Nidalee's winrate actually tanked. Even though i do feel like she was buffed, her playstyle did change a lot + she's a bit harder. Once people start playing her top as more of a bruiser (she's an awesome anti-melee like Rumble and she has powerful gank potential like Rengar since her passive has 5000 range) her win rate will start going back up. She's going to be a great AP toplane splitpusher, she's just not quite as good as a "spam nine million spears" poke champ.

Remember: her spear damage got nerfed by ~10% and they were made somewhat harder to hit (they are about 2/3rds the thickness of a Mundo Cleaver). But the rest of her damage was increased by ~35%.

She's going to be weaker if you play "human-only spam Q" Nidalee of old. i do think her assassin matchups in midlane actually got improved since Pounce is a powerful tool and she starts with cougar level 1 which prevents the level 2 all-in from Fizz (her biggest assassin counter at high Elo).

--

Skarner is completely absurd atm. His winrate shot up 4+% and is still climbing.

i need to go spam him in ranked.

His only real weakness is he is kinda shitty very first clear unless you get a good leash. But you just have to use special runes/masteries to make it work. And his build paths are not what you'd expect. He does clear with decent health, but he's not a power farmer and will run low on health if all you do is farm, so you should focus a bit on ganking.

His new passive helps him donate blues, and it prevents a tiny bit of damage early game. It's not particularly powerful early ganks, but Skarner's new E helped his pre-6 a lot. And you never build damage Skarner wtf. He does so much damage with just a Sheen and Elder Lizard since he has the second highest base AD in the game and spams Sheen so easy, and his Q is an AoE physical damage machine. Plus, his ratios are like the worst in the game now.

0.4 AD with an additional 0.2 AP for the second+ Qs

0.6 defensive AP shield

0.4 AP

1.0 Ult

Luckily his Q is on a short cooldown so the ratio isn't quite as bad as it looks since you'll cast it twice as often as most other champs' Qs.

The nerf to his CDR passive did hurt his ult/W spam but they did drop the base cooldowns a little. So he won't have such a long cooldown if his team is losing really badly so he can't use his passive.

--

BotRK is still going to be a weaker laning item. It was buffed against tanks but nerfed against squishies. The only redeeming aspect it has is that it's a bit cheaper so you might finish the entire item against a BFS + Vamp and have the advantage there. But Cutlass still loses against BFS and Cutlass + double daggers is still probably weaker than BFS + Vamp.

BotRK still scales really well though.

Right now you've got a few options... For early-game items you can either:

1- BFS > BT/IE is still best if you can afford the BFS. Vamp > BT is an awful build path. IE is so expensive + shitty build path so it's really hard to build that in a reasonable amount of time. i think you have to give up any 15 minute dragons because the enemy ADC will have a completed item and you won't.

2- Cutlass into BotRK. This is really good if their team is super tanky or you see their top getting fed.

3- Double Dorans into Trinity

4- Triple Dorans into IE (really only viable on Cait, imo)

5- Brutalizer into IE/Trinity (with a sustain support and/or lifesteal masteries)

6- Essence Reaver if you fall way behind in lane.

Vamp as a first-base is really really bad now. For 800 gold you get 10 AD and 8% lifesteal. 2 Dorans for 880 gold gives you 14 AD, 6% lifesteal and 140 HP. The Dorans might not build into anything but Triple Dorans against a Vamp means Vamp loses lane and gets completely snowballed on. It's super-critical that you win lane and take tower + dragon if you go triple dorans. Going triple dorans and losing lane probably means you won't ever catchup.

If you don't want to go triple dorans and are going to go Trinity Force/BT, you can go buy a second dorans + longsword + 2 pots for second shop. That is 870 gold for 15 AD, 3% lifesteal, 70 hp and 300 health in pots. And 360 gold towards your final build.

Ghostblade is really good now as a 3rd item if you're fed, scale hard off of AS, and the enemy team isn't building armor.

Dorans into Trinity makes you a midgame monster. And it helps the historical problem of Trinity Force where if you are sitting on only two components of Trinity, you're really weak statwise and you have no lifesteal. Plus, Zeal got made cheaper. i know that Corki is picking up a lot of steam for this reason.

BotRK will be good on those end-game AS-ADCs who don't like Last Whisper that much anyway and might go Ghostblade  (Twitch, Kog, Vayne). It helps them shred tanks even more and gives them that peel. BotRK + Stattik + Ghostblade is the Twitch dream for massacring tanks.

i think you're better-off generally avoiding Essence Reaver on ADCs. It's a decent item if you fall way behind (it's 800 gold cheaper than BT/IE/BotRK, gives lifesteal, and a decent amount of AD. Mana-on-hit + CDR really helps you be able to continue farming as Ez/Cait/Lucian/Kog/Varus, etc).

It's going to be really good on mana-gated AD champs such as Jayce or jungle Khazix. i can see it as a cheap replacement for Hydra for those kind of champs.

still reading... what was it?  Don't have access to the stat site at work

Essence Reaver should be fantastic on Sivir.  She runs out of mana so fast, and a flat damage/cdr item is perfect for her kit.

i guess the second half of this question is what items you should build second/third.

If you go IE, you should always go BotRK afterwards. IE > BotRK > LW is probably the highest raw-damage build, though like i said, building IE has its difficulties.

If you go BotRK, you "can" build IE afterwards, but you probably should have just built IE first in that case? Unless you were mega-losing the lane, in which case that'd make sense.

But, if you build BotRK first you're probably someone like Kog, Trist, Vayne, who don't benefit as much from IE anyway. In that case, it makes more sense to either go Stattik Shiv (Trist, Vayne) or Trinity (Kog). And if you build Trinity 2nd, you probably should have built Trinity 1st instead for the midgame powerspike.

Brutalizer > BotRK > Ghostblade is an interesting alternative that would require some experimentation. It's really a 1v1 build though. So it'd probably only work on top-lane/split-push Quinn or Vayne. It "might" work on Varus because he likes BotRK + CDR.

So BotRK is in a weird spot for sure.

BT > Zeal > LW is the only thing that makes sense there. New Zeal is pretty OP, and BT > Zeal > LW has always been a really nice build path for caster-ADCs who want to focus on killing towers, since those types of champs tend to benefit less from the AS+Crit on PD, and really want the armor pen to synergize with their high base damage. Varus, MF, Caitlyn are probably the biggest three that would do this.

If you start Trinity, you probably should go BT afterwards? Trinity > BT has always been a decent build on people like Ezrael or Corki. It makes those two be really really really good at dueling. Trinity > IE means you have zero sustain, so don't think that one is that great. Trinity > BotRK would be really good on Kogmaw but not much else. Trinity > PD/Stattik just makes no sense because you'll have 130 AD at 30 minutes.

BT as a 4th defensive item is really good. Previously, building BotRK as a 4th defensive item was already really powerful. With the end-game 400 hp shield on BT, BT might fit the "defensive" slot really well. Of course, some games necessitate QSS/Mercurial, Banshees or GA as defensive items and BT isn't possible.

50% in ranked 5s

51% in diamond/challenger (the Elos that cope with Skarners playstyle really well by invading him + kiting).

52% in plat

53% in bronze-gold, making him nearly as good as Amumu at lower ranks.

55% in normal games (for whatever that's worth ???)

re: Essence Reaver - I haven't really seen a good fit for it in terms of build order.  The main thing it provides on its passive is better mana sustain.... which just means you can stay in lane longer and have more spam ability power.  But you don't get this item during laning - its like a 2nd (at best) or 3rd item.  It's doable on a blue type ez, I'd think, but it just doesn't feel like it fits anywhere.  dmg is nice, cdr is nice, some extra mana is nice - but I really think that extra mana passive is not really worth it (maybe on ez if it procs on his q).  I feel like other items are more worthwhile than this on an adc.

One of the main drawbacks of BotRK has always been that it doesn't fully interact with crits.  You are dumping a lot of gold into the item's passive, and that passive doesn't interact with crits.  But, if you buy an IE, you are spending money on an item that boosts crits.  So, at best this is an inefficient build.

Now, it might very well be that IE and BotRK are so OP that its still the best thing to do in a lot of cases, but I hardly see BotRK as mandatory after IE.  And I'd think that if you were going for raw damage builds, you'd go old school and do IE+PD after building some Dorans to get a bit of early game presense/life steal.

That's a good point. However, you do need lifesteal somewhere unless you are a positioning god or you're willing to put all your Quints back into lifesteal (which loses first 5 levels against AS quints).

However, BotRK still provides a decent amount of attack speed, and it increases your "uptime" since it allows you to kite/survive longer, thereby enabling you more time to get those crits.

BotRK is not that great with a Zeal item unless your Vayne/Twitch (eg, you have true damage and all steroids with little ratios).

That really only leaves:

- IE

- Trinity Force (BotRK + TF is fine, but you probably should build TF first in that case)

- BT (too much lifesteal unless as a 4th item)

- Ghostblade (could actually be fine? But Ghostblade is only 3/4ths an item from an ADC perspective. It's cheaper, but less slot efficient compared to typical ADC builds).

- Last Whisper (too early in the game for armor pen unless the entire team has 200 armor at 20 minutes).

According to Karl Logic, it's a bad idea to build any armor pen on Corki.  His passive gives him true damage, so it would be inefficient at best to ever build Last Whisper?

Hmm?  Karl logic is at least vaguely valid.  It also recognizes the differences between an existential quantifier and a universal quantifier, which is what you are missing here.  Also, I already explicitly rejected what you are saying here in my second paragraph.

I was objecting to (negating) the idea that it is always best to build BotRK after IE (universal quantifier).

My positive claim is that there might exist some case in which you build IE after BotRK (existential quantifier), but I doubt its universal.

You can't reasonably claim that either of those statements is me claiming that you should NEVER build inefficiently (ie that you should never build armor pen on Corki because it is somewhat inefficient with his passive).  A negation of a universal quantifier or my own existential quantifier doesn't let you do that with logic.

If you're building IE as a first item, you have already decided that your goal is to do as much damage as possible.

If you build anything else, you're focusing on some other form of utility. Whether that is life-steal (BT), spellpower burst (Ez/Kog/Corki with TF), or kiting (BotRK). So in those contexts we have to consider what you're trying to do.

But, with IE, we've decided all you care about is maximizing damage.

i claim that in a typical teamfight, you do not just get to "turret" and have high uptime on your IE > PD build while also completely not under threat of attack. You're going to be under some sort of threat. You might even die. If you die 1 second earlier in a 5 second teamfight, that's a 20% reduction in overall damage.

For that reason, i am reasonably certain that for a typical teamfight, you will do maximal damage with IE > BotRK than IE > ____ unless you position perfectly and have an infinite TTD. If you have an infinite TTD then, yes, there's no reason to every go IE > BotRK.

But BotRK is one of the best TTD items in the game, along with Zhonyas.

The thing about TTD items is that it allows you to posture much more aggressively. An IE > PD build will do slightly more damage in a no-micro brawl, but an IE > BotRK will be able to enter a fight earlier and more safely. Finally, lifesteal items help convert won teamfights into objectives. The ADC with AS quints, 1 DBlade and IE + PD will not be able to solo dragon with 400 health.

Golly gee willickers Karl, if all that fancy language don't sound to me like a man talkin who likes winnerin arguments from his high tootin vocabularlizin more'n the merits of his ideas.

Okay, talking like Foghorn Leghorn is harder than I thought, so I'm gonna knock that off.

To me it's simple:  Hedgie proposed a great build in my eyes and you kinda poo pooed it with some silly logic.  So I proposed some silly logic of my own along the same vein as yours.

IE gives you damage and crit chance.   Oh yeah, and your crits do more damage.  What does one need to compliment this?  Well the perfect item would have attack speed, lifesteal, a defensive/offensive dueling/kiting active, which is pretty much everything that IE leaves out aside from armor penetration.  Oh yeah, and more crit chance would be nice cause it would go with the extra 50% damage that IE gives you on crits.  BotRK gives you all of this except for the crit chance, so it's an "inefficient build at best."? Silly. Almost as silly as saying you don't need armor penetration on Corki cause he has a little bit of true damage.

So you come back with subjects like existential quantifiers and I got really turned around.  Not confused enough to start thinking that Kha'zix has been a below average jungler for the past several months... but pretty confused.

Oh yeah, and coincidental thing is that I was looking up one of the last Graves games played on Probuilder around when all this was being posted and QTPie was using this exact build when he did really well in a D1 game.  14/6 with an inefficient build?  A pro whose lively hood depends on staying ahead of the curve on these things seems to have made this his go to build on his non TF ADCs for now.  Well allrighty then...

Boozed up pacov currently thinks thunder is taking shots at karl... pacov skims very, very quickly when drinking.  Also, I've decided that thunder must be boozed up to say "golly gee... "

Anyway, game 1 of the night - I play xin jungle and destroyed enemy team in a 5 man pre.

Games 2-4, madcast in house.  I play so-so as adc and have a weak support on my team. 

Game 5, I quit the in house games and play a normal draft (2 pick ups I think; hedige jungles).  I disagree a bit with how he decides to play things.  We have a dumb arse annie/thresh lane bot.  He goes no touch bot lane and we eventually lose dragon control but mid has a good game due to his pressure. 

Here are my thoughts - I'm not used to having hedgie jungle.  We all differ a bit with how we run things (ex - I don't trust Bryff's adc brain, but I generally trust his top lane brain).  Anyway, he decides to leave the novelty lane alone which keeps an annie/thresh lane in the game and eventually overpowers us.

I'd be the 1st to admit I did not play well enough.   But I disagree with hedgie's decision to not take dragon control from that team.  Final comment on this - while I disagree with how hedgie decided to play things, it doesn't mean he's wrong - just that I would have done things differently with a gimmick lane.  Completely possible that he did things great and I just played too smeh an adc - so hopefuly this doesn't come across as an f u. 

Anyway, after all my fun games I decided to play some solo ranked. Played 1 game as braum - played very well imo (honestly, I really wanted to relax and play some support all night).  Almost lost, but silly team turned around.  That put me into promo series.  Played another game and got stuck top lane.  Went jayce and lost pretty bad. Completely my fault.  Awful game on my part. 

The problem isn't the simple lack of crit chance.  The problem is that BotRK sinks a lot of gold into a damage based passive that cannot interact with crits.  IE sinks a lot of gold into a damage based passive that boosts crits.  Thats a direct contradiction of gold spent, so the build must be inefficient.

Now, I always said, right from the beginning, that the items might simply be so strong that you go ahead and do it anyway in many cases, but its still inefficient.

A single example of somebody building IE/BotRK doesn't do anything about my claim.

I mean, watch this:

http://www.probuilds.net/guide/NA/1426869638/44989300

On the other hand, a single example of a Pro in a challenger game not building IE/BotRK actually does do something for my claim... 

(From what I can tell from probuilds, high level ADCs seem to have a fairly wide range of first pairs of items)

Gimmick lanes are typically strong early and fall off late.  And thats exactly how that Annie/Thresh lane was.  On top of that, you had an enemy TF mid and their top had TP, while Bryff didn't.  So you had weaker early game presence bot, plus the enemy team had overwhelming map presence superiority due to the TF/TP.

Why would you try and make aggressive dragon plays/aggressive bot lane push plays into that?  The typical way of playing this is to play safe bot (and just outscale their bots) while the jungler ganks the other lanes.  The jungler might show up bot if the lane gets really pushed and the gank is very safe.

Instead, you pushed aggressively into a combo that was naturally stronger early (which exposed you to pressure from behind) and kept calling for aggressive plays in neutral territory where the enemy team would have been able to bring more players if they saw the play going down.  I don't really agree with those calls.