User blog comment:Takingday/Item ideas for Melee Carries/@comment-25228021-20161230105953

Honestly I've never seen the point of this item line, and nothing has changed. The thing with an item line meant for melee carries is that bruisers or ADCs might abuse the hell out of it, and for an item line to cater properly to melee carries, the mid-tier item has to be attractive for them. Sadly, Hilted Dagger fails at being really attractive. Attack speed and crit are nothing new, and as it is, it is most attractive on ADCs, much like Zeal. The damage reduction is also incredibly awkward to evaluate properly, as you can gain and lose stacks extremely quickly, resulting in total confusion as to how much damage you're actually preventing. On top of all that, is a rather poor name that does not convey properly what this passive does. The damage reduction being halved for melee attacks also fails to push this item towards melee carries, since ADCs will abuse it to gain free damage reduction in bot lane, often fully ranged encounters. It doesn't help that you can stack it on minions, making the damage reduction a lot more accessible to ranged champions.

And with this, I think you can understand that my interest in Hilted Dagger's upgrades is sadly non-existent as long as Hilted Dagger itself is in this state. If I want my melee carry to be tanky with stats like these, I'll just buy. I'll see you soon.