Board Thread:Wiki discussions and announcements/@comment-1990160-20140521040036/@comment-1330314-20140521043925

I am in support of preserving cost efficiency, and restoring the cost analysis sections that were recently removed on several items. In the previous thread I mentioned how, with what little we have to start with, we've managed to construct a system that is internally consistent, accurate, and informative, despite a select few objections.

I also think it's worth mentioning that the RoG blog linked in the OP ironically supports the validity of gold efficiency, instead of disproving it: aside from the fact that the poster doesn't quite understand how gold value is measured (he cites as the benchmark for the gold value of magic resist, when the actual benchmark is ), the assertions he made came back to bite him in the ass: citing examples, he stated that Spirit of the Spectral Wraith seemed too gold efficient, yet was fine. Cue patch V3.14, in which all items were reworked to only provide sustain in the jungle, as they were too efficient in general. Not mentioned is, which had its AD repeatedly slashed because it was so gold efficient it was being consistently picked by non-junglers (namely blue {{ci|Ezreal). He also stated that {{ii|Athene's Unholy Grail}} was not particularly worth paying attention to, and that its cost efficiency did not translate to in-game power. Athene's is the third most popular AP item in the game, outpicked only by {{ii|Rabadon's Deathcap}} and {{ii|Zhonya's Hourglass}}. It's more popular than {{ii|Void Staff}}! If its pick rate (~13%) is anything to go by, its stats and effects have a very real in-game impact.

Before we discuss this seriously, I think there are a few things that need to be cleared up:
 * Gold value and gold efficiency do not dictate the effectiveness of an item on a champion: the simplest example would be {{ii|Rabadon's Deathcap}} on {{ci|Vayne}}: the item's stats are certainly worth gold, but none of this translates into additional power because Vayne has no AP scalings. Similarly, different champions will scale differently with different items. None of this impacts on the validity of gold value, nor on the gold value of items, but the misinterpretation of such measurements can lead to blatantly wrong conclusions.
 * Gold efficiency is not the be-all and end-all to build decisions: While gold efficiency is certainly a real in-game concern for players (that's why we have items with similar stats and effects but different gold efficiencies, such as {{ii|Statikk Shiv}} and {{ii|Phantom Dancer}}), you shouldn't be picking items just because they're gold efficient. The Doran's line of items, for example, are among the most gold efficient items in the game. If you want a cheap but powerful boost to your stats (i.e. as much immediate gold efficiency as you can get), you may want to pick one of these to start with, and maybe even stack one or two more depending on how you're doing. However, it would be a terrible idea to stack six of them, even though doing so would maximize the efficiency of the gold you've sunk into such a horrible build. Similarly, you're not going to build an {{ii|Athene's Unholy Grail}} on {{ci|Garen}} just because it's such a gold efficient item. Gold efficiency can help you make certain build decisions, but it can't make the decisions for you.

Now that that's out of the way, hopefully we can have a productive and enriching discussion!