Talk:Viktor/@comment-9048637-20140404035833

So, I've been doing some thinking about the augments, and I've come to the following conclusions, possibly neither of which are controversial:

1) Augment: Power's stats are undercooked. The upgrade to Power Transfer itself is fine, if a tad situational, but simply by looking at gold value, it's easy to determine that the 220 health and 6 Hp5 do not cut it compared with the other two augments' stats. They clock in at just under 800g in terms of value, whereas the other two augments are hovering around the 1,000g one pays for them (this is ignoring the AP per level one gets from the unaugmented Hex Core, obviously). This might be fine if the Power Transfer upgrade was miles better than the other two... but it's not. It has its uses, certainly, but frankly, out of the three, it's probably the most situational. More damage is always useful, while anyone who's played Viktor a bit will probably agree that the number of times a longer cast range on the W would make the difference between securing a kill and letting it get away swiftly rack up. The MS steroid, however? It's only truly useful on a kiting build. Of course, on a kiting build, it can be very useful, which is why I have no existential problem with it. But I do think the stats here need to be buffed a little to bring Augment: Power into line.

2) Regarding the balance of the augments in general: I think, actually, that it's not really that Augment: Death is overpowered compared with the other two, Power's current weakness aside (which is a simple matter of tweaking numbers). Yes, 30% extra damage on your main non-ultimate source of damage is very strong, but so is a 30% higher cast range on an AoE slow/stun, not to mention a 30% MS buff with, potentially, no down-time (at max CDR). You just need to build and play to maximize those strengths. However, I think this is where the problem comes in. For all that the augments are meant to make Viktor a versatile mage, there can be no real doubt that he is, primarily, a damage mage, not a utility mage or a bruisy kite-mage. This is, most prominently I think, because of his ult. His ult is pure damage. Oh, there are token efforts to give it more synergy with Viktor's other theoretical play-styles; the silence allows it to act as an interrupt, and its faster MS the closer it is to Viktor, not to mention its DoT nature, would have some synergy a sticky, survivable bruiser. But at the end of the day, "an interrupt" does not equal ultimate-level utility, and Viktor can usually kill things with his ult just fine without having to chase them personally; in short, however you cut it, the purpose of his ult is "to deal lots and lots of damage", which is obviously going to synch best with a high-damage playstyle. In short, Augment: Death's playstyle.

What it all comes down to, therefore, is that really, as Viktor, you only ever want Augment: Death; it's just that there are situations where you need to buy a different augment. If you get shut down early and can only focus on utility rather than damage, or if you need the extra cast range on W to pin them down, you get Augment: Gravity; if you need the mobility to dodge skillshots or kite, you get Augment: Power. Otherwise, you default to Augment: Death. I'm not sure exactly how to fix this, or even if it should be fixed; the idea of a do-it-all mage (even if it's not do-it-all-at-once) may sound kind of cool on paper, but either it would be weak in comparison with more specialized mages, or it would be so strong that there's no other real reason to pick those mages over Viktor. Maybe, indeed, the current situation is more or less the best outcome for Viktor in his current state: where one Augment is clearly preferred, but the other two still have their niches. The idea of being able to get two augments is still kind of cool, though, so I'm kind of hoping they implement that. Possibly, though, it would be a bit OP. We'd have to see.

Anyway, I suppose I don't have some grand thesis to state at the end of all that, I just wanted to put those observations out there. Maybe others have already come to the same conclusion, I don't know. But hopefully someone at least is scintillated by this little theory-crafting piece.