User blog comment:Unevent/Hybrid items!/@comment-2094543-20130523000217

AD carries focus on devastating opponents with their autoattacks by focusing on balanced amounts of 3 different stats - AD, AS and crit - which require and synergize with each other.

AP carries can - and usually, need to - center their entire build around a single stat - ability power - which is the way to go due to Rabadon's Deathcap's effective 30% boost.

In comparison, hybrid carries pale by definition. Being a hybrid champion means that you don't entirely devote yourself to one of these stats... which means that you'll miss out on all this multiplicative goodness. Since your build caters to multiple stats that don't work multiplicatively with each other, your itemization will either neglect one - making it not much of a hybrid build anymore - or both of these disconnected paths. A hybrid champion doesn't have the autoattack-related stats to attack or crit as often and as hard as an AD carry, nor the ability power to get as much of a bonus from your Rabadon's or as much Lich Bane damage. For example, look at Hybrid Sion. He could theoretically make the best use of his kit and get something out of every single skill, but since he can't multiply the multitude of stats he build very well, he's stuck in between as a master of none, outclassed by the focused approaches of both AD and AP Sion. If you got a bloodthirster, you're better off getting attack speed and crit to multiply its damage than getting unmultiplied AP. If you got a lich bane, you're better off getting more AP to pump more damage into it than getting some unmultiplied AD. And if you got both, none of your stats will be multiplied as well as it would in a focused build, ever.

There's multiple ways to fix this and make hybrid itemizations as viable as their min-maxed counterparts.

Either you give hybrid champions multiplicative stat relationships of their own, the way AP-scaling on-hit abilities do. (a Teemo's autoattacks will never outdamage those of an equally wealthy AD carry, as this combination of stats lacks a third factor like crit.) Or you make up for their failure to stack their stat combination multiplicatively by making the flat stats their items grant higher. 45 attack damage, or 40 attack damage and 32% attack speed, aren't as much for a hybrid champion as they are for an AD carry, as they won't strike as often nor crit. And 65 or 72 ability power aren't as much for a hybrid champion as they are for an AP carry, as they won't be elevated by a Rabadon's. Definitely not both, at least, so part of the stats always mean less than they would on a more specialized champ.

(note that I'm talking about champions which need to use both their AP-scaling spells and their autos to deal damage here, and not special cases like AP Varus, an AP carry that only needs his autos for the on-hit stacks...)

I'm looking forward to the new Nashor's Tooth alleviating the inventory space problems that plague hybrids, at least.

sorry for being long-winded, it's late...