But most of their changes I am happy about. Repeating crossbow was a trash item. I think that Last Whisper being basically the Desert 4 buff is much much better, although I think that it's redundant with the desert buff so probably still won't make much use of it. What it sounds amazing for is as an item for Electric, specifically, an item to put on Ornn. As that is part of my favorite current comp, I'll probably make use of it.
The new items seem fairly good for the most part, though quicksilver now being total immunity to chain-cc feels redundant with Olaf to some extent. I certainly won't complain tho! The changes to Ionic Spark seem godawful and once again seem like an indirect buff to the ol' never-nerfed, already-repeatedly-receiving-indirect-buffs, Mage-Warden-Ocean-Mountain comp. Magic damage rather than true damage, limited to a specific area of the battlefield. 200% of their maximum mana means a maximum of 300 damage, but there's plenty of units who don't use mana much at all and who would take virtually zero damage.
So what am I so excited about?
Because my favorite, slightly off-meta, build, which is usually fairly effective...is getting the biggest of big buffs to it, albeit changing the final comp to aim for.
My favorite comp to run is an AP-Volibear comp. The most ideal items: Hextech Gunblade so he heals, Jeweled Gauntlet to get his crit to 55% and cause his spells to crit, and Rabbadon's Deathcap to get his spell up to instakill territory. When running short on large rods, substitute in an infinity edge for extra crit chance/damage for similar effects. You can throw in Luden's Echo if you also are lacking the extra, and you can also use an ionic spark (well, its current version) as well. Morellonomicon isn't the best because you want to one-shot enemies with your spell, but the extra health can help.
It's ridiculously easy to pull off most games. I've tested it out, and it's not hard to force that comp. When you try to force the comp, especially with competition (and due to the number of comps using Berserker 3 and/or glacial 2/4, there's competition fairly often), you're not gonna win with it, but if you naturally start with it (large rod on volibear in the starting carousel? OH YES!!!), then you can very easily end up winning games with it.
This comp relies on Volibear as a primary carry, with Olaf and Zed as secondary carries if you get them. The idea is Volibear/Ornn with Braum to get Warden/Glacial/Electric, then get glacial 4 with Olaf and ideally Ezreal (usually you'll get Warwick), going into Berserker 6 with 5/6 berserkers and Ornn with the black cleaver, fielding Zed. Zed for Electric 3 (or if you luck out, Lux for Electric 4) is more important than berserker 6; glacial 4 is more important than berserker 6; berserker 3 is probably more important than glacial 4.
Zed and Olaf are, obviously, highly contested units who you're not likely to get, but the comp still works quite well even if you can't get them, so long as you can get a T3 Volibear with the gunblade and jeweled gauntlet at minimum. If you can get one of Zed/Olaf but not the other, then T2 Volibear with gunblade/jeweled gauntlet is good enough. You do need the T2 Volibear and you do need both of those items--lack the healing of the gunblade, and Volibear is useless; lack the crit of the jeweled gauntlet especially for spells, and Volibear is useless; lack the extra health/damage of being T2, and Volibear dies before he gets the mana and deals basically negative damage even with three items.
It's not a comp you can run in every game, but it's a comp you can run in most games.
And why am I celebrating?
...Because I can run AP Volibear...without running AP Volibear.
By running the Lunar synergy. Did Riot not realize that Lunar+Energy = gamebreakingly powerful synergies? Especially since it requires only four, fairly cheap, units? The most expensive unit is Karma at three. You can get that as early as, what, level 3? Or is it level 4? The point is, you can get the comp early and easily.
Lunar, as written, gives +20% crit chance, crit damage, and spell power, periodically (every seven seconds), up to a maximum of four times, for +80% crit chance (as all units start with 25, that's 100%!), +80% crit damage, and +80% spell power. Large rods give 20%. Rabbadon's Deathcap gives 75%. Lunar, at max, gives more spell power than a rabbadon's deathcap. And more crit chance than triple-crit items. More crit chance than assassin 6 with crit items on your assassins. More crit damage than an infinity edge, probably more than two infinity edges.
Gunblade + Jeweled Gauntlet as a combo gives +40% spell power and +30% crit.
This would give me the freedom to run tank-Volibear...and have him still be AP-Volibear. Still put the gunblade on him, and maybe maybe maybe if you have the items to spare the jeweled gauntlet as well, but focus on getting warmogs and maybe bloodthirster on him, or maybe the new qss to prevent him from being cc'd into oblivion.
Items to make him survive long enough for the Lunar bonuses to kick in.
And with the Electric procs.
Obliterate everyone.
I'm not quite sure what the final comp would be.
Leona-Ornn-Volibear-Braum-Karma takes up my level 5.
From there, get berserker 3 I guess with level 7, ideally Olaf and Sion. (I'm not quite sure the power levels of berserkers. Olaf and Volibear are auto-field, but when it comes to the other four, what's the priority on T1s? If you have a T1 Sion, Mundo, Jax, and Renekton, which do you put in first; which do you put in last? If you have them all at T2, which do you put in first; which do you put in last? What T1s are stronger than other T2s? Like, is a T2 Renekton better than a T1 Sion? I don't actually know for sure, but in my anecdotal experience, Sion's knockup gives me the biggest bang for my buck. Renekton with zero items and no desert synergy gives me the least although I am quite aware that with items/synergies he's a strong carry unit. Mundo probably > Jax, so it's usually Sion > Mundo > Jax > Renekton but I don't know if that's the best. It's just my guess.)
And from there, field the third electric in Zed and a fourth glacial.
Given this comp's strategy, Zed might be more important than a third berserker.
But Riot had no clue what they were doing when they made this comp.
Mind you.
These changes are only on the pbe right now.
I didn't invent the AP Volibear strategy even though I pretty much own it and put my own spin on it. (I actually got the idea from a Mage Volibear strategy. They said Mage Cap + Gunblade + ideally, Rabbadon's Deathcap was their pocket pick build for an AP Volibear oneshot strat. I was already running deathcap on him, and discovered purely by accidental happenstance how strong jeweled gauntlet is for him, and then took the gunblade from that AP Volibear build and put it onto my own.)
I am pretty sure that players on the pbe will be VERY quick to reach the same conclusion as I did, and realize just how broken Lunar is when combined with the recently-buffed Energy synergy. (As I previously mentioned in a prior blog: I understand with and agree with buffing Electric 2 as it desperately needed the extra bit, but buffing Electric 3? Big mistake.)
And once Riot looks at the winrates of comps and themselves after this playtesting realize, "...oops", I fully expect that come time for the Lunar trait to go live, at least one half of the Lunar-Electric combo will have been hard hard hard nerfed to prevent the synergy from working with one another.
Mind you, the Lunar trait also works with an assassin comp--which is another comp I often run. Whenever I start with LeBlanc or Neeko, I build Woodland 3/4 into Assassin 6 via the LeBlanc transition. The Lunar trait will also work wonders with Assassins' crit chance/damage.
So given that it won't be just Electric, but also Assassins, I'm expecting the nerfs to be towards the Lunar half of the synergy strategy.
Probably vastly reduced crit chance/damage or less max stacks or more time before stacks or multiple of these.
Because, uhhh...yeah.
Riot.
That combo?
It's gonna be disgustingly strong.
If it does go into the live servers with Riot somehow not realizing how badly they screwed up with the design of this new synergy allowing for an existing synergy which was already absurdly strong to be absolutely broken...well, I imagine that Riot will very quickly realize, "...Oh."
But, hey.
You never know!
Riot absolutely refuses to nerf Predators in spite of them having remained broken from the onset.
Riot absolutely refuses to nerf Ocean/Mage/Warden/Mountain as a combo in spite of them having remained broken from the onset--to the contrary, they insist on buffing the combo!
Riot absolutely refuses to nerf Olaf comps, a combo which in spite of having remained broken from the onset...has actually been buffed!
So maybe, instead of nerfing into oblivion the Lunar-Electric synergy, they leave it be.
We'll have to see.
Obviously.
Because I love AP Volibear.
I hope that they leave it in the game, as-is.
That they bring it to live, and when live, they don't touch either half.
Because it's my favorite comp to run and they are planning on making it much much much easier to run.
I don't think that'll happen, but I sure hope it does!