Never forget that Rito said “we found invisibility to have too much frustration so we need to change this” and decided to replace invisibility with INVINCIBILITY
"Are you tired of not seeing an enemy and being mostly powerless against them? Well now you CAN see them while being completely powerless against them!"
duskblade is so overloaded it's components became split between multiple items the vision denying part became umbral glaive the passive after getting a kill became opportunity and the bonus damage on autos and slow is now voltaic cyclosword
You know i think we just got used to it since it's release Bork has never been bad it has been either decent item or straight busted for years so we just ignore how op it is and except anyone that can use the stats will build it.
@@ashtonshephard3852 it's crazy on some champs tho, like on irelia or jax it's a gargantuan first item powerspike that lets them beat some 2 item champs
I hated the last version of duskblade, the tool tip only said that you would become untargetable not invincible, but they never fixed that, it was infuriating watching someone get the proc, and then stop taking damage from ignite or dots, and walk away with next to no hp instead of dying. I think the vanish from the first mythic version would've been fine if it had like a 10 second cd.
see I distinctly remember them (kinda) fixing that by changing it from invulnerability to deleting projectiles, which was still stupid, but at least DOTs like ignite killed again
The vanish was pretty fucked because it gave champions a get out of jail free card, and stealth/untargetablility champions another. The mythic item bs made it so that it was your best option if you dealt good enough damage to utilize the stealth at all. I wouldnt want it on a new item, it made never-tuned master yis and samiras into invisible demons.
If I can add my 2 cents: Duskblade to me always felt like more of a DotA item than a LoL item. It's something that, the moment you get it, basically adds a whole new feature to your character instead of enhancing the existing, unique identity that they already have. The risk with items like that is that every character ends up feeling/playing the same. The whole point about removing interactivity is a big one, but for me the fact that Duskblade turned every champion into the same unstoppable instakill persona was the real kicker...
" the moment you get it, basically adds a whole new feature to your character" is precisely what makes items good imo. Now the feature needs to be reliant on what your character already has. For example Rylai is good when you can reliably proc it and you dont already have a slow on the abilities that you apply the effect with. Duskblade is on the negative side of this because it didnt require anything from a champions kit - you could proc it on adc as well as on an assasin. This item may not have been ideal but it at least was an attempt to be an interesting choice, much better than items like Rabadons, Infinity Edge etc.
The biggest problem is items that create 0 counterplay. Rengar/Khazix with duskblade for example, can one shot the carry before anyone can cast a spell and then become untargetable and run away. Being able to one-shot isn't OP, being able to one-shot with 0 risk is. That's also why zhonyas is a bad item and should be reworked or removed at this point.
I don’t think that’s a huge problem design wise, it’s items like those (heartsteel, rocket belt, etc) that create interesting and varied builds. The problem with dusk blade was the invuln
but the big thing about dota items is that the majority of them have counterplay IN OTHER ITEMS, so you are never hopeless Like, if duskblade was a dota item, i'd just buy a Dust of Appearance for 80 gold and badabing badaboom
When the end of mythic items came, the #1 item change I was most happy about was "Duskblade is being removed". Not adjusted, not nerfed, just flat out deleted.
Honestly, it was even more miserable to play against *bruisers* with duskblade. At least Assassins there was the possibility to kill them before they kill you, but you weren't killing a Lee Sin, Aatrox or even Master Yi before they'd slice you to death and proceed to mow over the rest of the team while being invulnerable
only thing making it notable for me is it going from "Zed - The Item" to "KhaZix - The Item" to then "Thank fuck there isn't a whole ass champion that would be doing this without needing the item"
divine sunderer was... ok. It was good for the majority of it's life time, but not even close to how broken banner, zzrot and ardent censer were at their peak
@@99temporalAre you a dirty bruiser player? That item was the epitome of why mythic system was a mistake, it was changed, reworked, nerfed and abused SO much over the course of just 3 years, it made low damage tanks fall off meta just because there was no way to trade against a 2s cd % shred+heal Divine Sunderer was the definition of overtuned
It's a conceptually flawed item. Assassins need to pick the time and moment to snipe a target. If they fail to do so, they either miss the target, or fail to survive. Giving them an item that gives the a free escape means the positioning minigame isn't playing defenders advantage that hard
You forgot one of the most broken uses of duskblade during its first few iterations when it had the nightstalker passive even when it was on cooldown you could ping the item and it will tell u weather or not u were spotted by a ward by a prompt in chat saying seen or unseen which was super useful for not buying control wards and not wasting trinkets
Just looking at your buffs tooltip was enough.. I abused this nonsense and was so sad when it was changed. Imagine always knowing if there is vision on you or not. Was fun being a Shaco main these days..
One of the things that made the last iteration of duskblade so versatile for attack damage champions was the percent increase in ability damage. Almost every single champ who wanted to deal damage with their abilities that scaled with AD now could realistically go duskblade, regardless of how their kit functions
I started playing in season 8 so some of my most enduring memories of any sort of item or build come from the lethality miss fortune i played back then. duskblade gave me joy. that was a fun build.
Please god cover Bork. It has consistently been a problem that it feels like people refuse to acknowledge as an issue. That item did more than most of the mythics and basically every champ that can reasonably build it does. It single-handedly allowed builds like tank Yone to exist since it alone did more damage than building two crit items. It gives a massive burst of power on completion from stats alone, has CC, and acts as anti-tank and sustain. And it has one of the best build paths of any item in the game with both Recurve Bow and Vamp Scepter. There has never been a point in years where this item was actually bad.
i like to think bork as gen 2 snorlax: sure it's meta defining and every team has one, but: if they ban Snorlax, Zapdos becomes broken. If they ban Zapdos, water types have no counters. If they ban water types such as Cloyster, Suicune and Starmie, ground types would dominate. it's the same way in league nerf bork: tank meta arises due to lack of ways to deal with tanks(remember they nerfed LDR to no longer have giant slayer passive) nerf tanks, the meta becomes "who can deal the most damage" nerf damage, tanks would be dominant again
Draktharr was a pretty good idea when it comes to its second iteration, when it had a vision-denying aspect. Then it became a bursty burst for bursty burst champions to add burst in top of the burst they already had, and then added the free exit card by adding invisibility and then untargetability, excluding one of the crucial weakness assassins had.
The last duskblade was so hillariously busted that even after removing half of what the damn thing did is was STILL the defacto second best item in the game. (if you didnt just consider sunderer a game mechanic considering how it was in EVERY game like i did.
I did not knew Duskblade was 8 years old, I thought it was 3 or 2 and that it came out in 2021 with the Mythic item system. EDIT: Why the did I got so many likes? I guess you are all a bunch of new players as well that related with my statement.
Lmao same, I started playing (very casually) a couple years before the shop rework, and until this very video I thought Duskblade was introduced with mythics!
I have the same feeling, but for the opposite reason Duskblade feels like one of the new items, because i was already a veteran when they added lethality to the game(along with the assassin rework)
Man the days of duskblade yi on aram were a nightmare. At least when it made you invisible there was still some way to counter it because you were invisible, not invincible. Then came the final version and oh my god. "Oh you worry about the invisibility? Well no worries! We took it out! And now who wields it is UNTARGETABLE!" Whoever thought that was a good idea was high
I used to abuse full lethality + dark harvest rune + duskblade AD evelynn jungle. Her old E used to proc on hit effects whilst having an 100% AD ratio. She would literally, and I mean this wholeheartedly, one shot squishy targets with 1 ability because it was that powerful. You used to even sneak in a Trinity force too, to get the additional sheen affects. It was severely broken, and I abused it to get to Diamond before Evelynn was reworked, and unfortunately, lost any and all AD scaling.
You probably used Thunderlord's Decree. Dark harvest was introduced in 7.22 while Evelynn was reworked in 7.20. New Evelynn also proc on-hit effects with e. I facepalm hard when I see Eves rushing stormsurge instead of lich bane, despite the fact that lich deals more damage, has no cd, no condition, and proc automatically.
@@NaySan old ad eve used to use the battle bloodlust rune(that i forgot the real name... what is today's conqueror) or the deathfire touch one, if i remember correctly(sometimes the stormraiders surge, which is nowadays phase rush)
As someone who remembers when Duskblade was first introduced, I'm glad to see it go. Assassin Items in general needed a huge rethink and Duskblade was one of the prime examples of that since it was always incredibly powerful or nerfed into the ground. I've not played enough S14 to judge them now but I'm hoping they're better.
Let's also not forget the terror that was lethality Miss Fortune during the first iteration of duskblade. She was one of its main users because of how Double Up worked.
My friends have a long-running joke about Riot balance. For champs like akali: “guys, what’s the problem with her? I know you can’t *see* her, but you can technically damage her, so it should be fine!” For champs like gwen: “guys, what’s the problem with her? I know you can’t *damage* her, but you can technically see her, so it should be fine!” Somehow, duskblade has illustrated both aspects of this joke at different points in its lifetime. Truly one of the items of all time.
Only been playing League for a year now so I experienced v4 and v5 of Duskblade. It was ALWAYS on a Samira or Miss Fortune when playing and it mainly sucked and rarely were we able to stop them before they popped off, but at least for me the last version of Duskblade was my personal favorite even though it wasn’t good for the game. I liked it on Rengar because if I managed to get my one kill, duskblade would save me from getting attacked by the other enemies and it felt awesome. Interesting how much it changed only to be gone for good
I think the heathiest version of duskblade was the one with an slow+dmg on basic and invisibility on takedowns. Granted was a high risk high reward playstyle because you didn't have that big of a burst and can't just go in brainlessly or you just die by AoE, AoE cc, not point and click CC, but once you get the timing it helps the purpose of being an assasin go in burst someone get out wait for CDs. It just was overshadow by other OP items which was sad honestly.
God damn a throw back to Zed ult the item. Really funny they removed duskblade but some of the new lethality items are based on old versions of it... And they were just like "no, the name is cursed make it a new item, dont just revert it" also it and rageblade are the Ryzes of items with all the reworks
I did not realise at the time, nor would I have the skill to exploit properly, the degeneracy of Ardent Censer during its meta. Regardless, this is when I found Lulu, and have played her to relative success ever since. So without being the flavor of the month meta player, I've found my main through this meta and it will forever have a special place in my heart.
Couple of curious notes from memory: Someone you wouldn't expect to use Duskblade 2 was Vayne, who could proc it with invisible tumbles if I remember correctly. I think Duskblade/Lethality Master Yi with Hail of Blades was more a product of him having no good on-hit build right after the Mythic item rework, moreso than Duskblade screaming "I'm broken on Yi" (though it certainly was and, even though I'm not a jungler, I had tons of fun with lethality Yi in normals).
You know what would’ve saved Duskblade? If its passive had a lethality activation threshold similar to how Warmog’s has a bonus health activation threshold. I’m not sure why that kind of design idea hasn’t shown up again somewhere.
Correction ignite and any other dmg during a period of time could dmg you during duskblades invincibility riot changed it shortly after the items rework
How about a video on our lord and savior ohmwrecker? Even if it wasn't a good item, I loved making enemies that thought they were safe under tower cower in fear and confusion.
Duskblade/stormrazer combo on hecarim when stormrazer waw first introduced is peak one shot meta. You came in like a train hit them once under tower, took 1 tower shot from entire interaction and left with 500 gold. Good times.
People consider Fizz's E the most frustrating/broken ability to play against because he has untargetability on a basic ability on a short cooldown and they decided to give it to any AD champ
I would like to humbly request a video deep dive into items that gave a certain effect that should only be on certain champions to the entire roster. Like the invisibility/immunity of duskblade, the stasis of stopwatch, or the stun/root of everfrost...
honestly, remove umbral glaive(only senna and pyke builld it, and when it was meta on midlane assasins and jglers ,it was so boring) bring back duskblade, make it it insta kill the first ward your spotted by , plus a lil damage on auto
The "invisibility on champions that were never considered with the possibility in mind" really hit home, especially when the items tooltip didn't actually mention the invincibility, causing a lot of confusion amongst my friends, and to me, who wondered what the imagined counterplay was to 1 squishy dying, followed by 1.5 free seconds of dps on champions specialising in ability resets to sustain their dps. Duskblade was a real "gee thanks" item. Riot makes a lot of "cool things," to make a lot of "cool things" happen, usually without consideration of the people on the other side of the screen.
I fucking hated Duskblade, after s10 it was the ultimate anti-counterplay item. I think the best version was the first one. It didn't help you annihilate squishies but assassins don't need help doing that anyways. It increased the number of targets that you could do significant damage to, allowing you to chunk people who would survive your burst combo. Probably not enough to finish them off, but enough to force them to base.
This item was so fun to abuse on Samira making her almost impossible to kill. Although, it was so tilting on a Shaco that could just be permanently invisible.
when duskblade only gave you invisibility it was fine because you could still track the person and deal damage to them, after they removed it, the item became broken and overtuned, giving anyone who built it extra damage AND being INVINCIBLE(unless you were affected by a DoT), even mages who did AP damage were building it
it wasnt fucking "Fine", it was not as terrible as the next itteration but it was still a toxic, unblananced, unfun to play against piece of shit. The only Version of Duskblade that was somewhat ok in design was the vision denial one but even that was way overtuned statswise. Whenever Duskblade existed, it made the game worse. Garbage Item, fuck this item, good riddance. I hope it never comes back.
@@datzfatz2368 ehhh, i'd rather have full vision of the entire enemy team rather than not being able to see just a single enemy, if they had kept only the invisibility and removed the extra damage it gave, then i guess it would trully be "fine".
@@xarao nah man, giving champions invisibility is wrong and stupid. Duskblade yi Proved that more than enough. Duskblade is now exactly where it needs to be. Not existing is the only state it is truly fine in
I started in s7 but I remember with the duskblade passive, even if it wasn’t up you would be able to tell if you were on vision or not. So you pretty much had oracle on you at all times which better players were able to completely abuse, that version was probably the craziest one
Duskblade Darius was probably the most terrifying thing I ever encountered cause he would get a kill, go invis, and just pop up Auto-W-R, INVIS and just repeat.
The funniest thing is that I used to dodge Hecarim lobbies when the item gave invincibility. It's been so op that even now I consider to ALT f4 when I see the champ in enemy only to remember 3 seconds later that the Immunity is not in hecarim abilities kit. The likes of Hecarim and Lethality Vayne went from 10000 to 0 in just one removal of the item and vayne went back to building normal again. It's honest baffleing.
something that is rarely discussed is that HOW FUCKING UNPUNISHING it is to build lethality. 350-400 gold? recall, buy longsword/dirk/hammer. you just cannot take or be forced into a bad recall. you can just mass buy them and its just flat good, and channels into all lethality or other AD items. no thought, no uniqueness.
I swear, Vars speaks for all of us when it comes to our opinions on the shit riot has done with league. But he does it in a well spoken way. glad i found this channel.
Zed having his own special item for a hot second does actually sound kind of nice. Image if every champ had one item that was only really good on them?
The final dual blade was hilarious because it was basically an AD mage item that also for some reason still had the invulnerability passive (looking at lethality Yorick and Jayce)
When this item is removed, I scream F**K U, in a good way. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, with how irritating it is to see those champions that is not supposed to build it, but build it anyway, destroying every single soloq experiences. It LITERALLY is 'u build it, u win' item
It's a weird wish but, Riot could give an second chance to the item by making an champion out of it. It's an Darkin, slap something that breaths on the duskblade and make an descent champion out of it.
The number of time i tried to CC an assasin with duskblade just to be nulified because he got the invicibility has to be the most infuriating thing ever
I remember the VERY FIRST iteration of duskblade allowed you to do 500 flat dmg coming out of stealth/invis. I remember abusing this on Vayne, but this iteration of duskblade didn’t even last a week I believe.
My favorite part about duskblade "from a zed mains pov" was how they made a new item with zed ult passive only to then nerf Zed Ult because it was to strong with the new item. They then changed duskblade to version 2 but didn't buff zed back again.
Ngl i prefer when items are just stat sticks or have a small passive component. Champions should be able to stand on their own without the need of an active from an item to help them with dash, cc or what not. Tiamat and its derivative items are fine i think, so is zhonya because mages are balanced around it since it's always been there. I kinda have the same opinion about summoners spells though, i've been playing the game on and off since season 1 and i always detested the idea of summoner spells, especially flash since it's a no brainer 99% of the time. Don't get me wrong i do use flash myself but i would be glad if it disapeared from the game.
I remember building duskblade illaoi cuz soul kill granted you invis and it turns out when illaoi jumps in and out of existance in a 5×5 while dishing crapload of damage it just is not fun for enemies
I remember when aatrox q got 20% more ad scaling and paired with the 18-20% missing health dmg from dusk was one hell of a time lmao 1.2k ad aatrox LITERALLY one shotting everyone who wasn't a tank
Replacing invisibility withinvincibility is like Nintendo replacing bubbler's invincibility with ink armor's global one shot invincibility in Splatoon. It was miserable. Cue the 3rd game and they removed armor specials entirely AND nerfed armor as a whole to reduce all incoming damage by 100 (so taking 200 damage in a single blow kills you through it)
I remember playing against a duskblade leblanc as a newbie support/mid mage coming into the game.. the first time i ran into it was probably one of the most WTF moments id ever experience in league even now 2ish years later
The 2nd version also suffered from the item pool of Lethality, you had to build a rigid build with almost zero flexibility. It's would have been much better if it had been released today. I used to go Duskblade + full Lethality + RFC Vayne into squishies team, it was extremely snowbally but fun
I remember during the last rework of duskblade, naayil found out how broken the % health damage and invulnerability was with Aatrox. Almost every game you would see one rushing that item and it was usually game over for top lane. Fun times. Also gp, who could get duskblade and essence reaver by 15mins thanks to bankplank meta, making his q and barrels oneshot before baron was even up lol.
I was wondering... Why don't you make podcast from your videos? I would 100% listen to them cause you have good voice for it and most of the time your sound from videos can live without (still cool) cinematic :3
I think its worth mentioning as well that duskblade master yi was SUCH a big problem, that riot had to mini-rework him in s12 just because of duskblade. They literally cut his Q ad ratio by half, cut his crit damage on Q and made AH nerf your Q as well when you build it, and to compensate they made Q apply on hit effects. All of that just to kill duskblade yi, which ironically enough, doesnt exist anymore cause the item is gone, but they never reverted the rework lmao
The invisibility of the first version would have worked if it only triggered on kill; takedowns are too consistent to be balanced on a item designed for pentakills. Honestly, takedowns have ruined the skill expression of teamfights.
i like how in season 7 they removed the 99% slow for ranged, then in season 11s item rework, draven jhin and mf were busted because of the 99% slow they added back, for no reason as if they completely forgot that part of it.
Never forget that Rito said “we found invisibility to have too much frustration so we need to change this” and decided to replace invisibility with INVINCIBILITY
They often do the exact opposite of what they’re saying. Remember when they reduced Asol’s damage and claimed it made him “burstier?” I remember.
"Are you tired of not seeing an enemy and being mostly powerless against them? Well now you CAN see them while being completely powerless against them!"
That shit confused the hell out of me, I figured with them being "Untargetable" I could still hit them with untargeted AoE attacks right?
wrong.
The issue was the constant invicibility, that was the frustrating part, made the item an issue with reset champs like yi
It was so cool having an ability that already has zero counterplay be put on an item and used on champs that you already can't see or target 🙃
duskblade is so overloaded it's components became split between multiple items
the vision denying part became umbral glaive
the passive after getting a kill became opportunity
and the bonus damage on autos and slow is now voltaic cyclosword
Not to mention when Umbral first arrived
Dusk got split Again with Sanguine Blade but that was removed
and now with how much yuo need damage ingame unbral became literaly the most unpurchased iteam ever . That passive needs to be added to voltaic .
stormsurge, opportunity, umbrave glaive, cyclo-sworl. wow, this item is cringe and overloaded
@@jurivjerdha2467 yea i've never seen anyone outside of senna players build umbral glaive
@@jurivjerdha2467 for laners yes, for supports that is just False
its like a core on Senna, Pyke, and AD Shaco but youre not wrong.
i hope he talks about the history of bork and how crazily its been overtuned over its life time. (the dang thang used to do like 7 different things)
The Ryze of items
200 years of game design experience.
I think since they reduced borks passive damage in like season 12 it's been an okay item
You know i think we just got used to it since it's release Bork has never been bad it has been either decent item or straight busted for years so we just ignore how op it is and except anyone that can use the stats will build it.
@@ashtonshephard3852 it's crazy on some champs tho, like on irelia or jax it's a gargantuan first item powerspike that lets them beat some 2 item champs
I hated the last version of duskblade, the tool tip only said that you would become untargetable not invincible, but they never fixed that, it was infuriating watching someone get the proc, and then stop taking damage from ignite or dots, and walk away with next to no hp instead of dying. I think the vanish from the first mythic version would've been fine if it had like a 10 second cd.
see I distinctly remember them (kinda) fixing that by changing it from invulnerability to deleting projectiles, which was still stupid, but at least DOTs like ignite killed again
The vanish was pretty fucked because it gave champions a get out of jail free card, and stealth/untargetablility champions another. The mythic item bs made it so that it was your best option if you dealt good enough damage to utilize the stealth at all. I wouldnt want it on a new item, it made never-tuned master yis and samiras into invisible demons.
If I can add my 2 cents: Duskblade to me always felt like more of a DotA item than a LoL item. It's something that, the moment you get it, basically adds a whole new feature to your character instead of enhancing the existing, unique identity that they already have. The risk with items like that is that every character ends up feeling/playing the same.
The whole point about removing interactivity is a big one, but for me the fact that Duskblade turned every champion into the same unstoppable instakill persona was the real kicker...
Wow what an awesome comment!
This is genuinely a very good take!
" the moment you get it, basically adds a whole new feature to your character" is precisely what makes items good imo. Now the feature needs to be reliant on what your character already has. For example Rylai is good when you can reliably proc it and you dont already have a slow on the abilities that you apply the effect with. Duskblade is on the negative side of this because it didnt require anything from a champions kit - you could proc it on adc as well as on an assasin. This item may not have been ideal but it at least was an attempt to be an interesting choice, much better than items like Rabadons, Infinity Edge etc.
The biggest problem is items that create 0 counterplay. Rengar/Khazix with duskblade for example, can one shot the carry before anyone can cast a spell and then become untargetable and run away. Being able to one-shot isn't OP, being able to one-shot with 0 risk is. That's also why zhonyas is a bad item and should be reworked or removed at this point.
I don’t think that’s a huge problem design wise, it’s items like those (heartsteel, rocket belt, etc) that create interesting and varied builds. The problem with dusk blade was the invuln
but the big thing about dota items is that the majority of them have counterplay IN OTHER ITEMS, so you are never hopeless
Like, if duskblade was a dota item, i'd just buy a Dust of Appearance for 80 gold and badabing badaboom
When the end of mythic items came, the #1 item change I was most happy about was "Duskblade is being removed". Not adjusted, not nerfed, just flat out deleted.
Yeah and you successfully made the game boring so u can be safe with ur squishy adc
Pyke: *gets Duskblade*
Everyone on enemy team: *d e a d*
Holy shit playing against any assassin with duskblade was absolutely miserable
Honestly, it was even more miserable to play against *bruisers* with duskblade. At least Assassins there was the possibility to kill them before they kill you, but you weren't killing a Lee Sin, Aatrox or even Master Yi before they'd slice you to death and proceed to mow over the rest of the team while being invulnerable
Lets just agree it was miserable to play against duskblade period man
@@worldiefeard8396duskblade aatrox was so fun seeing people disappear
only thing making it notable for me is it going from "Zed - The Item" to "KhaZix - The Item" to then "Thank fuck there isn't a whole ass champion that would be doing this without needing the item"
Can't believe when you were listing most meta-breaking mythic items, you didn't mention divine sunderer.
divine sunderer was... ok. It was good for the majority of it's life time, but not even close to how broken banner, zzrot and ardent censer were at their peak
@@99temporal What are you talking about? None of those were mythic items. I was talking about that part of the video when he got to s11-13.
@@99temporalAre you a dirty bruiser player? That item was the epitome of why mythic system was a mistake, it was changed, reworked, nerfed and abused SO much over the course of just 3 years, it made low damage tanks fall off meta just because there was no way to trade against a 2s cd % shred+heal
Divine Sunderer was the definition of overtuned
It's a conceptually flawed item.
Assassins need to pick the time and moment to snipe a target.
If they fail to do so, they either miss the target, or fail to survive.
Giving them an item that gives the a free escape means the positioning minigame isn't playing defenders advantage that hard
You forgot one of the most broken uses of duskblade during its first few iterations when it had the nightstalker passive even when it was on cooldown you could ping the item and it will tell u weather or not u were spotted by a ward by a prompt in chat saying seen or unseen which was super useful for not buying control wards and not wasting trinkets
Just looking at your buffs tooltip was enough..
I abused this nonsense and was so sad when it was changed.
Imagine always knowing if there is vision on you or not.
Was fun being a Shaco main these days..
One of the things that made the last iteration of duskblade so versatile for attack damage champions was the percent increase in ability damage. Almost every single champ who wanted to deal damage with their abilities that scaled with AD now could realistically go duskblade, regardless of how their kit functions
I started playing in season 8 so some of my most enduring memories of any sort of item or build come from the lethality miss fortune i played back then. duskblade gave me joy. that was a fun build.
Please god cover Bork. It has consistently been a problem that it feels like people refuse to acknowledge as an issue. That item did more than most of the mythics and basically every champ that can reasonably build it does. It single-handedly allowed builds like tank Yone to exist since it alone did more damage than building two crit items. It gives a massive burst of power on completion from stats alone, has CC, and acts as anti-tank and sustain. And it has one of the best build paths of any item in the game with both Recurve Bow and Vamp Scepter. There has never been a point in years where this item was actually bad.
i like to think bork as gen 2 snorlax: sure it's meta defining and every team has one, but:
if they ban Snorlax, Zapdos becomes broken.
If they ban Zapdos, water types have no counters.
If they ban water types such as Cloyster, Suicune and Starmie, ground types would dominate.
it's the same way in league
nerf bork: tank meta arises due to lack of ways to deal with tanks(remember they nerfed LDR to no longer have giant slayer passive)
nerf tanks, the meta becomes "who can deal the most damage"
nerf damage, tanks would be dominant again
Draktharr was a pretty good idea when it comes to its second iteration, when it had a vision-denying aspect. Then it became a bursty burst for bursty burst champions to add burst in top of the burst they already had, and then added the free exit card by adding invisibility and then untargetability, excluding one of the crucial weakness assassins had.
The last duskblade was so hillariously busted that even after removing half of what the damn thing did is was STILL the defacto second best item in the game. (if you didnt just consider sunderer a game mechanic considering how it was in EVERY game like i did.
I did not knew Duskblade was 8 years old, I thought it was 3 or 2 and that it came out in 2021 with the Mythic item system.
EDIT: Why the did I got so many likes?
I guess you are all a bunch of new players as well that related with my statement.
Lmao same, I started playing (very casually) a couple years before the shop rework, and until this very video I thought Duskblade was introduced with mythics!
@@aguauga Same.
Got into the game back in 2021, the tail end of it.
Same, but i am playing League for maby 8 years or So 😂
@@KaiserAventus Based
I have the same feeling, but for the opposite reason
Duskblade feels like one of the new items, because i was already a veteran when they added lethality to the game(along with the assassin rework)
that reaper comic with the duskblade almost made me fall from my chair
Man the days of duskblade yi on aram were a nightmare. At least when it made you invisible there was still some way to counter it because you were invisible, not invincible. Then came the final version and oh my god. "Oh you worry about the invisibility? Well no worries! We took it out! And now who wields it is UNTARGETABLE!"
Whoever thought that was a good idea was high
I used to abuse full lethality + dark harvest rune + duskblade AD evelynn jungle. Her old E used to proc on hit effects whilst having an 100% AD ratio. She would literally, and I mean this wholeheartedly, one shot squishy targets with 1 ability because it was that powerful. You used to even sneak in a Trinity force too, to get the additional sheen affects. It was severely broken, and I abused it to get to Diamond before Evelynn was reworked, and unfortunately, lost any and all AD scaling.
You probably used Thunderlord's Decree. Dark harvest was introduced in 7.22 while Evelynn was reworked in 7.20.
New Evelynn also proc on-hit effects with e. I facepalm hard when I see Eves rushing stormsurge instead of lich bane, despite the fact that lich deals more damage, has no cd, no condition, and proc automatically.
@@NaySan old ad eve used to use the battle bloodlust rune(that i forgot the real name... what is today's conqueror) or the deathfire touch one, if i remember correctly(sometimes the stormraiders surge, which is nowadays phase rush)
ahh yes, the old duskblade+trinity+hydra
As someone who remembers when Duskblade was first introduced, I'm glad to see it go. Assassin Items in general needed a huge rethink and Duskblade was one of the prime examples of that since it was always incredibly powerful or nerfed into the ground. I've not played enough S14 to judge them now but I'm hoping they're better.
Let's also not forget the terror that was lethality Miss Fortune during the first iteration of duskblade. She was one of its main users because of how Double Up worked.
Final version of Duskblade on Illaoi was such a nasty combo. From 3 items forward if you could hit your E on someone that person was basically dead.
My friends have a long-running joke about Riot balance.
For champs like akali: “guys, what’s the problem with her? I know you can’t *see* her, but you can technically damage her, so it should be fine!”
For champs like gwen: “guys, what’s the problem with her? I know you can’t *damage* her, but you can technically see her, so it should be fine!”
Somehow, duskblade has illustrated both aspects of this joke at different points in its lifetime. Truly one of the items of all time.
An item should never completely change the identity of a champion, and if it does, you’ve missed the mark.
When they added the 5th Duskblade they saw how weak Fizz was and went "what if every AD character could become the Fish?"
Only been playing League for a year now so I experienced v4 and v5 of Duskblade. It was ALWAYS on a Samira or Miss Fortune when playing and it mainly sucked and rarely were we able to stop them before they popped off, but at least for me the last version of Duskblade was my personal favorite even though it wasn’t good for the game. I liked it on Rengar because if I managed to get my one kill, duskblade would save me from getting attacked by the other enemies and it felt awesome. Interesting how much it changed only to be gone for good
idk why i smiled when i saw young redmercy
good old days
I don't watch him anymore, what happened?
@@katoshuuwe all grew up
@@katoshuuhe de facto retired
really miss my 3rd Ghostblade. Damage, CDR, Ward Clearingt. It was beautiful, specially with Talon
I think when the nerf to only make you untargetable and not invincible was present for long enough to also be worth mentioning.
I think the heathiest version of duskblade was the one with an slow+dmg on basic and invisibility on takedowns. Granted was a high risk high reward playstyle because you didn't have that big of a burst and can't just go in brainlessly or you just die by AoE, AoE cc, not point and click CC, but once you get the timing it helps the purpose of being an assasin go in burst someone get out wait for CDs. It just was overshadow by other OP items which was sad honestly.
Im suprised duskblade in its final form lasted so long. It made aram and fighting anyone using it. Just a terrible experience
Agreed, couldn't be happier it's gone
I would take Guardian Angel over that abomination on ARAM any day.
@@FranciscoJG yeah 100%. At least GA they don't do damage during it
Duskblade master yi gave me PTSD with how horrid it was to go against in ARAM. 4/5 pentas in ONE GAME
That one clip where the master yi runs into fountain after getting a quadra and then he AFKs XD
As someone who only plays aram, this item makes me hate Pyke with all my heart
God damn a throw back to Zed ult the item. Really funny they removed duskblade but some of the new lethality items are based on old versions of it... And they were just like "no, the name is cursed make it a new item, dont just revert it" also it and rageblade are the Ryzes of items with all the reworks
duskblade of invisibility was the funniest moment I ever had in league
I did not realise at the time, nor would I have the skill to exploit properly, the degeneracy of Ardent Censer during its meta. Regardless, this is when I found Lulu, and have played her to relative success ever since. So without being the flavor of the month meta player, I've found my main through this meta and it will forever have a special place in my heart.
Couple of curious notes from memory:
Someone you wouldn't expect to use Duskblade 2 was Vayne, who could proc it with invisible tumbles if I remember correctly.
I think Duskblade/Lethality Master Yi with Hail of Blades was more a product of him having no good on-hit build right after the Mythic item rework, moreso than Duskblade screaming "I'm broken on Yi" (though it certainly was and, even though I'm not a jungler, I had tons of fun with lethality Yi in normals).
Do gunblade next please I miss that item and I miss you
RIP, Duskblade. You will always have a place in my heart
Rest in peace my darling, until we meet again duskblade
You know what would’ve saved Duskblade? If its passive had a lethality activation threshold similar to how Warmog’s has a bonus health activation threshold. I’m not sure why that kind of design idea hasn’t shown up again somewhere.
Correction ignite and any other dmg during a period of time could dmg you during duskblades invincibility riot changed it shortly after the items rework
Damn it Vars, right when I was getting over the trauma and almost forgot about it's existence!
I remember mainly the invisiblity one. The memory of Rengar and Nasus with that thing is seared into my mind.
How about a video on our lord and savior ohmwrecker?
Even if it wasn't a good item, I loved making enemies that thought they were safe under tower cower in fear and confusion.
Duskblade/stormrazer combo on hecarim when stormrazer waw first introduced is peak one shot meta. You came in like a train hit them once under tower, took 1 tower shot from entire interaction and left with 500 gold. Good times.
My soul left my bad when he mentioned duskblade nasus,that question mark ping was so loud 😂
Kha'zix weeps
You forgot the Ezreal jungle incident, shooting Qs out of vision with Duskblade proc in every single one.
Duskblade:Removed version 14.1
Aurora:Added version 14.13
Welcome back , duskblade
People consider Fizz's E the most frustrating/broken ability to play against because he has untargetability on a basic ability on a short cooldown and they decided to give it to any AD champ
i remember the short but hella fun time with Lethality Briar Duskblade
you talk about as if briar came not even a year ago lol
I would like to humbly request a video deep dive into items that gave a certain effect that should only be on certain champions to the entire roster.
Like the invisibility/immunity of duskblade, the stasis of stopwatch, or the stun/root of everfrost...
As someone who frequently plays ARAM, I cannot understate how glad I am this piece of shit item is gone.
honestly, remove umbral glaive(only senna and pyke builld it, and when it was meta on midlane assasins and jglers ,it was so boring) bring back duskblade, make it it insta kill the first ward your spotted by , plus a lil damage on auto
Started playing in s7 and I somehow absolutly cannot remember duskblade ever having a vision clearing passive.
The "invisibility on champions that were never considered with the possibility in mind" really hit home,
especially when the items tooltip didn't actually mention the invincibility, causing a lot of confusion amongst my friends, and to me, who wondered what the imagined counterplay was to 1 squishy dying, followed by 1.5 free seconds of dps on champions specialising in ability resets to sustain their dps.
Duskblade was a real "gee thanks" item. Riot makes a lot of "cool things," to make a lot of "cool things" happen, usually without consideration of the people on the other side of the screen.
I like history stuff about items, do more pls.
I fucking hated Duskblade, after s10 it was the ultimate anti-counterplay item. I think the best version was the first one. It didn't help you annihilate squishies but assassins don't need help doing that anyways. It increased the number of targets that you could do significant damage to, allowing you to chunk people who would survive your burst combo. Probably not enough to finish them off, but enough to force them to base.
I think the Mythic Version of Duskblade (espacially the last one) was one of the worst designed Items in the game
This item was so fun to abuse on Samira making her almost impossible to kill. Although, it was so tilting on a Shaco that could just be permanently invisible.
when duskblade only gave you invisibility it was fine because you could still track the person and deal damage to them, after they removed it, the item became broken and overtuned, giving anyone who built it extra damage AND being INVINCIBLE(unless you were affected by a DoT), even mages who did AP damage were building it
it wasnt fucking "Fine", it was not as terrible as the next itteration but it was still a toxic, unblananced, unfun to play against piece of shit. The only Version of Duskblade that was somewhat ok in design was the vision denial one but even that was way overtuned statswise. Whenever Duskblade existed, it made the game worse. Garbage Item, fuck this item, good riddance. I hope it never comes back.
@@datzfatz2368 ehhh, i'd rather have full vision of the entire enemy team rather than not being able to see just a single enemy, if they had kept only the invisibility and removed the extra damage it gave, then i guess it would trully be "fine".
@@xarao nah man, giving champions invisibility is wrong and stupid. Duskblade yi Proved that more than enough. Duskblade is now exactly where it needs to be. Not existing is the only state it is truly fine in
As a Master Yi main, i hate Duskblade with a burning passion!
I started in s7 but I remember with the duskblade passive, even if it wasn’t up you would be able to tell if you were on vision or not. So you pretty much had oracle on you at all times which better players were able to completely abuse, that version was probably the craziest one
Duskblade Darius was probably the most terrifying thing I ever encountered cause he would get a kill, go invis, and just pop up Auto-W-R, INVIS and just repeat.
The funniest thing is that I used to dodge Hecarim lobbies when the item gave invincibility. It's been so op that even now I consider to ALT f4 when I see the champ in enemy only to remember 3 seconds later that the Immunity is not in hecarim abilities kit.
The likes of Hecarim and Lethality Vayne went from 10000 to 0 in just one removal of the item and vayne went back to building normal again. It's honest baffleing.
something that is rarely discussed is that HOW FUCKING UNPUNISHING it is to build lethality. 350-400 gold? recall, buy longsword/dirk/hammer. you just cannot take or be forced into a bad recall. you can just mass buy them and its just flat good, and channels into all lethality or other AD items. no thought, no uniqueness.
Drakthaar is such a cool name idk why there isnt a darkin named like that, would go hard.
I swear, Vars speaks for all of us when it comes to our opinions on the shit riot has done with league. But he does it in a well spoken way. glad i found this channel.
Zed having his own special item for a hot second does actually sound kind of nice. Image if every champ had one item that was only really good on them?
Duskblade in wild rift: If you're out of enemy's vision for a few seconds you will deal bonus damage to enemy
It got changed to your first attack deals bonus damage to them and it resets on takedown.
The final dual blade was hilarious because it was basically an AD mage item that also for some reason still had the invulnerability passive (looking at lethality Yorick and Jayce)
When this item is removed, I scream F**K U, in a good way. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, with how irritating it is to see those champions that is not supposed to build it, but build it anyway, destroying every single soloq experiences. It LITERALLY is 'u build it, u win' item
I still remember that game where our jg YI got 2 pentas because he used this item, the enemy team didn't have any CC 😭
It's a weird wish but, Riot could give an second chance to the item by making an champion out of it.
It's an Darkin, slap something that breaths on the duskblade and make an descent champion out of it.
The number of time i tried to CC an assasin with duskblade just to be nulified because he got the invicibility has to be the most infuriating thing ever
Thankyou for your content, I thoroughly enjoy the videos
I remember the VERY FIRST iteration of duskblade allowed you to do 500 flat dmg coming out of stealth/invis. I remember abusing this on Vayne, but this iteration of duskblade didn’t even last a week I believe.
Season 10 Duskblade was best Duskblade.
11:12 Master Yi leaving the game after failing to get a penta is exactly how I picture Yi players.
I'm so happy they removed that item. I rather go through a relationship with my ex again than to play vs Duskblade Khazix meta.
My favorite part about duskblade "from a zed mains pov" was how they made a new item with zed ult passive only to then nerf Zed Ult because it was to strong with the new item. They then changed duskblade to version 2 but didn't buff zed back again.
Ngl i prefer when items are just stat sticks or have a small passive component. Champions should be able to stand on their own without the need of an active from an item to help them with dash, cc or what not. Tiamat and its derivative items are fine i think, so is zhonya because mages are balanced around it since it's always been there. I kinda have the same opinion about summoners spells though, i've been playing the game on and off since season 1 and i always detested the idea of summoner spells, especially flash since it's a no brainer 99% of the time. Don't get me wrong i do use flash myself but i would be glad if it disapeared from the game.
chad ghost lovers rise up!
Flatbrained take
I remember building duskblade illaoi cuz soul kill granted you invis and it turns out when illaoi jumps in and out of existance in a 5×5 while dishing crapload of damage it just is not fun for enemies
Whenever Vars does the cinematic camera spinning around fights at an angle it makes me get motion sickness ;(
I remember the invisible duskblade well....got my first shaco pentakill with it because no one noticed it was there...that crap was wild
I remember when aatrox q got 20% more ad scaling and paired with the 18-20% missing health dmg from dusk was one hell of a time lmao 1.2k ad aatrox LITERALLY one shotting everyone who wasn't a tank
Replacing invisibility withinvincibility is like Nintendo replacing bubbler's invincibility with ink armor's global one shot invincibility in Splatoon. It was miserable. Cue the 3rd game and they removed armor specials entirely AND nerfed armor as a whole to reduce all incoming damage by 100 (so taking 200 damage in a single blow kills you through it)
I remember playing against a duskblade leblanc as a newbie support/mid mage coming into the game.. the first time i ran into it was probably one of the most WTF moments id ever experience in league even now 2ish years later
Ahh good ol days of full lethality Wukong starting tripple dorans rushing duskblade ghostblade and one shoting anything and everything!
The 2nd version also suffered from the item pool of Lethality, you had to build a rigid build with almost zero flexibility. It's would have been much better if it had been released today. I used to go Duskblade + full Lethality + RFC Vayne into squishies team, it was extremely snowbally but fun
I remember during the last rework of duskblade, naayil found out how broken the % health damage and invulnerability was with Aatrox. Almost every game you would see one rushing that item and it was usually game over for top lane. Fun times. Also gp, who could get duskblade and essence reaver by 15mins thanks to bankplank meta, making his q and barrels oneshot before baron was even up lol.
I was wondering... Why don't you make podcast from your videos? I would 100% listen to them cause you have good voice for it and most of the time your sound from videos can live without (still cool) cinematic :3
duskblade yi will always be remembered as a nightmare we lived thru
I think its worth mentioning as well that duskblade master yi was SUCH a big problem, that riot had to mini-rework him in s12 just because of duskblade. They literally cut his Q ad ratio by half, cut his crit damage on Q and made AH nerf your Q as well when you build it, and to compensate they made Q apply on hit effects. All of that just to kill duskblade yi, which ironically enough, doesnt exist anymore cause the item is gone, but they never reverted the rework lmao
The invisibility of the first version would have worked if it only triggered on kill; takedowns are too consistent to be balanced on a item designed for pentakills. Honestly, takedowns have ruined the skill expression of teamfights.
6:10 yooo Redmercy and reworked Rengar, now that was a trip down memory lane
The Fire Emblem music got me listening close to every word
i like how in season 7 they removed the 99% slow for ranged, then in season 11s item rework, draven jhin and mf were busted because of the 99% slow they added back, for no reason as if they completely forgot that part of it.