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