User blog comment:Ozuar/Don't Insult Anti-Meta: AP Leona vs. Fizz/@comment-1330314-20131212210550

You've made a lot of rather generous assumptions, as well as some miscalculations:

First off, there is no point in factoring : both Leona and Fizz have abilities that apply on-hit effects, therefore they'd both benefit equally from the Spellblade proc. Second, the item already provides 80 AP, which goes over the threshold you yourself specified as being the point where Fizz surpasses Leona.

So without factoring any items, Leona's full combo deals 160  + 260  + 220  + 350  = 990   damage. Fizz's full combo deals 450 + 270  + 130   + 100   = 950. This is assuming neither autoattacks outside of their spellcasts. Any further attacks Leona applies will deal, whereas Fizz's autoattacks will deal + 100   in additional damage. If Fizz deals 525 damage or over, his base damage will already outscale Leona's (while taking into account her 2 extra AD as well).

The big difference here is how well both scale, though: Fizz's AP scaling is exactly 1.5 times Leona's, meaning she has to build 50% more AP just to keep up, which is huge (it can amount to one or two extra items in the late game). The argument that "Leona can deal the same damage as Fizz, she just needs more AP" has absolutely no value. It's the same as saying " can tank just as well as, she just needs more health:" of course you can force any champion into a role they weren't designed for, it's just horribly inefficient to do so. Leona may have more natural tankiness and crowd control than Fizz, but Fizz has an extra mobility ability and untargetability, which makes his combo a lot faster, easier, and less risky to land.

You're also misinformed about. She has one of the highest ranges and the highest scaling attack speed in the game (4% per level, giving her the highest level 18 attack speed in the game), and her utility is designed to benefit marksmen. She has the strongest crowd control out of any marksman, free gold, free vision and free critical strike chance. AD Ashe is absolutely not niche (though support Ashe is viable too). She's not the only marksman with utility, either: and  both provide utility, yet that doesn't make AD builds on them niche.