Sure.  But thats because the benefit of having a hypercarry late game can be very high, so it might be worth the risk of taking a weak early ADC in some cases.  The benefit of having a support with slightly more gold is generally seen as much lower.

Ok fine, there might be some niche situations with ideal matchups where it might be worth a shot.  But you would have to know the other 3/4 of the 2v2 matchup.

Morg isn't a niche pick - you can always use "Krepo" runes/masteries and change them to GMD once you see both teams entirely. 

My current test page for the rune set could be adjusted to drop mr and add AP.  I could get 5.3 gpm, 11AP, 8.2 arm as an option.  for that I lose some mana regen and some mr.  I could also drop 1 yellow for either a flat 8 hp or another 1 arm. 

for comparison, krepo runs this:

• + 7.83Magic Pen.
• + 17.04Ability Power
• + 0.99Mana Regen / 5
• + 72.00Health
• + 4.26Armor

Bubbadub runs this

• + 7.83Magic Pen.
• + 25.56Ability Power
• + 72.00Health

also, factor in the actual value of the ap with the abilities.

her q adds 90% of her ap (nice - but oh, even with 25 ap, that's 22.5 more dmg on a skill shot).  The ratio on her tormented soil is 11-16.5% ( 2.75 dmg-4.125 dmg).  And spell shield is 70% - so 17.5.  The only ability you have an extremely high chance of hitting the majority of the time benefits very little from the bonus ap.  Now, to be fair, the tormented soil dmg does add up a little, but not a heck of alot imo.  

Missing 22.5 dmg on a q is something, though.  Still not a big deal imo.

Part of the "problem" you're going to have is what one guy dubbed the "Quint Quotient". (http://www.reignofgaming.net/blogs/a-different-view/oldmaneyebrows/21256-building-rune-pages-through-the-use-of-a-qq-quint).

You already know some of this, so this might be useless rambling but... that is mostly what i do anyway

What makes AP or AS quints so good after all? The fact that you get 4.2 AP glyphs in a single AP glyph. You also get 2.6 AS marks in a single AS quint.

The original "baseline" for quints used to be 1 Quint == 2 Runes. There were some exceptions (AD quints are 2.2, one of the reason they were go good prior to the AS-quint buff. AP quints have always been an outlier and used to be EVEN BETTER prior to the AP glpyh buff last year).

Marks are also generally more valuable than Seals/Glyphs, which is what makes AS quints even better.

Armor and HP Quints were recently reworked to have large QQs. Armor has a 4.3 QQ (though this has more to-do with Armor Seals being nerfed than anything else). HP is 3.25 QQ.

Luckily for GDM, GP10 quints are a 4 QQ. So cutting GP10 seals for HP seals is a slight increase in your QQ (+0.058 per seal).

--

i think that cutting your MPen for Armor is a good way to decrease your defensive delta (as you have already done). Esp since Armor Marks are nearly as good as Armor Seals anyway. Cutting your MR and giving you AP closes the gap as well (cutting MP5 makes sense if you're willing to not poke with pool quite as often ... but that costs you GP10 so that seems counter-intuitive to your goal).

FYI, 8.2 Armor is worth ~48 PEHP level 1, so would not be much squishier to physical damage compared Bubba. That number would continue to rise as you gained levels (+7/lvl), and would jump up a bunch once you bought your Ruby Crystal (+12).

You would, ofc, do less damage + have smaller shields, so it's not like you're 100% the same. But if you were to, say, hit by a Leona + Graves combo with your shield down you'd be the same.

That is why i do not consider missing MPen as a huge deal, taking into account the defensive nature of your build. But the loss of for your shield is the true loss, imo. Espiecially with tank junglers popular again.

I play Zyra, not Morg, but I do run a 9/21 mastery page and gold quints.  I've built around an early sustained harass setup, flat penetration marks, mana regen seals, and mana glyphs, combined with the monetary and regenerative bonuses from the masteries and quints.

The bonus starting gold gets me two wards and a coin, which gives excellent health regeneration for my adc's minion farming, as well as decent income and further mana regeneration.  I get shorter cd's and larger ranges on my actives, which I always have one of and typically two, increased movement speed, extra experience, and typically only have to back for wards if my lane partner is at all competent.

Where it's not useful is when the ADC sucks.  If they're throwing it, you can't do much.  Being able to trade pokes, using your superior tactical reach to harass them more often than they can you, and your sustain to continue it indefinitely, don't matter when you're basically 2v1, as any support with a lousy ADC is.  It's particularly ineffective when your tard ADC thinks nothing of farming minions while they get shot down.  Once your ADC has no presence, you're out of options.  It would be better to have AP runes and masteries for these, but you'll be less useful for a skilled ADC and probably still can't turn around a fail lane unless your opponents suck almost as bad as your partner, in which case they're probably dumb enough to 2v1 you at level 6 under your tower with your ult up, and you can get a double anyway...

Your damage will be a good 10% behind where it could be, but you can do almost endless harass.  With a competent partner that knows when to go in, you're an always ready CC nuke that can act in relative safety.  Quick cooldowns and a sustained presence make for a very safe lane.  In the late game, you need no further sustain itemization, Talisman and your base improvements will keep you active longer than the rest of your team without any other mana improvements.  That frees you up to build damage oriented items.

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/store/store-update/were-relaxing-gifting-restrictions

Ill keep you in mind for the summer split swan. I think Thunder voiced interest in joining in on the fantasy league as well?

We will be playing for mystery gifts again, winner takes all 7.

The summer split league is starting to look like:

Karl, Swan, Tenzing, Me, Bosshound, Thunder?, Hedgie?, TBD

Pacov is outtie 5000 if I remember right, haven't chatted with Brad in a bit and Hunny has been MIA for like 3 weeks.  

yeah - i have no interest in doing it again.  Thanks

I'm in Cow.  But I have to warn you that 'T-Bagz' is a 3X Fantasy Football champion.

Y'all scrubs mays well just send me those mystery gifts in advance.

LOL.

i'm in.

'T-Bagz' is going to get TeaBAGGED OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

thunder hit gold IV today in solo queue.  Grats!  What's the highest you've made it in solo queue ever?

Thanks!  I was in the promos to get to Gold III this season and last season before mega tilting and dropping back down to Gold V 0 LP both times.

some fun games tonight.  Played 1 ranked to cap the night off and ended up as cho top and went 5/3/15.  Stomped a trundle, but I kind of think cho wins that matchup in any rate.  Was neat to see 2 champs that regen on the death of creeps in lane.  Anyway, had to play ranked as elo decay a week out - mostly been playing support here and there having fun with bard and GDM.  I continue to think GDM is legit. 

Side note - bard - people on my team and on the enemy team - NO idea how much dmg he can dish out.  The reason?  he does added dmg when his little bird things are up.  And I don't think he's played enough that people see the bird things and anticipate OUCH.  I actually think next level might very well be sheen during laning.  Anyway, the real bummer is that my pals don't get the dmg.  Riot should not have buffed him the way they did... and I'm guessing we will see more buffs. 

Anyway, I have a decent win rate with bard - 8 win 4 losses recent.  

Has anyone watched zion spartan's stream before? 1st time for me.  He seems to be a mechanically proficient, zero map aware, goon.  Well zero is strong - he gets top lane and things happening around him as far as jungle/top go.  He seems to be dumb as a box of rocks w/ regards to what's happening globally.  I watched him do well in lane, but have absolutely no idea how badly things were going in other lanes... and then die many times when the entire enemy team would chase him down after they wiped his entire team.  He'd just be going on about how he has a ton of hp and the be quite shocked when 5 people rotated to kill him.  I was listening to him boast, then do a dbl take at the score board and wonder what?  Anyway, I quit watching after he told his team he was going to split push top after the entire team, including him, were wiped. He runs top, clears easy, then, as easily predicted, the enemy team took out mid inhibitor because his teammates were so far behind and clearly needed him.  Then he says "wtf team" and tps in... only to die after everyone was wiped. 

Anyway, he's either dumb as a box of rocks and literally needs people to tell him what to do (eg team capt what now boss?) or boozed. I'm hoping boozed.  All that said, he'd kick my ass top lane pretty easily. But, I'd probably just manage the lane as best I could and tp bot/mid to get kills while the hulk wailed on my lane and eventually lost the game.  

Last, in all fairness, he was doing an A-Z champ stream.  He showed great mechanical skills and great awareness with the enemy jungler... if those were the only factors, gg.  

oh and random stardock stats for this thread: