Riot just made dev: /DEV: 2024 ITEM CHANGES
Major take away from the post was
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“Item Power Budgets” to move power from Item to champions
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“Locked Slots” Where ap mages with mana have to build 1 mana item and due to now end game happen get locked into same 2nd and 3rd item due to “Pattern Binding”
These changes allow for great change to how “Pattern Binding” works but they just address issue about how there are more mana items in Mythic system and don’t provide solution for this.
The mythic system improved this in a few ways for mages by adding some competition among mana items, which meant that not every mage had to have the same first item.
Every mana mage has “Locked Slot” for mana item first. Each of those mana Mages have no choice and these changes has further reduced diversity.
We went from having 5 + 1 Major mana item starts to 3 + 1.
+1 being the tear route which being second item or 3rd for skipping mana item start.
| Item | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Liandry’s Anguish | 3200 | Great for burn/spam champion |
| Luden’s Tempest | 3200 | Great for burst champion |
| Crown of the Shattered Queen | 2800 | Great for early game battle mages / Countering assassins |
| Everfrost | 2800 | Great for cc focused champion |
| Rod of Ages | 2800 | Great for late game scaling battle mages |
| Archangel’s Staff | 3000 | (+1 Item to build 2nd/3rd) Great for delaying mana item for different mage item |
How did we go from above to this below only options
| Item | Cost | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Caster’s Companion | 3000 | Great burst champion |
| Malignance | 2800 | Great for ult focus champion if it works well for them |
| Rod of Ages | 2700 | Great for late game scaling battle mages |
| Archangel’s Staff (+1 Item to build 2nd/3rd) | 3000 | (+1 Item to build 2nd/3rd) Great for delaying mana item for different mage item |
I feel that these changes bring less option to “Locked Slot” and early game played out in champ select instead of on the rift.
Mana isn’t really an Issue nowadays in League. I’d actually argue other Classes like Tanks or Bruisers (and whatever the fuck Gangplank is) have more Trouble with Mana since they lost Mana on Triforce and IBG back in Season 11 (+ Righteous Glory) and they still don’t have Mana Issues today.
I have no Clue what this Sentence means, if you’re somehow implying that you’re only getting your Archangel’s as a second or third Item then you’re wrong. We’re going back to rushing Archangels for the Champs that wanted that (like Cassiopeia for Example).
Back in Season 10 AP Champions had 6 Mana Items:
We could not count Lichbane since it’s more of an Assassin Item for the Likes of Fizz and Ekko. Only Mage I can think of that could use this is Zoe and maybe Lux but not really. We also shouldn’t count Dark Seal and Mejai’s since they are highly situational.
That leaves us with 4 actual AP Mana Items in Season 10 (pre-Mythic) and 4 actual AP Mana now, in Season 14. It’s pretty much the same Thing. You should also remember you can build all of these at the same Time (assuming Riot dosn’t pull a Lost Chapter Restriction out of their Ass).
But yeah, Mana Options for Champions are pretty underwhelming universally across all Champions and, on Top of limiting Item Choices, also limit Rune Choices, since you’ll be forced to go either Manaflow Band, PoM or Biscuit Delivery on far too many Champs.
I think there should be more Mana in Items since that kind of allows Riot to balance Item Power Budgets better (by reducing Damage and adding Mana in it’s Place) but at the Cost of base Mana Pools getting nerfed and Mana Runes getting some Adjustments.
Most bruisers have their mana costs adjusted. Only older tanks like Mao, Malph and Poppy still have higher mana costs on their core abilities. 55 Mana on Poppy for her Q is a lot compared to like 20-30 mana on many bruisers. And Poppy has one of the worst base mana values on top.