Is Duskblade more of an early or late game item?

I feel like it's a mid to late game item. This is generally when you start to group for dragons or towers..

It activates on a 2 minute cooldown and the proc deals 90 + 25% of the targets missing hp after 2 seconds. that's not vary reliable in lane is it?

2 whole minutes of waiting between procs. Other than that the item itself has 75 AD, 5% movement speed and 10 flat armor pen. with a clunky build path as one of the items that builds into it is a which costs 1300 and can be hard to purchase early game. depending on how the lane is going, and unless you're the ad carry...you generally don't wanna simply buy flat AD..you want some cdr or armor pen to go with it right?

The stats are similar to that of which has 65 AD , 10% CDR, 20 flat armor pen and an active on a 40 second cooldown that gives you 20% movement speed and 40% attack speed. and it builds out of a bunch of longswords and also gives you 2 choices for your first recall or one having cdr and the other armor pen..allowing you to either cast more spells or penetrate that armor, and their build path is cheap which can be rather easy to build early game when you cant really kill minions as quick.not to mention you can use this active 3 times in 2 minutes!!!.

In my opinion you want when you're going to be killing the enemy carries. it kinda adds to your assassin abilities... now, its sorta useful in lane it can help secure kills but it has a 2 minute cooldown which is pretty damn long..and it isn't even an active..so you might accidentally waste it on a poke, the enemy has to be vulnerable when the its off cooldown. you cant really choose when to use it, right?

now when you get to mid-late game and start grouping.. you tend to only fight when you're going to be assassinating a carry, Perfect, no chance for you to accidentally waste the proc poking lol

An item like is far superior early game in both build path and chances to use its active.

what about getting after ? Well, normally you want some type of defensive item 2nd right? be it a or or maybe some lifesteal? .

allows you to easily assassinate a carry , what are the times when it's more important to do this? in the Mid to Late game.

[slayer-jinx-catface] I hope i didn't bore you with this long response, it sorta just happened aha. Good day, and good luck on the rift!!

I'd say it's more towards the mid game. The early game is where you suck and die, and so, after your Maw or Youmuu's, you take a Duskblade so that you can assassinate people you wouldn't have been able to otherwise. Then in the late game, you've either come back or fallen too far behind.

I say it's early-mid game. The item honestly looks like a stompy "I want to secure my lead so hard it transfers to the next game over" item. Otherwise, by mid-late game, you'll be one-shotting people before it can even proc so it kind of falls off. Honestly, I think you're better off ignoring the item entirely because there are better choices. They all help kill people and give you way more utility or damage. An item completely invested into helping you kill stuff for a class that's already designed to kill just seems like a waste because overall, it really isn't helping you out much.