I don't specifically play Veigar.
I've played him a few times in normals.
I've laned against him in mid.
And I remember playing him back in S2 when he was my favorite mid.
His passive is not enough to sustain his mana expenditures in lane.
Likewise, a Chalice is not enough to sustain many mid laners.
retired
LoL - Atlantica / Viera Assassin (NA)
FFXIV - Seiina Araki of
In post 31330, Oman wrote:madstone is a great build though. I love Trick's videos but they're not like...instructional.
In post 31332, JasonWazza wrote:Madstone works, for those who actually know how to use it, the problem being, he doesn't actually explain when to build it and when to not build it.
I've seen exactly six Udyrs that build this way and none of them did anything near to good.
I can see how it works but I've never seen it work.
Like my runepage with flat AP in seals/glyphs/quints.
retired
LoL - Atlantica / Viera Assassin (NA)
FFXIV - Seiina Araki of
I think the changes to Doran's Blade will cement Doran's Blade as the go-to top lane item - and anyone who can't use it efficiently will get booted from the meta. To that extent, I don't really like it.
EDIT: I'm stupid and thought the life steal on-hit was larger than it was.
Last edited by animorpherv1 on Thu Jun 05, 2014 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Animorpherv1's posts are so powerful that prolonged exposure may cause vertigo, nausea, acute tinnitus, and in rare cases, death." - vonflare
2) Weakening d-blade early means that it's less potent during initial laning. Champs that can arguably stack it effectively, though, will become stronger (assuming that the bullshit lane-swap meta goes away)
lol the doran's change doesn't actually change much. it actually just keeps dorans sustain relevant for longer.
It'll also make sustain supports like Nami/Sona incredibly annoying since their mana won't be used up healing their carry.
Toplane it'll do weird things for auto attackers without innate sustain like Shyvanna and Jax but it's not going to stagnate anything.
It might actually bring a couple of people back.
Iecerint wrote:I think the intent is to let ADCs get items other than BT/BotRK first.
Maybe. There are other changes that we haven't seen yet.
Mercurial Scimitar
Total Cost: 3700 --> 3800
Attack Damage: 60 --> 80
Active: Now also gives the Movement Speed to ranged characters.
Notes: We've generally liked the fact that AP items have three distinct tiers of AP, 60 / 80 and 120 for major Ability Power items. We're taking some steps to get Attack Damage into similar tiers for the major Attack Damage items with 80 as our high-end point.
Youmu's Ghostblade
Active: Now lasts 6 seconds on ranged characters.
Notes: We've tried to remove ranged/melee splits on most of the locations on which they didn't seem to make sense anymore in the modern game.
...Yeah, we'll probably have to nerf Heal. Stop looking at me like that.
Notes: Attack Speed is a hard stat to commit to - mostly because it's very trivial to overcommit to the stat - as by the end-game, you have a healthy amount of Attack Speed. What we're doing here is making the build up to a complete Attack Speed grant more Attack Speed along the way and be smoother on the way there.
Notes: This is more tier 2 boot consolidation into the 1000 gold range - while keeping the deviations from the 1000 gold range intentional and part of that specific boots' strength or weakness.
Spoiler: Life Steal
Doran's Blade
Health: 80 --> 70
Attack Damage: 8 --> 7
Removed: Life on Hit Passive
(NEW) Life Steal: 0% --> 3%
Explanation: Yes, this is essentially a directional revert to S2 days of Doran's Blade. Basically, we tried to phase out Life Steal as an early game statistic in the transition from S2 to S3 - as Life Steal should feel compelling or expensive.
However, in that environment, sustain or defensive supports were at an all time high. A carry character didn't need much in the way of life steal early because there was a reliable source of sustain in their lane (the support.)
With the addition of offensive supports and the continuing rise of non-sustain supports, the limited amount of life steal options essentially forced all carries down a single path - Vampiric Scepter - as the sustain factor required in lane wasn't being provided from either the support or their Doran's Blade.
With only a single large source of life steal - carry players only had two options for life steal - Either stay at 4.5% from quints or dramatically overshoot and get 14.5% from Vampiric Scepter - which kind of makes sustain supports redundant to begin with.
I'm retuning life steal as a more expensive stat that is highly accessible in many different sources rather than it being more concentrated power because the reality of the situation is that there isn't a single life steal value that is correct if you cannot rely on a surplus of sustain from your support pick.
Hence, AD carry players need a wider array of smaller more flexible options that can build up to their ideal amount of life steal - based on the needs of the lane, their opponents and who their support is. In a high sustain lane, you might be able to get away with a Doran's Blade into an infinity edge, for example - whereas in a low sustain lane, you might need a couple of blades and a vampiric scepter - but the lack of offense on your side is compensated by the fact that you hav an offensive support.
TL;DR - A wider amount of smaller life steal options will make ADC builds more flexible because they'll be able to tailor the right amount of life steal for the situation - rather than be railroaded down one path if they need any amount of sustain.
Vampiric Scepter
Life Steal: 10% --> 8%
Bilgewater Cutlass
Life Steal: 12% --> 8%
Blade of the Ruined King
Life Steal: 12% --> 10%
Proc Damage: 5% Current Health --> 8% Current Health
Active Nuke Damage: 15% Maximum Health --> 10% Maximum Health
Active Movement Speed Slow: 30% Movement Speed Steal --> 25% Movement Speed Steal
Notes: Shifting this item to be a little more about the proc damage and less about the active nuke - which will shift it a bit more towards the sustained damage space rather than the burst space. This item looks nerfed - but only because so many things are changing around it - which you'll see in the followup posts - mostly Dagger becoming a better value in the build up to the item as well as Warden's Mail and Randuin's Omen which heavily impact this item more than any of the other items listed here.
Bloodthirster
Combine Cost: 850 --> 1100
Total Cost: 3250 --> 3500
Base Attack Damage: 70 --> 80
Base Life Steal: 12% --> 15%
Removed: Attack Damage / Life Steal - Stacking Passive
New Passive: "Your life steal can now overheal you, granting a shield that can block from 50 to 410 damage, based on champion level. This shield decays rapidly if you have not taken or dealt damage in the last 15 seconds."
Note: Passive is heavily non-linear scaling. At level 6, the shield is around 100. At level 16, the shield is around 330 - to give you an idea of how far up it scales.
Notes: Bloodthirster is kind of the ultimate snowball item design. If you rush it first, you get sustain and an AD advantage - that then keeps growing as you stay in lane for longer.
However - it was kept down by the fact that it was relative poor scaling compared to other options - an I.E. for example would dramatically outclass its damage mid game when combined with a multiplier item.
However, with the rise of ratio driven carries being the default rather than the exception - coupled with the sustain issues that made Vampiric Scepter the default rather than the exception - Bloodthirster proves to be a fairly unhealthy item in its current stacking iteration.
We've retuned Bloodthirster to be a heavy life steal / defensive option.
Notes: In the short term, we are aware that this leaves stacking Attack Damage builds in a bit of a pinch as there won't be an option for something like triple Bloodthirster heavy stack - it'll be something we'll be trying to figure out how to better support without running straight into Caster / Ratio driven carries dominating lane and suppressing traditional Attack Speed carries and then falling completely off the map - causing the entire carry role to feel somewhat anemic.
(NEW) Essence Reaver
RECIPE: Vampiric Scepter + Pickaxe + 950 Gold = 2650 Total Gold Cost
Attack Damage: 50
Life Steal: 10%
Cooldown Reduction: 10%
UNIQUE Passive: You gain 2 to 8% of the damage dealt by basic attacks as Mana. Mana drain increases based on how much Mana you are missing.
Notes: While iterating with life steal slots - we realized that caster based carries are split into two camps: One that needs mana - and one that wants ratios. While we were iterating, we stumbled across this item that seemed to allow for a really intensive mana spam/attack combat pattern that seemed fun especially on Ezreal (Q) /Graves (Q) / Corki / Draven (W) / Sivir (W).
Spoiler: Support Items
Mikael's Crucible
New Recipe: Chalice of Harmony + Forbidden Idol + 870 G = 2550 Gold Total
Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds: 10 --> 20
Cooldown Reduction: 0% --> 10%
Notes: Mikael's Crucible is dominant in competitive play and shuts down the value of our utility focused carries (Varus/Ashe) while being fairly ineffective against the more spammy pick patterns of everyone else (Elise 'E' for example). While we like what Crucible brings to the table - we'd like to shift it towards our more mana hungry supports (who tend to be more defensive) rather than being a generically good pickup for everyone.
(NEW) Ardent Censer
Recipe: Forbidden Idol + Aether Wisp + 400 G = 1950 Total Cost
30 Ability Power
10 Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds
10% Cooldown Reduction
8% Movement Speed
Unique Passive: Whenever you heal or shield another champion, they gain 25% Attack Speed for 6 seconds.
Notes: We wanted to create a mid-tier support item for supports now that Mikael's sits at a higher price point. We also want to see how you guys respond to this particular trigger effect as it has interesting interactions across supports. Thresh, for example, has an AoE AS boost from this item - while Janna and Lulu both offer attack steroids that synergize well with the Attack Speed.
And it's probably overkill on Nidalee.
Note this is your heals and shields on other champions - so self-healing is right out. When we tested it, there was a lot of weird rules cases and edge cases that seemed to make very little sense - how would you expect Malphite's passive to interact with this, for example?
Athene's Unholy Grail
Magic Resist: 40 --> 25
Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds: 15 --> 10
Mana Restoration on kill or assist: 12% --> 15%
Notes: Now that we have two Chalice of Harmony upgrades in a very similar price range, we wanted to do a pass on Athene's Unholy Grail (currently a very cost-efficient purchase) to make sure this item wasn't crowding out other items in the 'Mp5 + CDR' family. With Mikael's Crucible decisively taking the 'the defensive path' from Chalice, we choose to preserve Athene's offensive power. This meant reducing the item's Magic Resist and taking this as an opportunity to increase strength of the kill/assist passive. Those changes combined with a small adjustment to Morellonomicon should shore up the stat lines of these items.
Morellonomicon
Ability Power: 75 --> 80
Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds: 12 --> 10
Notes: Small stat adjustment as mentioned above. Though minor, this should help make Morellonomicon feel a bit better in terms of item slot efficiency as the game goes on.
Forbidden Idol
Cost: 750 Gold --> 700 Gold
Notes: Small cost adjustment. All items that use Forbidden Idol as a component will have the same overall cost (e.g., Morellonomicon will still cost 2200 Gold).
Locket of the Iron Solari
Unique Active will now use a recipient's level to calculate shield strength if the recipient's level is higher than the item owner's level.
Notes: This change should give a small boost to defensive support players that like to purchase Locket of the Iron Solari for their team.
Spoiler: Defensive Items
Warden's Mail
Attack Speed Slow: 15% --> 10%
Randuin's Omen
Attack Speed Slow: 15% --> 10%
Movement Speed Slow (On Being Hit): 10% --> 0%
Notes: This change will have heavy ramifications in the fighter space as Randuin's Omen effectively gave non gap-closing fighters a way into fights. However, this came at a significant expense to ADC kite patterns and general ADC power.
This also made carries with innate gap closing powers much more powerful in comparison to ADCs that didn't have gap closers as those abilities were unaffected by the slow of Omen.
We're aware that with the recent Heal changes, this move will probably tip the scales much in favor of the kite based ADC patterns - but we want to evaluate on live for a while before deciding just how much to scale back ADC kiting or scale up defensive itemization.
"Animorpherv1's posts are so powerful that prolonged exposure may cause vertigo, nausea, acute tinnitus, and in rare cases, death." - vonflare
The only change that I'm not mostly sold on is the Essence Reaver - I like the idea, but it doesn't have enough AD to keep up with BotRK or BT - you're weaker in teamfights because of it, I'd say.
That said, I will be trying it out on Graves. BT also looks like a solid choice on him still, due to the shield and his low range.
"Animorpherv1's posts are so powerful that prolonged exposure may cause vertigo, nausea, acute tinnitus, and in rare cases, death." - vonflare
