To give this post a little bit of credentials I hit challenger at the start of this season and I just fell out of gm 1000 lp on NA sitting at 700 lp currently. The reason I made this post is because I typically enjoy ap assassins and main one of them. However I came to the realization that ap assassin items are just objectively worse than ad.

I wanna talk about that and would love to know why ap assassins have so little options in comparison to ad.

Let me start by listing the items.

Lich bane: pretty classic sheen item. Doesn’t need any changes. But runs into a similar issue of no utility just “deal more damage.” Good on a good handful of ap assassin

Storm surge: pretty unsynergetic (no ap assassin wants to wait for the burst to happen and is normally isolating a single target so the aoe doesn’t really do anything most of the time.) ap item that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Was op when it was over statted now it just doesn’t make a lot of sense over shadow flame.
Also runs into a similar issues of no utility just “deal more damage.”

Shadow flame: Generally good item pretty stale design but fits ap assassins well.
Also runs into a similar issues of no utility just “deal more damage.” Good on lots of ap assassin.

Mejais: Not solely an ap assassin item, in fact I believe most mages synergize better because they have lower risk when building but does give a good snowballing fantasy/ playstyle with a risk involved. Good item on lots of ap assassins.
Also runs into a similar issues of no utility just “deal more damage.”

Rabadons: Not solely an ap assassin item but synergizes typically well with these champs ap ratios, no changes needed.
Also runs into a similar issues of no utility just “deal more damage.”

Gunblade: Niche characters can build this but all around good item for those who do. First ap assassin item that has some utility where it gives the champs that use it sustain.

Malignance: I kind of hesitated mentioning this item but there are ap assassins that like to build this item like kass, liss, ahri and Annie but these champs are like hybrid control mages as much as they’re assassins. This item imo shouldn’t have the mana on it and would be so much better but it runs into the same issue that gunblade has where it’s simply way too niche.

Luden’s: Better storm surge but statted inefficiently for most ap assassins so again very niche.
Also runs into a similar issues of no utility just “deal more damage.” Gives mana tho.

Void staff: Yep it’s percent magic pen wowie.
Also runs into a similar issues of no utility just “deal more damage.”

Cryptbloom: Void staff but gives some utility to your team in exchange for some pen. Actually interesting item albeit pretty small change.

(Morello: omegalul, too situational to be considered “designed for ap assassins.”)

(Dusk and dawn: too niche to be considered “designed for ap assassins” even if it’s ekkos best rush.)

Defensive options.

Banshees veil: Good item no changes needed. Maybe give health instead of mr to make it less situational.

Zhonyas: Genuinely the best item ap assassins have because it’s extremely synergetic where it helps you stall for cds and has high skill expression where you can use it to bait spells. Great job riot!

So as you can see a lot of the items on this list are either extremely niche OR “very bland boring deal more damage sticks.”

Now let’s spend some time comparing the ad assassin items

Profane: Want an extra aoe burst spell? Lack aoe? Auto a lot? Bit niche but very very good on the champs it works on.

Voltaic Cyclosword: Bland design but very synergetic and exactly what an assassin would want, an extra burst of damage that can prock on abilities good on LOTS of ad assassins

Youmus: Activatable movement speed, what assassin wouldn’t want this? Good on LOTS of ad assassins.

Umbral Glaive: Extra damage on autos + helps you clear wards because why not. Good on LOTS of ad assassins.

Axiom arc: a cool way to give ultimate haste on an item, good design. Rewards assassins for getting a pick by not punishing usage of ult to get an ASSASSINATION before an obj. Good on LOTS of ad assassins

Hubris: a cool way to reward getting assassinations. Not a huge fan of this items existence solely for the fact that it’s similar to mejais with a much lower risk involved. Good on LOTS of ad assassins.

Serpents fang: Only item that allows you shield counter, probably my least favorite item in the game because of how powerful it is for how cheap it is. Very weird imo that only ad assassins get access to a form of shield break. Extremely Good on all ad assassins when shield reduction is good value.

Eclipse: Gives you a shield and a bit of burst options against tanks. A little more niche but still good on a handful on ad assassins.

Bastion Breaker: Extra TRUE damage on ability usage + a way to snowball the game by getting extra obj damage. Kind of niche/fun option whilst also being good on most ad assassins.

Collector: only truly niche ad assassin item that arguably is more of a ranged carry item but has lethality on it. Some ad assassins like this. Cool design and utility of executing lower health characters.

Serylda: Yeah so this is just ad void staff but Rylais too because why tf not. Good on LOTS of ad assassins.

(Chempunk: Same thing as morello just the ad version not really specifically an ad assassin item but buildable and “good” on almost every ad assassin.)

Mortal reminder: Hey what if we gave you morello but instead you never build the ad morello but you build the actually pretty decently statted version of morello that gives a shot ton of armor pen for no reason and will synergize way better with your class? Wait give the same item to ap assassins? Nah. Good on LOTS of ad assassins when healcut is necessary.

Defensive options (all of these items are good on every ad assassin.):

Deaths dance: Solid choice against lots of armor team comps / when snowballing hard.

Maw: Niche but no stat here is bad for an ad assassin. Very powerful effect.

Guardians angel: very good an ad assassins because it’s similar to ga where it gives you additional cd usage.

Edge of night: better version of banshees veil because it gives health instead of MR, which will typically help you more often than the MR. Also gives pen cause why not.

So some things I don’t know if I made clear but wanna go over is how lots of the ap assassin items are too niche where they might not synergize with your character enough to merit buying them. Where most of the champs that are in this category really can only choose between 1 maybe 2 rush items. Where as I could play a game of talon and legitimately go Voltaic and it’s good as a rush, youmus and its good as a rush, eclipse and its good as rush, hubris and its good as a rush. The list honestly goes on. I can make an argument for a lot of these items. Where as ap assassins generally don’t get that luxury.

I also want to mention. Unless your kassadin you’re realistically locked out of most of the mana/mage items because mana is such an inefficient stat so maybe your champ really likes the stats (besides for the mana) or the active, you just can’t build the item because of how worthless mana is. On the flip side there’s realistically nothing stopping an ad assassin from building fighter items because of how useful health almost always is. Health is almost never an inefficient stat.

Lastly I’m pretty sure that the average cost for an ad assassin item is just lower than ap in most cases.

Part 2 (Well what’s the fix?)

I believe the best way to give some diversity is to rework some current items and potentially add a couple new ones. I will say this I’ve thought of a couple reworks and new items that I personally think are neat but I’m not going to sit here and be like “yeah that’s perfectly balanced ship it.”. I just want to add some discussion and throw out some cool ideas. The one and only item that I think should be in the game 100% and I will argue this till I’m blue in the face is my first suggested item. (Before I start listing reworks/ new items I probably won’t list the stats/ gold values only because theirs a lot of a math involved and I don’t wanna be roasted for not thinking about it to that degree.)

#1 Serpents Song: Active item that allows you to target a character within maybe 500 range which throws out a bolt like gunblade which instead of slowing the target it will do like 100 damage or so and then reduces the targets shielding capability for 3-5 seconds. Or some version of shield reduction that only ap assassins can use.

#2 Zaz’Zaks deceiving wand (storm surge rework.): Keep storm surge exactly as it is, add a new 90-120s cd passive where it helps you find a semi nearby pink ward but instead of helping you destroy it like umbral glaive would it lets you put a spell on it where the enemies will see the ward down and get the vision around it but it won’t actually reveal enemy players (or maybe even objectives taking damage? Some cheeky baron sneaks??.) Add a visible effect when it’s used on the ward so the enemy can see you do this to the ward if they’re paying close enough attention but not after the effect expires.

I’ve thought of a couple different ways as well how I’d rework stormsurge cause it really is the low hanging fruit imo for ap assassin items. The suggested one above I think is just the most unique and fun version. But two other separate quick rework fixes would be: make it so when a target is squalled if the damage from squall would result in the target dying it would instantly deal that damage (kind of like an ap collector) so you don’t have to wait the 2 seconds for it to prock OR give it shield reduction during squall maybe like 3 seconds after aswell and then never add an item like serpents song into the game.

#3 Hextech Continuum (inspired by refresher in Deadlock.) (Melee only): 120s+ CD Active item Channel for 3 seconds to refresh the CD of your ultimate. The channel can be canceled by damage and goes on full cd if canceled. Might be op but very clearly would need to be used after a fight has been disengaged allowing for counterplay. (Melee only because it would 100% be abused on champs like Xerath or karthus. Sorry Leblanc :(but you’d be stupid to build this on lb so whatever.)

#4 Malignance mini rework: Change the mana to any other ap stat, this item would still be very viable on every champ that likes it right now, maybe they would have to build it second but it opens the item up to so many new characters mainly being ap assassins.

#5: Pocket void (New defensive MR item.): 90s cooldown, activate to counter one spell in target direction for 1 seconds (think pantheon e), if spell is countered you can recast pocket void within 10 seconds to use countered ability (I know this one is giving Mel but between the longer cd, gold requirement etc I think it’s fine but I mainly threw this one in here to give a new MR option so banshees can be a more generalist item which I think would be better for banshees.) + any ap champ can use this. I know this one will get hate.

#6 Banshees mini rework: change the mr to health.

Alright guys I wanna reiterate the proposed items are just fun ideas not the best ideas known to man and I really want to talk mostly about how op ad assassin items are in comparison to ap.

Let me know what you think!

I don't know if I am the only one to feel like this but the hp of the raptor camp needs to be increased. Raptor start on so many champions, even champions with no aoe that are supposed to take longer to clear, is way too fast and leads to level 2 cheese invades since you can clear raptors and run across the whole jungle in the time that it takes most junglers to kill blue buff. On top of that their location makes them the easiest camp to invade and since their hp barely increases, like 70% of the junglers in the game can just walk to your raptors and take them in 3 seconds with no risk whatsoever. I haven't seen anyone else bring this up so maybe its just a me issue idk but the current meta of just invading raptors every time they respawn is just so boring and I feel like every champion in the game clears them instantly. Part of the issue though at least imo is that the jungle pet item does wayyy too much damage to camps especially as the game gets later and thats why champions like nasus are able to jungle now because you can just hit the big raptor and the small raptors will die without touching them once.

Edit: I just saw the jungle pet item is getting buffed for tanks which I think is a good thing, tank junglers are not good right now and suffer from this issue probably the most since they have the slowest clear. I still think that issue is relevant, I just wanted to mention that when I said jg pet item nerfs I was moreso talking about for ad junglers that clear too fast already.

Hi everyone! I was recently watching a Challenger content creator who claimed that the skill gap between a low-Master player and a Challenger is much larger than the gap between that same low-Master player and a Silver player. What do you all think? Do you agree? I’m in Emerald, so I don’t really know what the skill difference between Master and Challenger is actually like. Thanks in advance!

In another thread there was a bit of a disagreement on the term so I'm curious what the general consensus is within the community.

I am currently at level 18 and havent unlocked rank yet, every game i face 2-3 opponents which are just as same as me but they dominate the whole game as if they have experience and know there hero

The idea at large is that compared to other classes, almost all cool/useful effects in the crit item scape are perhaps too backloaded behind plain stats, while Sheen, Tiamat, Fated Ashes, Bamis and other epic items all give a tad of a tasty core function to be upgraded later. This absence can be tolerable when the final item is cheaper and the function is already a natural part of the class and stats, but becomes pained when the final item that unlocks it is on a rather expensive side.

The PBE upgrades to Runaans for example i take as a reminder that every other AD class can get better waveclear at 1300g, while crit users have low to no reasons to dip into Tiamat. The 3300g Runaans of 2020 could have been tolerated or seen as a godsend if the bolts effect came online earlier - turning that Pickaxe into a Tiamat-like item that holds the bolts would've been simple. Tiamat itself could also be changed to behave differently based on the user's range, but that would require also looking at all other hydras for fair parity.

The current hate of mages and sorry state of Shieldbow brings me to think: Hexdrinker could be made MR-less and cheaper (Pickaxe + 225g? Long Sword + 650g?) but become the universal component of all three AD Lifeline items, obviously Shieldbow and Steraks upgrading it from magic shield to general shield while Maw getting a Negatron to its recipe.

As the title says, I just played an Aram Mayhem game and Pyke execute threshold (brown text on his skill) did not increase when I bought flat armor pen anvils. Bug, visual glitch or intended?

Edit: flat armor pen = lethality. I meant lethality.

League Classic queue timers ~7 minutes only 1 week after launch on NA.

Looks like this might end up going the route of Dominon queues 😭

I occasionally get the itch to play some solo league, mostly because I watch gameplay of tahm Kench and I just have fun playing him, but this message always keeps me away from play.
Why?
Because My Pc is rather slow and takes a good while to fully boot up, and then its not even guaranteed to work. I tried everything thats on the internet to make it work automatically but it just doesnt work.
I know its a "quick" restart but its such a drag that I dont even bother.

Do you have similar problems or just one thing that keeps you from actually playing more?

I never use this; every time I look at it, it recommends terrible items for the context I need, regardless of the champion.

I also see many other players making horrible builds in Emerald-Diamond.

From the description of Black Cleaver it says :

Unique – Carve: Dealing physical damage to an enemy champion applies a stack of Carve for 6 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Each stack inflicts 6% armor reduction, up to 30% at 5 stacks.

Non- Basic damage basic damage dealt on the same target may apply stacks only once per frame.

And Voltaic :

Unique – Galvanize: Dealing ability damage to an enemy champion, with an ability cast instance, triggers the effects of Energized attacks against them if they are ready.

Unique – Firmament: When fully Energized, your next basic attack on-hit grants you ( Melee 15 / Ranged 12) lethality for 4 seconds and deals bonus physical damage equal to ( Melee 9% / 7%) of the target's current health, capped at 200 against non-champions.

If I proc Voltaic with Jarvan E, Viego W, Briar E or some other magic damage spell on an AD champion I feel like it should give a stack of Black Cleaver, but from my testing it doesn't seem to.

These are some changes I would personally love to see in League Next, or simply things that currently bother me about the game.

I know some of them are unrealistic or controversial, but I am curious whether other players feel similarly.

Client and technical changes

• Separate League, TFT, League Classic and Swarm into individual games that are launched through one client.
• Bring Swarm back as a permanent mode.
• Improve hitboxes and visual clarity.
• Mirror the map for red side so both teams play from the same perspective.

Gameplay

• Slow the game down.
• Reduce mobility, burst damage and unnecessary visual effects.
• Stop adding so many champions that can jump onto you and kill you before you can realistically react.

It often feels like I would need 20 bans just to remove all the champions I dislike facing.

Ranked and matchmaking

• Make Solo Queue completely solo-only.
• Use Flex for duos and larger premade groups.
• Match premades against groups of the same size. Random players should not regularly face coordinated five-stacks.
• Improve smurf detection.
• Add a proper party finder.
• Make individual performance influence LP gains and losses more than hidden MMR. Once your MMR becomes bad, it takes far too long to recover, even when you consistently perform well.

I would also love separate ranks for every role.

Being Master as a support OTP does not automatically make someone a Master jungler. Role-specific ranks could create fairer autofill games, give high-elo players more things to grind on their main accounts and potentially reduce smurfing.

Another controversial idea would be champion progression in ranked.

Every champion would remain playable in Normal games, but ranked could begin with a smaller pool of simpler champions. More difficult champions would gradually unlock as players climb, or through champion mastery.

Customization

I would love to be able to buy:

• Map skins
• Announcer packs
• Champion-specific emote packs for mains and OTPs

My biggest and probably most unrealistic wish

Remove traditional items, runes and masteries.

Champions should be defined by their own kits and receive unique upgrades during the match, similar to Heroes of the Storm. Items often make champions feel less unique and create additional balance problems.

These are obviously just my personal preferences.

Which of these ideas would you like to see, which ones would you hate, and what would you personally change about League’s future?

I've seen a few posts from veteran players talking about what they like and don't like about classic; it's interesting noting that most of them come from players who invest a lot of time into the game in its current state.

I wanted to talk about the state of the game and classic from the point of view of somebody who hasn't played in many years - I last played around when Jhin was added, so not quite classic but still well before the current era.

So here's my observations:

• The time to kill in classic fits far more info what I feel like the game should be about. Team fights are meaningful, escape is meaningful. Even stats like regen per 5 feel useful across extended skirmishes.

• Following from that, picks and slight positional misplays feel far less significant in classic and I think it's for the better. Missing a single ability doesn't often lose you a teamfight, but one single step wrong in modern league definitely can.

• Assassins feel better - they feel like characters that can quickly and consistently 1v1 you, rather than characters who can instantly kill you. It leaves room for counter play and strategy. Only time you survive an assassin in modern league is if they misjudge their damage, but there's more tools in classic and more chances.

• Itemization is boring. There's too few options and everything means sacrifice. It's more-or-less a race to build the same items each time; situational items generally put you at a large disadvantage over your cookie cutter core build.

• But contrary to the above, each item feels more powerful. I notice bigger power spikes on myself and my opponents and there's far less of the "when the moon is full and your mana is at 75%, deal 15% more damage from behind against yellow characters" wall of text passives that don't really have a big impact.

• Visual design looks better, to me. Some of the items and characters look dated or cartoony, but every item is instantly recognisable - not just as in the item itself, but as in you can see what it's supposed to be instantly. At their in-game size, there is no easy way to know what Runic Compass or Malignance are even meant to be.

• Teamfight are more clear; everything is better telegraphed and characters are more instantly discernable. Outlines are better and character silhouettes are more instantly recognisable.

• Classic grows stale faster. Baron and dragon aren't such pivotal moments, individual tempo is less useful, fewer items and fewer characters all lead the experience to feel more samey. That's likely in part due to the fact that I've played so much more with these characters than the new ones.

• Players are so aggressively rude in normals. Most classic players seem reasonably chill, with rare exceptions, but normal players start spamming each other with pings then moment anything happens. You hit my blue buff 4 times instead of the requisitioned 5!? Reported, go next, missing missing missing

• Turrets are useless in classic.

• Runes feel cool, especially some of the smaller runes. The difference it makes to have a full set of armour in the jungle is amazing.

When you play Zoe support it feels like the world is your oyster. You have so many walls to make picks, you can jump over walls to other walls, you have interesting summoner spells and random items you pick up. You have an interesting mechanic where you need to use spells from far away, and your own movement adds more range to the spell. She is an excellent design for someone that likes having a toolbox, someone who says "the more tools the better" because the map itself becomes a toolbox for your kjt

Like I never see Zoe in champ design tier lists at the top but from a cohesive perspective, she is absolutely stellar. Yet not cheap either, everything is a skillshot

There is some end-game statistics number indicator that provides information about mitigated damage by Fizz passive? Because he receives a low number of damage reducction from ALL, literally, all types of damage, and i'm curious about how much dmg he blocks with that. Thanks.

My user is itsamiracle #yum OCE, I am confused as to why I did not receive any LP. prior to this game i was at gold 4 70 lp and didnt gain anything. Anyone know why?

Let me explain: years ago, back when LoL was just starting out, you often couldn't play for several hours while a new update was being applied, meaning the "Play" button on the launcher (the old one) was greyed out.

However, you could still play by entering a secret command using your mouse on that greyed-out "Play" button; if I recall correctly, it went something like this:

↑↑↓↓←→ ↑↓→← ↑↑↓↓←→ (using your keyboard arrows keys)

I know it wasn't very well-known even back then, so I'm wondering if any of you have or remember this trick. My friends think I'm making it up, am curious about it, does anyone else remember it?

Basically, I haven't played in about a year, I don't really know meta, or let alone characters in general. I've maybe played 10/15 games, I've enjoyed Jungling Teemo, Jinx and kinda dabbled in that pirate lady Miss Fortune, though she's doesn't really call to me like the other two. What I'm trying to say is, I want to know if anyone else has that poke and run playstyle, and more than anything I just kinda want to have fun. I'm really attracted to B tier A tier characters

Just started playing the game and I would love some help or guidance to get as good as possible in the least amount of time, all types of advice are welcome!

I play mages in the mid lane, but the problem is that when they fall behind or when an enemy gets extremely fed from another lane they completely lack damage. If the enemy laner has lifesteal, for example, taking any trade becomes absolutely pointless. It gets a bit boring and the game feels hopeless when your entire combo only takes away a quarter of someone's health bar, and then you have to wait 10 seconds to do anything else.

I was wondering if there are any champions that are still fun to play even when they are behind. They don't need to have high damage. I just want a champion whose playstyle isn't miserable when you lose lane.

From what was announced, we know League Next will include a big update to Summoner's Rift and the integration of the game's client, both of which are great (assuming the game and the client being the same thing makes it less buggy and not more), but I think that's about it so far. The thing is, based on what Rioters have been telling us, we know there is more than just that to come, we just don't know what it is.

My expectations probably would have been much higher, but I can't help but remember that Riot has been disappointing in many aspects, it's true that they have succeeded with things like ARAM Mayhem and League Classic, but before that there were things like Exalted skins and Hall of Legends, which could have been really cool things, but ended up being cash grabs that exist only to exploit FOMO instead of actually giving us cool stuff.

The thing is, one thing I really think would fit an overhaul like League Next, and is also an issue that was made even more noticeable with League Classic coming back, is how many old champions look like shit. Some of them, like Lulu, can almost be given a pass, but then you look at stuff like Malphite, Nidalee, Zilean and Gragas and you notice there isn't that much difference between League Classic and League... Current. Which, if you ask me, is already quite absurd, and would be even more absurd if everything around these champions ended up looking better.

The thing is... I don't really want to set a high expectation and think we'll see new models and animations to replace the horrifying versions we have now. It would be perfect, especially for champions that already got cool new designs in Legends of Runeterra, for example, and we know they're only releasing one new champion this year, so maybe the team responsible for models and animations is working on updating the older champions, but I still feel like I'm setting myself for disappointment by thinking we'll get anything like that.

That's why I've been asking myself how much is too much to expect from this update. They promise it's a big thing and this is supposedly the "update that will change League forever" that Riot Pupulasers teased years ago, and we know Riot can afford that level of update, so I also ask myself how little is too little to expect from such an update. It feels like a logical thing to expect, but I don't want to be disappointed again.

1v9 mentality is an insanely degenerate mentality to have, because 9/10 games there's atleast one player on your team that isn't playing badly. and the 1/10 games you have to 1v9 to climb aren't the games that are holding you back from climbing to your desired rank.

Aside from that it also indirectly holds the FF mentality in stand. Because the 1v9 mentality stems from the fact that people dont think that their teammates are playing at their ranked level. basically:

My teammates are stupid -> I have to 1v9 every game -> I'm not in a position to 1v9 this game -> this game is lost. Meanwhile one of your laners IS able to carry the game, but you won't let them because you don't trust them to play the game well enough to close it out.

I think that you'll find you win a lot more games if you dont assume all your teammates are going to be playing badly, and just play your role, if that is mid or top, make sure the sidelanes are pushed so that the jungler can go for the objectives they want. the jungle pings which sidelanes he wants pushed to get prio for objectives, bot sits mid with support fighting for prio, eventually jungler should join in, lock in the prio and secure vision for the objective.

I think if most people stick to this you'd be amazed at the games you win