Talk:Essence Reaver/@comment-25210671-20140722083328

IMO this item is decently good. Not a god-tier-all-ad-must-rush item, but pretty good item for ad casters. For those casters, rushing an ad item gives high spell damage and thus a good power spike. Viable ad items right now are IE, BT, ER and MS. MS is out of the equation for a first item. IE is 3800, and early game crit is not a very efficient stat to get (crit is much more efficient with high ad since crit is a multiplier). BT and ER has the same build path and only difference is that BT coss 100 more than ER. Early teamfights (first dragon or second blue buff) tend to be short and at this point adc attack speed is really low, adc realies heavily on spells to do most damage. BT gives 10% more life steal than ER and a shield, while shield is good, but the life steal is really useless since your as is low. ER though, gives 10% CDR which may allow you to do one more spell rotations at the end of the fight. This is not a bad end game item either, until 6 item there is no need to sell it.

Make a simple example, what would Sivir first item be? IE's crit is not so useful until you have higher ad, BT's lifesteal is meh until you have higher as, and ER gives you just about the same and CDR. There is no definite answer for first item choice, but ER is a really good consideration.