Lich Bane: Should you rush it?

Back in Season 2, though a few players tried it, it was not worth it to rush Lich Bane. Deathcap was simply king: you would always do significantly more damage with it. Now, however, Lich Bane adds a small amount of flat damage to its proc instead of just being based off of AP. This makes it a better option for a rush than it was before: based only off of the AP that Lich Bane gives you, the 50 flat damage is higher than the 25% reduction in the AP proc calculation by 20 damage.

So, is Lich Bane now a good item to rush? It’s many cheap components makes it far easier to build than Deathcap, so it certainly has some advantages. Deathcap, however, will always remain the AP king of multiplicity like Infinity Edge is for AD carries. So where’s the tipping point?

 

Introductory Analysis

Looking at only AP provided by the items themselves, Deathcap, because of its passive, gives 70 more AP than Lich Bane. Lich Bane, however, provides a base proc damage of 110 when taking into account its own AP. The question, then, is at what point 70 AP becomes better than 110 damage.

Before the math, remember this: Lich Bane assumes that you can get off an autoattack. Deathcap will always be better for pure poking and Lich Bane can be a little more risky with some characters as more people get involved in fights (i.e., it is far easier to get off an autoattack in a mid lane duel).

Considering quick, lane exchanges, a reasonable assumption is 2 abilities and 1 autoattack. More spaced out abilities and autoattacks favor Lich Bane while more spells with less autoattacks favor Deathcap, so take that into consideration based on what character you’re considering the items for. In this scenario, the two abilities would have to have a combined AP ratio of 1.57 (the result of dividing 110 by 70) for Deathcap to do the same amount of damage as Lich Bane . This is around a .8 ratio on each ability (.785 if you want to be exact or tweak the numbers for yourself).

This number is important: .8 is a relatively high AP ratio for a champion to have, meaning that Lich Bane can commonly ensure more trade damage. But again, this is tempered by the fact that most mages would probably rather not get into autoattack range. So who does this effect?

 

Champions and Calculations

The two biggest Lich Bane users in the game are probably AP Ezreal and Twisted Fate. Before anyone scoffs at the mention of AP Ezreal, I think this character is poised to enter the scene more. In Europe, I hear that Maciej ‘Shushei’ Ratuszniak has been playing Ezreal a lot and I have also seen Alexey ‘Alex Ich’ Ichetovkin play it on stream. In North America, Austin ‘MidLink’ Shin is a common AP Ezreal user (it’s his second most played champion for the season behind AP Nidalee, who is also gaining in popularity). AP Ezreal, as you’ll soon see, has very high AP ratios. He makes up for his lack of utility with high damage, mobility and a hard-hitting, relatively low-CD, infinite range ultimate.

In order (Q, W, E, R), Ezreal has AP ratios of .2, .8, .75 and .9 while Twisted Fate has ratios of .65, .4 and .4. We can immediately see that Ezreal just misses the required amount of AP if only using W and E (otherwise he surpasses it handily with an ultimate combo or substituting a Q for an autoattack) while Twisted Fate also, even with all of his ratios together (requiring a readied proc of his E, Stacked Deck), does not.

But how big is the difference? We can assume that a combo for Ezreal is E, W and an autoattack or Q and for Twisted Fate is W and Q (since W includes an autoattack) with a possible proc of E. As was said earlier, Deathcap yields 70 more AP than Lich Bane. So all we have to do is check what each ratio gives with 70 AP and, after adding the results from each skill together, comparing that to the 110 damage Lich Bane proc (this is because the other components of the total damage output like ability base damage and autoattacks remain constant in all of the scenarios).

Ezreal: (.8 * 70) + (.75 * 70) [+ .2 * 70 for Q] = 108.5 < 110, but, with Q, 122.5 >110
Difference = Lich Bane wins by 1.5 damage if Q is not used while using Q causes Deathcap to win by 12.5 damage.

Twisted Fate: (.65 * 70) + (.4 * 70) [+ .4 * 70 for E] = 73.5 and, with E proc, 101.5
Difference = 36.5 or 8.5 damage better with Lich Bane, depending on if you have an E proc or not

Ezreal combines an incredibly high synergy with Lich Bane with a need for maximising his burst damage to succeed. Especially when his ultimate is considered, the mere point or two of damage Lich Bane grants over Deathcap in trades where he doesn't use all of his abilities is not worth it. Because of this, I recommend first getting a Sheen, then Deathcap and then a Lichbane (an order that high level players like MidLink consistently use).

Remember, since Ezreal is light on utility you want to maximize his burst combo as much as possible, which dictates how you build. The Sheen first is because of Ezreal’s outstanding synergy with the item and the fact that it really helps Ezreal last hit in lane (he has very low base AD that becomes noticeable when playing him AP and first maxes an ability that cannot be used to hit minions).

With Twisted Fate, the key to my recommendation is that over half of his possible burst damage combo requires an autoattack because of both Pick a Card (W) and Stacked Deck (E). If you know that you’re only going to poke with Wild Cards (Q), Deathcap is better (by 45.5 damage). However, Twisted Fate’s killing potential and potent ultimate ganks heavily utilize at least one Pick a Card, meaning that you will be consistently using your Lich Bane proc. This combined with Twisted Fate’s low AP ratios makes Lich Bane the, arguably, better rush item. If you’re able to manage Stacked Deck well, the gap closes, so there is definitely room here for personal choice and ability.

An added bonus to the Lich Bane choice is that it gives Twisted Fate movement speed, which is very powerful on him since he is naturally slow and needs to close distance to use his crowd control abilities (in fact, many pro players would get both movement speed quints and the movement speed masteries in the utility tree in Season 2 when playing Twisted Fate; I’d suggest trying movement speed quints on him if you have them!). One thing to keep in mind: this makes it harder to wave clear, so if you are getting pushed hard or really need to farm, you might want to look at Deathcap. Lich Bane is more about maximising your killing potential, full combo damage and presence.

 

Conclusion

In Season 3, Lich Bane is a much more viable early item and is, in my opinion, a stronger overall pick for the slot now because of it’s change to a magic damage proc. Some characters can now afford to rush a Lich Bane, but you’ll want to consider the pros and cons of doing so. Your biggest consideration should probably be how many of your spells you can connect with in a normal engagement -- add up their ratios and compare them to the calculations above.

But theorycrafting is not just about numbers! Practicality and champion mechanics have to be considered if you want to make sure that you’re really looking at something that is viable. And remember: the best Lich Bane users are likely going to be getting Deathcap and Lich Bane as their first two items anyways, so you’re making a choice for a specific, early game window. Even if you do not feel like the trade offs make an early Lich Bane worth it, I believe it is now a more consistently strong item that has real potential to be added to the core builds of several champions, so make sure to try it out!