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[Item Reworks] Pyro's Item Overhaul 2 - Diversifying Mages: Void Staff, Alternatives to Athene's

Thats My Brand·3/16/2014, 11:47:43 PM·15 votes·1,711 views

Welcome back to the theorycrafting series. Today we'll look at the mage itemization and assess some of the problems in midlane itemization.

##Previously on "Pyro's Item Overhaul"

My previous post concerned support itemization. The suggestions were generally warmly received, but the drafts had some problems I'll still need to work at. Here's the link if you missed it. What did it feature:

  • Shurelya's Reverie as a standalone initiator item
  • Every gold generation item gets two upgrades: one passive and one active
  • Among those six items are Mikael's Crucible and Zeke's Herald, more or less unchanged
  • Aegis of the Legion and Locket of the Iron Solari get an easier build path (Aegis loses health regen, Locket builds out of Aegis and Kindlegem)
  • New team-oriented items for tanks: Runic Bulwark and Arcane Helix
  • Sightstone gets two alternative upgrades

Let's move on to today's topic:

#The Cookie Cutter Midlane Build

Even if it's not as consistent as in the tank toplane meta, there's a dominating item build in the middle lane that sees very little variance. If you've seen any pro games lately, you'll notice that most midlaners, regardless of what mage they picked, rush those three items:

item 3174 item 3089 item 3135

  • Athene's Unholy Grail is the uncontested superior first item. Suited for both farming with spells and replanishing mana in teamfights, this is the best option for MR, CDR amd mana regeneration - packed with okay-ish chunk of AP. In some rare situations you could see Morellonomicon getting picked and lategame carries such as Kassadin and Karthus may prefer Tear and Catalyst, but for any other champion, Chalice of Harmony is far superior.
  • Rabadon's Deathcap isn't as dominant in its class as the Grail is amongst 20% CDR items, but it's still the strongest 120 AP item that works with just any other source of AP. I don't really think the item is notoriously imbalanced, though, as the alternative upgrades to Needlessly Large Rod have their purpose and are viable alternatives. Adding any alternative to Deathcap would need to be made in a way so i doesn't excessively stack with it.
  • Void Staff is a must-have. Not only does it work against tanks, who will build one of the upgrades to Spectre's Cowl, but also against every other target, really. Even carries will haave scaling MR runes and Banshee's Veil. There is no reason not to buy it as no other item can enhance your damage for equal price. I'm not really convinced that item is in a good place. It should be a more situational pickup that doesn't punich carries for buying a bit of MR along with tanks who stack it.

Now those three items do not deserve any nerfs - well, maybe VS - they merely lack proper alternatives. That's why my solution to expand item pool in midlane is mostly tuning up some underused alternatives.

##The Main Culprit

item 3135 Void Staff tweak:

  • Passive: Your spells ignore 50% of target's bonus Magic Resistance.

This is a nerf in some cases. Some example math: in its current form Void Staff nullifies 10 base MR from squishies, and then 35% of any MR from items. The item, meant to counter MR stacking, actually does damn well against unshielded targets, as on these low amounts of MR flat penetration from Sorcerer's Shoes and Haunting Guise becomes even more powerful. My version of VS requires the target to have 70 bonus MR from runes/items to be more effective than the old one on squishy (30 base MR) targets. Efficiency on champions with scaling MR, at level 18 (52.5 MR), breaks even at 122 MR from items/runes (in current rune meta: 100 MR from items).

This should give mages a little better lategame presence against hypertanks stacking Banshee's Veil with Spirit Visage and Guardian Angel, while allowing the squishies to go some for MR with no outright downside.

##Chalice of Imbalance

There is no better laning item in typical lane matchups than Chalice of Harmony. The only alternatives are Tear of the Goddess, which costs 180g less but provides no defense, and Catalyst the Protector, which costs 320 g more and has a much less convenient upgrade into Rod of Ages that takes some time (precisely and literally) to pay off. Furthermore, the RoA synergizes best with Archangel's Staff, making those two items work best on stupidly late-oriented oldschool carries.

I do not intend to touch these items directly. They have their own purpose and, Catalyst aside, feel satisfying in what they're supposed to do. My approach to this situation would be introducing alternative mana regeneration items that could break the Chalice monopoly.

NEW ITEM: Meki Pendant
Recipe: item 1004 Faerie Charm + item 1004 Faerie Charm + 240g (total cost: 600g)
+7 mana regeneration
Passive: +10% cooldown reduction

NEWS FLASH: Midlaners need mana regeneration to stay in lane, and more than just a Faerie Charm or two. I'm quite sure one of the reason why items such as Morellonomicon are struggling is the lack of reliable mana regen in their build path. Let's look at this item with a slightly altered components:

item 3165 Morellonomicon
Recipe: item 3108 Fiendish Codex + item 1052 Amplifying Tome + (new item) Meki Pendant + 345g (total cost: 2200g)
Final statistics and price remain unchanged

The only difference is that you can sit on Meki Pendant for a while, which is a very handy 10% CDR item that can actually compete with Chalice in the laning phase. In its current form it could actually become an ingredient of Grail as well, to pair with a price increase to AUG - this could be the fair way to nerf AUG, although I think it can be left as it is. Morellonomicon isn't the only upgrade to Meki, though:

Will of the Ancients
Recipe: item 3145 Hextech Revolver + item 1052 Amplifying Tome + (new item) Meki Pendant + 265g (total cost: 2500g)
+70 ability power
+10 mana regeneration
+10% cooldown reduction
Passive: +20% spell vamp

Similar approach as with Morellonomicon, but going a step further: current WotA lacks slot efficiency and actually has even less AP than Hextech Gunblade. I've made the item mage-friendly with the Meki buildup and increased the total AP by 20 at the cost of price being 500 g higher. This should fix most issues people had with this item - mana still needs to gate this item from being outright too efficient on Vladimir, but in the current form it's not fitting mana using mages, either.

Other possible Meki upgrade are support items mentioned in the previous post: reworked Talisman of Ascension (loses active, grants increased HP/MP regeneration aura) and Soul Shroud (Kindlegem+Meki, 20% CDR, breaks CDR cap increasing it to 50%).

Here's another mana regen option:

NEW ITEM: Mana Manipulator
Recipe: Faerie Charm + 220g (total cost: 400g)
+5 mana regeneration
Passive: Nearby enemy spell casts reduce the cooldown of Mana Warp by 3 seconds.
Active - Mana Warp: Target ally regains 10% of their missing mana. 60 second cooldown.

Another idea for alternative mana item to Chalice is bringing back Mana Manipulator. What I particuarly like about this concept is that it works best against manaless oponents who tend to recklessly spam their abilities with no retaliation. Numbers probably need to be adjusted. It can be purchased by both supports and mid laners. The upgraded active can amplify your own AP or the target's:

NEW ITEM: Breathstealer
Recipe: (new item) Wizard's Regalia + (new item) Mana Manipulator + 400g (total cost: 2000g)
+60 ability power
+10 mana regen
+6% movement speed
Passive: Nearby enemy spell casts reduce the cooldown of Mana Warp by 3 seconds.
Active - Mana Warp: Target ally regains 15% of their maximum mana and gains 30 ability power for 5 seconds. 60 second cooldown.

The idea behind the item is to provide an upgrade to Mana Manipulator that lets the supports lend their power to the proper target. In the hands of an AP Carries, the item can be used on themselves to temporarily reach decent gold efficiency (and get some mana back).

It probably falls behind as the game progresses and mana from blue/baron/items is more than enough.

Note: Wizard's Regalia (this time I just used one of alpha items so it would have an icon on the wiki) builds out of Blastign Wand, costs 1200g, grants 50 AP and 5% MS, and is sort of a mage Zeal. It builds into Lich Bane and Twin Shadows. I made it with roamers such as Ahri in mind, since mages have rather low base MS. Compared to Zeal, it's a bit less convenient to assemble.

This form of Mana Manipulator could actually build also into Mikael's Crucible, in case the one-way build becomes too problematic.

##Let's Push This Further

I don't think I need to explain that both Banner of Command and Ohmwrecker are rather underused in the current meta. Too bad, because after a slight rework they could actually be quite useful.

item 3060 Banner of Command
Recipe: item 3191 Seeker's Armguard + item 3108 Fiendish Codex + 820g (total cost: 3000g)
+45 armor
+75 ability power
+20% cooldown reduction
Passive - Rally: Nearby allied minions have 15% increased attack damage, ability power and armor.
Active - Promote: Transforms a nearby siege minion to a more powerful unit. You gain all the gold this unit earns. 180 second cooldown.

I could go on for a while explaining why the current Banner is so abaondoned, but I think I'll pass. I'd rather explain how this one is supposed to work.

Minion-based champions such as Elise, Malzahar and Heimerdinger, as every other mage, first need some mana and defence. For Banner to be a core item, it needs something more than CDR and AP - Morellonomicon and Athene's Unholy Grail are already a better pickup. Of course increasing the base stats requires increasing the price - but that's how a niche item should work. Decent slot efficiency as it is, and actually good gold efficiency on selected champions. And, what's important, adding Seeker's Armguard to the recipe makes building it worthwhile instead of punishing.

Any sort of balancing should be done by increasing the combine price, not decreasing the statistics. This is how this item needs to look like in its final form to be considered by people, especially since the Promote active has questionable value as the game goes on. Another possible solution is reducing CDR to 10%.

item 3056 Ohmwrecker
Recipe: item 3191 Seeker's Armguard + item 3028 Chalice of Harmony + 1000g (total cost: 3040g)
+50 ability power
+50 armor
+50 magic resistance
+10 mana regeneration
Passive - Mana Font: Increases your mana regeneration by 1% per 1% mana you are missing.
Passive: Your basic attacks deal 100 bonus damage to towers. This effect cannot occur on a tower more often than once per second.
Active: Prevents the closest enemy tower from attacking for 2.5 seconds (120 second cooldown). This effect cannot be used against the same tower more than once every 7.5 seconds.

The idea behind Ohmwrecker is great. It can be used to break the long, boring siege and towerdive. However, Riot never seemed to get this item right. First it was a tank item, building from Catalyst and Chain Vest. Well, tanks can stack enough HP and armor to do their job anyway and tank the damn turrets. Then it was a support item building out of Philosopher's Stone - which already had a much better upgrade in Shurelya's Reverie. Now the item simply doesn't provide enough statistics to be considered worth it in a mage build.

My approach was to make it the ultimate laning item. Buildup on Armguard and high combine cost delay the item's power spike, but make it very comfortable to assemble. Once it gets finished, the passive damage should help bringing down the turrets to counter roaming. The active may not always make a difference in teamfights, but the base statistics are more than okay.

item 3023 Twin Shadows
Recipe: (new item) Wizard's Regalia + item 1033 Null-Magic Mantle + item 1033 Null-Magic Mantle + 300g (total cost: 2300g)
**+50 ability power
+40 magic resistance
+6% movement speed
Active - Hunt: Summons 2 invulnerable ghosts for 6 seconds to seek the two nearest enemy champions. If they touch an enemy champion, they slow their movement speed by 40%, reveal them and reduce the damage they deal to you by 20% for 2.5 seconds. 120 second cooldown.

The damage reduction on targets hit by ghosts is one thing, but the most important one is the change in build path. I can't think of any instance when Twins would be bought with holding two Amplifying Tomes in mind - two Null-Magic Mantles, however, make a bit more sense, especially when struggling against high-burst champion like LeBlanc. The base stats provided by the item remain the same, but the change in build path should make it much more convenient.

The addition to active (you take 20% less damage from hunted targets) is potentially huge, hence the slight price increase. This could turn some ganks around.

#Summa summarum

item 3135 item 3165 item 3152 item 3056 item 3060

  • Void Staff revamp to be worse vs squishies and better vs supertanks
  • Better build paths for Morellonomicon, Twin Shadows and Will of the Ancients
  • Making Ohmwrecker and Banner of Command actually viable pickups
  • New suggested mana regeneration theme on Mana Manipulator

Next two episodes contain the carry part, featuring changes to armor penetration items similar to what I've done with Void Staff... and then some love for melee carries. After that, I'll ship the first draft of my fighter project that includes reworks of Atma's Impaler, Executioner's Calling and many many more items.

Thanks for all your feedback, it helps immensely in finding flaws in my designs. Special thanks to the fellow IRC guys at #r/leagueoflegends.

Feel free to trashtalk and find abuse cases! :)

16 Comments

exec33/17/2014, 10:07:13 AM2 votes

Just some quick thoughts.

Void Staff: A fine direction that I believe Riot already plans to take with both this and Last Whisper. My main concern however is that there's currently no way to separate the base from the bonus AR/MR. They'll need to do something about that imo as guesstimating base from bonus resistances based on items isn't good enough imo.

Meki Pendant: I like this item, it's a good item that does make the build paths to some other later items smoother.

Morello's: While Meki Pendant will help I feel that Morello's real problem is that it is too similar to Athene's of watch the latter is a stronger item. Morello's is suppose to be niche against lifesteal champs so it needs to emphasize that. Perhaps the passive can be changed to give grievous wounds for 1-4 seconds based on missing health as well as get some sort of active.

WotA: This item is in a bad spot mostly because Spell Vamp is in a bad spot. Unless your champ is built around lifesteal (Vlad, Swain) no one wants it. I don't know if it's because Spell Vamp is weak or if it doesn't feel as good on nukers but that's just the way it is. I'd like to see the mana regen removed in favor of more AP and maybe a bump to 20% CDR. That could be one problem with the item in that we already have plenty of very potent mana regen items, we don't need more, emphasize WotA as being the Bloodthirster for mage's.

CoH/Athene's: Frankly the MR needs to be scrapped, there's no reason why it should still be on the item, it's the 'perfect' item for mages that crowds out everything else. Athene's niche is that it's the item that lets you cast forever, the MR is just free resists against your natural lane opponent.

Mana Manipulator/Breathstealer: These are redundant items. As said before we already have mana regen niche with Athene's. On a side note I would never allow you to cast such an item on yourself, there's a reason Soraka can't anymore.

Banner of Command: I agree it needs love but I don't quite see the reason for the 45 armor other than it's what comes with Armguard. You seem to feel that this item should be primary on minion champs, I don't agree, it's suppose to be a sieging item, it certainly should be good on minions champs but not core imo. I do like the idea of giving minions armor as that helps the sieging purpose though i'm wary about what that would do to turrets/spiderlings/etc. Perhaps a cleaner "nearby allied minions take 20% less damage from turrets" would work well.

Ohmwrecker: I think here you're just trying to give it a reason to exist by filling it with random stats which will only serve to make it OP. Ohmwrecker simply put is a solution in search of a problem. As long as turret targeting AI is braindead and tanky targets can waltz under towers risk free there will never be a reason for this item to exist. However it is not a problem with the item, it is a problem with turrets. The AI needs to be overhauled, damage against tanky targets increased significantly (yes they should be able to survive a lot longer but right now they're immortal against turrets) as well as other work to fix other turret related issues (like no counterplay to tower 3v2 or higher towerdives). Until those issues are solved nothing can be done about Ohmwrecker.

Twin Shadows: This is more a support item than a mage item and as such I like where it is atm. Admittedly I haven't seen it lately (from memory at least), not sure why that is, but I don't think the damage reduction should happen. It'd be used in combat to mitigate damage which isn't what it was designed for (it's meant for searching and catching out enemies).

Earl Eulrich3/17/2014, 1:06:55 PM2 votes

i really like the ideas, especially manamanipulator really schould make a comeback - it would diversify botlane quite much i think.

TTwo problems I see here though: Wota is just to efficient as a stand in lane forever item - no item should provide health and manasustain at the same time. Ohmwrecker - 100bonusdmg to turrets per second really needs a retuning, and I´m not sold on having it as a laning item - i would rather see it as a support/jungle item.

MrRado3/17/2014, 4:42:50 PM1 votes

I'm afraid I don't have the experience or the knowledge to really judge the feasibility of the ideas presented, but just logically reading through, all of the ideas seemed sound to me in goal. As always, stats are subjective to balancing. Its nice that you point out the best stats to change in that case.

I like the idea of multiple build options and really detest that certain roles have "core" items that are almost non-dependent on the actual champion you're playing. I had not seen your support itemization thread and will read it next.

Wanted to say I felt it was worth reading and appreciate the work you put into it.

Angry Monster3/18/2014, 3:18:43 AM1 votes

I think this should of been 2 different topics. in one part you are talking about mid mages. Then you go to support items. These should not be talked about in the same thought process.

I am not sure how i feel about the new version of meki. As cheap as u are making it the stats are to good.

Again to post on every different things hereis imposible. All responses would have to be a wall of text if they want to keep up with every item. Please consider 3 items per topic. so people can easily debate and not see walls of text and go to much effort

exec33/19/2014, 2:28:24 AM1 votes

http://community.pbe.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/champions-gameplay-feedback/oAJ2KpRs-patch-45-itemization-changes

Interesting read on upcoming changes.

They had the same idea as you about an early mana regen+CDR item and it building into Morello's. Ditto with bringing back Wizard's Regalia and it building into Lich Bane.

They also had the same idea as me in that WotA needed to lose the mana regen.

JackAqua3/19/2014, 10:48:00 AM1 votes

Congrats, seems like Riot will bring in your item 'Meki Pendant' under the name 'Forbidden Idol'. Costs 150 more gold and gives 1 more MP5 :D
They probably had it in production for a while now, but so did you. I say the took the idea from you :)

Akh Morn3/19/2014, 3:36:49 PM1 votes

I like the diversifying of mid builds, but I worry about tank/AP hybrids benefiting too much from these items. For example, Malphite rushing this new Ohmwrecker would probably be an unstoppable pushing force (pun slightly intended) that could EASILY dive any squishy. It would bring back the horror days of endless Q spam.

The same goes for Banner of Command vs an AD oriented target.

These ideas are actually very fun although there a LOT of ways to break the game, meta speaking. For example, can Mana Warp be cast on yourself? Soraka is now a go to support. Even if you can't, a mage + Soraka botlane can be terrifying with something like Breathstealer.

The biggest issue I see with these items is that there isn't enough tradeoff. All of them are SUCH good items. Now, if the rest of the item arsenal for other roles were this efficient/diverse, I could see a LOT of potential here, I just worry that AP is going to see too much power combined with defense and mana regen without really trying. It feels as if there's a bunch of alternatives to AUG without any part of them being weaker than the current AUG.

Even still, keep up the good work. It's always nice to see someone with great ideas! I can definitely see your thought direction and process, I just think the game isn't READY for options as cool as these. :)