Talk:Xin Zhao/@comment-27386364-20160217134456/@comment-1905446-20160226175130

IMO, -20% AS is a big deal. Devourer+Rageblade were all the items he needed to get him near enough the attack speed cap that another item with attack speed would waste some gold. It drops him from around 2.35 attacks per second to closer to 2.2, meaning he needs another ~40% AS to hit the cap as opposed to the ~20% he would have needed before, and Xin doesn't have room for three attack speed items, period.

Sure, BotRK fits that AS gap pretty precisely, but it doesn't help him do what he wants to do like the highly situational Trinity Force when far ahead did when he only needed 20%. Trinity lets him burst his target faster so the chance of peeling him off is low, and he already has enough CC that BotRK isn't necessary like it is for Yi. BotRK is a duelist's item, and while Xin can duel, his main strength lies in throwing the enemy formation into chaos while eliminating one of their damage threats.

I think what happened overall is that Riot wanted to buff AD, not realizing that Devourer+Rageblade was already at a decent win rate, putting that build over the top while still not making AD viable. Now they've nerfed his AP ratio to make Rageblade's heals equal to pre-buff, not realizing (or not caring) that this completely guts AP by almost halving the heals a player can get from that build. If they want to allow all three paths, they need to make the ratio only apply for the higher value, though this still gives AP a disadvantage since AP Xin already needs at least 3 damage items to do as much damage as a 2 item AD or on-hit build.