[2019] Why do people call mages broken?

Originally posted by JohnFighterman

Zhonya has objectively best DEFENSIVE active in the game. It also gives good amount of armor. Surprisingly, it's NOT a tank item, but a mage item that also has above average AP. Not to mention it's underpriced (a common theme among mage items) for the stats it gives.

Void Staff has more %-pen than ANY AD item AND ALSO costs 150 less.

Protobelt, an item that grants mobility to mages that don't have it in their kit but desperately need it (Annie, Vlad, Kennen etc.), and also very good base damage active, is severely underpriced.

Banshee gives more MR than any proper MR tank item. It's also a mage item with good passive AND, surprise surprise, is underpriced.

Rabadon is a steroid item no other class has an equivalent of.

3 of the previously mentioned items give unnecessary CDR that you actually never pay for, because mage items in general are underpriced.

It's REALLY hard to make a good MR build, even for tanks (3 big items that grant 165MR in total while leaving 2 slots you don't really have proper items for; that value can be matched with just 2 armor items and the remaining 3 slots can still be filled with good armor items) plus the previously mentioned Void Staff problem equals TANKS being bursted down, not just carries.

Adaptive Force from runes is significantly biased towards mages. It gives 5 AP for every 3 AD, so already almost twice as much, but then mages build their Rabadons, making the proportions 7-3, which is more than double. Why do you think Akali, who has both AD and AP ratios on basically all of her spells AND ALSO STARTS THE GAME WITH ADAPTIVE AD, builds full AP, huh?

Bonus points: mages are allowed to abuse other classess keystones to the point, where the keystones get nerfed FOR EVERYONE, making default users of these keystone basically keystoneless :D Happened to Aftershock (initiating tanks/jungle tanks/support tanks; overused by champions like Lissandra, Sylas AND EVEN LUX), Dark Harvest (assassins; nerfed because the likes of Karthus (and it's STILL his primary keystone), Ziggs, Xerath and other long range mages), Kleptomancy (made basically for Ezreal, abused by "tank" Viktor toplane, the nightmare; although this RNG based keystone was bad design from the start, then got buffed for no reason) and now Conqueror (which was designed SPECIFICALLY for bruisers after they've begged for a keystone for HALF A YEAR; recently got nerfed FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST RANGED/AP USERS because of Ryze, Swain, Heimerdinger, Vladimir, Akali and Mordekaiser, 5 of which shouldn't even dream of using a BRUISER keystone).

Want me to go on, or is this enough?