[Serious Discussion] Lets talk itemization

This was inspired by a few things, one of them being this thread on Reddit Here.

TL;DR take a note from other games, variety makes it more fresh

League of Legends is at an all time high with summoner spells. Now more than more than ever we have seen a large selection of players choosing more than 'Flash/Smite/Ignite/Barrier' (or if you're a support flash/ignite, or going back to s3 flash/exhaust/ignite) with teleport, heal, exhaust, and ignite all being failry balanced now. This is really good for game health, as more variety means more fresh gameplay.

But this isn't a summoner spell post, this is about Items and their importance. One of LoL's downfalls is bland item paths. Tanks/top lanes have Randuins, Sunfire, and Visage to choose from, with choice offensive item's such as BotrK and Hydra (woo.. oh wait). This is bad for the long haul of a game's health.

People like seeing multiple build paths. Take DotA 2 for example, they have a plethora of items (keeping in mind that were talking a plethora of slot efficient items) to choose from all depending on situation. Because they have this large item set, team compositions are more flexible. More flexible team compositions makes more interesting game play, which directly correlates to eSports enjoyability. Gambit is so interesting to watch because they pull out weird stuff that works, and props to them for finding what they do as innovating is LoL can be a bit difficult.

The reason why it is so difficult to differentiate from some current concrete meta 'philosophies' right now in League, at least partially, is because LoL suffers from BPM, or Build Path Monotony if you will. My last example was Top Lane so I'll just move to the Jungle.

Jungler's just recently got an influx of viable champions, the 3 main ones in the spotlight are Xin Zhao, Master Yi, and Nocturne (Although Meteos is also a large part of the reason why for him). As you know, this is because of the addition of Feral Flare, which is (with a bit of tweaking) the best design decision Riot has made with an item. In the Reddit thread Atma's Impaler was suggested as a 3rd item to be made to bring Utility and/or Tank junglers a viable, fresh choice. Feral Flare brought back a lot of champions that had small flaws that kept them back from top tier, and it did it without

A) Nerfing anyone else (Although I feel like Lizard should be 25%), which allows more variety (again flare needs a bit of tweaking to allow a bit more room) Nerfing, to me, is the more straight forward, brute force direction to balance.

B) Buffing them, causing decent champions to become monsters, to only then lead to nerfs which forces champions to go through horrible cycles.

This last thing is the consequence of a restrictive item selection. BPM is a real thing, luckily their are a few easy fixes for the short term, and the long term can be fixed with time.

So what can you do short term to help with viability? Make those Tier 2 items slot efficient by adding Tier 3's. A complex game is a refreshing game. Take Wits End. An item seemingly designed for Tanks in mind, to give them MR for defense, Attack Speed and an attack modifier to try to force people to target you. A large amount of current tanks rely on hard CC to accomplish this, which in an ideal game would be only one criteria for a champion to be viable.

Back to Wits End and my idea, I think you can take this late game inefficient item into a decent one by giving it a tier 3 (or heck make a second tier 3 just to have even more variety).

This is what I would do.

Wit's Beginning (only a place holder as I didn't take the time to flesh out something)

Recipe

Wits End + Kindle Gem + 500 gold = 3500 Cost.

Stats

375 Health, 25 MR, 10% CDR, 50% Attack Speed.

Unique Passive: Every auto attack deals 50 extra magic damage.

Unique Passive: Every auto attack increases your MR by 5 (for 5 seconds) and reduces your enemies by 5.

Specifically, I think this would allow for more variety in the top lane which I think everyone would thoroughly enjoy.

Well I just realized what time it is and will have to head out for now, but my question to the community, and Riot I suppose, is do you think we need more itemization? If yes why, if no why not.

Also, any other suggestions on what needs to be added for other positions such as Mid lane and ADC/Marksman, both also need heavy relief from BPM.

Anyways, if you made it this far thanks for reading!

And if you reply, thanks for adding to the discussion.