I am feeling much, much, much better about my mana build on Ashe. It's not that hard to, relatively speaking, pop off on it. I'm not gonna lie; it's got severe drawbacks. It gives much less pressure most of the time until you've got the levels in volley to spam it and the tear to not lose mana.
It can't slow down an enemy slowball; if the enemy gets ahead, it can't stop them from just ending the game.
It's easy to mess up on; if you position yourself wrong, misclick, think summoners/abilities are up when they aren't (this is something that even challenger players and pro players can occasionally be guilty of, but that doesn't mean it's something that's good to let happen), or get too low on health from not dodging the enemy team's poke, then you basically lose the game because the enemy team gets fed and you can't stop them from getting further ahead.
But it usually seems to be the case.
That in my first game of the day where I haven't played for a few days, I lose because of stupid stuff that if I had played more wouldn't happen, where it wasn't the build that was the problem but rather my play...
...But in my second game (or in some cases, my third), I just...excel. I pop off hardcore. I mean, I'm sure that matchups play a part in it. Most of my losses are to an enemy Aphelios (that champion is, currently, ridiculously busted and hands-down the strongest champion in the game pretty much regardless of role; I got stomped by him as a "support" where he was the reason the botlane won and making things worse--he's currently free to play so he's in almost every game and since he's usually the adc and I am usually my team's adc, that means usually he's on the other team).
And when I win I admit that it does involve a fair amount of competency on my team and incompetency on the enemy team's part--when the enemy team's Yuumi thinks that she can be nowhere near one of her teammates, she's a free kill (and in this case, first blood) for me and my teammate hard-winning mid and making a good invade call where we hard-won (in part due to it being a 4v5 after I noticed Yuumi was nowhere near her team and killed her).
So yes, my wins have had a good team on my end and a somewhat-suspicious-in-the-competence-department enemy team.
But honestly.
It kinda feels like.
I'm not being carried in my wins and being the reason we lose in my losses.
So much as it is, that I am working incredibly well with my team in my wins, and messing up in my losses with the rest of my team.
Synergizing well with my teammates in wins, having anti-synergy in my losses.
That I am a significant contributor to the wins, and only a contributor in the losses.
That is to say.
Not solely my fault in the losses, but also not solely responsible for the wins. Somewhat responsible for losses but still partially my team's fault; somewhat responsible for my wins but still partially my team's work.
And overall, I feel like the build snowballs pretty easily if I don't mess up.
I can actually play somewhat aggressively unless I know that I need to play cautiously, and do so. And I can also play more defensively when need be. Scaling up either way, just a matter of order. The usual strategy is to not back until I get the tear, then get boots when I can, and complete the manamune, and then it depends on the build order. Iceborn Gauntlet and Abyssal Mask are the first two, but the order depends on which I think I need more. I build the other next regardless, but Abyssal for countering an AP threat; Iceborn for countering an AD threat. And then because most matches are ~2 AP and 3 AD, more AD than AP, building Frozen Heart for the extra defense against their main threats.
Of course, if the enemy team was largely AP-based and the main threat wasn't AD, I'd probably do Essence Reaver first and then complete Frozen Heart last.
As a reminder.
This build is primary tree Sorcery--Arcane Comet, Manaflow Band, Transcendence, and Gathering Storm, with the secondary tree of Precision, specifically, Presence of Mind (for the 500 bonus mana and the mana from takedowns) and Legend:Bloodline (to give much-needed lifesteal in a build that aside from Abyssal Mask otherwise lacks it).
The build's core tenet revolves around transforming the Manamune into the Muramana. Once that transformation takes place, mana equals damage. The build has a secondary aspect of, through transcendence, cdr = damage. You only get the cdr damage when you've got boots + three items (Muramana, Iceborn, Abyssal), but it is a build where you never, ever, run out of mana past a certain point.
Manaflow Band replenishes mana over time. Abyssal Mask makes damage you take convert into mana. Presence of Mind gives mana for takedowns. Essence Reaver generates mana. And three of the items involved (frozen heart, iceborn gauntlet, abyssal mask) give bonuses to your maximum mana on top of the runes doing the same (manaflow band + presence of mind).
You still run out of mana very very early and you have almost no lifesteal early, but once you get the build rolling, you never run out and you almost never die. Most of my wins have like two deaths on average and like 20-30 kills/assists. The poke damage is ridiculous. I almost always have near the top damage of my team, regardless of win or loss, but especially with a win. I can heavily pressure objectives later-on even though I don't have much ability to do so early.
I will admit. I'm not a master of the build yet. I am often too cautious when in the lategame, too far back, which means I am contributing less to teamfights than is ideal. I deal a ton of poke damage whenever I hit, and when I get ranger's focus stacked, I can deal high damage to champions stupid enough to be in range. But I often deliver a volley and move backwards. Kiting like that would be fine if the enemy team were moving towards me to try and catch me out, but because my team is there, the enemy team is usually either relatively stationary or is on the retreat...
...So by moving backwards, I take myself out of range in the fight more often than not.
I feel like I really found something that is fairly good, actually.
And when you think about it, it's not too surprising.
On Ashe, manaflow band is the meta thing to grab. This necessitates sorcery as either primary or secondary. You could maybe, maybe, maybe get away with inspiration secondary if you have biscuits so that the biscuits increase mana, but those give less maximum mana overall and don't give the mana regeneration. You could maybe, maybe get away with no manaflow band if you do take presence of mind (presumably, running lethal tempo), but Triumph is far, far, far better on her and even Overheal is usually a better choice when paired with bloodline. (Though I suppose presence of mind is probably better than Overheal in isolation.)
Her volley consumes an insane amount of mana, so she needs some mana replenishment methods. Since the two meta primary runes are Precision (Lethal Tempo build) and Sorcery (Arcane Comet build), regardless of which is ran, there is a way without dipping into the secondary tree for her to have that extra mana she desperately needs.
Essence Reaver, an item in my build, is one of the most common first-items on Ashe, and also a common item later on as well. 20% cdr, 70 attack damage, 25% crit chance, and the mana replenishment from autoattacking is godly on Ashe.
It's just that this build diverges from the meta build by running both precision and sorcery rather than one of the two (with the secondary usually being inspiration with the outside chance of domination).
And then diverges from the meta build in items other than essence reaver and the build order of ER.
The meta boots on Ashe are Berserker Greaves.
The only times in the meta build where Ashe doesn't build Berserkers are,
-When, without Berserkers, she can get close to or reach the attack speed cap and she doesn't have lethal tempo (thus making it a waste)
-When the enemy team's basically all-AD and/or the biggest threat on the enemy team is an autoattacker who she REALLY needs to defend against (thus, Tabis)
-When the enemy team's basically all-AP and/or has many forms of CC that present a huge threat and/or the biggest threat on the enemy team that is by themselves something worth itemizing against is AP and/or the only threat on the enemy team to killing Ashe does so with a combo involving CC (thus, Merc treads),
-Or when the enemy team has many many many forms of slows and Ashe desperately needs a counter to this in her boots and/or Ashe desperately needs every single bit of movespeed possible (Swifties, but this...is the least-used of them for good reason).
This build forgoes Berserkers for a boot choice that you should pretty much in all other cases never build on Ashe with the exception of support Ashe (where they are some of the best boots for her to get to 40% cdr early).
There are, I believe, exactly six meta items on Ashe.
Essence Reaver, as previously mentioned, is a god-tiered item on her for the huge attack damage, the large crit chance, the mana regeneration, and the unparalleled 20% cooldown reduction.
Trinity Force is not usually built on her unless Essence Reaver is also built but if ER was built, Trinity Force is an incredibly common item to build to get her to her 40% cdr so she can spam abilities better and is one of the best utility items in the game overall. Extra health, extra mana, incredibly useful passive abilities, extra movespeed, extra attack speed, extra attack damage, it gives everything to her that she needs because it gives basically every stat there is to give.
Blade of the Ruined King is a godly good item for her. It gives her much-needed lifesteal, attack speed, attack damage, and a passive that absolutely shreds through pseudo-tanks that have their tankiness come through their HP. (The go-to example is Cho'gath.) Obviously, doesn't help against actual tanks that have tankiness through actual armor, but its health shred is incredibly strong. And then on top of that, it have an active that makes it one of the strongest dueling items in the game, stealing stats including movespeed from your opponent to make it much easier to kill them.
Runaan's Hurricane is a godly good item for her because of how it interacts with Ranger's Focus. Other champions in the game might use Runaan's Hurricane...but none of them use it better than Ashe does. The item basically changes her volley of arrows from her ranger's focus from killing one champion, to theoretically allowing her to kill three at the same time. It gives her incredible aoe that deals more damage than her usually-rather-pathetic volley damage. (Volley deals rather low poke damage later in the game. My build has volley deal ridiculous amounts of damage, but volley in the meta build is usually to set up for dealing damage through autoattacks more or less; most of Ashe's damage in a teamfight isn't from volley connecting and is from proccing Ranger's Focus.)
Even aside from that--Runaan's Hurricane gives 7% movespeed. I am pretty sure that of all AD items in the game, none give equal or higher amounts than that. (Boots don't deal damage so they are excluded from that list.) Okay maybe there's Youmuu's Ghostblade for out of combat movespeed (it's 40% for out of combat movespeed, if I recall correctly), but even if so, that'd place Runaan's Hurricane as the second highest AD item in the game for movespeed.
And then it gives ridiculously high amounts of attack speed and the 25% crit chance on top of that.
Between all of these factors, the item gives incredible utility to a utility-based adc and that's why it is so godly good on Ashe.
Infinity Edge is, simply put: the highest AD damage dealing item in the game, bar none. It gives the highest attack damage in the game, highest crit chance in the game, and boosts the crit damage of crits. No item gives a bigger pure, raw, sheer boost in raw attack damage. Essence Reaver can come vaguely close and due to ER giving greater utility, ER is usually built before IE, but IE is commonly paired with Essence Reaver for 50% crit chance, big attack damage, and big crit damage. I, personally, don't like building it; that doesn't mean it isn't an amazingly strong item for Ashe since it helps increase her slows and damage on slowed targets.
Phantom Dancer is another incredibly common meta item on Ashe, albeit like infinity edge, not one that I personally like to build. But I do understand why it is built. It has utility up there with the likes of runaan's hurricane: 25% crit chance, 5% movespeed, huge attack speed boost, giving a ghost effect to allow for huge gap-closing or disengagement, and a defensive shield to help keep Ashe alive if she is brought to a low enough HP. It is a godly good item for a utility adc due to it having a ton of utility.
Now, I'm not going to lie; as a six-item combo, there is some appeal to this.
Phantom Dancer and Blade of the Ruined King in tandem are the two ultimate dueling items--they ensure that the opponent can never escape, as the ultimate gap closer.
Phantom Dancer, Trinity Force, and lifesteal from BoRK, give an inherent tankiness to the build which with the right runes can be even stronger (for instance, legend bloodline + BoRK = 24% lifesteal, and overheal gives a shield to make it even harder to kill her).
The build has 100% crit chance, meaning slows are always doubled to 40-60% and deal absurdly high damage to her slowed targets.
Most of the items have movespeed, attack damage, and attack speed to them.
The build has extra mana built into it with a way to replenish mana.
The build has a lot of things which could go for it so obviously there's some appeal to that six-meta-item combo for Ashe...
...But, uh.
I don't think I need to say it but just in case.
Obviously.
In the meta build, you don't actually build all six of them.
For a start, you need boots, so boots eat up one of the six items.
But in an actually meta build.
You're obviously only going to build about half of them--3-4 of them, leaving room for 1-2 situational items.
In very very specific circumstances, you might only build two of them due to a need for three circumstantial items!
So they don't all exist on her at once.
I am not a talented enough player to know the best combos of them to pair with the situational items and I know there is huge debates to the ideal build order for them and so on and so forth so that's as much as I will say on the subject since I am not good enough to be able to speak further about it.
But I believe that everything I've said here is more or less true.
The meta build on her involves ~3 of those six items, usually Berserkers Greaves, and then ~2 situational items to finish out the build.
My build uses only one of the meta items on her, and it builds it near the end of the build.
And my build while it does use meta runes on her, uses a combination of runes which are not.
Since the meta is usually either Lethal Tempo + Triumph + Bloodline-or-Alacricity + Coup de Grace, with Inspiration (some combination of {Magical Footwear, Biscuit Delivery, Timewarp Tonic or Approach Velocity or Cosmic Insight, with the occasional rare perfect timing thrown in if the user intends to build GA} with which two you use being somewhat debatable and probably subjective preference), or Arcane Comet + Manaflow Band + Transcendence-or-Celerity (Transcendence if you're not planning on building 40% cdr, Celerity if you are, presumably) + Scorch-or-Gathering-Storm (Gathering Storm scales with time, but Scorch gives extra laning phase power and never really is useless and is always helpful in securing kills), with Inspiration (see above) as the secondary.
So me running Sorcery-Precision, and taking slightly-less-common sorcery runes (I believe more Ashe users use Celerity than use Transcendence; I know more Ashe users use Scorch than Gathering Storm) and slightly-less-common Precision runes (Triumph is infinitely better in most Ashe builds than Presence of Mind would be + Alacrity is more common than Bloodline on Ashe) and running secondary Precision at all (most Ashes run it as primary or not at all), is off-meta.
I know my build lacks in attack speed and movespeed and has less lifesteal than most Ashe builds and less crit chance than most Ashe builds and so on and so forth.
I know it is not the meta build for her because it is not the most optimal build and the most optimal builds are the meta builds for good reason (they wouldn't be the meta builds on her if they weren't the optimal builds on her, pretty much), but the runes aren't that far off-meta overall and with the items I build with said runes...the build just works for me.
I just find it really really fun, and really really effective. And so far...I haven't actually had a teammate flame me for it? Like. When I've run other off-meta builds. I've had teammates go "wtf". Heck, even when I've run meta builds where the flamer disagreed with that being optimal on Ashe, I've been flamed because they thought it wasn't ideal for her (even though it was).
But nobody has flamed me, nobody has pinged me, when they see me buy the tear, or the ionian boots, or the iceborn gauntlet, or the abyssal mask, or any item in the build. Not in even the games where I got flamed! Like, I've been flamed while using this build. But they never flamed my runes or item choices so much as they did my effect in the game, my scoreline (cs, kda, etc.), positioning, enemy adc/support items, enemy bounties, etc.
Like.
When my teammates have flamed me when I'm running other builds, regardless of whether those builds were optimal or not, they made it quite known they thought what items I was building played a part in justifying the flame on me.
But when I've been running this build...my teammates haven't flamed it in spite of it being such an off-meta build all-around.
And it is fun to play.
And it fits my playstyle really well and I can make use of it well and make a lot of good plays using it and it is not a hard build for me to execute and it is all things considered a fairly cheap build to get rolling and it is a build I can get started with a fairly cheap back (I was baffled to learn that Tear of the Goddess was an amazingly cheap 850 gold, and starts the stacks that carry over to the completed buy of the manamune so you can get like 500 of the 750 stacks for the manamune transforming into the muramana while the item is still incomplete) and overall.
It works.
And my teammates don't seem to take issue with it (at least so far).
It's fun.
I can pop off on it fairly easily.
I play on it fairly well for multiple reasons.
I don't get grief from my teammates for running it.
It suits my style.
So.
Why wouldn't I run it?
I am actually thinking that I might have discovered something that nobody else has discovered yet.
Presence of Mind in season 9 wasn't the same as the current Presence of Mind. It was among the runes which got reworked in the preseason for season 10. So this will be the first season with the current Presence of Mind. Essence Reaver also was adjusted fairly recently at the end of season nine as well.
So this rune and item combo wouldn't have been possible to exist during season nine.
Season ten is the first season where this combo will have existed.
I legitimately think that my build is actually onto something.
Maybe a refined build wouldn't use all the items I mention. Instead of building both iceborn gauntlet and frozen heart, for instance, only building one of them and then building a situational item instead of it. Maybe building only 3-4 of the items in the build, or maybe slightly tweaking the runes using slightly alternative ones.
But I actually think.
Seriously.
Legitimately.
That the build I came up with isn't actually bad. And more than that? I think that it would work in the hands of a better player at a high elo, too. And not just a little bit--a lot. A higher elo player would be able to cs much better than I can, get kills that I don't manage to nab, avoid getting killed in situations where I die. They would be up against people who are higher elo that know how to punish Ashe, but I legitimately, genuinely, think that my build is fairly good at surviving most of the usual counterplays to Ashe.
She's got amazing tankiness to reduce burst damage; she's got healing and mana replenishment for sustain; she's got an amazing kiting ability to disengage and even if she is slowed, her slows are stronger than most slows from the enemy team; pretty much the only way she can still get caught out is if she has cc land on her but that's a problem with Ashe pretty much regardless of items or runes. (What do you take to actually counter getting chain-CC'd? Mercurial Scimitar plus Merc Treads plus some runes like Legend:Tenacity? Tenacity-Scimitar-Merc Treads as a rune and two-item combo is pretty much the only thing I can think of to help counter chain-cc, but against heavy cc it's not foolproof. Qss cleanses one effect, but if you're hit by three in succession, cleansing one effect still leaves you hit by two and even with all the reduction in duration of those abilities you can get, they still hit and cripple Ashe for just long enough to kill her. Like. Genuinely, how would you escape from chain-CC? Other than 'just be good at positioning and dodging', I don't see how you can ensure your safety.)
I think basically the main reason why this build or something very similar to it wouldn't be run, is more because nobody has run it before and they are more comfortable running the meta runes/items on her because that's what's been done for a long time and has proven that it works fairly effectively.
But I legitimately think.
That if this build were given exposure.
And if people saw the merits of trying it out at a higher elo.
That something almost identical to what I do, could become the meta build on Ashe. (Or Riot nerfs something in the combo to make it no longer viable because I imagine Riot doesn't want this sort of build to be an Ashe build.)
But the build deals an insanely high amount of damage and has incredibly high levels of sustain and good tankiness and overall is just.
I actually, legitimately, think it is a good build on her.
Maybe not the most optimal as-is, but I feel like if an unskilled player who doesn't understand the game in the detail I should can come up with an imperfect version of it that is still hugely effective...that someone who is skilled enough to understand every facet of the game, could take my build and perfect it to be optimal.
To use most of the same runes and at least half of the same items with a similar build order, and to then refine it, hone what I started to make a new optimal meta-build for her.
I'm not going to arrogantly say, I think I discovered a new optimal build for Ashe. I don't doubt that my build isn't in any circumstance, optimal.
But I do think that there is an actual, genuine chance. That with the changes to runes, items, abilities, and such in recent times.
That a build that takes what I do and refines it, could become the newest optimal Ashe build.
Granted.
Whoever does discover this new optimal Ashe build probably would start from one of the current optimal Ashe builds, playing around with Sorcery or Presence of Mind and ER on Ashe and discovering by happenstance how well some of these things synergize with them. They'd build from testing variants on the existing meta builds, rather than starting from scratch, coming up with my build, and then refining it into an actually optimized build.
I made my build from scratch, without help creating it, basically just as a troll idea of maximizing mana and cdr with every expectation that it wouldn't work--but then it actually did work so I was pleasantly surprised that my idea worked.
Whoever does discover the optimal version of my idea won't have done it from my idea, but from a small variant on the meta build that they discover is even more optimal than the current meta build.
But I am dead serious.
I think that my build is actually a good starting point for creating a new meta build for Ashe that would be optimal for her, assuming no changes to runes/items/the champion that ruin how well it works.
I did search for how others can use Muramana on Ashe, and they came up with various different variants on the idea which they self-admitted were probably not the most optimal because Muramana is usually not the best item on Ashe in general.
But I actually think that my build on Muramana is good for her. I realize that in terms of adcs using Muramana, there's pretty much only two (maybe three with Senna?) that come to mind, Ezreal and Kai'sa, and that when paired with the Iceborn Gauntlet that is firmly in the realm of being an Ezreal staple build.
Yet it does for Ashe basically what it does for Ezreal, accomplishing similar things for her that it does for him. (I assume the main reason it's usually not done for Ashe is that Ashe naturally has a slow via her passive which makes Iceborn Gauntlet less useful for her, whereas Ezreal gets mileage out of Iceborn Gauntlet's slow.)
Give Ashe a bottomless supply of mana, with 40% cdr, and she can spam abilities nonstop. Her ult is on a really low cooldown, her volley can be shot almost every second, her ranger's focus still deals huge damage, and with the muramana dealing so much extra damage...her poke deals ridiculously high amounts of damage. Regardless of autoattacking, Ranger's Focus, or volley. She just deals lots and lots of damage.
Using the build I actually feel like I am an actual carry. Usually when I play Ashe I'm a glorified second support at best. Giving minor utility to my team who if I am fortunate can maybe set up my team for success.
Yet I am dead serious, I've never felt like I was carrying my team until I started using this build. Was I solely responsible for my team's wins? No. But I am, for the first time ever, feeling like I could be that bit of difference, that carry, who can carry a fight and make the huge difference. Not as a "my abilities set my teammates up for success" way that I've been before; in a "my teammates set my abilities up for success" way.
It has to have something going for it that makes it work so well for a player as incompetent as I am. It has to have some merit to it, for me to be able to make it work fairly consistently well. It has to have something to it, for it to make me feel like I can and do carry my team through a teamfight, where I feel like I am doing most of my team's damage (the way an adcarry is supposed to, because an ad carry is meant to be the team's main damage source), a fact which is reflected in the endgame stats where I have one of the highest damages dealt in the game.
Like.
ADCs are supposed to basically be, what, 80, 90% of the team's overall damage? Where the removal of the enemy adc is a common victory condition for a teamfight, an objective, even the game? In every game I ran before this build, whenever the enemy team focused on killing me, I'd basically be laughing. "Of all the people they chose to try and kill, they tried to kill me? Joke's on them, I'm not actually my team's source of damage so them wasting abilities to kill me will let my team crush them", more or less.
But by running this build.
I actually, genuinely, feel. (Pardon the language.)
"Oh, shit. If they successfully kill me, my team doesn't have the damage necessary to win."
And it is more or less true!
When I die early, my team loses.
When I die in the middle of the fight, my team might still win even with me dead...but it's much, much harder for the team to win and even if they do win, they have trouble taking objectives because I am their main source of dps.
When I don't die at all, my team wins the fight or if they lose, only barely lose; they manage to take the objective or prevent the enemy team from taking the objective.
Which is the way things are supposed to be. The above is what's supposed to happen in any given game.
But prior to this build.
When I died early, my team wouldn't lose because I died early.
When I died in the middle of the fight, my team would always win even with me dead...because my death made zero difference to their chances of winning because I was contributing nothing.
When I didn't die at all, my team might win the fight or if they lost would lose rather notably; we would not have a guaranteed objective and weren't guaranteed to stop the enemy team from taking the objective because I couldn't help them with it.
Where even with me alive it was basically a 4v5, where I was basically a living ult at best, free gold for the enemy adc getting snowballed at worst.
Yet with this build. I feel like I can win 2v3s, maybe even 2v4s, maybe, maybe, maybe even a 1v3. Not a 1v4, not a 2v5, there's only so much you can do to overcome those situations, and certainly not a 1v9 or even 2v8 where my teammates lose every single lane, hard int, etc. There's limits to how much you can get away with. But I feel like I can win in numbers disadvantages, provided I am not at a severe numbers disadvantage, and that my team isn't essentially helping the enemy team.
If I perhaps one of the most incompetent players in the world, can feel like that when running this on Ashe.
There has to be something going for it.
But maybe I am just crazy, maybe I am just delusional, maybe I've just gotten lucky, maybe because I am so incompetent I'm only playing against those who're incompetent and thus players who were competent could develop a reliable counter to the build that would always work at making sure it wouldn't pop off.
I am obviously arrogant. In spite of knowing just how much I don't understand about the game.
There are a ton of things I don't get.
Rune interactions. Item interactions. Champion ability interactions. Champion abilities. Micro of the game. Macro of the game. Team compositions. Objective control. The list drags on and on and on. Things I have a very obvious demonstrable utter lack of knowledge or understanding of.
And someone like me who on a very fundamental level just doesn't understand so many of the fundamentals of the game, thinks that of all people, I developed an actually good build for my champion of choice?
That's arrogance.
That's sheer obliviousness to the obvious truth that I don't know what I am talking about and self-evidently so.
But I am also serious.
I legitimately.
Genuinely.
Think that I am actually onto something. Something that actually can work.
And if you doubt it.
I'd encourage you to try it out yourself.
Play around with it, try out the basics of it, refine it, tweak it, modify it, experiment with it.
Give it a serious, actual, genuine chance to see what you can make from it.
I don't think that if you give it an actual, serious try with an open mindset. Run it over multiple games, play around with it a bit depending on your team and the enemy team and how the game is unfolding. (Big difference between your lane being ahead and your lane being behind, for example.) Where you don't attribute failures to, "Well, it didn't work, so it must actually be trash", where you approach the idea with seeing if it could maybe be viable.
I think you will, if you think it can work. Will find that it does work for you. Maybe you still ultimately conclude, "Other builds are better". Maybe you still ultimately conclude, "This build is only good for select circumstances". But if you give it a serious try with an open mindset and multiple games, play around with it a bit.
I think that it can actually work and work well.
I'm not good enough at the game to really understand why it works.
But I do think that it does work.