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SoBeNirvanaThis is something my friends and I have been talking about.
When the game launched, the release mages were mainly intended for support. They tended to have only three nukes and one utility spell.
Numerous examples include: Fiddlesticks, Annie, Veigar, Katarina, Morgana, Ryze, Karthus, Cho'Gath, Anivia, Kassadin, Heimerdinger, Akali, and Gragas.
Kennen was the first mage that changed that, by having four damage abilities. Ever since then, almost all new mages have had four damage abilities (or more like Ziggs and Orianna). There have been a few exepctions (like Lux) since then, but they're rare.
During the first year of the game, it was also pretty universal that mages couldn't carry a game. Oh yes, they were a threat due to area of effect and crowd control stacking - but they weren't able to to diddly late game. In part this was because the mage carry item at the time was really only the lackluster Rod of Ages.
But . . . I think it might be due to more than that. Namely, early mages were built around a DoTA paradigm of utility first damage second.
Since then, pure damage mages tend to be much more popular. Ahri, Cassiopeia, Ziggs, etc.
I'm not saying that all of the old mages suck, necessarily, I just wonder if many of them have enough pros to make up for the fact that they only have three damaging abilities. On a lot of the older, old-fashioned mages it feels very difficult to maintain the same pace as the four ability mages. No matter how fed Annie or Fiddlesticks get, it's very hard to carry a game with them when compared to Ahri or Kennen or any number of four/five nuke mages.
All of the "Legacy" Champions have issues, but this is a trend I've noticed with the old casters in particular that makes them feel clunky compared to current mages.
A lot of the newer mages are constant-casters, and a few of the old ones still feel like "Oh, well I can't do anything right now because the only spell off cd is my utility spell which needs to be used in exactly the right circumstances" instead of "pew pew pew - everything I do does damage, maybe with some utility sprinkled in but who cares I'm carrying!"#11 year ago -
qa analyst
the three most recent mages released were: ahri, viktor, and ziggs (in that order).
you mentioned ahri and ziggs, which have 4 damaging abilities, but you didn't mention viktor who has 3 damaging abilities and a utility spell without damage.
aside from that though, the 'damage potential' from a mage's kit is defined by much more than the number of damaging spells--there's base damages, ap ratios, offensive utility (such as magic resist shred), and cooldowns. looking at the kits as a whole, i don't think there's a huge shift in design philosophy between ap carries of today and yesteryear. at least, i don't think anyone has been left behind in that regard.#21 year ago -
qa analyst
speaking personally, i think he's a support champion that is in need of a minor rework. i like his base concept a lot (i love time mages) but i think he could benefit from some tinkering under the hood and then perhaps changing his passive and rewind a bit. #31 year ago -
qa analystevaluating mages is kind of complicated--there are a lot of components to scrutinize, and it's deceptive to look at only a subset of them when comparing one mage to another. below i've listed a few different things--first are a few 'slider scales' to kind of start the foundation of an analysis, and then secondly i've listed several independent categories in which you could rate a mage (e.g., 'on a scale of 1 to 10' or something to that effect).it seems to me that the ones without four damaging spells seem to either have a higher skill-curve (ala viktor) which makes people less inclined to learn them. As what they bring to the fight can be brought by say a cassiopaeia just as easily.
OR
They do in fact seem to struggle against the new mages, two examples being Annie and Fiddle.
how much of their contribution to a fight is 'burst' (or as i prefer to call it, 'single gatling')? <--versus--> how much of their contribution to a fight is sustained?
how much of their damage is dealt instantly? <--versus--> how much of their damage is dealt over time?
what portion of their contributions are the most reliable? <--versus--> what portion of their contributions are the most unreliable?
single-target damage potential
aoe damage potential
best case contributions
worst case contributions
effectiveness at short range
effectiveness at long range
base damage
scaling damage
resilience (ability to stick onto people, and/or hold your ground)
slipperiness (ability to get out of sticky situations)
cc
utility
resource gated
cooldown gated
if you compare mages like annie, brand, ahri, mordekaiser, anivia, ziggs, et al across all the above attributes (plus any relevant, unlisted ones) you'll start to get some ideas to why you'll see some more/less commonly in normal games versus ranked solo/duo, ranked 5s, or tournament games. overall though, i think the older mages hold up just as well as the newer ones.#41 year ago
