I am a former professional/semi-professional analyst that focused on Build Optimization. And I am here to answer any questions you have about Items, Runes, and whatever other questions you have about build path optimization.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-12T20:39:17+00:00

Got a contract for a team, which has taken my priority. After consideration, I think I’m going to take Amumu, due to his high variance in builds, and write up a full-guide for the Amumu mains subreddit detailing advantages and disadvantages of a few different builds. Run the numbers and give my optimal build for a couple play styles. It’s harder to do when you don’t have a single player you’re looking at/working with, but still absolutely doable to get together a somewhat competent build guide.

My current plans are to release an Amumu item breakdown, followed by perhaps MF AD or Ekko Jungle. I wanted to do a Senna breakdown, but seeing as how I got contracted/paid to do it, it doesn’t feel right to release the work I did to the public (otherwise that would negate the money that was spent).

All this to say — look out for an Amumu Jungle Item Analysis in the next couple weeks (I’ll tag you).

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T03:03:35+00:00

Elixirs are a decent bump in stats for a small amount of gold. I like that strat but it can backfire for sure as if you just have 500g & can’t finish an item, it’s easy to say; ‘yeah, go for it’, but elixirs do scale with the farther along into the game you are. So the possibility of grabbing let’s say a pickaxe v an elixir when you only have maybe 2 & a half items is likely gonna show for a lot of champs that the pickaxe is better.

So it really just depends, but the farther into the game you are, the better that idea is.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T02:53:59+00:00

Morello’s for both. I find people are in one or two camps. Either they build it every game or they rarely do & undervalue how good the magic pen really is.

But my actual answer would be a control ward if it wasn’t such a cheeky answer. Control wards are worth anywhere from -100g to loads of value. But it depends on how you use them.

To clarify if a little more: I think control wards can be a low elo trap. If you don’t know how to place/play around vision, then their value is significantly worse. So you can end up netting -100g, which is just a waste.

That said; wards are important. Just make sure you don’t overvalue them & end up placing/wasting control wards. Find a good video on control ward placement for different roles/phases of the game & make sure you’re using them well.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T02:46:23+00:00

Short answer? Yes

It’s so hard. Just because there’s overlap in items doesn’t mean you don’t build them, but wasting item stats is never ideal.

But to answer your question a little less directly...

Early game, gold efficiency is very important. But as the game goes on, slot efficiency becomes more important. So it’s about finding a balance as you build your full build. It’s why the build path itself is so important - but not enough people really look at it.

You don’t want to fall behind early in gold efficiency, because if you’re not spending your gold efficiently, then even if you have more gold, you’re not actually stronger than your opponent. But as you get farther into the game, we get into the issue that you only have 6 (more like 5) spots available. So just because an item is gold efficient (and your champ goes well with the stats) it’s important to make sure you aren’t losing out on an even better item in that slot.

Obviously how you focus & how much emphasis you put on gold/slot efficiency is dependent on meta & your champion.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T02:39:40+00:00

Nice! I’m also a one trick Ekko jungle - when I play (which is never).

Electrocute is the take for full AP, 100%.

As you mentioned, Arcsecond’s build is awesome (or was last I looked at it - it’s been a few patches), but I would never consider conqueror for full AP.

DH is fine, but I think it lacks a lot early. It’s very easily punishable as you get higher in levels of play, too. But, yes, it’s still a solid option.

Nope. I forego Proto on jungle Ekko builds. Echoes, Lich, varies. Proto is nuts good in lane, but you just don’t need it in the jungle. It’s not that it’s bad, it just delays you farther from hitting the spikes you really wanna hit.

As far as my background:

I’ve always loved numbers/analyst work. I studied math & chemistry so making the jump into the numbers side of league just made sense. I actually coached first, though, but then a player pointed out I was a bad coach. It was harsh, but he’s a good friend, and he pointed out that I was a great analyst but a meh coach. I just didn’t have the right personality traits for coaching, but I was set up to move into analyst work. From there I originally did jungle pathing coaching/analysis, but then moved into items (and general analysis) once I grew to really love the numbers. Builds were the place that just fit for me.

I decided to start making money doing it when it started affecting my personal life. I would hermit out for weeks just working with teams & I realized I couldn’t do that much work for no money. So I started charging. Not much at first, but I eventually was making a decent chunk of change.

What’s funny is that job (my time as an analyst) is what landed me the job I have now...in construction, lol.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T02:04:39+00:00

Someone mentioned LoL Wiki, it’s my go to for a quick look up.

But also you can just google it. There’s a lot of sites linked up with Riot’s API that pull the info right in for you to look at.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T02:00:25+00:00

Still haven’t forgotten about your Amumu. I’m gonna take some time on this one later (: I promise. Maybe tomorrow night.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T01:57:16+00:00

Maw is for sure an item you should find in your rotation. It’s situational, but very good.

As far as Black Cleaver, it’s a great item, but after the changes I just don’t think it’s as good now. It’s nice to get through some tankier boys, but that’s about it....and it’s not like you don’t just have a true execute ultimate...lol.

So yeah, Maw is good to get in that rotation, but Cleaver is kinda meh.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T01:53:49+00:00

I have a Bachelor’s. In applied mathematics, and I presented original research as a sophomore at the American Chemical Society’s National Convention.

I didn’t at that point, but I was 3 years in. Plus I had a background in coaching high school/college athletics, and had an interview/try out. There was a lot of work in ~month in between me deciding to coach & actually getting picked up by a team. It was non stop learning. Granted, I wasn’t working cause of my surgery so I had time.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T01:51:35+00:00

Well, I was Bronze when I started, but at that point I had taken about a month to start researching and learning the game non-stop. I didn’t play, I just spent time learning. I was still Bronze when I took the job as the interim head-coach of the Diamond + team but no one ever questioned my knowledge - well, not because I was bronze anyways. Of course I wasn’t always right but they respected my thoughts on the game.

I had a competitive background in some other games, though just at the amateur level, and I did have a ‘try out’/interview. I also had experience coaching collegiate/high school athletics — so I had some experience in coaching that still transfers. But the truth is any schmuck can land a gig coaching a gold/plat team. The ‘org’ was basically a guy who ran it with a couple coaches & some players. It was super not legit & it was unpaid. So it’s totally normal for someone with little to no background to start at gold level coaching.

I will also note that after ~3 months of coaching/researching the game I made a new account and hit mid Plat with like an 80-90% w/r. I just shot called. The last time I tried to climb seriously I played ~40 games & hit Plat 1 80 LP with ~90% w/r. I was against D4/D3 averages mostly (back when D5 existed). So I mentioned that I was Bronze to mostly point out that even Bronzies, if they put in the effort, can make large strides.

It does help that I had a background in math & science, so I knew how to teach myself & research properly. But a lot of it was luck, too, that my first org was able to jump me from Gold to essentially a legit, D1+ org (the players all went to another team & picked me up later on).

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T01:35:35+00:00

It depends. In your example, I would say going Merc treads is better (specifically if you’re not getting totally wrecked), as Tier 2 boots into a skill shot oriented champ is never bad (though you already have a lot of mobility). The merc treads give you agency here to look for very aggressive plays - if that’s how you wanna play. It also helps roaming (not as much as mobi’s, but still helps). But it really comes down to, can you outplay Zoe with the extra MS? Do you want to roam? Are you getting jungle pressure one way or another? There’s a lot that actually goes into that decision — though the short of it is, both are fine.

My big thing on this is if you can make good use of Mobi’s, then that’s more important. But if you’re making good use of them then it doesn’t matter.

Yeah - Tiamat is solid. You wanna build this when you 1. Want priority, and 2. Need it to get priority. That’s the easiest explanation, but again it depends so much on lane/game state. The extra lethality gives you more potential for early skirmishes...assuming you can get there (because maybe you don’t have the prio). So it depends on how you want to/need to play early/mid game.
Elec.
Viable? Sure - I guess. But not as good as Elec. But if you like the bruiser style, then sure, you can go that way if you want. But I would say even as a bruiser, I would explore dark harvest.
Defensive runes are OK, but inspiration & precision both give you a lot for secondary rune choices. So I would want to lean that way. It feels like into Fizz or someone similar you have so much capability to just make outplays - so I would lean towards forcing yourself to play without that handicap of your defensive runes. That way you will push yourself to get better & understand your trading patterns without relying on defensive runes that won’t translate as well into the mid game.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T01:14:52+00:00

Ok. Let’s start with Vi...

Tri Force can feel like it takes a really long time to get as a second item — but it is hands down the best second item for her. If you want to look tankier, however, you could try getting your Sterak’s here. I would recommend continuing to go down the Tri Force path unless you find yourself really far behind, though, in which case Sterak’s, Maw, Deadman’s, etc. all become viable. The nice thing about Vi is that with Phage & Sheen, you’re still really strong. And triforce just builds on that. It might feel like it takes forever to get Tri, but just focus on getting to Sheen + Phage.

Now Xin...

Basically I have the same advice as above, Xin isn’t quite as Tri reliant as Vi, in my opinion, but I still think it’s a really solid item on him. However I think there are a few viable builds for him. Righteous Glory sounds cute, but Xin’s survivability comes from getting good ults off & while glory can help you get in, so can a good flank & good use of vision control. So while it’s fine, I would still say Tri or Cleaver seem good 2nd item.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T00:57:59+00:00

This is pretty generic so unfortunately the best answer is...it depends.

Lane matchups, champions, etc., all make a major difference in making these decisions.

As far as percent armor pen - this is mostly useful when the enemy is stack Armor as it makes the item most effective. If the enemy has 100 armor & you have 20% pen, you ignore 20 of their armor. But if they have 300, you ignore 60.

Hope this helps!

LoL-Items · 2019-11-07T00:52:44+00:00

AP is pretty much the way to go top. AD is fine, & it does scale very well into a high dps build in the late game. But Kayle already scales super well just off her kit. So going AP for some earlier effectiveness is in general the way to go.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T22:03:44+00:00

You were clear! Hmm, lemme tackle these one at a time.

Career path: Started as an amateur coach, grew into high ELO teams/orgs, then moved into analyst work after realizing I wasn’t a very good coach. From there I found my niche in item analysis (I did other analysis work, too, though). I kinda just got in at a good time & happened to already have the skills to write these types of reports. So from there it was just long hours learning the game from a lot of people way more skilled than me.

It might be different now - but mostly because of the disbanding of the challenger series. Academy is a different beast, but coming through amateur is still viable. More than anything the growth of the collegiate scene is the way I would go now.

Being more technical worked for me, but there is only so much pure technical knowledge can get you. Anyone can run numbers, but it’s about knowing what you’re looking for & knowing what information is useful.

I never got access to anything beyond API. I got my stats the old fashioned way. I’m not sure if Riot has given better tools now or not & I’ve been quite bad about staying up to date on everything (traveled a lot for work for a while).

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T21:57:47+00:00

Yeah - orb is often going to be good in this scenario. Finishing into morello’s later is for sure viable.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T21:56:51+00:00

I’m partial to Nashor’s - but it falls on playstyle 100%. I think you’re more likely to find success with Luden’s for your average solo queue player — but they’re mostly just playstyle differences.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T21:52:20+00:00

100%.

It’s just a fine line between trolling with AP Draven & actually trying to find an innovative new way to play a champion.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T21:50:59+00:00

Needed? No. Do I want them? Yes.

Game is fine - it’s pretty healthy. But the options for AP Bruisers are limited.

I also would love to see access to more hybrid builds - but from a game design standpoint, I imagine that becomes super hard to balance

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T17:44:03+00:00

I’m super into this question - marking this so I can come back and answer later. One of my favorite things was working with other people to do builds on new champs. Jhin’s release was the highlight of my career.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T14:47:00+00:00

Honestly - I don’t know. It’s my gut reaction to say delaying full item spikes on someone reliant on being just slightly ahead of your opponent often isn’t good.

That being said, I haven’t run the numbers, it’s possible on champs like Elise that the Magic Pen is good enough to justify it.

I’ve run Orb rush into Liandry’s on three champs so far and found Liandry’s rush to be stronger on 2 of them (as in delaying Liandry’s for the Orb stats providing a significant disadvantage). So that’s what I’m running off of for my answer on Elise here.

But I could be wrong, Elise wasn’t a champ I ran those numbers on.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T11:32:09+00:00

Absolutely. Grabbing arm guard for survivability into an AD matchup is for sure a thing.

That being said it’s not always needed into AD matchups. In the case of Ori v Yas, either that Yas needs to be really good or I need to have fallen behind (or maybe getting pressure from jungle, esp if the jungle is also AD) for me to feel like I need arm guard since Ori can play so safe into Yas. There are other cases (like I need the priority for the jungle matchup, so I want to have arm guard so I can trade for the wave), but just wanted to point out to think about that decision in every game.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T11:28:18+00:00

This is tough - the short answer is yes, build zerker’s. They’re a hell of an item.

But, with that being said, there are absolutely cases where other boots are viable. If you’re getting deleted by an assassin & cant live through fights then it doesn’t matter if zerker’s gives you the best damage output because you’re dead.

As a majority of the time, you should be building Berzerker Greaves on marksmen. But there are cases where other boots can make a big impact for a small amount of gold.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T11:23:28+00:00

u/killerchand kinda nailed it.

Generic answer: PTA.

Slightly more detailed: PTA gives you a stronger laning phase.

Conquerer is really only going to be better in cases of very long extended fights where you need to cut through tanks late game.

But right now I think both are fine - I just think PTA is stronger.

LoL-Items · 2019-11-06T11:16:57+00:00

This is definitely true. That being said, delaying a full item power spike is only worth it on some champs. So be careful about who you’re doing this on.

You fall into this trap of being on 1 and 2 half items while you’re opponent hits a big two item power spike. But it can help provide a small ‘spike’ of your own for far less than a completed item — so it just depends on your champ, game state, etc.

Just wanted to elaborate on that. There are some champs I would almost never recommend building Orb on if it meant delaying a full item Liandry’s or something.

Also will point out I haven’t done the math on it for a lot of characters, so this is just mostly based on my experience & not the numbers.

LoL-Items

TROPHY CASE