User blog:Lukeatlook/Pyro's Item Overhaul 6 - Preseason Followup

...Hi there, it's been a while! So much has changed that almost all of the previous episodes of this series are heavily outdated and nothing really matters. Still, the things I've predicted so far are:
 * (I've priced it at 600 - first i was off by 150, now it even has my price on Live :> )
 * (I saw it as a Blasting Wand upgrade. That was silly.)
 * rework (I guess if it had armor as I've suggested, it would be mandatory pickup instead of strategic anti-MR option)
 * Demand for on other champions than just supports (hello, it even builds out of Catalyst and a health item, just as in my draft)
 * PBE boards post Jungle enchantments:
 * having CDR instead of lifesteal
 * with 20% CDR instead of 10 CDR and 10 magic penetration
 * with 10% CDR instead of 30 armor and overall a better build (Kindlegem instead of Giant's Belt)

You can thank Riot Axes for listening to player feeedback. And you can blame me for Magus on Amumu. I'm sorry. In my defense, I've suggested bringing back Spirit Drain to smooth out the power curve.

Jungle
Many people have already tackled on the jungle items, trying to see what fits for what champion. There's also a vocal group of people unhappy with the changes, finding themselves gold starved and underleveled.

Yeah, it's preseason. We need some time for people to develop new strategies, jungle routes, builds (return of lifesteal/spellvamp quints?) and picks. However, I think there are some innate issues with the Jungler passive, which is more or less the Quill Coat passive. Quill Coat was an item made for tanks - but are tanks any stronger in the new jungle? I don't think so. Even though the passive's effectiveness scales with duration of the fight, it's still the high-damage, high-sustain junglers who reign, and tanks like Sejuani and Nautilus are as slow and sad as ever.

I'll probably come back to this later, but the problem might be solved by buffing the Gromp and Krug buffs (yeah, buffing the buffs) at level 1, or tweaking Machete. The linear DPS/regen on Machete is probably the key issue - it could be more helpful for stuggling champions while not too strong for the sustaining ones if its bonuses, especially the regen, stacked over time and persisted a few seconds after finishing the fight.

Machete and its upgrades

 * While in combat with monsters, you deal 30 magic damage over 2 seconds on hit and regen 3 mana every second.
 * While in combat with monsters, you gain 5 health regen per 5 seconds (stacks every second, up to 12 times) that lasts up to 3 seconds after leaving combat.

Quick math rundown: under 7 seconds of fighting that's less regen than the current Machete, over that it's more regen (on par with the Machete upgrades). Basically the more trouble you would have (hello Nautilus) the more this item helps you.

As for upgrades, many people call Poacher's Knife "noobtrap" and deem Ranger's Trailblazer too strong. I wouldn't be so sure, but if that is the case, we can solidify the intended area of effect for those items:


 * While in combat with monsters, you deal 45 magic damage over 2 seconds on hit and regen 4 mana every second.
 * While in combat with monsters, you gain 10 health regen per 5 seconds (stacks every second, up to 12 times) that lasts up to 3 seconds after leaving combat.
 * : now applies to all monsters outside your jungle (so: Rift Scuttlers, Dragon, Baron)
 * : now has a fixed cooldown of 60 (same as other Smites) that is lowered by 15 only when used in your jungle.

Enchantments
As for enchantments, everyone probably heard about the terror of Skirmisher's Sabre Devourer Warwick. SSDW isn't the only one laughing maniacally at the possibility of purchasing a stacked Flare with a true damage bonus (Udyr ain't half bad with it, either), but the whole issue is mostly a problem with Warwick, who is long overdue for a rework. Perhaps the initial damage on Devourer could be lowered to 35, but overall it's Warwick skewing the data.

One recurring theme, however, is the feeling of lacking farm - small camps take twice as long to respawn, Smite has a longer cooldown and the Conservation passive is gone. If that is truly an issue, it could be made up for with effects that don't create an overwhelming power spike on purchase, but scale better into the lategame. Example batch of changes:


 * +500 health, +100% base health regeneration, +10% cooldown reduction
 * +35 Tenacity
 * Doesn't stack with Tenacity from other items. Stacks with abilities, masteries and elixirs

Health regeneration is one of those statistics that don't really affect ganks much, but is welcome on champions meant to bodyblock enemy aggression.


 * +80 ability power, +100% base mana regeneration, +10% cooldown reduction
 * 15% magic penetration.
 * Doesn't stack with Void Staff.

The mana regen probably won't be appreciated by the jungle Mordekaiser, but for any mana using champion it could ease out losing their blue or donating it to the midlaner. The idea with % penetration is more "endgame fantasy" oriented, as it will kick in once there is some MR bought to penetrate.


 * +40 attack damage, +10% cooldown reduction, +10 armor penetration
 * 15% armor penetration
 * Doesn't stack with Last Whisper.

I'm yet to hear a complaint calling this enchantment "weak", but some Skarner/Hecarim mains are sad that they've lost Spirit of the Elder Lizard. Looking by winrates, those two champions could actually use some tweaks in their kit, so I guess the idea of the item being a Brutalizer upgrade is generally liked.

Those changes show only direction, not value - exact values could be changed (lower/higher main stat, slightly higher price). As for Devourer, we could really use the AS onhit damage item component, it could possibly help smooth out the power curve of that item.


 * +40% attack speed
 * +20 magic damage on hit
 * Builds into, , (replacing Stinger) and.


 * +50% attack speed, +35 magic damage on hit.
 * Killing a large monster will increase the damage of this item by 1. Scoring a champion kill or assist will increase the damage of this item by 2.

But seriously, we need a provisional nerf to Warwick ult, or he'll overshadow all the other junglers in the preseason. The best way to go about it would be having QSS stop the damage from Infinite Duress if the target walks out of AA range, not just ending the suppression.

Resistances
The idea of having all armor items build out of Cloth Armor certainly does help surviving a lane against snowballing champions like Riven, but there are still a few inconsistencies. Since Negatron Cloak is returning on the PBE, I guess it's safe to predict few updates and add a few of my own:

"Strategic Diversity"
This is probably something we need to see in pro scene first, but I guess we can speculate on the possible usage of the new items.

could bring back few underused toplaners, but what I'm afraid of is that due to low pure gold efficiency of this item, it will be supports who will be forced to purchase it. Time will tell.

grants some OK stats, but might turn out a little bit too expensive to show up in soloqueue games. Again, once some pros start using it, the playerbase might catch up on it. If anything, could be a bit cheaper, right now it's not even 100% gold efficient.

looks good on paper, and could be really useful against AoE AP waveclear from the likes of Xerath and Ziggs, but it's so expensive that I can't really see supports in LCS having the gold to get it.

As for Elixirs, I guess the loss of the CDR from Elixir of Brilliance could annoy some mages who want that CDR more than the extra AP. Example replacement:


 * On use: Gain 15% CDR and for 3 minutes.
 * Increase your total mana regen by 10% per each champion nearby. or anything that grants mana regen, this one is just so the regen isn't too stupid outside of teamwide events

Azimuth
Where next? Well, I guess it's time to revisit the support items (again!). Get ready for the onslaught of Sightstones (gems are truly outrageous), and new attempts at designing alternative final forms to GP10 items.

Feel free to criticize anything I write :)