Since I know most of you don't want to watch all 45 minutes, please check the timestamps in the description! Some sections (dark seal, dcap + cryptbloom) are much more important than others! Thanks again you guys are goated
i think im really inefficient with the items ( since i never read or analyse the stats ) and even if i win an early 1v1 i blast the gold for something useless ( ap book + mana + cd f.e.) when i could buy potion + darkseal
I love those videos. High lvl players generally have no idea how hard it is for new players to get a grasp of all the information league requires to be played elven at only a decent lvl. I appreciate these so much
The way you organize all this information into different sections then go into detail on every single nuance in a manner that makes it so easy to digest is so so helpful, thank you a ton! You relay knowledge so well that you’re such a natural teacher and a great one at that. You are a huge godsend to all of us wanting to improve by sharing a ton of useful information, can’t thank you enough ❤️🔥
8 years playing and I didn't know how to think about items, I only knew liandry against tanks. I watched the full 45 minutes and now I can create build in my mind for my pool and type of game!! I'm low elo and many games are full build, I never understood about selling boots and what kind of items can replace it (2 movespeed items) thanks for thinking about that too!! ❤
I started playing league 8 months ago and the only reason i know what to do in games Is 100% from your videos, finding this channel and watching it religiously every video frels like the biggest hidden gem i have ever found
A couple notes: On certain damage over time champions, e.g. anivia, Liandrys third + 30ap (gold dif) does the same damage as deathcap but has the 300 health making it better third item. This may depend on whether you have sorc shoes that can slightly tilt in favor of deathcap Some champs really struggle to fit both boots, dark seal, refillable and dorans, e.g. anivia because she needs tear as well, leaving just 1 slot for building ROA I would also mention that you don't always have to finish banshees. The component gets you quite a long way and its unlikely you get two spellshields per fight anyway so the lower cooldown is not as big as you might think
yeah, i main anivia and i'm still kind of unsure what i should build early game even after this guide. building tear + boots early already feels bad imo, cramming in refillable + dark seal means my opponent will probably have their entire lost chapter / alternator and i'll just get slam dunked
I’ve had a lot of success rushing ROA on anivia without tier, then buying tier and building malignance second and getting seraph’s third. And then two situational items, most likely dcap into crypt. But I feel like the core three every game for me are ROA, malignance and seraph’s. The malignance second feels like it helps river fights and mid game scaling better than seraph’s, and anivia doesn’t really stack tier amazingly, so you usually don’t have seraph’s stacked by second item anyway.
Agree and disagree on some of this, imo on Anivia it's better to just go Seraph Liandry dcap rather than ROA seraph liandry dcap (unless you really really need the ROA to survive of course). As I said in the video I'm a real ROA hater, I think it's very bad for almost any build (in the sense that it removes item slots, delays spikes etc) but it is sometimes necessary. Finishing banshee is better than you think, I agree you don't have to complete it and you're right that two spellshields per fight is unrealistic, but because the banshee CD resets everytime you take damage, it's much harder to avoid taking damage for 1 minute than it is to avoid taking damage for 30 seconds. I find often with verdant barrier you will just end up having no spellshield for the fight since you'll take some random damage 45 sec or so before and have the shield be on cooldown.
@@ishanbajaj9208 He means and I am so happy to hear it actually from a rank 1, cause within my elo people love roa and I never understood it and rolled them with the aggressive ones, it just makes you slightly more durable and a passive, just as Shok I'm a hater of ROA, I don't think you would ever truly get into a position where you HAVE HAVE HAVE to. A situation like that would occur like a lottery would. You can always run resolve tree for one, then you also have summoners if you get extra scared, then you'll be at 2 defensive actions and you can start of safe. I love anivia as well but rushing staff is what makes people freak out because her scaling in ap is so nuts. You play it slow maybe get boots real early, you start with tear, do an early recall TP and keep it slow. Anivia is funnily enough almost the slowest hero but also one of the hardest to counter. Even every single assassin will hate trading you if you hold your Q defensively. But back to the question, ROA really just turns you into a glorified tank support for a good bit. But if you reallly reallly want to, and know you need it because 4/5 of the enemies are designed to counter you, then yes. But since I doubt 4 people will sit in mid till tier 1's fall and you could go the safe route with runes and summs or recalls, you will suddenly get seraph and boom you start melting entire objective fights. If you mean other champs that would build ROA, I would have to sadly admit but I still never do it again, it would be gragas mid as he kind of works as a bruiser/tank too. But I just rush seraph on him too into shadowflame or lichbane and then ure out there 2 shotting everyone. Plus since gragas is already so hard to kill, why waste money on an ROA while you could get real painful, real fast. In all honesty brother, again I was glad to hear it from Shok because it was driving me crazy seeing ROA being bought so often and I thought I was just biased, and I intuitively avoided it, but now after his explanations and spikes of each hero its just like shooting yourself in the foot. Or at least crippling yourself.
Godsend. I mostly play Azir and Viktor nowadays and I definitely struggle with what to go in certain situations and against certain comps and even just the first 20 minutes of this video completely opened my eyes. Your content is so helpful
Regarding magic pen, here’s bit of math: Cryptbloom matches sorcs at 60 mr (30% of 60 = 18). Cryptbloom matches sorcs+shadowflame at 100 mr Void matches sorcs at 45 mr Void matches sorcs+shadow at 75 mr However, the interaction is bit more complex of you have both flat and % pen, due to how they interact. Bloom+sorcs overpens below 26 mr Bloom+sorcs+shadow overpens below 43 mr Void+sorc overpens below 30 mr Void+sorc+shadow overpens below 50 mr Now, most ranged champs and midlaners top around 52 mr at lvl 18 meaning overpen is not a realistic concern, rather it’s the relative efficiency of sorcs vs pen at specific point in the game, with sorcs remaining superior to bloom but losing to void (assuming they don’t get extra mr). Melees are a different story, with some melee mids like akali, talon or sylas topping out at around 72 mr at lvl 18. Here a % pen is ultimately superior, especially if they buy mr like mercs, hex or edge. Ultimately though it boils down to what target you plan (or are capable of) hitting and optimize your pen based on that.
Loved this guide. I don't even play midlane or mages in gerenal, but these are still some good infos. I hope to find some of those for adc and support.
Nice! I will leave a like, but I shall only absorb all this knowledge upon waking up 6h from now, hope your climbing goes well, hopefully I will be following live when I get up
42:30 heal cut feels off-brand for AP burst; like you either have enough to 1-combo the squishy or you don't, heal-cut doesn't usually change that, and often burst mages will run ignite too, which is a summoner spell source for heal-cut if you're worried about like an ADC popping summoner heal and living just barely. That said, if you're dealing with frontline drain tanks and have to front-to-back fights, *then* heal-cut on a mage can be *great* and it's a better fit on battlemages/AP dps champs like Cassiopeia and such. Generally the enemy team needs to have at least 2 preferably 3 or more sources of *significant* healing to warrant heal-cut itemization (something like a renekton with his Q isn't significant, but a champ like Warwick or Aatrox is; ADC w/ BT counts as well fwiw).
There are a few things I really like about this video, mostly because what you say here gets you like 90% of the way to a good build in every match you play, and that's honestly good enough. Having more gold than your opponent is usually way more important than getting marginally more value out of your builds as long as you're not trolling. You didn't directly mention a key point on the value of flat damage vs multiplicative damage. An item like Liandry's is a good flat damage item, but it interacts poorly or not at all with most of your other items. The 10% damage buff from horizon, the pen from pen items, the execute from shadowflame, and the bonus AP from deathcap (etc) all multiplicatively interact to increase the damage of each of your spells. Flat damage items aren't great to stack because that additive scaling gets outclassed by multiplicative scaling later on, but they are often easier to build or bigger spikes. Antiheal falls into that flat damage category. If you're behind, but you can reliably apply antiheal, you can buy oblivion orb and get just as much value from that item as you could when you were ahead. The multiplicative items are a bit better when you're ahead and a bit worse when you're behind.
11:50 Careful with this thinking, it's true resistances are good v. flat pen, but something to keep in mind is that it takes +100 MR to halve the % increase in damage that a given amount of flat pen provides versus a given amount of MR to begin with. The drop off is strong at first, but falls off pretty hard, at +200 MR you are reducing their % increase in damage to 1/3 of what it would otherwise have been (and this is in a scenario with no % pen in the picture. I think a better way to think of this is that MR kinda pushes flat pen of the table, in the sense that the 25 MR of a Null-Magic Mantle effectively negates 25 flat magic pen in the sense that they would need 25 flat magic pen to negate the null-magic mantle (and the comparison to where you'd be then without the 25 MR is even worse; so you want to push their flat pen away from being a major part of your total MR as this generally will cut down significantly on how much damage they are getting from it).
What’s changed since the AP itemization video to make blackfire a higher priority pick over ludens? I think I recall you saying it was a bait pick in that video.
What do you think about tankier itemization on cassiopeia ? Versus a lot of threats I often go abyssal mask or force of nature (vs dots), frozen heart or randuins...
Something I've been trying recently that seems to work with syndra is buying Deathcap second. Since her passive gives you execute anyways it's almost a waste of shadowflame's passive to buy it second. Imo atleast.
19:00 Once again I need to explain the dcap 2nd thing here because it's just too important. Lets compare with Shadowflame, because if dcap didn't exist, it would probably be the best 2nd item for a lot of burst champs. Note, Shadowflame is 3200g, 400g less than dcap at 3600g. However, dcap gives 20 more AP and then increases AP by 35%, but no 12 magic pen, no cinderbloom passive either (not terribly relevant since it's only the bottom 35% of their hp, and only 20% more damage for that last part (30% more for DoT and pet dmg); basically, it will probably affect the last spell of your rotation when bursting someone but not any others). So what actually gives us more damage? Lets assume we have about 90 AP from our first item (some are slightly more, others slightly less), runes can also add some here, so it's not uncommon to have 100+ AP at 1 item. Let's also assume we went sorcs for the 18 pen (now 12 after the nerf). 2 items is generally reached somewhere in the level 11-13 range give or take solo v. duo lane and fed/not etc. a typical ranged champ has ~42 base MR at this point, lets assume no MR buy yet too. With Shadowflame 2nd, you're looking at ~220 AP, and 30 magic pen, with dcap 2nd, it's 240*1.35=324 AP and 18 magic pen. Here the pen difference means base damage of a spell matters, as flat pen does relatively better for abilities with high base damage relative to AP ratio compared to AP buys and vice versa (higher ratio v. base dmg, more raw AP benefits over pen, but in all cases some of both is optimal if possible). Increase in damage from pen for shadowflame versus 42 MR target is 26.785...%, and for 18 pen w/ dcap, the increase is 14.516...%. The increase is obviously better for shadowflame due to higher pen, but we are missing 104 AP for that larger increase, which is a lot. So lets look at example spell, Lux E, rank 5: which has 265 base dmg, and 80% AP ratio. Here with shadowflame, we'd have a raw damage of 441, with dcap, that's 524.2 and our post-mitigation damages are: 393.75 for shadowflame, and 422.7419... for dcap. Looks pretty worth the 400 more gold right? But there's more, after 2nd item completion, as you build into your 3rd item, dcap passive will be increasing the RoI on your AP buys by 35% as well, resulting in a growing advantage, all the way until the other build path completes dcap 3rd (assuming it does so, which is optimal if dcap isn't taken 2nd in almost all cases; better than % pen most of the time, actually). There is another reason dcap 2nd is better as well, which is that if you *do* also need % pen, you can get that 3rd item and save your situational buys for last 2 item slots, and this will put you *miles* ahead at 3 items for damage compared to any other buildpath against enemies that have actually itemized some MR against you.
I agree that if you can complete deathcap second especially with other AP sources (darkseal, eyeball) it is very valuable. That being said, the build path is extremely expensive and a lot of the time you can end up just not spending any gold when you reset which is a really big issue in the early-mid game. If you ever are losing sidelane because you have 900 unspent gold out of base or you are weaker at a key objective fight that can often make the difference. Deathcap second is really OP if you are snowballing though.
@@ShokLeague Yea, it can definitely suck to have to back on like 900g or something and not have enough for a rod or completion of DC. I think this is fairly avoidable with good back timing and time management on the map, and worth the potential negatives in most cases. (Unless there is a 2nd item choice that is *extremely* good on the champion you're playing as an alternative I think deathcap 2nd is just better in most cases.)
I am not sure and need to run the numbers, but I remember Ruby Crystal deflecting more damage then Magic Mantle or Cloth Armor. Something you might want to confirm
Pre level 11, ruby crystal is more durably efficient than either armor or cloth. Since burst mages, assassins, and certain bruisers build dirk or sorc shoes, flat mr and armor early becomes less valuable and health looks better for the early game.
@@citizencj3389That doesn't make any sense. An assassin has to pay 1000 gold to get 20 AD and 10 lethality. A mage has to pay 700g to get 15 armor and 20 AP (a cloth armor and an amp tome). Don't forget in this season lethality purchases give full value.
@@SirCrusher The 10 lethality cancels a large portion of that armor, leading to a net damage increase by a good margin. The assassin gains advantage since dirk is more gold efficient than the combination of items purchase by the mage. Also penetration early game is more valuable and it invalidates the purchase of armor, therefore lowering not only the effective health of said squishy mages BUT also make it a net waste of 300 gold for the short run.
@@citizencj3389 you're inverting the order of things. Armor is what's neutralizing lethality. If lethality is valuable early game, armor is equally valuable since it cancels the other out in a 1:1 ratio. And since base armor is scarce early game (mages have extremely low base armor), bonus armor is more valuable. If you don't buy armor when an assassin buys dirk you're forced to play almost perfectly because they'll be nearly dealing true damage.
I thought you were just gonna skip over antiheal 😂. For example I played dark harvest lux against Tryndamere mid + Soraka yesterday and rushing oblivion orb had me with like 10+ Harvest stacks just from laning. But yea...not a ton of situations you would need it. Went orb > sorcs > blackfire then theu ff'd early.
Thank god, I'm an Anivia one trick and I always hated RoA but I built it often anyways because lots of high elo players do that, but now I can justify to drop it completely.
Will you ever do a guide on how to play the midlane assassins, your channel is very informative and helpful, but as an assassin player sometimes i have trouble translating what i learn from you since its mostly mage focused
@@ShokLeague that's okay keep the content coming man, as someone whos only started playing league like a year ago, your channel accelerated my learning and has taught me a lot. Thank you
26:55 This is actually just incorrect in most cases. dcap 35% increase in AP will do more than the 30/40% pen from crypt/void in the *vast* majority of cases at 3 items (and it's even more dcap favored at more than 3 items). This also highlights why dcap 2nd is often good, you can go % pen 3rd and have both of your core multipliers again that MR using target at 3 items which is *amazing* for damage output.
Kinda disagree, base HP pools are already high so there is existing synergy with defensive stats already. Also sometimes you just need a defensive to counter a specific ability e.g. zhonya active vs Vi R or Karthus R
what are your thoughts on ryze and ROA? It seems the majority of people always buy it on him, but you make a good point that its more of a neutralizer then anything else. Is there a lot of lanes where ryze can forgo roa? Is the mana and health too worth on him to ignore?
I think you can skip it, but imo Ryze is probably the best ROA user in the entire game. I think Seraphs into ROA 2nd could be the play though, some people do that on Cassio for the delayed level up and stronger early spike
So how do you build on cass usually? I go manaflow and presence > sit on tear + chapter > build my second item pretty much every game. I don’t like to finish seraphs because of the wasted stats, so I’ve been doing this build ever since the chapter item changes. By the time I finish my second item tear will be almost full, so that’s when I finish seraphs.
This is amazing! Thankyou Shok! Also, what build path would you choose for Lissandra? She feels like a champ who needs Zhonya's every game and doesnt buy Liandry's that often. Then going by your video I would guess the ideal path would be - Malignance, Shadowflame(soloap)/Zhonya's, Deathcap, Cryptbloom? Or something else second and Zhonya's 5th? Because I think Liss is not a very good Horizon user.
On Liss I mostly play blackfire > liandry or zhonya > dcap. Also atm void is just better than cryptbloom pretty much always after item changes. You can go shadowflame/stormsurge soloap 2nd as well yea
i main anivia, would you still recommend buying dark seal every game? i'm worried that on top of tear & boots early it's just too much gold to be spending before building towards RoA
I play a lot of HWEI and usually my core is Blackfire 1st then Liandry/Shadowflame/Horizon. Since HWEI has a lot of AOE and DoT, is blackfire the right option instead of Luden? Ex: Blackfire / Boots / Liandry / Rabadon / Crypto / Defensive
I've been experimenting with Akali builds, and I've found that Sundered Sky and Luden's are quite good on her as first items. Sundered is very situational since it's nerf, so I've mostly dropped it expect into Vayne top, but the Luden's change to the passive shots bumped it above Lichbane in both push power, poke, and all ins. The mana being wasted doesn't matter because the core stats are equivalent and Ludens is cheaper. I've found success with Luden's into Lichbane/Liandry.
TLDR, Buy Ruby Crystal early, Resistance Items suck on Mages.... So I crunched the numbers using Kassadin's base stats at level 6, all of the following math is purely to show that resistances can be converted into HP for easy comparisons. I'm using Kassadin as my example because I was a Kassadin OTP in seasons 1-4. A defensive item, such as Cloth Armor vs a pure health item like Ruby Crystal. Kassadin has 19 + 4 per level armor and 646 + 119 per level health. Giving him 39 armor and 1241 hp at level 6. To calculate the damage reduction from resistances, take 100/(100 + resistance value), this is the number that damage dealt to you is multiplied by to see how much HP you will lose when hit. Turns out 39 armor would give a 28% reduction in AD dealt to you. [( 100/139 = ~0.72) , ( 0.72-1 = -0.28 )] To calculate effective health you need to multiply your health by 0.28 and add that value to your total health. Giving 1589 effective health vs AD without either Cloth Armor or Ruby Crystal. Punch in the numbers for Cloth Armor (add 15 to 39, giving 54) and you'll find that Cloth Armor increases Kassadin's effective HP vs AD to 1676. 1676 - 1589 = 87. Therefore Cloth Armor gives 87 HP to Kassadin at level 6, vs AD. Ruby Crystal gives 150 vs all damage types for a minor 100 gold difference. If you do the calculations for Null Magic Mantle, you'll find it comes out to a similarly small amount of effective health and costs more than a Ruby Crystal. Therefore, I would argue that mages should always be sitting on bonus HP over bonus resistances in the early game. As the game progresses and other champions buy items that do % max health or % current health damage, the math changes and the HP stat takes a hit in effective value. Also, champs like Aurora who have % hp damage passively sitting in their kit makes Null Magic Mantle more valuable against her than it usually would be. However, at level 6 before she finishes Liandry's, a Ruby Crystal still gives better stats even though she will be doing more chip damage to you. If you then apply this math vs Assassins who stack flat penetration, you need to understand how much effective health they're taking from you. Since the damage reduction calculation is 100/(100 + resistance value) you'll find that as you increase your resistances, you will get diminished returns on your effective health as it increases. At level 6, without resistance items, Kassadin is handed 348 HP effective in the form of his Armor stat. Flat pen will reduce that value, significantly. Just a Serrated Dirk that gives 10 Lethality, is reducing that effective HP to 279, so Ruby Crystal is still more effective than Cloth armor, but if you're up against say 28 lethality suddenly that value drops to 123 effective HP. So Cloth Armor would return it to 256, for a 133 hp difference, putting it just under the value of a Ruby Crystal and costs less, making it more valuable per gold spent. Making decision making a little easier when your team feeds your laner during neutral objectives like Dragon. Just buy a Ruby Crystal to counter the damage they gain unless they are able to afford enough flat pen to reduce your resistance to 15 or less. All of this only reinforces the necessity of purchasing a Refillable Potion or even stocking up on 1 or 2 HP potions each time you back during the laning phase in every lane. They're amazing items that provide you with an insane amount of value during the early game for the same reasons you stated.
Roa is good on champs WHO scale. Plus gives the best stats. Best options in mana is roa maligance Black fire, archangel is okey if vs strong asasin, luden is bait
ROA gives good stats but it has a path that is only good for neutralization (which can be good if you need to not lose lane) but if you want to snowball/fight it will be weaker for a very long time.
I didn’t watch it yet but I don’t have to. I already know that dark seal -> deathcap is the the only viable build path for all AP champs. Don’t know what you could possibly say for 40 minutes
That's so disrespectful lmao, why are you even watching shok ?! If you wanted to improve, as you are not challenger, you would watch the video. But if you are stubborn and thinks you are already a good player and knows everything about the game, then you can stop watching shok, and stays forever stuck. Maybe the 40mins spent for a youtube video annoys you ? Let me tell you that time & courage are necessary for improving. Laziness will bring you nowhere, little kid.
I like playing Diana mid, and I see everyone starting storm first. What would be a great build path against a ranged match up or just a counter in general? From watching you video id asume dorans and pot, (dark seal, tier 1 boots, potion) on first back, then build storm, finish boots, banshees or zon, deathcap, crypt, litch? Something like that?
I'm not 100% sure of the best build, but its probably the normal ap items early like you said, then lichbane/boots > situational second item > dcap/void > dcap/void > situational item
@ShokLeague what would be good situational items that don't cripple the build for diana? Zons or banshees, most likely, but are there any other that I could consider taking?
I've watched the whole video, it was really well explained, but there's one point you haven't talked about ! About AP assassins that don't use mana (akali + katarina), we don't need any "lost chapter" item, so we directly buy a "situational" item. We get recommended to buy lichbane then shadowflame, but... *Why don't we buy shadowflame 1st as it deals the most amount of damage ?* Why is lichbane a "must" currently ? Moreover buying Lichbane > shadowflame >rabaddon/void delays the zhonya !! >hereas for Akali & kata, zhonya is sooooo useful ! Thus, I like to build like this lichbane>zhonya or shadow flame>zhonya
I don’t know about katarina. I see most players rushing Nashor+Shadowflame. About Akali (and I’ll insert Syllas and Nidalee in the mix as well): Their spell rotation allows multiple procs of LB in a single target making it outdamage Shadowflame (in the case of Nidalee, is worth mentioning that helps with jungle clear). Katarina is a bit weird, in the sense that she can weave AAs between spells, but Nashor synergizes better with her kit. Also, it is worth mentioning: Shadowflame is countered by early MR. The item is pure damage for when someone is ahead, and the opponent won’t buy MR early. LB provides utility stats like CDR, and MS, they help you snowball as well, can give a small defensive boost, are not countered by early MR, and the item can end up providing enough damage anyway on certain champions.
You can buy shadowflame 1st, one of the main reasons people don't is because of the build path. After you buy your alternator if you base with anything less than 1250 you can often end up with nothing to buy (especially if you don't want to itemize boots in your matchup)
dcap 2nd is generally better than dcap 3rd these days (main reason for this is the ROI on dcap completion is massive and sooner you have that multiplier in place the better. First item covers your core early needs (mana, AH, some AP, etc.). slot 3 can be one of your options, or you can take % pen early if the enemy is getting MR across the board (uncommon these days as it's rare to have 3+ AP threats and even 2 AP doesn't really warrant MR early from most enemies except frontline, which you can about counterbuilding less on most AP champs since most of them are burst champs and focused their itemization more on having enough burst to kill other squishy champs).
I've got a question. For champs who consider Lich Bane as second item as it could be Zoe, if you're expecting for them to build magic resist should I go Luden, Lich Bane, Rabadon to get a higher spike or should I go Luden, Shadow flame, Rabadon even though Shadow flame will be kind of useless later. Zoe is a weird example though as I don't think she benefits that much of Shadow flame as she already has insanely good magic pen with her E, I think she benefits more from Horizon. So yeah I would like to know your take on this one.
I learned a lot with this video, I am still a little confused since I play mostly Katarina would Lich bane or even Storm Surge be a bad first item? or perhaps it'd be more ideal to go Shadowflame first?
I'm not too up to date on Kat itemization so you're probably better off checking their builds, but I think most Kat's go lichbane first item these days. Flat pen rush can be good if ur solo ap
I only buy Oblivion orb if I play Kassadin against Sylas and I'm losing. Then it allows me to neutralize his trades by pressing E as soon as he dashes in. I also never complete the item.
What about for a champ like Aurora, where you value the raw stats RoA gives you? Would you say it's better to avoid RoA outside of the neutralisation situations you described and go something like Blackfire instead?
so if i am playing asol and i need an early crpytbloom i would remove my rylais first and instead go liandries right? and then get liandries wayyy later after my crypt + rabadons? also does it matter whether i remove rylais or liandires more? which is more important?
I think asol is so married to rylai/liandry that you should basically always go rylai > liandry > dcap > crypt or rylai > liandry > crypt > dcap. Imo both are just too important to the champ to give up
@@ShokLeague fair enough but then when do i buy my defensive? is it worth delaying crypt+rabs? like my third item would be situational where i can place a banshees/zhonyas instead? or do i never go defensive until after crypt + rabs?
@@Arkantos2001 In my experience as an A Sol one trick, I get defensive item 3rd 95% of the time. His AP ratios aren't that impressive, a lot of his damage is coming from his stacks and his ability to easily proc liandry's, so you're pretty fine delaying deathcap in favor of having better uptime.
I wonder what are your thoughts on abyssal mask in place of banshees against ap threats and how would it fit in a build since you are replacing cryptobloom for it and might be able to rush rabadons as 3rd item. The item feels op to me but I'm a newbie with ap users. I'm guessing the ap from banshees is better on mages, but abyssal might be worth considering on some champs like galio, akali, sylas.
It could maybe be good on short ranged champions yeah, I think the biggest downside if that even though it allows you to get deathcap earlier, you're going to have a lot less AP to synergize with deathcap anyway since abyssal doesn't have AP on it. Maybe it could work later on in the build or something instead though
Was wondering how well this holds up today? I was noticing you rarely build cryptbloom now. Is void just that much better after the nerfs? Also, was wondering for some more LeBlanc specific item advice if you'd be willing to share some.
These days the main changes are void is just better than crypt, pretty much all the boot suck except sorcs, cosmic drive can pretty hard nerfed, horizon focus is a lot better and stormsurge is a real item now. Also blackfire is good now too
Hey Coach Shok, awesome guide. What are your thoughts on Rabadon’s second on Syndra? Tim has been preaching it, and I think it’s good, but I find myself wanting a defensive item earlier in difficult games (double assassin mid jg, etc). Do you think it’s viable to go Ludens into Zhonya’s or should you always wait until third item to build defensive on Syndra specifically? I posed this question to Tim and his answer was basically that Rabadons second is almost always best. What’s your hypothesis?
Dcap second is good, especially if you have bonus AP from dark seal or eyeball collection or whatever. I think there definitely are games where you will need a defensive item second, chances are if you have the luxury of delaying a defensive item until 3 items then you might not even need a defensive item at all. But I think if you play Syndra against something like Zed + Karthus the game is going to be unplayable without Zhonya 2nd (although the argument could be maybe you just shouldn't pick Syndra in that game)
hello, when should i buy the early defensive items? generally do you build it at the first/second back or right after finishing the first item? thank you
Depends how badly you need it honestly, normally you want to buy it before you die though. Once you fall behind it probably won't make a big difference so it needs to be used as a preventative measure. Always be as greedy as you can but if you can't live without it then buy it
You are the absolute goat of LoL youtube content, I could watch a video like this that's 5x the length I have 1 question, I've been thinking that SHadowflame is overrated on Viktor and I'm a gold/plat Viktor spammer (xD) so when I saw that pros build SHadowflame almost exclusively I decided to suck it up and start building it as well instead of Ludens What I found out is that sometimes you can get the ashes early and poke with them and since laser is low CD high range you consistently get DMG out of it without caring whether you waste it on the creepwave like Ludens So it basically empowers every laser you throw out instead of 1 strong and the rest without on hits effects its kinda like consistency of all lasers over spike dmg on 1 target which can often be the wrong one to waste ludens on in a teamfight BUT that being said it's still not amazing and draws tower aggro if you harass under turret for a while after so I don't know, would you recommend just ignoring it even though like 80% of high level Viktor players play with Shadowflame?
Sorry for the late reply, I assume you're talking about blackfire? You can compare the dmg stats at the end of the game but I find that blackfire pretty consistently gets outdamaged by Ludens so I think it's much better, unless it's ultra lategame and you're benefiting a lot from the AP amp
@@ShokLeague Damn you responded thank you so much! So basically you're saying - even high level league players can make mistakes about the nature of the game and they're not perfect - trust in the math! I have also found out that Blackfire just pales in comparison to Ludens in terms of damage so thankyou^^
I am just coming back to the game after quiting several years ago. How does flat pen and %pen work now? Which is applied first in terms of calculating enemy MR?
Example , you Play veigar vs zed. First build armor, second catalist, third mini zhonya, fourth roa, then rabadon, end zhonya, build % pen. Last Item build more Def.
if you're building ROA you should try not to delay it by building additional items. imo the best build vs Zed would be to go Catalyst > ROA > Zhonya (if behind, straight dcap if not) > Dcap. You could also just go ROA > Seraph > Dcap but then you have to play with Zhonya at least until after Dcap
@@ShokLeague remember that roa gives Exp depends on your lv, early is nice for stats, but later is nice for faster lv 16. I don t like much tear on veigar, prefere roa for neutralize, bc veigar early suck, Raba, %pen, and 2 Def items. But its just me.
hey man love the video, my only question would be when to sell the dring! do you try to keep as long as possible, or would it be worth selling for a core item? thanks
Try keep it as long as you can, but definitely sell it for a core item/needlessly large rod. I will sometimes plan my bases around trying to keep my dring e.g. I won't base until I have enough gold to not have to sell the ring.
Lich Bane first item fizz. So literally yes a champ that proc spell blade effectively can rush it and has lack of mana issue, needs haste and ms. Lich Bane 2nd is smart after finishing your luden
@@ShokLeague thank you for the reply shok, and thank you for the great content, i feel ive been getting better since i started watching you and taking note of what you say to do and practice
Hi Shok, I don't think you mentioned this so if you're opting into a cloth armor or null magic mantle, when do you buy them? It feels like the best time is after a major AP component like lost chapter or alternator but before first completed legendary item, but I'm not sure.
Since I know most of you don't want to watch all 45 minutes, please check the timestamps in the description! Some sections (dark seal, dcap + cryptbloom) are much more important than others! Thanks again you guys are goated
Can you make a ad version?
just what i needed, ty big clock shok
i think im really inefficient with the items ( since i never read or analyse the stats ) and even if i win an early 1v1 i blast the gold for something useless ( ap book + mana + cd f.e.) when i could buy potion + darkseal
I watched all 45 😈🔛🔝
Dude! You did yo thang on this guide! I totally appreciate all of the hard work. I ended up watching the entire thing
there is legitimately no better midlane content creator than shok.
AMEN BROTHER
I’ve been trying to find this. This guy is the @perryjg for mid. I’m ready for @shok to change my life.
Agreed
legit. was hard stuck plat for a few seasons. im emerald 1 now rarely losing lane
Absolutely agree
I love those videos. High lvl players generally have no idea how hard it is for new players to get a grasp of all the information league requires to be played elven at only a decent lvl. I appreciate these so much
hwei was the champion that made me realize how little i actually knew about ap itemization
The way you organize all this information into different sections then go into detail on every single nuance in a manner that makes it so easy to digest is so so helpful, thank you a ton! You relay knowledge so well that you’re such a natural teacher and a great one at that. You are a huge godsend to all of us wanting to improve by sharing a ton of useful information, can’t thank you enough ❤️🔥
Thank you homie I really appreciate the kind words
8 years playing and I didn't know how to think about items, I only knew liandry against tanks. I watched the full 45 minutes and now I can create build in my mind for my pool and type of game!! I'm low elo and many games are full build, I never understood about selling boots and what kind of items can replace it (2 movespeed items) thanks for thinking about that too!! ❤
Damn you are enlightened
I’d love a video like this for each major champion genre. Melee ad, melee ap, marksmen, supports, etc
I started playing league 8 months ago and the only reason i know what to do in games Is 100% from your videos, finding this channel and watching it religiously every video frels like the biggest hidden gem i have ever found
hahha appreciate that brother
A couple notes:
On certain damage over time champions, e.g. anivia, Liandrys third + 30ap (gold dif) does the same damage as deathcap but has the 300 health making it better third item. This may depend on whether you have sorc shoes that can slightly tilt in favor of deathcap
Some champs really struggle to fit both boots, dark seal, refillable and dorans, e.g. anivia because she needs tear as well, leaving just 1 slot for building ROA
I would also mention that you don't always have to finish banshees. The component gets you quite a long way and its unlikely you get two spellshields per fight anyway so the lower cooldown is not as big as you might think
yeah, i main anivia and i'm still kind of unsure what i should build early game even after this guide. building tear + boots early already feels bad imo, cramming in refillable + dark seal means my opponent will probably have their entire lost chapter / alternator and i'll just get slam dunked
I’ve had a lot of success rushing ROA on anivia without tier, then buying tier and building malignance second and getting seraph’s third. And then two situational items, most likely dcap into crypt. But I feel like the core three every game for me are ROA, malignance and seraph’s.
The malignance second feels like it helps river fights and mid game scaling better than seraph’s, and anivia doesn’t really stack tier amazingly, so you usually don’t have seraph’s stacked by second item anyway.
Agree and disagree on some of this, imo on Anivia it's better to just go Seraph Liandry dcap rather than ROA seraph liandry dcap (unless you really really need the ROA to survive of course). As I said in the video I'm a real ROA hater, I think it's very bad for almost any build (in the sense that it removes item slots, delays spikes etc) but it is sometimes necessary.
Finishing banshee is better than you think, I agree you don't have to complete it and you're right that two spellshields per fight is unrealistic, but because the banshee CD resets everytime you take damage, it's much harder to avoid taking damage for 1 minute than it is to avoid taking damage for 30 seconds. I find often with verdant barrier you will just end up having no spellshield for the fight since you'll take some random damage 45 sec or so before and have the shield be on cooldown.
@@ShokLeague what sorta champs would you build ROA into?
@@ishanbajaj9208 He means and I am so happy to hear it actually from a rank 1, cause within my elo people love roa and I never understood it and rolled them with the aggressive ones, it just makes you slightly more durable and a passive, just as Shok I'm a hater of ROA, I don't think you would ever truly get into a position where you HAVE HAVE HAVE to. A situation like that would occur like a lottery would. You can always run resolve tree for one, then you also have summoners if you get extra scared, then you'll be at 2 defensive actions and you can start of safe. I love anivia as well but rushing staff is what makes people freak out because her scaling in ap is so nuts. You play it slow maybe get boots real early, you start with tear, do an early recall TP and keep it slow. Anivia is funnily enough almost the slowest hero but also one of the hardest to counter. Even every single assassin will hate trading you if you hold your Q defensively.
But back to the question, ROA really just turns you into a glorified tank support for a good bit.
But if you reallly reallly want to, and know you need it because 4/5 of the enemies are designed to counter you, then yes. But since I doubt 4 people will sit in mid till tier 1's fall and you could go the safe route with runes and summs or recalls, you will suddenly get seraph and boom you start melting entire objective fights.
If you mean other champs that would build ROA, I would have to sadly admit but I still never do it again, it would be gragas mid as he kind of works as a bruiser/tank too. But I just rush seraph on him too into shadowflame or lichbane and then ure out there 2 shotting everyone. Plus since gragas is already so hard to kill, why waste money on an ROA while you could get real painful, real fast.
In all honesty brother, again I was glad to hear it from Shok because it was driving me crazy seeing ROA being bought so often and I thought I was just biased, and I intuitively avoided it, but now after his explanations and spikes of each hero its just like shooting yourself in the foot. Or at least crippling yourself.
It's crazy how good you explain every concept. Quality content ✨
So much valuable info in one video its crazy
Godsend. I mostly play Azir and Viktor nowadays and I definitely struggle with what to go in certain situations and against certain comps and even just the first 20 minutes of this video completely opened my eyes. Your content is so helpful
Regarding magic pen, here’s bit of math:
Cryptbloom matches sorcs at 60 mr (30% of 60 = 18).
Cryptbloom matches sorcs+shadowflame at 100 mr
Void matches sorcs at 45 mr
Void matches sorcs+shadow at 75 mr
However, the interaction is bit more complex of you have both flat and % pen, due to how they interact.
Bloom+sorcs overpens below 26 mr
Bloom+sorcs+shadow overpens below 43 mr
Void+sorc overpens below 30 mr
Void+sorc+shadow overpens below 50 mr
Now, most ranged champs and midlaners top around 52 mr at lvl 18 meaning overpen is not a realistic concern, rather it’s the relative efficiency of sorcs vs pen at specific point in the game, with sorcs remaining superior to bloom but losing to void (assuming they don’t get extra mr).
Melees are a different story, with some melee mids like akali, talon or sylas topping out at around 72 mr at lvl 18. Here a % pen is ultimately superior, especially if they buy mr like mercs, hex or edge.
Ultimately though it boils down to what target you plan (or are capable of) hitting and optimize your pen based on that.
This is excellent content, thank you
I have been sweating over this for days! Thank you!!
Just in time for my Supreme Sorcerer grind. Thank you!
Thank you very much, it was something I really needed, I'm tired of making the same build and not knowing how to counter the enemy.
Thanks Shok! This information is gold for those of us who want to improve. God bless you.
I feel so stupid… I’ve been hard stuck plat forever and I learned soooo much in this video as a mid main. Thank you so much shok
We're all gonna make it brah
Great video, learned a lot. Thank you
Loved this guide. I don't even play midlane or mages in gerenal, but these are still some good infos.
I hope to find some of those for adc and support.
Nice! I will leave a like, but I shall only absorb all this knowledge upon waking up 6h from now, hope your climbing goes well, hopefully I will be following live when I get up
I mostly play ap junglers like fiddlesticks and lillia and this video was still super helpful
This video was really really helpful, thank you a lot. I would also like an AD version or support one aswell.
Super interesting !! Absolutly love it 🤍
42:30 heal cut feels off-brand for AP burst; like you either have enough to 1-combo the squishy or you don't, heal-cut doesn't usually change that, and often burst mages will run ignite too, which is a summoner spell source for heal-cut if you're worried about like an ADC popping summoner heal and living just barely. That said, if you're dealing with frontline drain tanks and have to front-to-back fights, *then* heal-cut on a mage can be *great* and it's a better fit on battlemages/AP dps champs like Cassiopeia and such. Generally the enemy team needs to have at least 2 preferably 3 or more sources of *significant* healing to warrant heal-cut itemization (something like a renekton with his Q isn't significant, but a champ like Warwick or Aatrox is; ADC w/ BT counts as well fwiw).
Thanks for doing this!
My favorite hardstuck masters player made a new guide time to watch!
I'm 9 LP off GM buddy pipe down
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO SHOK JUST DROPPED
keep going , the best mid lane player in the game .
Awesome video, thanks
There are a few things I really like about this video, mostly because what you say here gets you like 90% of the way to a good build in every match you play, and that's honestly good enough. Having more gold than your opponent is usually way more important than getting marginally more value out of your builds as long as you're not trolling. You didn't directly mention a key point on the value of flat damage vs multiplicative damage. An item like Liandry's is a good flat damage item, but it interacts poorly or not at all with most of your other items. The 10% damage buff from horizon, the pen from pen items, the execute from shadowflame, and the bonus AP from deathcap (etc) all multiplicatively interact to increase the damage of each of your spells. Flat damage items aren't great to stack because that additive scaling gets outclassed by multiplicative scaling later on, but they are often easier to build or bigger spikes. Antiheal falls into that flat damage category. If you're behind, but you can reliably apply antiheal, you can buy oblivion orb and get just as much value from that item as you could when you were ahead. The multiplicative items are a bit better when you're ahead and a bit worse when you're behind.
amazing content shok
11:50 Careful with this thinking, it's true resistances are good v. flat pen, but something to keep in mind is that it takes +100 MR to halve the % increase in damage that a given amount of flat pen provides versus a given amount of MR to begin with. The drop off is strong at first, but falls off pretty hard, at +200 MR you are reducing their % increase in damage to 1/3 of what it would otherwise have been (and this is in a scenario with no % pen in the picture.
I think a better way to think of this is that MR kinda pushes flat pen of the table, in the sense that the 25 MR of a Null-Magic Mantle effectively negates 25 flat magic pen in the sense that they would need 25 flat magic pen to negate the null-magic mantle (and the comparison to where you'd be then without the 25 MR is even worse; so you want to push their flat pen away from being a major part of your total MR as this generally will cut down significantly on how much damage they are getting from it).
came back from my cave, thanks shok
What’s changed since the AP itemization video to make blackfire a higher priority pick over ludens? I think I recall you saying it was a bait pick in that video.
They buffed blackfire base dmg by a lot so now the burn actually does real damage, I think they also buffed its ability haste but I can't recall
This is so good even for me who have played this game for 8 years
very informative thank you!
What do you think about tankier itemization on cassiopeia ? Versus a lot of threats I often go abyssal mask or force of nature (vs dots), frozen heart or randuins...
Abyssal is not bad, spirit visage is also not bad, imo zhonya is the best armor item though
Something I've been trying recently that seems to work with syndra is buying Deathcap second. Since her passive gives you execute anyways it's almost a waste of shadowflame's passive to buy it second. Imo atleast.
Yeah deathcap second on Syndra is very solid, especially with high dark seal stacks
IT HAS ARRIVED
19:00 Once again I need to explain the dcap 2nd thing here because it's just too important. Lets compare with Shadowflame, because if dcap didn't exist, it would probably be the best 2nd item for a lot of burst champs. Note, Shadowflame is 3200g, 400g less than dcap at 3600g. However, dcap gives 20 more AP and then increases AP by 35%, but no 12 magic pen, no cinderbloom passive either (not terribly relevant since it's only the bottom 35% of their hp, and only 20% more damage for that last part (30% more for DoT and pet dmg); basically, it will probably affect the last spell of your rotation when bursting someone but not any others).
So what actually gives us more damage? Lets assume we have about 90 AP from our first item (some are slightly more, others slightly less), runes can also add some here, so it's not uncommon to have 100+ AP at 1 item. Let's also assume we went sorcs for the 18 pen (now 12 after the nerf). 2 items is generally reached somewhere in the level 11-13 range give or take solo v. duo lane and fed/not etc. a typical ranged champ has ~42 base MR at this point, lets assume no MR buy yet too. With Shadowflame 2nd, you're looking at ~220 AP, and 30 magic pen, with dcap 2nd, it's 240*1.35=324 AP and 18 magic pen. Here the pen difference means base damage of a spell matters, as flat pen does relatively better for abilities with high base damage relative to AP ratio compared to AP buys and vice versa (higher ratio v. base dmg, more raw AP benefits over pen, but in all cases some of both is optimal if possible). Increase in damage from pen for shadowflame versus 42 MR target is 26.785...%, and for 18 pen w/ dcap, the increase is 14.516...%. The increase is obviously better for shadowflame due to higher pen, but we are missing 104 AP for that larger increase, which is a lot. So lets look at example spell, Lux E, rank 5: which has 265 base dmg, and 80% AP ratio. Here with shadowflame, we'd have a raw damage of 441, with dcap, that's 524.2 and our post-mitigation damages are: 393.75 for shadowflame, and 422.7419... for dcap.
Looks pretty worth the 400 more gold right? But there's more, after 2nd item completion, as you build into your 3rd item, dcap passive will be increasing the RoI on your AP buys by 35% as well, resulting in a growing advantage, all the way until the other build path completes dcap 3rd (assuming it does so, which is optimal if dcap isn't taken 2nd in almost all cases; better than % pen most of the time, actually). There is another reason dcap 2nd is better as well, which is that if you *do* also need % pen, you can get that 3rd item and save your situational buys for last 2 item slots, and this will put you *miles* ahead at 3 items for damage compared to any other buildpath against enemies that have actually itemized some MR against you.
I agree that if you can complete deathcap second especially with other AP sources (darkseal, eyeball) it is very valuable. That being said, the build path is extremely expensive and a lot of the time you can end up just not spending any gold when you reset which is a really big issue in the early-mid game. If you ever are losing sidelane because you have 900 unspent gold out of base or you are weaker at a key objective fight that can often make the difference. Deathcap second is really OP if you are snowballing though.
@@ShokLeague Yea, it can definitely suck to have to back on like 900g or something and not have enough for a rod or completion of DC. I think this is fairly avoidable with good back timing and time management on the map, and worth the potential negatives in most cases. (Unless there is a 2nd item choice that is *extremely* good on the champion you're playing as an alternative I think deathcap 2nd is just better in most cases.)
I am not sure and need to run the numbers, but I remember Ruby Crystal deflecting more damage then Magic Mantle or Cloth Armor. Something you might want to confirm
Oh interesting I'll test it
Pre level 11, ruby crystal is more durably efficient than either armor or cloth. Since burst mages, assassins, and certain bruisers build dirk or sorc shoes, flat mr and armor early becomes less valuable and health looks better for the early game.
@@citizencj3389That doesn't make any sense. An assassin has to pay 1000 gold to get 20 AD and 10 lethality. A mage has to pay 700g to get 15 armor and 20 AP (a cloth armor and an amp tome). Don't forget in this season lethality purchases give full value.
@@SirCrusher The 10 lethality cancels a large portion of that armor, leading to a net damage increase by a good margin. The assassin gains advantage since dirk is more gold efficient than the combination of items purchase by the mage. Also penetration early game is more valuable and it invalidates the purchase of armor, therefore lowering not only the effective health of said squishy mages BUT also make it a net waste of 300 gold for the short run.
@@citizencj3389 you're inverting the order of things. Armor is what's neutralizing lethality. If lethality is valuable early game, armor is equally valuable since it cancels the other out in a 1:1 ratio. And since base armor is scarce early game (mages have extremely low base armor), bonus armor is more valuable. If you don't buy armor when an assassin buys dirk you're forced to play almost perfectly because they'll be nearly dealing true damage.
I thought you were just gonna skip over antiheal 😂. For example I played dark harvest lux against Tryndamere mid + Soraka yesterday and rushing oblivion orb had me with like 10+ Harvest stacks just from laning. But yea...not a ton of situations you would need it.
Went orb > sorcs > blackfire then theu ff'd early.
incredibly good video! Would you say much has changed since posting? except maybe Void for Crypt.
Nah not much, horizon is better, cosmic is meh, stormsurge is a real item now
Thank god, I'm an Anivia one trick and I always hated RoA but I built it often anyways because lots of high elo players do that, but now I can justify to drop it completely.
ROA hate club RISE
@@ShokLeague I always was a sleeper agent in that club!
Will you ever do a guide on how to play the midlane assassins, your channel is very informative and helpful, but as an assassin player sometimes i have trouble translating what i learn from you since its mostly mage focused
I don't play that many of them so its unlikely :/ sorry
@@ShokLeague that's okay keep the content coming man, as someone whos only started playing league like a year ago, your channel accelerated my learning and has taught me a lot. Thank you
Support itemization guide next please, thanks :3
Feral lulu or kitten lulu...?
@@ShokLeague why not both?
@@lilaknoedel kitten in the streets feral in the sheets or whatever it is the kids say
26:55 This is actually just incorrect in most cases. dcap 35% increase in AP will do more than the 30/40% pen from crypt/void in the *vast* majority of cases at 3 items (and it's even more dcap favored at more than 3 items). This also highlights why dcap 2nd is often good, you can go % pen 3rd and have both of your core multipliers again that MR using target at 3 items which is *amazing* for damage output.
Thank you mr shok 😊
If you need to tank then you need roa to improve the efficiency of the defensive items.
Kinda disagree, base HP pools are already high so there is existing synergy with defensive stats already. Also sometimes you just need a defensive to counter a specific ability e.g. zhonya active vs Vi R or Karthus R
what are your thoughts on ryze and ROA? It seems the majority of people always buy it on him, but you make a good point that its more of a neutralizer then anything else. Is there a lot of lanes where ryze can forgo roa? Is the mana and health too worth on him to ignore?
I think you can skip it, but imo Ryze is probably the best ROA user in the entire game. I think Seraphs into ROA 2nd could be the play though, some people do that on Cassio for the delayed level up and stronger early spike
So how do you build on cass usually? I go manaflow and presence > sit on tear + chapter > build my second item pretty much every game. I don’t like to finish seraphs because of the wasted stats, so I’ve been doing this build
ever since the chapter item changes. By the time I finish my second item tear will be almost full, so that’s when I finish seraphs.
I just do seraphs > rylai/liandry > rylai/liandry > dcap almost every game
This is amazing! Thankyou Shok!
Also, what build path would you choose for Lissandra?
She feels like a champ who needs Zhonya's every game and doesnt buy Liandry's that often.
Then going by your video I would guess the ideal path would be -
Malignance, Shadowflame(soloap)/Zhonya's, Deathcap, Cryptbloom? Or something else second and Zhonya's 5th? Because I think Liss is not a very good Horizon user.
On Liss I mostly play blackfire > liandry or zhonya > dcap. Also atm void is just better than cryptbloom pretty much always after item changes. You can go shadowflame/stormsurge soloap 2nd as well yea
@ShokLeague Thanks for the answer man❤️. But why Blackfire instead of malignance?
Helps a lot ty brother
i main anivia, would you still recommend buying dark seal every game? i'm worried that on top of tear & boots early it's just too much gold to be spending before building towards RoA
imo yes, tbh I'm a fan of ROAless builds on anivia though in easier matchups
I play a lot of HWEI and usually my core is Blackfire 1st then Liandry/Shadowflame/Horizon. Since HWEI has a lot of AOE and DoT, is blackfire the right option instead of Luden?
Ex: Blackfire / Boots / Liandry / Rabadon / Crypto / Defensive
Yes this is the default build!
I've been experimenting with Akali builds, and I've found that Sundered Sky and Luden's are quite good on her as first items. Sundered is very situational since it's nerf, so I've mostly dropped it expect into Vayne top, but the Luden's change to the passive shots bumped it above Lichbane in both push power, poke, and all ins. The mana being wasted doesn't matter because the core stats are equivalent and Ludens is cheaper. I've found success with Luden's into Lichbane/Liandry.
TLDR, Buy Ruby Crystal early, Resistance Items suck on Mages....
So I crunched the numbers using Kassadin's base stats at level 6, all of the following math is purely to show that resistances can be converted into HP for easy comparisons. I'm using Kassadin as my example because I was a Kassadin OTP in seasons 1-4. A defensive item, such as Cloth Armor vs a pure health item like Ruby Crystal. Kassadin has 19 + 4 per level armor and 646 + 119 per level health. Giving him 39 armor and 1241 hp at level 6. To calculate the damage reduction from resistances, take 100/(100 + resistance value), this is the number that damage dealt to you is multiplied by to see how much HP you will lose when hit. Turns out 39 armor would give a 28% reduction in AD dealt to you. [( 100/139 = ~0.72) , ( 0.72-1 = -0.28 )] To calculate effective health you need to multiply your health by 0.28 and add that value to your total health. Giving 1589 effective health vs AD without either Cloth Armor or Ruby Crystal. Punch in the numbers for Cloth Armor (add 15 to 39, giving 54) and you'll find that Cloth Armor increases Kassadin's effective HP vs AD to 1676. 1676 - 1589 = 87. Therefore Cloth Armor gives 87 HP to Kassadin at level 6, vs AD. Ruby Crystal gives 150 vs all damage types for a minor 100 gold difference.
If you do the calculations for Null Magic Mantle, you'll find it comes out to a similarly small amount of effective health and costs more than a Ruby Crystal. Therefore, I would argue that mages should always be sitting on bonus HP over bonus resistances in the early game. As the game progresses and other champions buy items that do % max health or % current health damage, the math changes and the HP stat takes a hit in effective value. Also, champs like Aurora who have % hp damage passively sitting in their kit makes Null Magic Mantle more valuable against her than it usually would be. However, at level 6 before she finishes Liandry's, a Ruby Crystal still gives better stats even though she will be doing more chip damage to you.
If you then apply this math vs Assassins who stack flat penetration, you need to understand how much effective health they're taking from you. Since the damage reduction calculation is 100/(100 + resistance value) you'll find that as you increase your resistances, you will get diminished returns on your effective health as it increases. At level 6, without resistance items, Kassadin is handed 348 HP effective in the form of his Armor stat. Flat pen will reduce that value, significantly. Just a Serrated Dirk that gives 10 Lethality, is reducing that effective HP to 279, so Ruby Crystal is still more effective than Cloth armor, but if you're up against say 28 lethality suddenly that value drops to 123 effective HP. So Cloth Armor would return it to 256, for a 133 hp difference, putting it just under the value of a Ruby Crystal and costs less, making it more valuable per gold spent. Making decision making a little easier when your team feeds your laner during neutral objectives like Dragon. Just buy a Ruby Crystal to counter the damage they gain unless they are able to afford enough flat pen to reduce your resistance to 15 or less.
All of this only reinforces the necessity of purchasing a Refillable Potion or even stocking up on 1 or 2 HP potions each time you back during the laning phase in every lane. They're amazing items that provide you with an insane amount of value during the early game for the same reasons you stated.
Roa is good on champs WHO scale. Plus gives the best stats. Best options in mana is roa maligance Black fire, archangel is okey if vs strong asasin, luden is bait
ROA gives good stats but it has a path that is only good for neutralization (which can be good if you need to not lose lane) but if you want to snowball/fight it will be weaker for a very long time.
Are there any plans for a guide about the riftmaker builds?
Not really, not many mids play riftmaker so I didn't bother to cover it
Could you make the AD version of this video?
Absel mask mayby an option next patch instead of critbloom on Ap melles like Diana
and cassio
What about Dark seal + refilable start?
imo too greedy, dring is just too OP early
I am gold and I've just realized that I didnt know shit about ap items. Tysm
I didn’t watch it yet but I don’t have to. I already know that dark seal -> deathcap is the the only viable build path for all AP champs. Don’t know what you could possibly say for 40 minutes
Maybe this is why you’re hardstuck 🤔🤷♂️ ( I didn’t even read your comment yet)
ky5
That's so disrespectful lmao, why are you even watching shok ?!
If you wanted to improve, as you are not challenger, you would watch the video. But if you are stubborn and thinks you are already a good player and knows everything about the game, then you can stop watching shok, and stays forever stuck. Maybe the 40mins spent for a youtube video annoys you ? Let me tell you that time & courage are necessary for improving. Laziness will bring you nowhere, little kid.
tell me you are adc main without telling me you are adc main
lmao this guy posts a hilarious meme comment and all but one guy takes it seriously
I like playing Diana mid, and I see everyone starting storm first. What would be a great build path against a ranged match up or just a counter in general?
From watching you video id asume dorans and pot, (dark seal, tier 1 boots, potion) on first back, then build storm, finish boots, banshees or zon, deathcap, crypt, litch? Something like that?
Would ludens or shadow be better first slot?
I'm not 100% sure of the best build, but its probably the normal ap items early like you said, then lichbane/boots > situational second item > dcap/void > dcap/void > situational item
I think lichbane is best, but it can be hard if you fall behind and can't reach the rod
@ShokLeague what would be good situational items that don't cripple the build for diana? Zons or banshees, most likely, but are there any other that I could consider taking?
@@MrDube12 Stormsurge or shadowflame if you're solo AP could be good, I'm not sure there's anything else really worth building
Great video, but where is my Boi protobelt?
Dogshit item, probably only bought on neeko these days
A few champs buy it first but because it's not a situational item I didn't see fit to include it
please do this for enchanters!
I don't know the support itemization that well... sorry :/
I've watched the whole video, it was really well explained, but there's one point you haven't talked about !
About AP assassins that don't use mana (akali + katarina), we don't need any "lost chapter" item, so we directly buy a "situational" item.
We get recommended to buy lichbane then shadowflame, but... *Why don't we buy shadowflame 1st as it deals the most amount of damage ?* Why is lichbane a "must" currently ?
Moreover buying Lichbane > shadowflame >rabaddon/void delays the zhonya !! >hereas for Akali & kata, zhonya is sooooo useful !
Thus, I like to build like this lichbane>zhonya or shadow flame>zhonya
for kat it is obviously because she NEEDS on hit (nashors or lich) for her daggers to deal damage
I don’t know about katarina. I see most players rushing Nashor+Shadowflame.
About Akali (and I’ll insert Syllas and Nidalee in the mix as well): Their spell rotation allows multiple procs of LB in a single target making it outdamage Shadowflame (in the case of Nidalee, is worth mentioning that helps with jungle clear). Katarina is a bit weird, in the sense that she can weave AAs between spells, but Nashor synergizes better with her kit. Also, it is worth mentioning: Shadowflame is countered by early MR. The item is pure damage for when someone is ahead, and the opponent won’t buy MR early. LB provides utility stats like CDR, and MS, they help you snowball as well, can give a small defensive boost, are not countered by early MR, and the item can end up providing enough damage anyway on certain champions.
You can buy shadowflame 1st, one of the main reasons people don't is because of the build path. After you buy your alternator if you base with anything less than 1250 you can often end up with nothing to buy (especially if you don't want to itemize boots in your matchup)
@@laersonverissimo1715 Ty makes sense ! but i'll check if Lichbane deals more damage than shadowflame, while using the AAs between spells :0
@@ShokLeague but we always buy boots ! I don't see any machup where we wouldn't like to get boots é_è ?
I'll try the shadow flame 1st then !
dcap 2nd is generally better than dcap 3rd these days (main reason for this is the ROI on dcap completion is massive and sooner you have that multiplier in place the better. First item covers your core early needs (mana, AH, some AP, etc.). slot 3 can be one of your options, or you can take % pen early if the enemy is getting MR across the board (uncommon these days as it's rare to have 3+ AP threats and even 2 AP doesn't really warrant MR early from most enemies except frontline, which you can about counterbuilding less on most AP champs since most of them are burst champs and focused their itemization more on having enough burst to kill other squishy champs).
Hello, is this viable for a Ziggs support?
A.K.A. early game items.
Should mostly be the same
I've got a question. For champs who consider Lich Bane as second item as it could be Zoe, if you're expecting for them to build magic resist should I go Luden, Lich Bane, Rabadon to get a higher spike or should I go Luden, Shadow flame, Rabadon even though Shadow flame will be kind of useless later.
Zoe is a weird example though as I don't think she benefits that much of Shadow flame as she already has insanely good magic pen with her E, I think she benefits more from Horizon. So yeah I would like to know your take on this one.
I think go horizon or lich second instead of shadowflame if you're expecting MR
can confirm this is a 100% win rate guide, can't argue with statistics babyyy
thats my GOAT
I learned a lot with this video, I am still a little confused since I play mostly Katarina would Lich bane or even Storm Surge be a bad first item? or perhaps it'd be more ideal to go Shadowflame first?
I'm not too up to date on Kat itemization so you're probably better off checking their builds, but I think most Kat's go lichbane first item these days. Flat pen rush can be good if ur solo ap
I only buy Oblivion orb if I play Kassadin against Sylas and I'm losing. Then it allows me to neutralize his trades by pressing E as soon as he dashes in. I also never complete the item.
What about for a champ like Aurora, where you value the raw stats RoA gives you? Would you say it's better to avoid RoA outside of the neutralisation situations you described and go something like Blackfire instead?
ROA can be good in certain matchups but I think if you need HP it's better just to rush liandry on Aurora instead
so if i am playing asol and i need an early crpytbloom i would remove my rylais first and instead go liandries right? and then get liandries wayyy later after my crypt + rabadons? also does it matter whether i remove rylais or liandires more? which is more important?
I think asol is so married to rylai/liandry that you should basically always go rylai > liandry > dcap > crypt or rylai > liandry > crypt > dcap. Imo both are just too important to the champ to give up
@@ShokLeague fair enough but then when do i buy my defensive? is it worth delaying crypt+rabs? like my third item would be situational where i can place a banshees/zhonyas instead? or do i never go defensive until after crypt + rabs?
@@Arkantos2001 In my experience as an A Sol one trick, I get defensive item 3rd 95% of the time. His AP ratios aren't that impressive, a lot of his damage is coming from his stacks and his ability to easily proc liandry's, so you're pretty fine delaying deathcap in favor of having better uptime.
@@jaketerpening3284 yeah that ,makes sense ty
Seems like no one is building Cryptbloom anymore after the nerfs. Would you say we just replace go Void always now?
Yep! Cryptbloom seems RIPBOZO
I wonder what are your thoughts on abyssal mask in place of banshees against ap threats and how would it fit in a build since you are replacing cryptobloom for it and might be able to rush rabadons as 3rd item. The item feels op to me but I'm a newbie with ap users. I'm guessing the ap from banshees is better on mages, but abyssal might be worth considering on some champs like galio, akali, sylas.
It could maybe be good on short ranged champions yeah, I think the biggest downside if that even though it allows you to get deathcap earlier, you're going to have a lot less AP to synergize with deathcap anyway since abyssal doesn't have AP on it. Maybe it could work later on in the build or something instead though
Does Lethality/Armor interact the same way that magic pen and magic resist do?
Yes! Lethality is essentially flat magic pen, and % armor pen is the same as % magic pen
Has Crypt Bloom been nerfed to the point that it is no longer a guaranteed 3rd or 4th item? What an amazing video
Yeah you pretty much always want void over crypt if you need mpen
is shadowflame still better than stormsurge? seems like everyone is building storm now
Depends on champ, both are reasonable options I think
Was wondering how well this holds up today? I was noticing you rarely build cryptbloom now. Is void just that much better after the nerfs? Also, was wondering for some more LeBlanc specific item advice if you'd be willing to share some.
These days the main changes are void is just better than crypt, pretty much all the boot suck except sorcs, cosmic drive can pretty hard nerfed, horizon focus is a lot better and stormsurge is a real item now. Also blackfire is good now too
I have a question about blackfire torch. Isn't blackfire + Liandry's stronger on the champs that use them than seraph's + Liandry's?
Generally no, I think blackfire is just an undertuned item overall
What about selling boots for Shurelyas Battlesong?
imo not that good, shurelya is a cheap item and late game you want more expensive items (since you are limited by item slots rather than gold)
Yo shok can we get a "how to beat ad midlaners" vid... preferably playing something like syndra
Hey Coach Shok, awesome guide. What are your thoughts on Rabadon’s second on Syndra? Tim has been preaching it, and I think it’s good, but I find myself wanting a defensive item earlier in difficult games (double assassin mid jg, etc). Do you think it’s viable to go Ludens into Zhonya’s or should you always wait until third item to build defensive on Syndra specifically? I posed this question to Tim and his answer was basically that Rabadons second is almost always best. What’s your hypothesis?
Dcap second is good, especially if you have bonus AP from dark seal or eyeball collection or whatever. I think there definitely are games where you will need a defensive item second, chances are if you have the luxury of delaying a defensive item until 3 items then you might not even need a defensive item at all. But I think if you play Syndra against something like Zed + Karthus the game is going to be unplayable without Zhonya 2nd (although the argument could be maybe you just shouldn't pick Syndra in that game)
mindblowing
What do you prefer as 6th item: Liandry’s or Blackfire?
Additionally, can you make a video explaining the correct usage of second rune page?
Liandry is better imo
I will make a full rune video soon!
hello, when should i buy the early defensive items? generally do you build it at the first/second back or right after finishing the first item? thank you
Depends how badly you need it honestly, normally you want to buy it before you die though. Once you fall behind it probably won't make a big difference so it needs to be used as a preventative measure. Always be as greedy as you can but if you can't live without it then buy it
@@ShokLeague tysm
You are the absolute goat of LoL youtube content, I could watch a video like this that's 5x the length
I have 1 question, I've been thinking that SHadowflame is overrated on Viktor and I'm a gold/plat Viktor spammer (xD) so when I saw that pros build SHadowflame almost exclusively I decided to suck it up and start building it as well instead of Ludens
What I found out is that sometimes you can get the ashes early and poke with them and since laser is low CD high range you consistently get DMG out of it without caring whether you waste it on the creepwave like Ludens
So it basically empowers every laser you throw out instead of 1 strong and the rest without on hits effects
its kinda like consistency of all lasers over spike dmg on 1 target which can often be the wrong one to waste ludens on in a teamfight
BUT that being said it's still not amazing and draws tower aggro if you harass under turret for a while after so I don't know, would you recommend just ignoring it even though like 80% of high level Viktor players play with Shadowflame?
Sorry for the late reply, I assume you're talking about blackfire? You can compare the dmg stats at the end of the game but I find that blackfire pretty consistently gets outdamaged by Ludens so I think it's much better, unless it's ultra lategame and you're benefiting a lot from the AP amp
@@ShokLeague Damn you responded thank you so much! So basically you're saying - even high level league players can make mistakes about the nature of the game and they're not perfect - trust in the math! I have also found out that Blackfire just pales in comparison to Ludens in terms of damage so thankyou^^
I am just coming back to the game after quiting several years ago. How does flat pen and %pen work now? Which is applied first in terms of calculating enemy MR?
% pen applies first, then flat pen
Example , you Play veigar vs zed. First build armor, second catalist, third mini zhonya, fourth roa, then rabadon, end zhonya, build % pen. Last Item build more Def.
if you're building ROA you should try not to delay it by building additional items. imo the best build vs Zed would be to go Catalyst > ROA > Zhonya (if behind, straight dcap if not) > Dcap. You could also just go ROA > Seraph > Dcap but then you have to play with Zhonya at least until after Dcap
@@ShokLeague remember that roa gives Exp depends on your lv, early is nice for stats, but later is nice for faster lv 16. I don t like much tear on veigar, prefere roa for neutralize, bc veigar early suck, Raba, %pen, and 2 Def items. But its just me.
i wish this existed before i had to spend 6 hours theory crafting and testing best possible ap malphite build
hey man love the video, my only question would be when to sell the dring! do you try to keep as long as possible, or would it be worth selling for a core item? thanks
Try keep it as long as you can, but definitely sell it for a core item/needlessly large rod. I will sometimes plan my bases around trying to keep my dring e.g. I won't base until I have enough gold to not have to sell the ring.
@@ShokLeague thanks for the reply man you the goat
Lich Bane second item for TF is ok? I think so.
Lich Bane first item fizz. So literally yes a champ that proc spell blade effectively can rush it and has lack of mana issue, needs haste and ms. Lich Bane 2nd is smart after finishing your luden
Yes!
Opinion on going alternator before lost chapter on orianna? I feel like you can do such insane amounts of damage
imo the 3 point W build is so mana hungry that you need a chapter
do we always wanna sell boots in order to get a final item like lich, storm, cosmic?
Yes if you have enough money
@@ShokLeague thank you for the reply shok, and thank you for the great content, i feel ive been getting better since i started watching you and taking note of what you say to do and practice
Hi Shok, I don't think you mentioned this so if you're opting into a cloth armor or null magic mantle, when do you buy them? It feels like the best time is after a major AP component like lost chapter or alternator but before first completed legendary item, but I'm not sure.
You can buy them as early as first base, definitely before first item though