User blog:Willbachbakal/(Item Concept) Hybrid Items Must Die!

A few months ago, I had come up with an idea for a hybrid penetration item: building from a and a, the item, named Phase Shifter, would allow the user to go through a portion of the target's bonus armor and magic resistance. Less than or, but enough to warrant use on hybrid champions such as , ,  and even. It would solve the problem of hybrid itemization, and would allow players to truly build full hybrid if they wanted.

As it turns out, that was a terrible idea.

There are quite a few reasons as to why pure AP/AD hybrid builds and, by extension, AP/AD hybrid items, are not a good thing to have in a game like League of Legends, which is why I think they deserve their own section (see below). TL;DR: going pure hybrid makes for a bland playstyle, one in which your champion is a weaker version of its AP and AD specialized builds, smooshed together so as to have no particular strengths or weaknesses. Moreover, hybrid builds are by nature inefficient, so people generally tend to go pure AP or AD anyway. Because hybrid items such as, and  tend to be exclusively used on AD or AP builds (whenever Guinsoo's or Gunblade gets used at all), it would be better to refit them as more specialized items, rather than keep them in their current middling state.

Why Hate Hybrid Items?= Hybrid champions have the most interesting itemization options. Because they scale about equally well with AD and AP, they can choose to specialize in one or another, each choice carrying its inherent strengths and weaknesses. , for example, has phenomenal burst on a short cooldown and is naturally amazing against AP champions when building AP, but is also fairly squishy, whereas AD Jax has great DPS, sustain and defenses, especially against physical damage, but has weak burst and a vulnerability to crowd control (and a vulnerability to mages in general). Every other hybrid champion has a similar dichotomy inherent to their build choice, usually a question of burst (AP) versus sustained damage (AD).

Where this breaks down, however, is when going for a "true" hybrid build. Ideally, you'd expect an entirely new playstyle to emerge, but this unfortunately isn't the case: instead, you end up with a champion that has the combined strengths and weaknesses of their AP and AD playstyles, except made incredibly mediocre. Champions with hybrid builds don't really have any true strengths, but don't have any true weaknesses either. It's the epitome of bland gameplay, where you're technically able to do everything, but excel at nothing. The lack of clear weaknesses also makes it hard for the enemy to play against you, whether it be in terms of counterbuilding (do I build more armor or magic resist?), counterplay (what weaknesses can I exploit? What window of opportunity is this champion offering that allows me to gain the upper hand?) or even counterpicking (what champion works well against both this champion's AP and AD playstyles?). Additionally, it's not a particularly optimal build to run: a lack of clear strengths means you have no specific advantage to lean on and exploit, and the existence of specialized penetration items (i.e. and ) means you're way better off focusing on one damage type than going all over the place.

All of this brings us to hybrid items: because they foster the kind of bland playstyle mentioned above (jack of all trades, master of none), they're generally a bad idea to have around. On top of that, they carry tons of other problems: because hybrid items, by nature, can only cater to a tiny fraction of the entire League roster, they're both heavily underpicked, even among hybrid champions (who regularly picks anyway?), and need to have such bloated stats to be useful on what few champions they work with that they can end up being too good:, for example, on top of having an extremely useful active, carries four different stats that are, by themselves, massively gold efficient. In general, they violate one of the central tenets of item design, which is to have all items strongly fulfill a specific function rather than be spread out thin and cover too many things at once ( being the one big exception). If you truly want to build hybrid damage, you should be able to pick from a selection of strong AP and AD items, just as any champion willing to cover a particular aspect of their playstyle (sustain, damage, tankiness, mana issues) will go for the relevant item, instead of trying to do everything at once in small doses with just one item.

Effectively, what I'm proposing is not so much to remove the hybrid items we know and love in League, but rather to repurpose them as dedicated AP or AD items. 's passives kick major ass, but the item's always picked on autoattack-based champions like or, so might as well make the most of it by making the item a strong choice on autoattackers in general. Conversely, is a popular pick on AP assassins like,  and even the occasional AP , and could definitely work as a pure AP tool for diving single targets. The line of items is a whole can of worms by itself, and was cursed with awkward stats from the get-go. In fact, Sheen is so awkward an item that it's forced Riot to slap AP ratios onto AD champions, not to make them hybrid (AP builds on them would be horribly gimmicky and inefficient) but so that the stats from Sheen wouldn't be wasted as they built the item for its Spellblade effect. The base item would work better with AD than with AP, considering the Spellblade effect is autoattack-dependent, even if it does build into different options for AD and AP champions. Guinsoo's Rageblade=

Changes

 * New recipe: +  +  + 615g.
 * Cost increased to 3200g, up from 2600g.
 * Ability power removed.
 * Now grants +30% attack speed and +300 health.
 * Now has the Rage passive.
 * Unique passive (stacks):
 * Now grants +4 attack damage instead of +4 ability power.
 * Stacks now only generate from autoattacks, instead of autoattacks and abilities.
 * Stacks now last 5 seconds, down from 8.
 * Stack limit is now 5, down from 8.
 * Unique passive (surge):
 * No longer grants life steal or spell vamp.
 * Now grants +20 attack damage.

Cost Analysis

 * 30 attack damage = 1080g
 * 30 attack speed = 1000g
 * 300 health = 800g
 * Total Gold Value = 2880g


 * 4 attack damage = 144g
 * 4% attack speed = 133g
 * Total Gold Value = 277g

Total Gold Value (Fully Stacked) = 4266g


 * 20 attack damage = 720g
 * 20% attack speed = 666g
 * Total Gold Value = 1386g

Total Gold Value (Surged) = 4266g

Total Gold Value (All Passives Up) = 5652g


 * is gold efficient with no stacks. Its gold efficiency increases by  per stack, becoming gold efficient at the second stack and reaching  gold efficiency at maximum stacks.
 * Alternatively, the item becomes gold efficient while the unique passive is activated while under 50% health.
 * The item becomes gold efficient when its unique passives are at maximum value.

Changes

 * New Recipe: +  + 850g.
 * Cost reduced to 3000g, down from 3400g.
 * Attack damage removed.
 * Life steal removed.
 * Ability power increased to 80, up from 65.
 * Now grants +10% movement speed.
 * Unique active:
 * Now enhances the wielder's next basic attack or single target spell to deal 150 magic damage and slow the target champion's movement speed by 40% for 2 seconds, instead of firing a 700-range projectile with the same effect.
 * Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, down from 60.

Cost Analysis

 * 80 ability power = 1740g
 * 10% movement speed = 595g
 * 20% spell vamp = 550g
 * Total Gold Value = 2885g


 * is gold efficient.
 * Alternatively, the item becomes gold efficient if its unique passive and active are worth a combined value of at least 115 gold.

Changes

 * Ability power removed.
 * Now grants +15 attack damage.

Cost Analysis

 * 15 attack damage = 540g
 * 200 mana = 400g
 * Total Gold Value = 940g


 * is gold efficient.
 * Alternatively, the item becomes gold efficient if its Spellblade passive is worth at least 260 gold.

Changes

 * Ability power removed.
 * Attack damage increased to 45, up from 30.

Cost Analysis
As you can imagine, the full and detailed analysis for would be quite long. Suffice to say that the removal of the 30 AP, worth 652.5g, and the addition of 15 AD, worth 540g, makes this item worth 112.5 less gold. It's still massively gold efficient ( gold efficient, to be specific), so there's no real difference in gold efficiency (it's currently gold efficient).

Changes

 * Ability power removed.
 * Now grants +15 attack damage.

Cost Analysis
Though not as bad as, a full cost analysis for would be unnecessary. In short, the removal of the 30 AP, worth 653g, and the addition of 15 AD, worth 540g, lowers the item's gold value by 113g. Iceborn Gauntlet's gold efficiency drops from to, which still makes it gold efficient on stats alone.

Changes

 * Now grants +15 attack damage.
 * Spellblade passive now scales with, down from.

Cost Analysis
With the addition of 15 AD, worth 540g, is now worth a total of 3075 gold, which changes its gold efficiency from  to. This is actually sort of important, since the item becomes gold efficient on stats alone.