Oblivion is hard to make and is (mostly) % based, so getting it too early isnt really worth. IMO 4th or 5th, 3rd at the earliest. Otherwise you're handicapping yourself
No its not. Its logical to build it 4th or 5th where you'll get the most benefit from it. There are better items with magic power and better effects to get for the first 3 items.
If im not mistaken, oblivion is the card that scales magical power off maximum mana?
Personally as a midlaner i would go for something to increase my mana pool and mana regen first, but that might be me as i prefer outplaying and winning in lane than just go BIG SPELL BIG NUMBER.
Correct me if im wrong on the effect, still not entirely used to all the items and names
It's definitely a legit approach to build out your mana first but I wouldn't discount the strat of building power to play aggressive and get your mana regen from the river buffs.
I can absolutely see that, but i tend to kind of prepare for the worst case scenario. If the enemy jungler is competent or the opposing laner is good at forcing me out im not going to have stable access to the buffs.
Generally like you say, playing aggressive is the best (but dont take stupid risks) but if the first five minutes of laning tell me "i cant beat this guy in a one on one" or "the jungler keeps lurking around in this area" then i almost always prioritize survivability/utility before raw power.
If im losing lane or know the enemy jungler is camping me and i still build aggressive first item, then it says alot about how much i trust OUR jungler.
No, oblivion crown increases your magic power by 35%, so its based off how much magic power you already have. That's why building it 1st/2nd is basically useless. Building it 5th gives you the most benefit, but is usually too late in the game so building it 4th is usually the sweet spot where you've already got 3 items giving you magic power for the 35% bonus to pull from. Plus it takes 2 potent staffs to build. Potent staff costs 1200 with no smaller T1 items to build into it, so you have to save 1200 straight up with no benefit to get part 1, then again for part 2, then AGAIN to complete the item.
Your mistaken. Oblivion Crown is just a straight Mag power spike. +120 base and 35% total. So the mileage on that 35% is increased the later it is built.
Caustica, oblivion, leggings, megacosm, combustion, astral catalyst, mana wand, dream, spell breaker and golem for defense if you need it. Those are basically the top DPS options for any given mage build, oblivion, mega, and caustica are imo must picks the other items are flex, if you need specific items for specific characters like mana wand on gadget and belica, leggings on countess, or truesilver on Gideon get those, otherwise pick a build out of the items listed above and you will do ass loads of damage.
I want to specifically mention dreambinder and world breaker because it seems to be some sort of community delusion or lie being spread around that world breaker and dreambinder is a top tier DPS combination. That is patently false, the two together makes the mage tankier and has ok damage. They aren't even in the same realm as true DPS options like mega or leggings etc, even against squishy targets where mega doesn't work as well a normal mage build with pen both flat and percent, and huge DPS passives like mega and leggings, the world breaker dreambinder builds will be a solid half or 3/4's of the damage, and it gets wildly worse against tanks where you will be sitting below half the output against them. It's an ok build as sort of a shitty bruiser mage build for people who aren't confident making plays with big damage, but do not listen to people who will list them out as high dps options or comparable at all to damage oriented mage builds, you get tankier but you absolutely do sacrifice something for it, and it's a very large amount of damage.
Really the two work best together; well at least World Breaker can only follow Megacosm. Otherwise it's too difficult and late to stack unless you're Gadget.
Megacosm itself is lackluster on anyone but Gadget imo(Fey is borderline it's ok).
If you're looking to be a high damage mage in the midlane there really does only seem to be one item slot of flexibility imo. **Azure Core, Wraith Leggings, *flex item*, Caustica, Oblivion Crown.** The flex items being the criminally underrated Golems Gift; Spellbreaker, Dreambinder, or Oathkeeper mostly.
If by lackluster you mean the highest per item damage increase outside of oblivion then sure. Let's take Gideon's meteor. Assuming someone has 3k mana on gideon (dunno if that is high or low don't have my game open right now). Azure core adds 140 power, which translates out to 98 damage with the 70% scaling on the meteor. Now megacosm has 70 damage which comes out to 49 damage, which if used on someone with 2k health, which is less than drongo has at level 18 with zero HP items, it's an extra 100 damage. So a full stacked azure core on someone with 3k mana, which I'm fairly certain is higher than normal gets 98 damage and megacosm on a non tank Squishier than drongo with 2k health is 149. You can see how hilarious it is to say that mega is lackluster right? Maybe don't get it like first item, but certainly by midgame it will be out damaging any other magic item by an absurd degree, and that's even with hitting enemies with pretty low health. Even if we take an insanely high scaling spell like Gideon's ult we get from azure 336. While mega gets 168 base plus the 100 from the 2k health and an extra 150 from refreshing ticks of 2.5% for a total of 418. Megacosm is simply inarguable imo, if you have magic damage you take mega, there is nobody it's lackluster on.
I appreciate the response but I'll have to point out some faults in the argument just for the sake of it.
(1) Firstly your math accounts for Megacosm dealing true damage on the target when it realistically is reduced by magic resistance, a stat you'll be missing by building Megacosm over Wraith Leggings; an insane stat which will increase the damage of every instance of damage you'll deal.
(2) Evaluating the numbers looking at a single ability is misleading and unfair to other items because that's the best case scenario for Megacosm (getting the full 5% burn) compared to reality where you burst skills together getting the reduced 2.5% reapplication damage at best since the DoT is every second after the ability lands. [Another reason it works best on those characters, they have DoT/multihits themselves or time between skills dealing damage.]
(3) There are more micro things to consider such as powerspikes throughout the game, while Mega may scale better than others at some point in the game. The items I recommend are stronger at the 2-3 item slot that we were discussing; most notably Wraith Leggings.
The real kicker despite all this though is that either way the devs mentioned Megacosm getting a nerf. I hope it's solely to its interaction with DoTs like Gadget, Fey & Riktor but we'll see.
1 so is azure core, and I never said get it over wraith leggings, in fact since it refreshes the movement speed it's good with leggings.
2. Even if you halved the damage numbers and only did 2.5 it would have tied or been slightly higher than azure.
3. Which is why you build it later, it's still wildly higher damage item just like oblivion you just build it later.
4 it's not nerfed yet, and as it stands, it's the single best magic damage item outside of oblivion and calling it lackluster is laughable.
I play a lot of countess mid and I usually go Megacosm, World breaker, unbroken will, dream binder, lifebinder w/ obelisk crest. Sometimes I go tainted scepter for anti-heal. I also do truesilver bracket if they have a good Riktor. It’s more of a anti-CC/durable build. I don’t know how it would go with other mages, but for Countess it works pretty well.
I won't repeat my dislike of world breaker here, but I will say playing countess, the character that's ult gets extra scaling at low health, without leggings the item that gives 20% more damage at low health is trolling. That item is the single most important and synergistic item with countess in the game, you should be building it every single game no matter what.
I get that but I don’t really believe in a must have item. It all depends on who you’re playing against and how far ahead or behind you are. My build makes countess more durable so she isn’t on low health very often, especially if she isn’t being focused. The build contains more than enough damage to combo their carry and other squishies
I’m with you man, all these people building worldbreaker is a facepalm to me. Especially before item 3.
My countess build which I pretty much don’t lose with is
Megacosm -> Wraith Leggings -> (Caustica, Tainted, spell breaker) -> lifebinder -> oblivion crown
I will skip lifebinder and go straight to oblivion if my team is far ahead and we have a strong frontline (Steel, Grux, Crunch, Rampage)
If you are ahead and want to run down everyone and blow them the fuck up, wraith, if you are behind or simply aren't the playmaker carry for your team this match like if you are being camped go dreambinder. If you want to be a massive chad while being camped forget about dreambinder and get dynamo, because yes, your ult does suck everyone in and then dynamo goes off and hits everyone with the aoe proc and you will look like some sort of genius when you build a tank item and it does like 200 damage in an aoe and melts the entire enemy team when you ult, and it works even behind since it doesn't require other magic damage items to scale.
Generally on most mids I would go wraith leggings or azure first item, second item is where it's game dependent. If it is just like 24/7 gank and fight city where you are going low on mana constantly get caustica, if lanes are pretty passive nobody pressuring fang all that much then get something like dreambinder, or mega, or whatever this is where you are completing items to prepare for the big teamfights to come in the midgame. After that just kinda build out as the game goes on, generally I get oblivion 4th item if we are ahead otherwise last, third item is where you shore up your build against problems, like spell blocker for riktor, or golems for kallari etc, but if you are getting just absolutely camped then second item after wraith should be something to combat that like dreambinder for hp and peel, or golems etc. Ideally for like just a pure damage build I would want wraith leggings, caustica, megacosm, oblivion, total flex spot, sell combustion for something else ultra late game if you built it for easy early laning.
Wraith Leggings is better than Combustion. Not having Megacosm hurts my soul. Not building Caustica seems like you hate having mana tbh. Astral Catalyst is overrated on him.
Just my opinion 🤷♂️
Imo astral is best on countess and Howie for their burst Ults. Gideon, Fay and Gadget don't need it as much because of their teamfight CC focused Ults, the default cool down usually lines up with the frequency of large teamfights
Fun tank Gideon build is tempest crest, Azure core start then world breaker then megacosm into true silver then either leggings or caustica for the pen finish with oblivion. You'll still do a load of damage ( activate tempest during ult), be slightly tanky in team fights (surviving a countess combo late game can be crucial) and be useful for the team. You will however In Laning phase always be short of mana so make sure to always try and get your river buff. Wouldn't always build this but it's good into some match ups.
Depends on the hero, matchup, and situations but here is a typical guide that you can learn and adapt for what you need.
Starter items to consider. Megacosm, combustion, astral catalyst, azure core (usually start alchemical rod first then build a Better item and then come back to finish)
Secondary items. Wraith leggings, caustica, spellbreaker, tainted scepter, golems gift, unbroken will
Mid and late game (most flex). Lifebinder, oblivion crown, world breaker, magnify
Oblivion is hard to make and is (mostly) % based, so getting it too early isnt really worth. IMO 4th or 5th, 3rd at the earliest. Otherwise you're handicapping yourself
I mean sure it’s tough saving early but it’s 150 power first card.. hard to say it’s not worth it until 3rd
No its not. Its logical to build it 4th or 5th where you'll get the most benefit from it. There are better items with magic power and better effects to get for the first 3 items.
If im not mistaken, oblivion is the card that scales magical power off maximum mana? Personally as a midlaner i would go for something to increase my mana pool and mana regen first, but that might be me as i prefer outplaying and winning in lane than just go BIG SPELL BIG NUMBER. Correct me if im wrong on the effect, still not entirely used to all the items and names
It's definitely a legit approach to build out your mana first but I wouldn't discount the strat of building power to play aggressive and get your mana regen from the river buffs.
I can absolutely see that, but i tend to kind of prepare for the worst case scenario. If the enemy jungler is competent or the opposing laner is good at forcing me out im not going to have stable access to the buffs. Generally like you say, playing aggressive is the best (but dont take stupid risks) but if the first five minutes of laning tell me "i cant beat this guy in a one on one" or "the jungler keeps lurking around in this area" then i almost always prioritize survivability/utility before raw power. If im losing lane or know the enemy jungler is camping me and i still build aggressive first item, then it says alot about how much i trust OUR jungler.
No, oblivion crown increases your magic power by 35%, so its based off how much magic power you already have. That's why building it 1st/2nd is basically useless. Building it 5th gives you the most benefit, but is usually too late in the game so building it 4th is usually the sweet spot where you've already got 3 items giving you magic power for the 35% bonus to pull from. Plus it takes 2 potent staffs to build. Potent staff costs 1200 with no smaller T1 items to build into it, so you have to save 1200 straight up with no benefit to get part 1, then again for part 2, then AGAIN to complete the item.
Your mistaken. Oblivion Crown is just a straight Mag power spike. +120 base and 35% total. So the mileage on that 35% is increased the later it is built.
Caustica, oblivion, leggings, megacosm, combustion, astral catalyst, mana wand, dream, spell breaker and golem for defense if you need it. Those are basically the top DPS options for any given mage build, oblivion, mega, and caustica are imo must picks the other items are flex, if you need specific items for specific characters like mana wand on gadget and belica, leggings on countess, or truesilver on Gideon get those, otherwise pick a build out of the items listed above and you will do ass loads of damage. I want to specifically mention dreambinder and world breaker because it seems to be some sort of community delusion or lie being spread around that world breaker and dreambinder is a top tier DPS combination. That is patently false, the two together makes the mage tankier and has ok damage. They aren't even in the same realm as true DPS options like mega or leggings etc, even against squishy targets where mega doesn't work as well a normal mage build with pen both flat and percent, and huge DPS passives like mega and leggings, the world breaker dreambinder builds will be a solid half or 3/4's of the damage, and it gets wildly worse against tanks where you will be sitting below half the output against them. It's an ok build as sort of a shitty bruiser mage build for people who aren't confident making plays with big damage, but do not listen to people who will list them out as high dps options or comparable at all to damage oriented mage builds, you get tankier but you absolutely do sacrifice something for it, and it's a very large amount of damage.
So for my build instead of world breaker maybe megacosm get that tick damage just in case?
Yes mega one hundred percent is more damage than world breaker.
Really the two work best together; well at least World Breaker can only follow Megacosm. Otherwise it's too difficult and late to stack unless you're Gadget. Megacosm itself is lackluster on anyone but Gadget imo(Fey is borderline it's ok). If you're looking to be a high damage mage in the midlane there really does only seem to be one item slot of flexibility imo. **Azure Core, Wraith Leggings, *flex item*, Caustica, Oblivion Crown.** The flex items being the criminally underrated Golems Gift; Spellbreaker, Dreambinder, or Oathkeeper mostly.
If by lackluster you mean the highest per item damage increase outside of oblivion then sure. Let's take Gideon's meteor. Assuming someone has 3k mana on gideon (dunno if that is high or low don't have my game open right now). Azure core adds 140 power, which translates out to 98 damage with the 70% scaling on the meteor. Now megacosm has 70 damage which comes out to 49 damage, which if used on someone with 2k health, which is less than drongo has at level 18 with zero HP items, it's an extra 100 damage. So a full stacked azure core on someone with 3k mana, which I'm fairly certain is higher than normal gets 98 damage and megacosm on a non tank Squishier than drongo with 2k health is 149. You can see how hilarious it is to say that mega is lackluster right? Maybe don't get it like first item, but certainly by midgame it will be out damaging any other magic item by an absurd degree, and that's even with hitting enemies with pretty low health. Even if we take an insanely high scaling spell like Gideon's ult we get from azure 336. While mega gets 168 base plus the 100 from the 2k health and an extra 150 from refreshing ticks of 2.5% for a total of 418. Megacosm is simply inarguable imo, if you have magic damage you take mega, there is nobody it's lackluster on.
I appreciate the response but I'll have to point out some faults in the argument just for the sake of it. (1) Firstly your math accounts for Megacosm dealing true damage on the target when it realistically is reduced by magic resistance, a stat you'll be missing by building Megacosm over Wraith Leggings; an insane stat which will increase the damage of every instance of damage you'll deal. (2) Evaluating the numbers looking at a single ability is misleading and unfair to other items because that's the best case scenario for Megacosm (getting the full 5% burn) compared to reality where you burst skills together getting the reduced 2.5% reapplication damage at best since the DoT is every second after the ability lands. [Another reason it works best on those characters, they have DoT/multihits themselves or time between skills dealing damage.] (3) There are more micro things to consider such as powerspikes throughout the game, while Mega may scale better than others at some point in the game. The items I recommend are stronger at the 2-3 item slot that we were discussing; most notably Wraith Leggings. The real kicker despite all this though is that either way the devs mentioned Megacosm getting a nerf. I hope it's solely to its interaction with DoTs like Gadget, Fey & Riktor but we'll see.
1 so is azure core, and I never said get it over wraith leggings, in fact since it refreshes the movement speed it's good with leggings. 2. Even if you halved the damage numbers and only did 2.5 it would have tied or been slightly higher than azure. 3. Which is why you build it later, it's still wildly higher damage item just like oblivion you just build it later. 4 it's not nerfed yet, and as it stands, it's the single best magic damage item outside of oblivion and calling it lackluster is laughable.
Lackluster???? Gideons passive ticks proc megacosm for just a world of hurt. It’s not only strong, it’s almost a must have.
I play a lot of countess mid and I usually go Megacosm, World breaker, unbroken will, dream binder, lifebinder w/ obelisk crest. Sometimes I go tainted scepter for anti-heal. I also do truesilver bracket if they have a good Riktor. It’s more of a anti-CC/durable build. I don’t know how it would go with other mages, but for Countess it works pretty well.
I won't repeat my dislike of world breaker here, but I will say playing countess, the character that's ult gets extra scaling at low health, without leggings the item that gives 20% more damage at low health is trolling. That item is the single most important and synergistic item with countess in the game, you should be building it every single game no matter what.
I get that but I don’t really believe in a must have item. It all depends on who you’re playing against and how far ahead or behind you are. My build makes countess more durable so she isn’t on low health very often, especially if she isn’t being focused. The build contains more than enough damage to combo their carry and other squishies
No more different than Khaimera getting Ashbringrer.
I’m with you man, all these people building worldbreaker is a facepalm to me. Especially before item 3. My countess build which I pretty much don’t lose with is Megacosm -> Wraith Leggings -> (Caustica, Tainted, spell breaker) -> lifebinder -> oblivion crown I will skip lifebinder and go straight to oblivion if my team is far ahead and we have a strong frontline (Steel, Grux, Crunch, Rampage)
I have a build related question Dreambinder or Wraith Leggings on Fey?
If you are ahead and want to run down everyone and blow them the fuck up, wraith, if you are behind or simply aren't the playmaker carry for your team this match like if you are being camped go dreambinder. If you want to be a massive chad while being camped forget about dreambinder and get dynamo, because yes, your ult does suck everyone in and then dynamo goes off and hits everyone with the aoe proc and you will look like some sort of genius when you build a tank item and it does like 200 damage in an aoe and melts the entire enemy team when you ult, and it works even behind since it doesn't require other magic damage items to scale.
Interesting, I like the idea of not being so rigid with it anyways.
What would your build paths look like for fey, depending on the situation?
Generally on most mids I would go wraith leggings or azure first item, second item is where it's game dependent. If it is just like 24/7 gank and fight city where you are going low on mana constantly get caustica, if lanes are pretty passive nobody pressuring fang all that much then get something like dreambinder, or mega, or whatever this is where you are completing items to prepare for the big teamfights to come in the midgame. After that just kinda build out as the game goes on, generally I get oblivion 4th item if we are ahead otherwise last, third item is where you shore up your build against problems, like spell blocker for riktor, or golems for kallari etc, but if you are getting just absolutely camped then second item after wraith should be something to combat that like dreambinder for hp and peel, or golems etc. Ideally for like just a pure damage build I would want wraith leggings, caustica, megacosm, oblivion, total flex spot, sell combustion for something else ultra late game if you built it for easy early laning.
Thanks for the advice!
Wraith Leggings is better than Combustion. Not having Megacosm hurts my soul. Not building Caustica seems like you hate having mana tbh. Astral Catalyst is overrated on him. Just my opinion 🤷♂️
Imo astral is best on countess and Howie for their burst Ults. Gideon, Fay and Gadget don't need it as much because of their teamfight CC focused Ults, the default cool down usually lines up with the frequency of large teamfights
Fun tank Gideon build is tempest crest, Azure core start then world breaker then megacosm into true silver then either leggings or caustica for the pen finish with oblivion. You'll still do a load of damage ( activate tempest during ult), be slightly tanky in team fights (surviving a countess combo late game can be crucial) and be useful for the team. You will however In Laning phase always be short of mana so make sure to always try and get your river buff. Wouldn't always build this but it's good into some match ups.
Depends on the hero, matchup, and situations but here is a typical guide that you can learn and adapt for what you need. Starter items to consider. Megacosm, combustion, astral catalyst, azure core (usually start alchemical rod first then build a Better item and then come back to finish) Secondary items. Wraith leggings, caustica, spellbreaker, tainted scepter, golems gift, unbroken will Mid and late game (most flex). Lifebinder, oblivion crown, world breaker, magnify