[Serious Discussion] Lets talk itemization

ProtestTheBread·Apr 11, 2014·2 votes·423 views

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.

11 Comments

exec3Apr 12, 20142 votes

I agree with the comments that Wit's End needs a better build path and I suspect Riot doesn't like Recurve either so they may be looking at removing or repurposing it when they do their marksman item cleanup like the support item cleanup recently.

Preferably I think a 'Wit's Beginning' building out of 2 daggers giving 25-30% AS and 20 magic damage on-hit costing about 1000-1200 gold would do the trick.

And while a Tier 3 Wit's End might be nice i'm not sure your idea is that great, it muddies the purpose of the item (that being magic damage on hit with MR stealing) by dumping a bunch of health and CDR onto it.

Perhaps if you wanted you could go Wit's End+Stinger for the CDR. This is what i'd try.

Stinger: 30% AS + 10% CDR (lower cost as appropriate, other build paths now cost more)

Wit's Beginning build from 2 daggers: 25%AS + 20 magic damage on-hit

Wit's End build from Wit's Beginning + Null Magic: 35%AS + 25MR + 40 magic damage on-hit + 5MR steal (stacks 5 times)

Wit's Super End build from Wit's End + Stinger: 65%AS + 25MR + 10% CDR + 50 magic damage on-hit + 7MR steal (stacks 5 times)

I'll probably be told in a second why it's a really bad idea but i'm just throwing it out there to spark discussion. Also I know it's not a steal but it's eaiser to write it that way.

ProfDrDeathApr 12, 20143 votes

Your item might possibly give you too much for a slot.
65% AS + a lot of extra stats is really much, when you compare it to existing items (most AS from a single slot is 70% for an item that only gives that stat item 3085 , while the highest AS in combination with other stats comes in form of item 3046 and item 3172 with 50% each).
Add the 35 MR steal to it, which is a whole lot, especially on the stealing side (35 MR steal is almost as efficient as item 3135 in most cases, as single-item MR purchases seldomly push your MR above 100).

I don't really like the idea of outright removing item 1043 , as the main problem of that item is that it builds only into obscure items like item 3085 and item 3131 . And even item 3091 is slightly obscure: AS, in itself, is a multiplier stat, meaning it needs something to multiply to be really effective. However, when building Wit's, you build 2 AS items, but don't get something the AS can multiply until you complete the item. That leaves you weaker than your opponent, who builds items that have an immediate effect on his power.

That may be a reason we need the "Wit's Beginning". However, I disagree with it building out of 2 item 1042 - too many recipes already have 2 of those in them. In fact, if item 3153 was to be built out of item 1043 , we'd see the bow more often.

My take on Wit's Beginning would be to have it build from item 1033 and item 1042 , to give 20 MR and 12-15% as, along with a 20 damage on-hit effect. Combining it with item 1043 would lead to item 3091 as is, except with more AS (45-50%), scaling magic damage (like 27 + 1.5 champion level) and higher cost.

exec3Apr 12, 20141 votes

Agreed, your idea is much simpler and cleaner (I was actually thinking of redoing Wit's Beginning to build out of Nullmagic and Dagger as I read your post but as I got to the end I saw you beat me to it :P ). My initial thinking was that I wanted to keep the item as purely a damage item but it could work out fine with the MR so early on. Also if you've noticed I accidentally made a 4th tier item with Wit's Super End haha.

I'm not completely sure what the deal with Recurve is, it could be a simple case that it doesn't build into anything decent atm but on the other hand 900g is a lot to drop onto an item that only offers AS, a multiplying stat. It causes awkward situations with later items in that most of the AS has already been accounted for, it's probably why dagger is used so much more because it's far more flexible in creating interesting and easy to access build paths. Part of why I think Recurve might be removed however is because the recent support/mage item cleanup was specifically about creating more easily accessible build paths for items.

Hyrum GraffApr 12, 20141 votes

Yes, this. This would work.

People don't buy wits end because they don't want to suffer the power lag of the recurve bow. This Wits Beginning gives on-hit damage, so now recurve bow has something to multiply, and there's not as much of a power lag.

ProfDrDeathApr 11, 20141 votes

You are not dealing with item 3091 's main problem.

The main problem is how weak you are while you build the item. AS is a multiplier stat, and as such is pretty damn useless when there's nothing it can multiply. With Wit's End, this thing to multiply, however, only comes once the item is completed.

ProtestTheBreadApr 11, 20141 votes

I think I am. It's an item that works with the tank mindset very well, they aren't building a lot of damage (although a few AP builds are viable on a few champions) and the attack speed does help modify things for tanks. Faster animations and extra damage can mean a lot. Amumu, Nautilus, WW, Cho'Gath, Shen, Shyvana, Volibear, heck even Sejuani could benefit from a T3 Wits End. Especially if it gives health and CDR. Taking my exmaple, would you build Wits End first? No unless you dominated hard. You would build a kindle Gem, some t2-3 Item, then Wits Beginning. Many of those champions benefit greatly from Wits End. Another way to balance it is take the overall cost of Wits End down slightly, take away 350 from its 700 to make its overall cost 2050. Reduce the Unique passive slightly (maybe lower the stack amount from 5 to 4).

Hyrum GraffApr 11, 20141 votes

I think you missed his point. He wasn't saying Wits End is a bad item, he was saying that the items leading up to it are not good on their own, because there is so much attack speed. Attack speed doesn't really increase your damage unless you already have damage, so it doesn't make sense to get wits end unless you can basically buy it outright.

ProtestTheBreadApr 11, 20141 votes

I understood it, its a reason why kindlegem would be such a great item for it, as well as reducing the cost slightly since you already have to buy a recurve bow. Many tanks can go into Kindle Gem early on, build an item, and then finish it off. It would really be the only way to building the item, otherwise the stats are subpar individually.

Once upgraded though it allows the tank user to have damage without sacrificing too much in terms of other stats that he will need, essentially giving tanks another reason to be focused.

Hyrum GraffApr 11, 20141 votes

OK, I see your point. But while that's a good build path into Wit's Beginning, you still have to flat-out buy the Wit's End or suffer the recurve bow, which I just don't see many people wanting to do.