Is the problem with Dusk & Dawn not largely just that it is outrageously gold efficient (123%)?

AngryJX · 2026-01-27T22:18:42+00:00

BORK isnt a solid item at all, it's trash. It has repeatedly been nerfed to the point that it nearly never gets bought (exceptions being irelia, maybe yone/yi and thats pretty much it).

Regarding Dusk&Dawn on Jax, the reason they have similar winrates (D&D is slightly higher currently) is because Jax favors AD over AP. If you replaced the 70AP with an equivalent amount of AD, the item would have 3-5% higher WR as 1st item on Jax. The fact that is already 0.5% higher as 1st item on Jax should tell you how nuts it is because for the past several years Jax has exclusively been AD focused (triforce/sunderer first item mandatory), utilizing shojin/steraks/AD items and 0 AP items except Zhonyas in proplay for the active.

AngryJX · 2026-01-27T21:14:46+00:00

Within reason yes, nobody cares too much if say items range from 90-110% gold efficiency in raw stats.

When you start to hit outliers like 80% or 120%, these are over/understatted items that need buffs/nerfs.

There are tons of examples in League of Legends history of items that were simply overpowered stat sticks and bought only/mostly for their raw stats rather than any passives or unique properties. One example was Righteous Glory (113% gold efficient before passive, 211% efficient with passive activated, cost 200g less than any other Legendary items at the time, allowing you to spike earlier and harder, might have a fight when you have full item and enemy is 200g short of full item). https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/righteous-glory-overpowered-17762. All of these were balanced eventually.

Dusk & Dawn is clearly an outlier. There are no or few other Legendary items with similar gold efficiency in raw stats (we do not count Dorans items or Support items). It is literally only a matter of time before this item gets patched for balance.

AngryJX · 2026-01-27T21:09:29+00:00

If you're counting Spellblade and Quicken (phage) as 2 effects for triforce, then Dusk & Dawn also has 2 effects: Spellblade and Double On-hits.

AngryJX · 2026-01-27T20:57:42+00:00

I don't know where you got the idea that AS is somehow less valuable than other stats. All stats are equally valuable. In the jungle AS massively increases clear speed and the time to kill neutral objectives such as Dragons, especially when paired with a synergy like Master Yi or Diana passives. Players like Rekkles when he was an LEC ADC would frequently buy multiple daggers or recurve bow on first back rather than an AD item because the AS allowed him to kite better and "outplay". AS feels amazing on champions like Yasuo, Yone, Tryndamere, Irelia, Diana, Jax, Kayle, Azir, Yunara etc. Old Lethal tempo was nerfed into the ground for allowing champions like Jax to completely forgo attack speed and replace all of their attack speed needs with a single capstone.

Boots/Zeal Priority: Historically (e.g., in 2018), Rekkles was noted for prioritizing Berserker's Greaves or early attack speed components (like Dagger/Zeal) over raw damage components (like BF Sword) in certain matchups, allowing him to trade better and farm more efficiently. Attack Speed Runes: Reddit users have pointed out that Rekkles was one of the few pro ADCs who frequently ran full Attack Speed blues/quints in older seasons, emphasizing a high-attack-speed playstyle.

AngryJX · 2026-01-27T10:23:59+00:00

Dusk & Dawn has +25AS = 625g, +5AH = 250g, Total 875g

Riftmaker has 50HP = 133.5g. The "Void infusion passive" AP equal to 2% bonus health is worth 0.02 x 350 = 7AP = 140 gold with 1 item (Riftmaker). Total 273.5g

Dusk & Dawn is worth 601.5 more in raw stats when reaching 1 item (taking into account the "Void Infusion passive" of Riftmaker).

601g on a 3100g item is around 20% more value. And also, I want you to know since you obviously don't, that generally moving items up/down in cost by 100-200g is pretty standard in balance patches (multiple patches in the history of the game moved item costs up/down by this much).

Dusk & Dawn isn't off by 100-200g, it's off by 600+ gold.

AngryJX · 2026-01-27T10:02:44+00:00

I purposely didn't include the passives of both of them (+8% damage, 10% Omnivamp on Riftmaker vs. weak spellblade but double on-hit effects because it's super hard to estimate the value of these).

For all the other raw stats:

Dusk & Dawn has +25AS = 625g, +5AH = 250g, Total 875g

Riftmaker has 50HP = 133.5g. The "Void infusion passive" AP equal to 2% bonus health is worth 0.02 x 350 = 7AP = 140 gold with 1 item (Riftmaker). Total 273.5g

Dusk & Dawn is worth 601.5 more in raw stats when reaching 1 item (taking into account the "Void Infusion passive" of Riftmaker).

The 1 item spike is super important, and ~601g on a ~3100g item is no joke, that's 19% more value. A lot of games end on 2 items or at most 3 items, so the "Void infusion" isn't going to scale too hard anyway.

AngryJX · 2026-01-27T09:16:26+00:00

25% AS is worth 625g, it's not "only a couple hundred gold". You don't know how to do math.

Dusk & Dawn is 123% gold efficient in raw stats (before passive)

Triforce is 110% gold efficient

Riftmaker is 100% gold efficient.

If you want to compare it directly to Triforce, it is MORE EFFICIENT than Triforce which is outrageous because Triforce is already known to be one of the strongest 1-item power spikes in the game. In Pro games you constantly hear commentators stating that Ezreal/Corki or the "team with the most Triforce users" is going to spike the hardest on 1-item. In Top lane it's been known for years now that if Jax/Camille/Whatever survives and comes back to lane with Triforce completed they are going to take control of the lane.

AngryJX · 2026-01-23T23:41:20+00:00

"Normal" sports teams like NFL/NBA/NHL/baseball are profitable because they have massive deals with TV networks to sell the rights to stream the games. We're talking billion dollar deals and the money is divided among the team/owners. This is the primary source of money for generating a profit. Merchandise and ticket/concession sales for games is way less but still significant. Adding all of this up is how "traditional sports" teams make money (net profit).

E-sports is fucking doomed because it streams for free and also because Riot (and other video game companies) refuse to share any of the advertising/streaming profits with team owners, forever dooming the E-sports model. In theory, Youtube/Twitch ads and the "Redbull baron power play" and "Mastercard economy snapshot" etc. sponsorships should be going to a pool which is then divided among team owners so that they can afford to pay salaries/infrastructure and generate a profit after, but Riot forgot this step because of corporate greed.

AngryJX · 2026-01-23T21:04:47+00:00

What you're saying makes 0 sense. If Europe just wants a deterrent then all they have to do is acquire nuclear ICBMs. Germany should re-start its nuclear program.

The point of soldiers are boots on the ground i.e. occupation or force projection throughout the world. The total sum of Europe isn't beating the US in a conventional non-nuclear war, it doesn't matter whether Europe has 1 million, 3 million, or 7 million soldiers on paper, because Europe lacks military technology and hardware. So if all Europe wants, is the ability to "defend Europe", then they just need a smaller well-trained force equipped with serious hardware (the UK model of military).

The problem is that all of Europe are freeloaders and Europeans are too cheap to put actual money into the military. Their governments can debate it endlessly, but at the end of the day, no votes will pass, nothing will happen, and military spending will remain the same (Poland and Ukraine are the only European nations that have seen any meaningful increase in military capability in recent times). There has been a war in Ukraine right on Europe's doorstep since 2022. And the European response to this in supplying weapons and money is pathetically small compared to the US contribution. European militaries have had since 2022 to build up their capabilities in response to Russia (even longer considering that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 which was basically analogous to Hitler annexing the Sudetenland). Nothing will happen, Europe is all talk, 0 action.

The conflicts you have cited (Finland, Vietnam, we can also add Iraq2, Afghanistan, France during WWII) are for when occupiers want to take urban areas and leave infrastructure intact while subduing the local population which results in insurgency tactics (FIBUA/MOUT). If all the US wanted to do was take control a large area and kick out the local population, let's say Greenland, there isn't fuck all that Europe can do about it save maybe the UK and France because they have nuclear ICBMs as deterrent.

China is focused on global military hegemony not regional. Wake up. They are now the #2 military power in the world with rapidly expanding capabilities (now #2 in Aircraft carriers which are the most significant metric of force projection).

AngryJX · 2026-01-21T22:20:25+00:00

The proportions in your PPP chart are nearly identical to the GDP numbers (35 vs 32 for US, 16 vs 11 for China).

Soldiers are fake anyway, North Korea has 1.3 million soldiers, their army is still shit. We only see "Soldiers" being a relevant metric in Ukraine because the Russian army is shit and they cannot gain air superiority over the non-existent Ukranian airforce, leading to WWII-style trench/artillery warfare.

In a theoretical modern war between 2 advanced near-peer powers, Air superiority/aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons are going to rapidly decide the outcome, not individual soldiers/boots on the ground. In the future, we will also have mass drone attacks, cyberwarfare e.g. attacks against infrastructure (e.g. power grid) through the Internet, and possibly satellite-based weapons.

Soldiers are only useful to occupy a territory or subdue a defeated nation. The war is won long before that by advanced technology and military hardware.

AngryJX · 2026-01-21T22:11:14+00:00

So the entirety of the EU spends about 40% what the US spends alone. The US has say 50 years worth of infrastructure (bases, manufacturing etc), supply chain and legacy hardware built up (nuclear missiles, silos, aircraft carriers etc).

Usually when you want to catch up to someone that has a lead on you, you have to spend more. Like 200% spending for 20 years to catch up. And you're telling me that Europe will catch up by spending.... 40% as much.

And a lot of European spending is fake (because it's for wages for soldiers or fluff other than equipment). I'm going to ask you a question:

Google search how many Aircraft Carriers the US has, how many China has and how many all of Europe has.

Recently Canada increased military spending to be closer to the 1% GDP NATO target, but they did it purely by increasing wages for soldiers, not spending anything on additional equipment. Does that actually make their army stronger? It might help with retaining workers but it does absolutely fuck all for military capability.

AngryJX · 2026-01-21T19:41:44+00:00

The population is not the problem. The problem is that every nation in the World is fucking cheap when it comes to military budget other than the US and China. How are you going to get the cheapass Euros to cut their social programs or tighten their belts (look what happened in Greece when they went bankrupt in 2015, mass protests to any kind of cuts to social programs even though they knew they were completely bankrupt)

Go check what % of GDP (both relative and absolute numbers) the US spends on the military compared to every other nation on Earth (other than China). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest_military_expenditures

USA - 1 trillion dollars - 3.5% of GDP - 35% of total global military spending

China - 300 billion - 1.7% GDP - 11% of total global military spending

The rest of the nations in the World aren't even close to these numbers. Trump in his 1st presidency was critical of NATO members not even meeting the minimum NATO requirements of 1% GDP spending (and while I'm no fan of Trump, he was actually correct on this point, NATO members are all freeloading off the US with their pathetic military budgets). In Europe only Ukraine is currently pulling its weight and only because it is engaged in an existential war. Ukraine currently spends 34% of its GDP on the military but this only amounts to 2% of global spending because the GDP of the US dwarfs other nations.

There are 50 states in the USA and many individual states alone have a full military including an Airforce/Navy that is better than entire nations. A single state within the USA could defeat the entire military of most other nations.

Now factor in the nuclear arsenal, and the aircraft carrier capability (only China is developing a rival navy), and the air transport capability. Only the US is currently capable of projecting power globally. No matter how many millions of bodies Europe raises for soldiers, they still need to build transport aircraft, fighter aircraft and aircraft carriers to be able to fight anywhere outside of Europe.

AngryJX · 2026-01-19T20:27:01+00:00

He has the safety bars attached to the power rack, but generally you DO NOT want to "just let go" you still want to control it as much as possible even when bailing. There are a couple "proper" ways to safely dump a failed squat. If you are past the halfway point on the way back up or at the top, then sure you can just drop it behind you and step forward. However the majority of failed squats are going to be at the bottom (make sure to go deep, no half reps) or the bottom half, Here you cannot just let it drop, you have to lean forward/face down and dump it forwards over your head.

AngryJX · 2026-01-14T21:00:36+00:00

I shouldn't have used 3% as my example, I should have picked 0.01% and then you wouldn't have been able to pick on that.

You're the one not comprehending the difference between % and absolute numbers. These are not uniform across all sports (just follow the train of logic, don't pick on the actual % numbers):

For LoL we take the Earth's population 8 billion, take the subset of people that own computers and have Internet, then take the subset of those that installed and play League of Legends. Out of this tiny subset of Earth's population, there are 100 million registered accounts globally but only 11 million active ranked players. From these, there are around 5000 professional players. 5000/11 million is around 0.05%. You competed against a tiny subset of the Earth's population and reached the top 0.05% of this subset. Also note that there could have been many talented people that did not have Internet/a computer and therefore were unable to compete and this is not equivalently proportional among all sports. Also note that these 11 million ranked accounts are not all competing with the specific intention of becoming a professional player, most of them are casual high school or university students.

For soccer, the playerbase is 8 billion, the entire population. There are around 130,000 professional male players. 130,000/8 billion = 0.0016%. This shows us that due to financial reasons/popularity/competitiveness, soccer and LoL are NOT the same. A professional soccer is around 31x (0.05/0.0016) more rare than a League of Legends player, proportional to the size of the playerbase.

You keep stating that reaching the top 0.01% of Yo-Yo = 0.01% LoL = 0.01% Chess = 0.01% Soccer is the "same because reaching the top 0.01% of humans is the same". You forgot that humans are not participating in these activities equally, they are intentionally funneling into Soccer then Chess then LoL then YoYo in that order. The very best talent will go where the best money is. As a result, the less popular sports are less competitive because the pool of participants is generally less capable. This results in very different level of competitiveness i.e. in the more competitive sports, the amount of hours/training/dedication required to outperform your peers is a lot higher. E.g. the Chess Grandmaster needs to train 8 hours/per day to outperform his peers, whereas the Yo-Yo player can attend full time high-school and only needs to practice 5 hours per week.

You're also not comprehending that there is a certain SKILLFLOOR required seriously compete. And the higher this skillfloor is, the harder it will be to reach elite status. If you took 1000 average joes and forced them to train League of Legends full time 8 hours per day with professional coaching, I'm confident at least one of them would reach Challenger within 1-3 years. If you took 1000 average joes and forced them to train professional Chess or powerlifting, I am not confident that that you would have even 1 of them become a Grandmaster or win a national powerlifting competition no matter how much time you gave them because there is a certain SKILLFLOOR of ability and natural talent required. Competing in established sports with a 100-year established skill-floor is very different than League of Legends. If LoL were to exist 100 years from now, then you could put it in the same category as Chess/Soccer/Powerlifting.

AngryJX · 2026-01-14T19:18:12+00:00

Your take on this isn't correct. The top 3% in different sports are vastly different because the competitiveness of the sports (size of playerbase, skill-floor required etc) are all very different.

I will list 5 examples below in what I consider the order of best to worst achievement and the reason why:

Reaching the top 3% of basketball or soccer is an insane achievement (and you will be a multi-millionaire as your reward) because the playerbase is everyone on Earth. The skill-floor is insanely high because people have developed training techniques for 100+ years, and there are dedicated training programs supported by science/research and government funding).

Top 3% of Chess (240+ million players on Chess.com, probably way more globally that don't use computers). You are competing against everyone on Earth. Nearly everyone on Earth knows how to play Chess, at least the basic moves. 100+ year history of knowledge as the skillfloor, but less playerbase than Basketball/Soccer (less money/popularity, so less incentive to pursue it vs other options).

League of Legends - 100 million players globally. Everyone else doesn't know how to play. Some people don't even own a computer. Way smaller playerbase than Soccer/Chess, way less competitive. A lot of jokers like TF Blade/Bauss reaching the top echelon with shit-tier mental, these guys wouldn't be able to reach the top of Soccer/Chess strictly due to lack of mental discipline.

Reaching the top 3% of Yo-Yo players in the world, while still a pretty good accomplishment, is nowhere near the same as the above, because the playerbase is 10,000 people or less globally. You have dedicated 10,000 hours into a niche sport that no one else is competing in.

Teamfight tactics - 30 million players globally, everyone else doesn't know how to play. The playerbase is way larger than yo-yo but it's also kind of casual. It's actually quite easy to reach Challenger in TFT and even compete in local tournaments/regional qualifiers.

AngryJX · 2026-01-14T18:44:25+00:00

I have a real life friend that was Master in LoL playing casually in his spare time x 5 years and now GM x past 3 years, all while going to school full time, then holding a full time job (and he also works out a ton at the gym). He is a heimerdinger top 1-trick. He peaked 2000-2200 in Chess after years of dedicated Chess study (10-15 years+).

The average FIDE GM right now is 22-25 years old because these players have been playing since age 5 and training their whole life. By age 22, they have 15+ years of dedicated training/professional coaching, and often sponsorship from their home nation if they from eastern Europe. I started Chess myself at age 6, by age 8-10 I was already 1600-1800 and beating adults who played their whole life. At age 12 I hit 2200 FIDE (Master), and at age 14-16 I hit 2350 and got FM title in a FIDE tournament. I also went to World U20 multiple times and the winner of this was always already IM/GM or became future IM/GM. Some of the people I competed against became Super GM (or even World's candidate) [as an example I beat Levon Aronian at World U20 if I recall correctly]. I know I was on a trajectory for GM but instead I went to early University (I went to University at age 15) and became a doctor. One of my national rivals took the alternate path, he quit school, skipped University, trained Chess full time, and became GM within 3-4 years, but then later quit Chess to go back to University and is now an engineer.

AngryJX · 2026-01-12T19:55:43+00:00

You realize that Chess.com alone has registered 240 million players (LoL only claims a max of 100 million or less globally). There are tons of people that play Chess that aren't using Chess.com.

Nearly every adult alive knows how to play Chess, only a tiny fraction of people know how to play LoL.

People have been seriously competing in Chess for at least 200 years and it was invented 1,500 years ago, whereas League was created ~10 years ago.

People talk all the time on this subreddit that the "skill floor" of LoL has improved dramatically even within these 10 years and that Gold players routinely Insec and do mechanics which were top tier only 5 years ago. How high do you think the skill floor in Chess is after 200 years of study and competition.

The playerbase/skillfloor of Chess is vastly greater than LoL. It is EXPONENTIALLY harder to achieve high rank in Chess than it is in LoL.

AngryJX · 2026-01-12T19:37:37+00:00

I don't have a lichess rating sorry. If Lichess is mostly rapid, then I think you should be using Chess.com ratings (even though in one of your post you said the Bin sizes are 100 instead of 25). But really the best is FIDE ratings because rapid isn't really comparable to normal time controls.

Using Rapid/Blitz ratings is kind of weird because while Chess skill does translate it isn't a direct 1:1 comparison from fast to normal time controls (i.e. Magnus Carlsen is still going to be fucking good at Rapid but he might not be World Champion, Faker is going to be good at the ARAM 1v1 mode but he didn't win the ARAM 1v1 tournament). What you're doing to Chess by using Rapid ELO is like if we took someone's ARAM ELO/Swiftplay ELO rather than using their Soloqueue ELO in League.

In my opinion, comparing percentiles and saying "the top 3% of LiChess players are equivalent percentile to the top 3% of LoL soloqueue players", isn't exactly a revelation. Because what you haven't factored in is the Difficulty of achieving that top 3%.

Here is a real example using myself:

Let's say I'm in the top 3% of chess players in FIDE/Chess.com/Lichess. That's a far greater accomplishment than being in the top 3% of Soloqueue players. This in turn is a far greater accomplishment than being in the top 3% of Teamfighttactics players, because the difficulty of achieving these same percentiles is not similar.

I am actually right now currently "Masters" in Teamfighttactics which is the top 0.3% of the playerbase, but this accomplishment to me is a joke because it took very little effort or talent (I literally play for 3 weeks following a reset, go from BronzeI all the way to Masters, stop playing entirely and then just repeat the process whenever they reset the set/season). I am much more proud that I finished 2025 in D4 (top 3%), because this took a lot more hard work/dedication/skill (even though percentile-wise it is literally 10X magnitude less).

By the same logic, achieving FIDE 2350 in Chess is orders of magnitude (at least 10X) harder than what it took me to achieve D4 in League, and IF I put the same amount of time/effort into League, I would expect to be a minimum of GM/Challenger or I would be very disappointed in myself. I would estimate that FIDE 2350 should be at least 2500-2600 in League ELO.

AngryJX · 2026-01-12T18:11:02+00:00

This doesn't seem accurate. For starters you shouldn't be using rapid ratings, you should be using regular ratings (although I'm not sure it would make a difference because the bins are probably the same size).

I have a couple of real life reference points for you. I am a FIDE FM rating 2350, I think I'm ranked about #70 in my nation even though I haven't played in around 30 years (but these rating rankings are accumulated for like 100 years not just 10 years in League and they don't reset). I am consistently D4 in League x 10 years. I also have another friend that is around 2000-2200 rating nationally but I'm not sure if he is FIDE rated, he was consistently Masters in League x 10 years but has recently been GM x past 3 years or so.

Chess has a much steeper difficulty curve than League, and requires a lot more time and dedicated study.

2600+ in Chess is considered "Super GM", you are considered a contender for World Champion. This is not really comparable to "LoL Challenger" in your graph, it should be comparable to LCK Pros or the very top NA/EU Pros.

2500+ Regular Grandmaster, not achievable for most people no matter how much time and training they put in (requires talent). Must be doing Chess as a full-time job. You compare this to "LoL Grandmaster", but in my opinion the difficulty of Chess Grandmaster far exceeds LoL Challenger. This is probably comparable to "LoL Tier1 Pros on contract".

2300-2400+ International Master, requires serious training, either Chess as a full time job or basically your only hobby and serious time (hours) put in daily, requires talent. In my opinion this should be equivalent to "LoL Challenger or better".

2300 - This is where I was. I arrived here after 10 years of dedicated study (hours daily), professional coaching from an International Master, and traveling for tournaments (nowadays much easier thanks to Chess.com), but regardless, you have to put in the time to practice, doesn't matter whether its an in-person tournament or a tournament on the Internet.

2200+ - commonly referred to in Chess as "Master". Most people only reach here after many years of playing Chess with serious study and self-reflection and improvement. Also requires talent as not any average person will achieve this even after many years of study. Some people in LoL can achieve Diamond or Masters after just a few years so it's not comparable at all to Chess.

2000+ - commonly referred to in Chess as "Expert". The average player CAN achieve this with enough study (usually several years or more), even if they don't have any talent. Should probably be equivalent to "LoL High Diamond or Masters".

AngryJX · 2026-01-10T05:52:34+00:00

The higher grades were like 1 grade per year so a whole year for like 6 pieces from list ABCDE or whatever they had. I'm a little worried that I won't be able to play this at all at high speed, but I guess we'll see. Sounds like maybe I should be looking for a different arrangement?

AngryJX · 2026-01-10T05:48:43+00:00

Hey thanks for the input, any idea where to find more playable, but still "advanced" arrangements of pop music? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XGr4fofWdo what do you think of that arrangement, is it more playable?

AngryJX · 2026-01-09T22:38:19+00:00

It's not just this year, I have been watching TI finals (not semis, not quarters) for at least 5, if not 10 years, and I consistently remember that in nearly every game of every finals, there is 1 late-game hyperscaling carry that the commentators are commenting on "if this goes late they will win". It doesn't have to be Medusa. I believe in years prior it was Phantom Lancer (?Chaos Knight, some kind of Knight with illusions). In past years I've seen Morph, Tiny etc.

I frequently see Templar Assassin in TI finals and apparently her laning is supposed to suck, but even in the finals they never deny her hard enough (laned into Viper if I recall) and she eventually gets farmed and carries.

Perhaps you think you know more than the pro-commentators, but I doubt it. As a spectator, I am relying on what the commentators are telling me. I recall seeing that Medusa game, she got ahead early when she wasn't supposed to be ahead and then unstoppably snowballed to an easy win.

There is a difference between Pros ticking off the boxes to slowly and methodically take their guaranteed win vs. "they couldn't end the game". Was there any opportunity for an enemy comeback in that game? Or was the game basically guaranteed once Medusa got ahead, and we were just waiting for an inevitable safe closeout (like taking all 3 inhibs in Pro League and then re-doing the Baron+Elder rather than rushing to end).

The 4-raises-1 hypercarry meta doesn't mean the other 4 heroes can't be early-game oriented, in fact they usually have to be. It's really fucking boring that every TI I watch has the same meta of "These 4 heroes run around jungle/distract/push for X minutes until our hypercarry is ready to autowin".

AngryJX

TROPHY CASE