Thread:Willbachbakal/@comment-1920550-20160422050145/@comment-1330314-20160604044859

That's true, marksmen are still often strategically shallower (even if many of them are mechanically intense) than they should be, because they're all made to have a certain baseline amount of generic power that takes precendence over their own kit uniqueness. I think Ashe is probably a good case of a marksman who should probably be balanced around terrible damage (even less so than now), but top-of-the-line utility and CC, to the point where she could even genuinely qualify as a kind of funky support. Her mini-rework sort of catered to that, but in this state she's not popular mainly because the meta values raw marksman damage (including burst) over utility and crowd control.

I agree that crit is a very difficult mechanic to replace, which is probably why it's still taking so long. Personally, I think the replacement should be the patented three-strike effect we've seen on so many kits, since the fantasy of chaining up multiple attacks is basically what crit is also meant to cater towards (plus it would finally justify having so much of the same mechanic pop up everywhere, since it would be about as core as a skillshot or PBAoE or whatever), but I imagine that would require a huge number of kit and itemization changes that might also change the way marksmen itemize and fight at different stages of the game.

I guess there probably is a kind of crit caster fantasy in some marksmen, including Lucian, but I think at this point Riot basically wanted to get rid of some of his late-game power (which comes from his crits) and tailor him around a simpler AD caster build. Again, crit casting as a fantasy would probably have to be redefined once crit changes (though a three-strike model would work wonderfully with casters, I'd imagine, as they'd be able to get quick crits through quick spell and attack comboes), though at this point in time targeting Lucian's autoattacking power might not be the best way to nerf him.

I like the idea of making champions deal exclusively magic or physical damage (and perhaps a bit of true damage on occasion), and as you've probably seen I've applied that to several champions in my space on the Suggestion Wiki, though I don't think it can be applied to everyone without giving AP champions an excessive amount of autoattack modifiers. I definitely think item effects should have whichever damage they provide match up to the damage type of the champions they're catering to, and for that reason I think it's great that finally had its damage changed to physical (Master Yi's at least slightly easier to counterbuild now). More generally, I think damage types should be simplified, i.e. physical damage should map primarily to AD, magic damage should map primarily to AP, as is usually the case already, plus resistance penetration/reduction should be removed and resists on items should be reduced in compensation: counter-itemization on armor or MR alone should be immediately grok-able, and champions shouldn't be itemizing to counter those counters.

And apologies for not answering that last question: I think Hourglass is fine as an item, since it's a bit too double-edged to work as a summoner spell (stasis is a debuff as well as a self-buff, whereas summoner spells are meant to be strictly positive, owing to their status as long-cooldown moments of power), plus the item itself has become more situational, but I do think we could use an immunity effect as a summoner spell. I may have told you this before, but I think and  should be combined into a summoner spell that instantly grants a very short (~1-2 seconds) period of total damage and CC immunity, which would effectively be like a better Zhonya's active available to all. I don't think AP champions really need more slots, even though they could do with some more defensive, utility and CDR options, but they definitely have a problem right now with having only one true anti-AD item, when having, say, a more anti-DPS item could allow them to thrive better in both top and bot lane, perhaps even the jungle.