Examing Some Undervalued Items

With the recent nerfs to Qin's Sais, Heartseeker and Polynomicon, among others, we've seen some of the strongest items in-game brought into line. But what of the items that we don't see very often?

 

Witch Stone

Witch Stone is probably the most common pick-up of any items on this list. For any warrior build I consider Witch Stone to be invaluable. The aura effect is phenomenal against certain junglers, like Kali and Bakasura, while the physical protections and movespeed make you nearly impossible to gank.

One of the other reasons I like Witch Stone is if you're solo laning, as warriors typically do, the move speed and the physical protections allow you to tower dive or chase kills into the jungle easier along with allowing you to return to lane faster or rotate mid for a gank.

 Winged Wand

Winged Wand is an atypical buy for my warrior or guardian builds but it's a much stronger item than most people think. Like Witch Stone the extra movement speed can be invaluable for rotations or disengages, while the cooldown reduction can allow better initiation and peel potential. The reason I invariably buy Witch Stone most games but find Winged Wand a more situational item is the passive effect. Winged Wand is incredibly strong against gods that rely on slows to set-up their combo, such as Ao Kuang or Poseidon's ultimates. Furthermore a number of junglers, like Freya or Loki, depend on slow effect from abilities to get in a couple AAs to secure the kill. Finally extra health mitigates the burst damage coming out from the gods mentioned and others.

Hydra's Lament

I have not always been a fan of Hydra's Lament but watching Drew 'Lassiz' Boyd's stream I have started to see the advantage of Hydra's on ability based assassins. While I wouldn't suggest Hydra's on gods like Arachne or Mercury, who depend on their AAs to do the bulk of the damage, gods like Loki or Ne Zha benefit from the cooldown reduction. In their case you want to isolate targets and use your ultimates to 100-0 them without sticking around to take extra damage. Other gods like Thor and Hun Batz whose crowd control effects can turn the tide of a fight can take advantage of this unique and under-appreciated item.

Asi

Since the aforementioned nerf to Qin's Sais (a much needed nerf IMO) many players including myself have been looking for an alternative lifesteal item. My two items of choice are Devourer's Gloves and Asi. While I still prefer Devourer's Gloves on hunters, I find Asi is a good choice for AA dependent assassins such as Kali or Bakasura. It's by far the cheapest lifesteal item currently in-game and its passive effect is always beneficial, unlike Eye of Retaliation or Brawler's Beat Stick. The secondary reason Asi is valued is the attack speed, which is as strong as Fatalis and stronger then common the alternative Executioner and Qin's.

Pestilence

Pestilence is an item primarily picked up due to its aura effect. However it has the highest magical defense with the exception of Stone of Gaia (65 vs 70). In addition, it provides a high amount of health. As a support player you typically want around around 250 of both protections. Looking at the seven guardians currently in-game they have an average of 81.3 physical protections, 48 magical protections and 2340 health.

When I play support my typical endgame build is Hide of the Urchin (fully stacked) > Reinforced Greaves >Sovereignty > Bulwark of Hope. This leaves room for two situational items. With this build , using the average values from earlier, we have 236.3 physical protections, 198 magical protections, and 3490 health. With Pestilence we get 263 magical protections and 3790 health and still have an item slot available. Now one of the options I like is to forgo Reinforced Greaves and get Shoes of Focus for the extra mana and cooldown reduction. Without Greaves we lose 25 of each protections so a good alternative is either Breastplate of Valor or Mail of Renewal. A final possibility to consider is Ethereal Staff, which will give you more health and ~115 magical power total.

The recent item balancing has nerfed several of the strongest items, so it's refreshing to see some items re-emerge in the current meta. In particular, hunters have to reexamine their itemization now that Qin's Sais aren't blatantly better then other lifesteal or attack speed items.

One of the take away messages of this article is to invite the readers to look over why they build certain items over others. What stats do you value when playing a particular role/god? Are you focusing raw damage or prefer a more utility based playstyle? Does the cost of the item make it more appealing than its alternatives? One of the reasons I like many of these items is their cost; with the exception of Hydra's Lament, all of the items on this list are under 2200 gold but provides stats that make the item more than cost effective even at lower tiers. I hope this article encourages you to experiment with your builds instead of following cookie-cutter builds.