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ARAM and Itemization

Barstool Chad·8/31/2015, 6:35:07 AM·1 votes·1,385 views

Why does a game mode that distributes RANDOM champions offer items that target SPECIFIC champions. Like seriously? Items like Hextech sweeper and the vision potion defeat the purpose of shaco, teemo, and talon players of the game mode. The game gives shaco its recommended items because it assumes the player would go the Mage route, specifically because of how high shaco's ap scalings are. So what's the point of him going ap when a potion for 250 cancels out his entire being? Or teemo's passive, or one of talon's only escapes? I can understand team comps full of cc against team comps full of squishy full aps with no tanks but a player shouldn't have a bad time because a single item was made to be used against them. And even twitch and Evelyn are under effect of this.

Most would argue "hey, would that mean removing mercurials because it would effect zed games in ARAM and ziliean game play?" Not at all. In fact it's unlikely for a WHOLE TEAM to build black sash as unlikely for the whole team to build thornmail. Unlike thornmail, the vision pot turns a single champion into a lighthouse that ALLOWS OTHER PLAYERS TO SEE Invisible champs/trap. Thornmail doesn't give every player a reflecting aura, and black sash doesn't act like a Crucible for every teammate at once, it makes it exclusive for a single player.

The same reason why the Hextech sweeper and vision potion isn't on summoners rift should apply to ARAM

TLDR: ITEMS MADE TO SPECIFICALLY COUNTER AGAINST A CHAMPION'S ABILITIES SHOULDNT BE ALLOWED IN A GAME MODE REVOLVED AROUND RANDOM PICKS.

9 Comments

Jeddite8/31/2015, 2:46:03 PM6 votes

ITT: an ARAM Bronze League™ scurblar who only knows how to play LOL AP TEEMO SHACO LOL is mad that other players build items to counter AP Teemo Shaco.

Don't look at this .jpeg -- it's guaranteed to cause your v'giner to rupture.

SKOBODO8/31/2015, 11:00:11 AM5 votes

The issue lies with stealth and lack of counter-play. If stealth had more counter-play you wouldn't need these items, but unfortunately, most stealth lack counter-play (Evelynn being the sole exception).

Summoner's Rift has pink wards.

Texicant8/31/2015, 7:38:12 AM4 votes

removing true vision items would make Teemo such a large(er) pain in the butt with all the shrooms he will be able to spam in the narrow lane

Zielmann8/31/2015, 7:08:18 PM2 votes

Shaco can still go AP and be effective, if he's good. Most AP Shacos just build lots of AP and spam boxes, hoping their opponents aren't smart enough to let minions set off the boxes, avoid the boxes, or use vision items to deal with the boxes. True vision isn't a counter to AP Shaco directly, just bad ones.

AP Teemo depends somewhat on the build. AP Teemo can itemize and play to have a high-burst one-two punch with Q-Auto (esp. if lich bane empowered). This is less reliant on his shrooms for damage, as opposed to the common Liandry's route you see. That said, Teemo can go AD or AS On-Hit and frankly not care at all if the other team destroys his shrooms. They're not his main damage source on these builds.

Evelynn can (and probably should) build tank in ARAM. She actually makes a decent front-liner, though some of this also depends on the other team being used to wanting to jump Eve the moment they see her to burst her down. That said, Evelynn is actually a bad example here entirely, because of how her stealth works. You can see her when she gets close anyhow, so the vision items don't actually bother her much at all.

Knifecat is pretty similar to Eve in the can-go-tank aspect. Also, similar to Eve, the enemy is alerted when stealthed Rengar gets close enough.

Twitch has some right to be frustrated by it. Though I've found that when I'm in a situation as Twitch where the other team has vision items, I still have success just playing him like most other ADCs. I just hang back, CS, get in ranged poke, and wait for the teamfight to break out and then cast my ult and DPS from safety. I basically just use the Q to enter stealth briefly and then get the AS buff from it right away.

I could go on, but I think that gets the point across. These are all adaptations that a good player would make to deal with situations where the opponent gets vision of some sort to try to counter them. There are ways to play around it, you just have to recognize them and adjust accordingly. A player who won't adjust will just end up letting themselves get frustrated that they "can't do anything" because the other team spent 250 gold on an elixir to counter them.