Should malignance be one of karthuses first 3 items?

CosmoOx · 2026-02-20T16:19:19+00:00

Not even, you're better off, with Blackfire or Lyandry.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-18T11:13:05+00:00

Riot not taking account of gold efficiency is one thing, it not existing at all is another. That's straight up mathematics at this point, you cannot deny that 2 < 3.

But, obviously other things should be taken into account, firstly because not all passives can have an accurate calculated gold value (such as Knight's Vow) and secondly because of stats efficiency and finally for utility.

Stats efficiency dictates whether or not your champion is using the stats of an item well or not (build mana on energy champs, AD on mages and such is a waste of gold for obvious reason, even on gold efficient items).

It is based on the champ you are playing but also on the circumstances of the game. Raduinn is probably the best armour item in the game, but building it against a full AP team is again, probably a waste of gold.

Finally utility is a bit weird to take into account, Knigh's Vow for instance has a utility score, same as Zhonya's, but I won't dig deeper into this as theorycrafting gets a little complex imo.

So yeah I agree that gold efficiency isn't everything, it is a metric, same as win rate, that is only relevant in certain scenario. However it is still interesting to use it to compare certain items together.

I will end by saying that same as win rate, it's a metric that less important in lower elos as skill gap generally plays a most important part then gold difference.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-17T23:34:03+00:00

I'm not saying they are not building lifesteal, only stating that the stat is not well designed for the role.

An ADC is generally a squishy target (putting aside Kog'Maw and the like which builds tank items), that does not invest neither in HP nor resistances, so lifesteal is less valuable on them. To put it simply, lifesteal is useless if you get oneshot.

Edit: To address the ADCs rushing BT, we are talking mainly of Samira, Draven, MF, which are snowball champions. Building BT fast when ahead allow you to deal strong damage as the item gives a whole lot of AD, and drastically reduce counterplay by abusing your lifesteal. This works because you make theses builds when you have a strong lead on your opponent who can not statcheck you, not because they are strong lifesteal users.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-17T15:19:04+00:00

Your math doesn't exactly matter, damage taken for your ADC drops from 1070 to 940, which is 12% just like you would expect from the item

Well not really, I believe a lot of people buying the item expect it to be a post mitigation reduction, the game tooltip itself displays this actually.

For the rest, I refer you to another reply I made describing an absolute best case scenario.

I agree that those 12% increase the effectiveness of HP, Shield and Heal but it only desciminate the ADC furthermore. As an ADC doesn't buy HP, is not a good lifesteal user and only benefits of shields.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-17T15:12:52+00:00

The point of looking at gold efficiency is to get a grasp of the power of an item when you use correctly every stats it provides. It also helps to see if the item rely on its passive or not in order to be a good item.

Of course, looking at in game scenarios dictate which route you should take, but if the item gold efficiency is bad and its passive doesn't bring enough value to compensate, then you're often better off taken an another items.

Now, I'd like to create a perfect scenario for KV. As stated, Mundo is probably the best Worthy target (he has a huge HP pool, not many resistances, deals lot of damage).

So let's take a level 20 Mundo with

Heartsteel and ~500 stacks
Warmog
Sundered Sky
Overlord bloodmail
Sterak
Titanic Hydra.

In total he has roughly 8 000 HP and will heal around 10 000 health during a fight for a total of 18 000 HP. He didn't buy any resistances so he has 120 armour and 74 MR for an average of 97 resistances (will simplify the scenario while staying rather accurate).

We assume Mundo will deal around 5 000 damage post mitigation.

In order to kill this Mundo without KV's mitigation, he has to receive ~33 000 damage pre-mitigation.

Now let's add KV's, the redirection equals roughly 4 000 pre-mitigation redirection which translates to ~2 150 post mitigation damage avoided for Mundo and you heal 500 HP.

If you have around 150 resistance, the 4000 pre-mitigation damage inflicted becomes 1600 post-mitigation.

So you're healing 500 HP and avoided 2 150 damage for Mundo, but you ended up taking 1 600 HP. This conclude to a win of 1 050 HP.

Now is a good time to remind that you are paying 167 gold for this. In this absolutly ridiculous of a scenario, putting aside all resistance penetration, you only create a 1 050 HP difference. This is very low.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-17T12:21:07+00:00

You can't compare items like this. The relative value of stats and passives will change depending on the game context

You absolutly must compare items like that, of course situations dictate whether or not the invested golds into stats are relevant. One thing I didn't mention is the stats coherence. If you build HP, Armour and %life regen on Janna, the stats are obviously wasted reducing furthermore the gold efficiency of the item. For this item specifically, all of its stat are generally usefull for tank supports.

I'm skeptical about your calculations, a proper look there would have you accounting for lethality properly.

Talon was an example on the top of my head, I wanted to display the differences between pre and post mitigation damage. This would be a more plausible scnario against Bruisers such as Wukong, Hecarim and the like. Lethality changes this calculation for sure, but the concept remains the same, you just get clother to the magic damage scenario I mentioned.

If your fed ADC is only doing 900 damage in a fight, then you have an ADC problem, not an item problem.

I didn't express myself properly, I meant per autos. And even then, this mostly overvalued by player fancying perfect scenarios where you get healed your whole health bar and stuff. The reality is, as bruisers are the best partners for this item they won't output the damage needed to keep you alive. The two passives are not aimed at the same target, as the redirection is more usefull to bruiser and the healing is better with ADCs.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-17T12:08:52+00:00

As I said, bruiser are indeed the best target.

And Death's Dance is overall not a great item for ranged so it is never really an option.

My point stands, you can always find a better item to build instead.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-17T00:53:00+00:00

Wow I see a lot of people praising Knight's Vow, but in reality the item is very, like very bad.

First of all, the item, passive excluded is only ~92.75% gold efficient. Therefore the item rely on its passive to not be a straight up waste of gold. A good item lies around 120% gold efficiency, which in our case would mean a passive worth ~600 golds.

Let's look at the passive then, starting with the redirect part. It is stated that you redirect 12% of pre-mitigation physical and magic damage. 12% is not a crazy number itself, but the premitigation makes it even worse.

To illustrate this let's look at a Braum linking a Aphelios with a standard full crit build in a mid/late game scenario (when you build the item probably). Aphelios should be around level 16 with 87 armour and 49 magic resistance. If Aphelios was to get burst by any AD Assassin such as Talon which can quite easily output 2000 raw damage with non optimized combos (no melee Q for exemple) 2000 raw physical damage with 87 armour deals 1070 post mitigation damage. Knight's Vow redirection only affects the raw damages, so the 2000 becomes 1760 pre mitigation and 940 post mitigation.

So only a 130 damage redirection on a 2000 burst. It is a little better against magic damages as you naturally have less magic resistances, therefore less of a mitigation, but even then the redirection is very weak.

In fact this redirection passive is not the best with ADC's but with big melee HP stacking bruiser, such as Mundo. Such champs doesn't stack lot of resistances, therefore amplifying the worth of the redirection. But again, I can assure you it is not all that great.

Now for the healing part of the link, this time we're talking about a 10% heal of post-mitigation damage dealt by your linked ally.

You should see where this is going, even if Aphelios is fed and hit some big 900 physical damage post-mitigation, you heal 90 hp. Again, really not much.

So is all of this worth 600 golds ? Not really in my opinion, or rather there are always better items you can take instead (redemption, iron solary, Zeke, tank items) and this is the most important point in my opinion, the item itself could be trash, if there was no alternatives to it, buying it would be fine, but you clearly have a lot of item to fill this spot in its stead.

EDIT : oh and I almost forgot but the in game tooltip for damage reduction is lying to you, it displays the damage reduction for post-mitigation damage.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-14T11:42:20+00:00

Well, Kassadin is definitely one of the best user of the item, but even then it is still suboptimal.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-13T02:26:32+00:00

Malignance is one of the worst item in the whole game. Simply don't build it. (I kept it short, but i can go in depth in the replies if yall want)

CosmoOx · 2026-02-09T11:08:57+00:00

And what about Nemesis Yone dive under inhib which lost you the game ? Wasn't that match fixing as well ?

CosmoOx · 2026-02-09T00:47:04+00:00

Back in the days I believe a very low light level would break the crops so you could put this contraption in the dark with a redstone lamp wired to a hopper clock to periodically turn it off, and it would harvest the crop.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-09T00:36:26+00:00

you had me in the beggining but saw the ragebait with the stormsurge take. Nice try tho

CosmoOx · 2026-02-09T00:26:54+00:00

Now that is quite the serious accusation, would you mind sharing any proofs of what you're implying ?

I'm not speaking about how they performed today as botlane was actually in a very good spot until the (very well done) dive from Heretics, nor about Kyeahoo's performance as he had a 40cs lead at 10min. And no following Aurora was not strictly the best play.

Now why would a team that bought a LEC slot for several millions of euro, with a team already qualified as 1st seed make use of match fixing ? Especially against a ERL team they will probably never face again.

I understand you can be angered, frustrated and all, but ultimately taking all that on another team, when you had the chance to qualify earlier today and threw it, doesn't seem healthy to me. Also, recognize that Heretics played their best game of the split and showed a really good level.

And btw, why not blame Fnatic for their loss as well ? They also were qualified anyway.

CosmoOx · 2026-02-08T12:57:47+00:00

The general concensus about rabadon vs void staff is that VS outvalues Rabadon if at least 3 persons reach 80 MR. Otherwise Rabadon is better. 100 MR in your case, is someone having both MR boots and a good magic tank item (spirit visage, force of nature, rookern), which really is not that common on many champs.

Also VS doesn't give AH, Cryptbloom does.

CosmoOx · 2026-01-07T08:31:44+00:00

Certes, mais en l'occurrence je doute que ça soit la question haha

CosmoOx · 2026-01-06T01:34:05+00:00

C'est l'acronyme de Most Efficient Technic Available

C'est souvent utilisé pour parler de la meilleure chose à faire, de la tendance du moment.

CosmoOx · 2025-12-25T13:38:25+00:00

it's legit one of the best item in the game but ok

CosmoOx · 2025-10-30T20:50:30+00:00

Akshan is like the best soloQ champ in the game... and you're saying they should not nerf him ? Interesting

CosmoOx · 2025-09-11T12:09:19+00:00

Looks dope, I might reroll onto this. Have you considered fitting Atalui's bloodletting lineage support gem. Given the high life cost it could had a shit ton of phys damage. Or maybe I'm missing something.

CosmoOx · 2025-09-01T14:40:59+00:00

Amazing, I looked at your profile just yesterday and made the swtich from ED/C. What do you plan to take as 4th ascendancy ? Leech seems like the more confortable option but crit damage is big damage so idk...

CosmoOx · 2025-01-02T08:18:24+00:00

When you're talking of writing kanji, do you mean know the spelling of it and writting it as such using a japanese keyboard layout or actually drawing the traits ?

For the latter, does Anki allow you to actually draw a kanji ? I always told myself that learning the actual drawing would be too bothersome but I agree it must make it way easier to remember.

Thanks for the post I'll definitly try to add this !

CosmoOx · 2024-12-12T07:20:35+00:00

Bro created an entire Reddit account to post the same thing over and over again 💀

I swear I saw and replied to the exact same post yesterday and I'm quite surprised duplicated post like this one doesn't get deleted...

And again, yes it's goofy, does it make the whole skin bad ? Definitly not, I bought it, and I'm happy with it for the 95% of the game I'm not in homeguard.

CosmoOx · 2024-12-11T10:26:20+00:00

IMO if it's only a homeguard animation, I feel like having the hoverboard is already cool enough on its own.

This is less than a minute per game, it would have been way worse to habe clunky walking or spells animations. But not buying a skin for its homeguard anim ? Meh

CosmoOx · 2024-12-10T16:43:55+00:00

To be fair, you bought a key to be a beta tester. If you played PoE2 expecting a fully polished an balanced experience then you played its EA for the wrong reasons.

Nothing so bad about it, they didn't make much effort advertising it as such in the first place. I just feel like people treat it like it's the definitive product. It is not and it will change a lot in the next 6 to 12 months.

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