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Sapphire Crystal has much fewer builds than Ruby Crystal; here are some "Sapphire Alternatives"

Mister Modesty·3/23/2016, 2:16:53 AM·2 votes·436 views

So I've been thinking a lot about items. It's an essential part of gameplay. I also follow boards a lot, and have noticed I'm not alone in the thought: items are unbalanced, and lean towards the domination of certain roles. I recently came up with a few concepts: one for reworking the new Sightstone build items to have more unique wards, one for Guardian's Horn builds, and one for a new unique passive: Blizzard. Well, none of them really popped like I hoped. I thought they were pretty good ideas, but they just didn't seem to take to the community. So i began to wonder why. I focused on the positive feedback. Basically, the problem seemed to be utility. Everyone has their own style. So I went to the roots. The item roots that is. What are the basic 1st Tier items- and how do they evolve? What caught my attention was the extreme differences between the crystals and their builds. Sapphire Crystal versus Ruby Crystal. After lookng into it through a new perspective- I became more and more disturbed. Sapphire Crystal seems neglected. So i came to these conclusions:

A- Sapphire Crystal and Ruby Crystal should scale in a way that keeps the items similar in cost. (It seems to follow an actual gem appreciation factor with rubies costing more than sapphires) B- Sapphire Crystal and Ruby Crystal should evenly branch out with their builds. For every Ruby Crystal Build, there should be a Sapphire Crystal build as an antithesis. C- Sapphire Crystal Builds should attempt to scale in a way that keeps them similar in cost to their Ruby Crystal "antithesis" builds.

EXAMPLE CONCEPTS item 1028:(400 gold) +150 Health item 1027:(400 gold) +300 Mana

item 1028item 3751:(1100 gold) +300 Health, Unique Passive: Immolate- Deals 5 magic damage per second to nearby enemies... item 1027item 3751:(1100 gold) +600 Mana, Unique Passive: Glacial- Basic attacks deal 5 bonus magic damage and reduce the targets Attack Speed by 10% for 1 second.

Rejuvenation Bead versus Fairie Charm item 1006 v item 1004 This is important for my 'breakdown' of this balancing because these two items are the inferiors to the crystals, being less valuable crafting materials: a bead and a charm. However, they are opposites of each other by relation. This brings me to: Crystalline Bracer versus Tear of the Goddess item 3801 v item 3070 Crystalline Bracer uses a single Ruby Crystal and a single Rejuvenation Bead. Tear of the Goddess uses a single Sapphire Crystal and a single Fairie Charm. For my "yin-yang balancing" idea to work, Crystalline Bracer should be something like the opposite of Tear of the Goddess.

Tear of the Goddess has only 2 item builds: item 3004 and item 3003 Crystalline Bracer has more, at 5 item builds: item 3105 item 3084 item 3800 item 3083 and item 3102

In fact- the current build is way off balance.

item 1027

item 3070 item 3073 item 3024 item 3057 item 3010

item 1028

item 3801 item 2049 item 3010 item 3067 item 3751 item 2051 item 3211 item 3052 item 3044 item 3136 item 2045 item 3022 item 3748

Haunting Guise even happens to be an AP scaling item. Not exactly ironic considering mages need Health.. but it's still laughable.

Really- in short, the following items should have a Sapphire Crystal counterpart. item 3751 item 2049 item 2045 item 3067

Also, the Kindlegem and Bami's Cinder alternatives should have corresponding item builds. Such as "Sapphire Alternatives" to: item 3065 and item 3068

2 Comments

Kit DoubleEdge3/23/2016, 2:49:33 AM2 votes

The thing with mana is it is not required on all champions and after a while it becomes practicually useless building mana. Your mana bar continues to grow and all that really matters is your mana regen which also grows as you level. If you're running out of mana, get a tear and you're set. Meanwhile every champion has health and can use health, so it makes sense there are more options for health than mana.