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@Riot: CDR niche item suggestion for AA boosting ADC champions

Packdemon·3/8/2014, 2:59:50 AM·5 votes·1,077 views

Where does and ADC's main form of damage have to come from? All most all would answer say the answer to be their basic attack. And they would be right, but how about a champion that has an ability that synergizes/buffs their basic attack damage? Those abilities would tie in directly to their overall DPS from basic attacks. So lowering the CDR on such ADCs would also increase overall DPS. There are currently a quite a few ADC champions who can benefit more from CDR (for basic attack DPS), some more than others (lower mana cost, higher buffs, and lower CD are preferred). These champions include Sivir (Ricochet + On The Hunt), Miss Fortune (Impure Shot, which they are planning to make AD scaled now in her upcoming/delayed rework), Ezreal (passive + any ability), Lucian (same as Ez), Draven (Spinning Axe; Spinning Axe + Blood Rush), Vayne (Tumble; Tumble + Final Hour), Tristana (Rapid Fire), Kog'Maw (Bio-Arcane Barrage), Corki (Gatlin Gun; armor red and you still can basic attack throughout it's duration), and Graves (Quickdraw). Note that if these champions invest in CDR Trinity Force will also become more viable.

So why don't these champions build any CDR (well most anyway)? Well the answer to that is because CDR is hard to itemize on an AD carry and you end up having to sacrifice a lot of AD potential investing in it. Also, the full 40% CDR is worth more than when you only have a little. This is because even though percents stack additively, their effect to how often an ability can be cast is not additive. So, you always want to go for the full 40% if you are to invest in any at all, but for most standard ADC compositions that simply is not an option. What you have currently available for ADCs in the CDR department are: Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Black Cleaver (for Last Whisper), Zephyr (generally replaces boots), Youmuu's Ghostblade (for Phantom Dancer), some defensive items (like Iceborn Gauntlets for Ez), blue buff (generally goes to either jungle or midlaners; temporary), and the blue elixir (costly/temporary; mostly purchased at the end of a match). Other than the boots, most of these would/should not be switched out for the standard ADC items. But, Riot themselves said that they'd like to see Sivir (my extra input: and champions also like her) building CDR: http://www.surrenderat20.net/2013/10/red-post-collection-context-on-sivirs.html

  1. Reduction of her base Attack Speed / Attack Speed per level This was done for 2 reasons.

  1. As a balancing factor due to how much power I wanted to put into the Passive Attack Speed bonus on Ricochet from On The Hunt. If Sivir isn't able to compete with other marksmen, then I would like to investigate buffing the Ricochet Attack Speed bonus (say 50/75/100% rather than the current 40/60/80%) instead of giving her Attack Speed the old boring way.
  2. By making the Ricochet Attack Speed bonus important to her power, this increases the viability of Cooldown Reduction as a good stat on Sivir. CDR Sivir is a super fun build that I would love to see as an effective alternative to the generic marksmen builds that we traditionally see.

Once again, there's still tons of tuning we can do here, so feel free to try her out and give feedback. Thanks guys and gals!"

^(First off 50/75/100% AS scaling for Ricochet on Sivir? I would have really loved seeing that go through, seeing as it would make CDR even more viable for her than it already is.)

So, this would call for a new item to be used as a niche substitute for one of the other ADC core items. The current IE is relatively expensive to the rest of an ADC core build, so how about if the there was another item that would be a substitute for it made from thebrutalizer/pickaxe/cloakofagility instead of B.F.sword/pickaxe/cloakofagility? The cost would be reduced by 213 gold and have 20 less attack damage, but it still would scale well with AD because of it's additional passives (current IE):

Image description: I haven't finished it yet, but it should look like a kilij with a light blue aura (to symbolize freedom, because Azat means free). I'll base it off of this picture:

http://apollo-na-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/1394687384896/Kilij.jpg

  • Name:

    • Blade of the Azat

  • Tier:

    • Legendary

  • Stats:

    • +50 attack damage
    • +25% critical strike chance
    • +10% cooldown reduction

  • Passive:

    • UNIQUE: +10 armor penetration
    • UNIQUE: +50% critical strike damage

  • Menu:

    • Attack > Critical Strike
    • Attack > Damage
    • Magic > Cooldown Reduction

  • Item Cost:

    • 3587g (645g)

  • Sell Value:

    • 2511g

Note: Critical Strike Damage from this item will not stack with the Infinity Edge

Do you guys have any suggestions or takeaways for this? Is it too weak? Too strong? Some options to give this a power-balance (by nerfing if you think it needs a nerf) with the IE include: lowering the CSC to 15%, building it from another Long Sword instead of a Pickaxe lowering the AD by 15, having the passive do stacks of increased CSD instead of a flat boost of 50%, and/or and increase on the item cost. Let me know what you guys thing? Should there be even more CDR options available on Summoner's Rift? How about seeing items like Dervish Blade on S'sR as an option for marksmen to take over Mercurial Scimitar?

12 Comments

Lady Luck3/8/2014, 6:06:16 AM3 votes

No.

Riot has been moving CDR away from generic items to be more focused so you have to make a decision on if you want CDR in exchange for something else. Because CDR, when obtained without sacrifice, is damn strong.

With ADCs - as you said their damage comes from attacks. Some ADCs have some really nice utility in their skills, but are gated by cool downs. Imagine all the dashes that ADCs have... That's a huge increase in mobility (and survivability) with hardly any trade off. Vayne would be tumbling every second. You already mentioned attack steroids - now they would likely have to be nerfed due to being able to use these steroids more while simultaneously building damage. (Think about how much AD the item gives, how much that effects the steroid and the increased frequency the steroid is up. Not to mention the flat AD outside of steroid use and benefit to other skills.)

(And I'm not even getting into the other stats on the item...)

ADCs get useful skills - but they're gated by CDs. This is intentional.

Mandaari3/8/2014, 5:31:10 AM1 votes

Not armor pen, but I like the idea. I'd rather see CDR, AD, crit, and some mana. Keep in mind the item's going to be contending with all those items ADCs can't live without atm. I'm assuming the passive is unique with IE?