Talk:Frozen Mallet/@comment-10428734-20140408154610/@comment-10428734-20140524141543

Is it funnier to have an item that nobody ever buys?

FM was already bad enough when it built from Phage. Now it's just a situational 6th item on Xin Zhao at best. It has the worst recipe in the whole game. Even IE feels easier to build.

FM for bruisers: Not terrible. If other options were not so much better. Just compare Randuin+Pickaxe (3875g) with FM+Vest (4020g) for example. Randuin+Pickaxe is cheaper, grants a lot more tankyness, more anti-kite power and an amazing AoE slow that will often last 4 seconds late game. Furthermore, Randuin can help you to catch enemies from a distance, while FM only slows when you already are in AA range. Do you really need more slow than that? No, Randuin gives enough slow. FM on top of that would just be an overkill. Therefore, nobody wants both FM and Randuin, but nobody wants FM over Randuin either.

FM for ADC: Simply bad. AD carries only have 1 free slot for a defensive item, that is better filled with Banshee, QSS or GA. Here again, even Randuin is a better option against bruisers. FM does not give you enough defense to be your only defensive item, but it does not give you enough damage to sacrifice any dps item for it (lifesteal? AS? crit? arpen?). Most bruisers have some gapcloser. If they don't, they have the slow reduction mastery, and they can buy Swiftness if necessary. And when you try to kite them, you are slowed as well, because they built Randuin instead of FM.

Putting Phage back in the recipe would not even make FM good. It would just make it somewhat viable.