined to believe that the game today is nowhere nearly as slow as before (see: season 2 championships vs now). Many systems changes have already occurred over the years to things like vision, efficiency of defensive items, and gold generation that we can expect a reasonable testing phase without it failing instantly.

##Ok, but what do we change?

I’m not convinced anyone can throw around accurate numbers without testing. But we (well… Riot) should try according to these two goals:

1.) When is the mid game exactly? Result: Price the item accordingly for when it should start. The strange build path for the item is relevant and should stay, but also be taken into consideration into the cost.

2.) How important is the mid game? Result: Give the item stats some number changes that match the power spike that will make the game dynamic. This means great gold efficiency on paper, but in practice will decline in efficiency as fighters find fewer opportunities to auto attack and as well from the scaling threat of AD carries, while magic damage users go find squishier targets to kill instead.

That’s it for now everyone. If you stuck with me through to the ending, thanks so much for your time, indulging my nerdiness, and hopefully leads to a playtest that goes either way towards making League of Legends closer to the perfect game.