[2023] Riot Truexy on Mage Satisfaction

This is where twitter brevity is bad.

That build SUCKS as you'll have no haste and be stuck on bad backs for most of the game.

The main point is that Mages need to build damage to be relevant. But will eventually need both Pen and some defensive (usually zhonya's) to be relevant lategame. This funnels your build extremely quickly into the same items every game. That's not bad if the items are exciting and different from champ to champ. Currently, that's not the case as most mages items say "AP statstick and generic damage up" without much deviation.

I believe I saw a twitter comment that said, paraphrased:

"Mage items have problems, they are just generic stat sticks. They don't do anything special

Mages should always be able to reach 1000 AP."

This basically summarizes the mage item problem. Mage items are literally not weak currently, and if they are it's by 10-20 AP maximum. We are still a far cry from the "1000 AP dream" that players quote, but in the case that 1000 AP was attainable, you would have to sacrifice luden/liandries effects, void staff pen, seraphs shield, and zhonya stasis to get there without just power creeping the system. While I think some players would gladly make that trade, 1000 AP doesn't come alongside a bunch of interesting effects.

Finding the balance here is correct. How do you balance a class to have fun and interesting items 1-3 and can also balloon into 1000 AP insta-kill casters at 6 items? As evidence of mages sitting at high win-rates and pick-rates fairly permanently (hello Anivia Viktor Syndra etc), they aren't necessarily weak, they are just unsatisfying. But there's a lot of misalignment (especially among the playerbase) about which direction they want more. More AP or more cool effects to play around?

I do think a potential avenue for some gains, as highlighted by Truexy, is removing HP from some of the items and funneling that back into AP now that durability update is out, but even then some players don't want to be even squishier than they are now on their average builds. It's a tough space without a clear direction that improves the experience for the average player.