Underused Items: Atma's Impaler

Hello everyone!

In this edition of underused items, I will be discussing Atma's Impaler. So first of all, let us look at it's stats:


Stats
+45 armor
+15% critical strike chance
Passive Unique: You gain attack damage equal to 1.5% of your maximum health.
Item cost 2300g (780g)

45 armor = 900g
15% critical strike chance = 750g
Total Gold Value = 1650g
Passive Gold Value: 15 attack damage (for every 1000 Health) = 600g
Atma's Impaler is gold efficient if the champion has at least 1083 health.

Looking at gold efficiency, one might wonder why this item is not picked up more. After all, it becomes gold efficient after just 1083 health, which you will probably have by the time you pick up this item. Combine this with the fact that you can earn additional gold while building this item with Avarice blade, and you have a very cost efficient item!

So why is it that this item is not usually bought? Well, there are two reasons for this. One is that although it is cost efficient, most champions that build AD and Crit do not build armor, and most champs that build armor do not want Crit (they may want AD). There are a few exceptions to this rule such as Gangplank, but in general you aren't going to be seeing a Malphite or Riven with crit, or an AD carry with armor (outside of maybe a Guardian's Angel).

So, the simple solution is to make it so that this item gives stats that are more commonly used by champions. Since this items intent is to be a tanky dps item, I will go for removing the Critical Strike Rating for something else. However, since we are doing this, we may need to lower the health to damage ratio somewhat so that the item is not too efficient. Now the question is what stat should be added to Atma's? Well, the item already gives AD and Armor, so you probably don't want to give either of those. On the other hand, health may not be the best choice either as it might stack with the passive too well. This right here is probably the reason that Riot has not already changed Atma's; it is really difficult to come up with a good statistic that will work on a lot of champions! An alternative could be to just not replace the Avarice Blade with anything, and lower the health to damage ratio, but this would probably leave the item in a weak final item state, similar to how the old Hexdrinker was.

So, there are four different stats that I could see this item getting at this point that wouldn't be an OP stat for this item to have. These stats are Magic Resist (negatron cloak might be OP with this), Life Steal (from vamp scepter), Cooldown Reduction (either from fiendish codex or Glacial Shroud), or Tenacity, which might come along with a null magic mantle.


Let's start with magic resist. Both armor and magic resist are stats that a tanky dps wants at least a little of, although having too much of both in one item might be too strong. On the other hand, having too little of one on the stats might force a character to have to buy an extra item than they would want to, in which case the item will only be bought if it is stronger than it probably should be (as it was in season 2 when the ration was at 2% health to damage). Since our target champions to buy this item are tanky dps, I feel that the best solution for this would be to make it build out of a null magic mantle, along with the chain vest it already builds out of, and lower the health to damage ratio a little.

Now what if we wanted to add in lifesteal instead? This is much simpler. Make Atma's build out of a chain vest and a vamp scepter. Keep the AD at 10 so we minimize how much AD the item gives, and keep the lifeteal at 10-15%. This will open the item up to tanky dps who also like to auto attack some such as Riven, Nasus, and Jayce.

What about cooldown reduction? Well, this is my least favorite stat to make it build from because it there isn't really a good base cooldown reduction item for this to build out of. I suppose we could just add in more armor to the recipe, and throw cdr on there, but that just seems like a sloppy way to do it to me. Making the item build out of a Glacial Shroud is an "OK" option, but it limits the item to mana using champions, which is something I would like to avoid. Overall, I probably would not try to make this a cdr item, although it would be a useful item if it did have cdr as a stat.

Lastly, we could have this item provide tenacity. If this was to be the case, I would likely make the item build from a null magic mantle, and a chain vest. It would also likely give 1% or less health to ad ratio to make it not be too strong (can always be adjusted after testing). This would turn the item into a nice tank or tanky dps item, and give those champions another alternative for getting tenacity against CC heavy teams.

Out of these options, I feel that adding in magic resist or lifesteal would be the best way to go.


Now I will take about the second problem that I mentioned before, which might be partially solved by my above options. This problem is that in the season 3 meta, most tanky dps champions only get one armor heavy item, and then try to focus on building health. This item is usually a sunfire cape or a randuins omen, or a combination of locket of the iron solari and aegis of the legion/runic bulwark. In its current state, Atma's Impaler really has no place in a champions build, because their armor item slot is already being filled by one or more other items.


This problem can be solved by taking away the critical strike rating, and adding in a more attractive stat instead, thus turning Atma's into a more attractive item to Tanky DPS Champions. However, considering how strong health and tank stats in general are at the moment, this is hard to do without make the item go overboard. The right balance of lifesteal or magic resist could probably accomplish this though. I personally like the magic resist option better, as it makes the item better for more champions than lifesteal would, and it encourages the use of another null magic mantle item, such as hexdrinker, which does not see as much play as I wish it did thanks to the same reasons regarding the season 3 meta.

What does everyone else think about all of this? Feel free to leave a comment below, and discuss any point you want!

Until Next Time!
"Prepare to be boarded!"
-Rikukun

More Problems with AP Evelynn

So since my last post on Evelynn, I have thought about her some more, watched her being played in the LCS, and played her myself some. From all of this, I have discovered what I believe to be a flaw in her design. It was something that I thought about when her remake was first released, but I didn't think in depth about it too much back then.


This problem is that she has become a hybrid sustained damage/assassin character. Before her initial nerfs way back at the end of season 2, Evelynn has insane burst damage with her DFG + Ult + E + 1 Q combo, enough to easily kill any squishy. She did her job as an assassin very well here. However, part of what made her too strong was that she then was able to spam her Q as much as she wanted, dealing high amounts of sustained damage to multiple targets.

In her current form, Evelynns sustained damage is still there (although you have to worry about your mana now more) but her burst has been nerfed rediculously (largely because of DFG). However, her burst has been reduced so much that she no longer functions like a traditional assassin. Now, she runs up to her target, ults, E's, and spams Q until they are dead. Does this sound similar to what a Vladimir might do to anyone?

Part of what made Eve an assassin is still there; she still has her stealth, which is great in the laning phase, and she still has her Ult, which can do decent damage to high health targets. However the rest of her kit is focused around giving her sustained damage. Her Q in and of itself is sustained damage, and her W allows her to stay on target to deal this damage. Her E would allow for AD Eve to deal better sustained damage, which if I remember correctly was the build path the designer had in mind for Eve when he remade her (which may be part of the problem).

So, what can be done to fix Evelynn? Well, her kit should be changed to be made into a better AP Assassin's kit, instead of a hybrid assassin/sustained damage mage. However, in doing this we also need to keep her playstyle the same for her players. This makes things a little harder, but I believe that it can still work.

For Eve to work as an assassin, she must regain the ability to 100-0 a squishy target in only a few seconds if left alone to. Right now she might can do that with DFG, but it is so expensive that she probably won't be buying that until late game, when pulling it off is much harder. The place in my mind to hit is her Q, because it is the problem spell right now. I also feel that the change in my previous post on Evelynn should still go through.

So what do we change about her Q? She needs to keep a spamable short range spell because that is what her players expect, and we cannot just go changing that on them. However, there is a change we can make to have it function as a more assassiny type of spell.

First of all, the base damage on the spell needs to be nerfed. Secondly, it needs to gain a new effect. There are a few ways to do this effect, but I like the following one the best as it allows for more combo oriented play. Make it so that when Evelynn casts her E on a target, the next Q on that target deals a percentage of that targets maximum health in bonus magic damage. The total damage the first Q will deal to this target will be much higher than the current damage of a Q. So as I mentioned above, to compensate we have to reduce the base damage, effectively reducing her sustained damage to more controllable levels, while allowing her to better assassinate a squishy target, and dealing less damage to other squishy targets for at least her E cooldown time. Her Q cooldown is unchanged, so she can still spam the spell to help finish off a target if they are left alive, or to help a little bit in a team fight (maybe doing as much as an AD assassin's auto attacks or something like that). Another change that might be needed for the sake of Evelynn's laning phase is that her Q might need to deal more damage to monsters and minions so that her lane and jungle is not hurt by this change.

If these changes to her ult and her Q were brought into the game, I believe Evelynn would have a much better feel as an assassin, and would be more fun to play as in general. What do you think? Leave a comment below saying!

Until Next Time!
"The night is my veil!"
-Rikukun

Remaking Champions: Why it Promotes Game Health

Hello Everyone,
Sorry for the long break in between posts. These last few weeks of school have taken up pretty much all of my free time; it was hard enough just to play a game of League here and there, let alone think in depth enough to come up with a well written post! Anyways, in this post I would like to discuss why champion kit reworks promote game health.

In my experience in reading the forums, there are two kinds of reactions to every champion rework that Riot does. There are the people who love the new kit and the people who hate it. The ones who love it are people who usually didn't play much of the champion beforehand, and the ones who hate it did play a lot of that champion beforehand.


There is a lot more attention on the haters on the forums. Why? Because people who are unhappy are much more vocal on there (and in general) than those who are. If one was to make a judgment based purely on reading the forums, he/she would probably believe that Riot made a huge mistake reworking that champion, and that they should be reverted back to the way we were, and they hate on and argue with Morello and other Rioters.




However, this judgment is wrong. Why? Well there are two main reasons. First of all a few players not liking a rework is a worthwhile cost to many times more players having a new champion that they will enjoy and want to play. The other reason is that some champions, because of their kits being toxic, can just never really be good, or they will be harmful to the game. Examples of this are champions like Teemo, Shaco, and Evelynn (pre-rework) who have been repeatably nerfed in order to keep them from ruining player experiences.

When a champion is reworked, problems of usability, toxicity, and popularity (which may also require a visual update, e.g. Trundle) all can and should (if present) be fixed. In my opinion, Riot has done a fairly good job of doing all of this. Take Evelynn for example. Her kit used to be so toxic to the game that she had to be reworked into her current form in order to be good. Some may argue that she is not a great champion, and as I talked about in a previous post I believe she could use a small tweak, but she is definitely in a pretty good spot, and seeing as how she has recently been used in the LCS more than once, there are a few pros who clearly agree.

Trundle and Sejuani now both feel and look like much better and stronger champions. Xin Zhao is in a pretty good spot in as far as I can tell; as is Twitch. All of these champions were ones that were considered really weak before their reworks, but they are all now really strong. Xin and Twitch have been common LCS picks, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Sejuani and Trundle there as well soon.


The only place I feel that Riot might have failed is in their reworks of Karma and Tryndamere. Karma I would like to give some more time on though to see if people can figure out how to play her better, or if a few number tweaks might help. Tryndamere on the other hand is just too Binary in general. Even though AD tryn was used very sucessfully in the LCS recently, I still feel as though he is in need of some help. Morello has stated on the forums that he wants to make Yi, Tryn, and Fiora more assassiny than they are now (*cough* I said this over a month ago with Fiora *cough*). So, I believe that sometime in the future, we will see a better rework for Tryn that will work much better.

Anyways, I feel as though I have been a little all over the place today, and I apologize for the poorly written post. To summarize though, Champion kit reworks are good because they reduce game toxicity, increase champion usability, and promote popularity so we can see a wider variety of champions being used in our games. I am looking forward to seeing more upcoming reworks on champions like Heimerdinger, Sion, Shaco (if he get's one), and the melee carries in the future.

Until Next Time!
"With Balanced Steps"
-Rikukun