Talk:Viktor/@comment-129.173.209.224-20120104151459

I'm fine with his passive as is, though the numbers certainly need tweaking. The 'wasted item slot' argument doesn't actually apply in the vast majority of games since most game end around the 40-45 minute mark and people never actually get their full build. There's nothing wrong with having a mid-tier item in your build and there's nothing wrong with having some champions have advantages or disadvantages in unusually long running games. Personally I think Viktor's problem is, aside from an abundance of bugs and the travel time on his Q making it useless in lane, he's paying for his ability augmentation three times. Specifically:

-His base abilities appear to have been intentionally kept weak so that he has two slightly sub-par abilities and one awesome ability and you get to choose which is which, so he's paying for his one awesome base ability with two slightly weaker abilities. This is fine and very interesting thematically.

- The upgrades obviously also have the ability augmentation factored into the price as well and take up an item slot.

-Viktor's paying for the ability augmentation a third time by having an overall sub-par kit for his first several levels since you won't have had a chance to upgrade an ability yet and so are stuck with all three of your abilities being slightly on the weak side of the scale. Additionally, his 'real' passive is +3AP/lvl which, while good, provides very little benefit for the first few levels. These, combined with his low range abilities and auto-attack, give him an initially poor laning phase. This is especially harmful on Viktor who needs that 1000 gold to get his compensatory strong ability and start holding his own in lane and has.

Any one of these issues would be fine but the three problems combined is, in my opinion, too much. There are two obvious options. Take the cost of the augmentation out of the upgrade price or improve the base abilities so they are up to par. How much would you really pay for a 45AP item that cannot be improved or sold?