Madred's Bloodrazor.
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| This guy. Right here. |
Cost: Madred's Razors + Pickaxe + Recurve Bow + 775 gold Total: 3800 gold.
This item is generally regarded as a very specific, very situational item that only works on certain champions in certain situations. It is, of course, an item that is only built on AD carries. It should only be bought, the metagame says, when you are so powerful that the opponents have started stacking armor to the point where you can't do damage anymore. When that happens, you're supposed to get a Bloodrazor so that you can continue to do damage. Because Bloodrazor's passive does magic damage, its not mitigated by armor.
My argument is that Bloodrazor is an amazing item on almost all AD carries, and even on other characters, such as certain top laners. This is because Bloodrazor's is cost-effective even when the target has a low amount of health. (Because of the passive, the more health the opponent has, the more damage is done.)
So its time to do some mathcrafting. Please note that, to save space, I will show none of my work. I will, however, show all the non-mathematical assumptions I made, so that it should be relatively trivial for any person well-versed in algebra to follow along if desired.
In League of Legends, unlike in other MOBARTS games (such as DotA), items become more cost-effective as they are more expensive. Therefore, we will use the most expensive basic items to compare the Bloodrazor to. Through this, we can calculate the value of the unique active.
So here are the baselines I'll be using:
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| B. F. Sword. 1650 gold, +45 attack damage. |
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| Chain Vest. 700 gold, +45 armor. |
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| Recurve bow. 1050 gold, +40% attack speed. |
And, as a note for future reference:
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| Cloak of agility. 830 gold, +18% critical chance. |
By using these numbers, we find that Bloodrazor's unique active costs you 894.44 gold to buy. For this to be cost-efficient at a B. F. Sword level, you would have to do the equivalent of 24.39 physical damage with the passive.
It is, however, difficult to translate magic damage into physical damage, because armor mitigates physical damage and magic resistance mitigates magic damage. I believe, however, that each point of magic damage is more valuable then physical damage because most characters end up having more armor than magic resist. With this justification, I will say that magic damage is approximately equal to physical damage. Calculating under these assumptions, for the Bloodrazor active to deal 24.39 damage, the target must have at least 609.85 health.
In other words, almost all the time.
A similar argument can be made for Kitae's Bloodrazor, the Dominion counterpart.
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| Kitae's Bloodrazor. 2725 gold. +30 attack damage +40% attack speed UNIQUE PASSIVE: Your basic attacks deal magic damage equal to 2.5% of your target's maximum health. |
But, you argue, almost all high-value items have absurdly cheap unique passives that are almost always cost-effective! This is true, but most other legendary items aren't as absurdly cost-effective as Madred's. Consider that Madreds gives a net benefit of 2038.89 gold when the target has 2000 health, which is a more reasonable number in late-game for a carry (tanks have even more). With this in mind, let's compare it to a more "standard" AD carry item:
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| When the sun is at its peak, the pool blends in with the shimmering heat, looking as if its waters run off into infinity. |
Cost: B. F. Sword + Pickaxe + Cloak of Agility + 375 gold Total: 3830 gold
We can calculate Infinity Edge's unique passive to be worth -256.11 gold. In other words, just the stats, not even counting the unique passive, are worth the cost of the item.
Wow, that's really good. But our pet Bloodrazor is still winning; remember that we've calculated its to be worth a net 2038.89 gold. So how much is Infinity Edge's passive worth? I'm going to model the Infinty Edge passive as having the same DPS as increasing the critical strike chance by 50%. Its not quite the same, but its approximately the same. Its technically less because it doesn't stack with the Lethality mastery, but its also technically more because this modeling increases the maximum critical strike chance to over 100%. Both of these are difficult to model, so I'm going to ignore them.
A typical AD carry has an Infinity Edge and a Phantom Dancer. I'm also going to throw in a Cloak and Dagger just because I like that item, despite what a lot of people say about it. These are pretty much the only items that give critical chance; they give a total of 75% critical chance. This makes the Infinity Edge passive worth 37.5% critical chance, which is 1729.17 gold. Therefore, Infinity Edge gives a net benefit of 1985.28 gold, to 2038.89 for Madred's Bloodrazor.
Madred's doesn't win by much, but remember that this is a calculation that Infinity Edge is supposed to win. Infinity Edge is built always, Madred's is supposed to be a situational item. The calculations are similar for other AD items- 1605.17 for The Bloodthister (when fully stacked), for instance. (Most AD items, such as Phantom Dancer, Black Cleaver, Tiamat, Last Whisper, etc. have passives that are difficult to quantify. And yes, percent movement speed counts as a difficult-to-quantify passive.
Another argument against Madred's is that, because it does not give actual attack damage, it does not scale with abilities. This is a valid point, but I should point out that a lot of classical AD items, such as Phantom Dancer and Last Whisper, also do not scale the abilities. And if abilities are such a big deal on AD carries, why isn't Stinger a more commonly built item?
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| Stinger. 1090 gold. +40% attack speed +10% cooldown reduction. |
And its not just for AD carries. I take it on top laners as well. Top laners are usually tanky, building large amounts of health. To counter the opposing top laner, take a champion with decent range and build Malady into Bloodrazor. Proceed to tear the tank apart through harass. A Teemo with Bloodrazor does not fear even the largest of Chogaths. You can screw up the meta by preventing teams from sending their tanks into top lane.
Bloodrazor is an amazing item that needs to see much more use then it currently is seeing. So next time you're having an off day on Summoners Rift, consider getting a Madred's Bloodrazor. You'll be surprised at just how much damage you can do.
6 comments:
I actually disagree with you on several points. Where to start...
1. Lack of magic resist -- While it is true that there will generally be more armor on a target than MR (except against heavy AP), champs with enough armor and health to warrant using Bloodrazor over another AD item will also have a decent amount of MR. The meta build for tanky dps champs right now includes Merc Treads, Wit's End, and MR runes, whether flat or scaling. I prefer scaling, but I'll factor in flat for the sake of making the target take more damage. I'll also assume that the person is using a 21/9/0 mastery set for their champ to give more offense, and that they put 3 points in the armor boost and only 1 in the MR boost.
With these numbers, the tanky dps champ gets 30+25+30(+20)+13+2=100 MR at 0 stacks, 120 at full Wit's End stacks. This is assuming they went Wit's End instead of Force of Nature, which would put them at 146 MR. Scaling runes would grant them another 11 at level 18, which is when a champ would have Bloodrazor.
Even at the minimum here, the champ in question is taking 50% reduced magic damage, meaning that 4% gets cut to 2%. I know it's additional damage, but on a tanky champ with 3k health, that's a bonus of 60 damage. Compare this to Last Whisper, which costs roughly 60% of Bloodrazor's cost, and grants 40% APen. Assuming the carry took the %APen mastery and the tanky dps champ had about 160 armor (fairly reasonable, and honestly light; this assumes just Wriggles, Atma's, and flat armor yellows), their mitigation goes from 59.0% to 44.4%, resulting in a 32.8% increase in dps for the carry. This is ignoring the fact that it also gives bonus attack damage. Obviously the Bloodrazor is better in terms of net dps, but given the cost disparity, it's much more reliable to get Last Whisper.
The big problem with it, though, is that other items are cheaper and generally have better components. Bloodthirster's lifesteal counts as on-hit, and it adds to the carry's survivability. Crit damage, AD, and Attack Speed stack additively on their own, but multiplicatively together. Each standard AD carry item makes each other one better the more one has. This is why six-item Tristana, Vayne, and Kog'Maw are so terrifying.
2. Your choice of carries for Bloodrazor -- I would actually argue that Sivir and Ashe could pull this off magnificently, if anyone could. Sivir has a shitload of ways to reset her attack timer and proc on-hit effects right in a row, meaning she could easily hit 4+ times and get a lot of bonus magic damage in there. Ashe goes for the opposite way; given that her kit is based around kiting the hell out of an opponent and locking someone down so that they can't escape, she could opt for Bloodrazor instead of a defensive item if her team was reliable enough.
3. Bloodrazor for tanky dps -- This one I could possibly see working. It would definitely be sixth-item material, as a replacement for Wriggles. The best items for this are usually IE (for champs with Sheen/Triforce), BT (same), and LW. Bloodrazor would compliment Wit's End quite well (assuming they got it) and provide a bit more armor since it's replacing Wriggles. In that case, it just boils down to how much money the champ in question has. As stated before, most other items have pre-completion advantages over Bloodrazor. LW doesn't, but it's so cheap that it is hardly a factor. IE and BT can both be built from BF Sword, which is very helpful for their recipients (Champs with Sheen/Triforce) because of the high base AD. IE works well with Atma's and Triforce, bringing the crit rate up to 58% and increasing crit damage. BT is a good Wriggles replacement for even higher AD and lifesteal. Bloodrazor has a better argument for tanky dps champs because they'll be in the thick of things and autoattacking quite a bit, but the problem is that their main targets will be the AD carry and/or the most threatening AP on the enemy team. These roles aren't known for stacking magic resist, but they aren't known for stacking health either, meaning that once again, the bonus effects from BT and IE are likely to outclass this item in most situations, especially since BT is 800 gold cheaper.
Let's put it this way: It's not on the level of Haunting Guise, an item that should pretty much never be bought, but it's still something that just doesn't measure up to the competition except within a very specific set of conditions. The champ in question must be receiving enough gold to afford it as their last item, and the enemy team must be built in such a way that the Bloodrazor isn't rendered useless.
It is true that Bloodrazor is mitigated substantially by MR. But that's why my Teemo build involves Sorc shoes and Malady.
Even if you don't want to do that, I would like to point out that all my calculations are based on the idea that physical damage is equal to magic damage. This is, of course, not true; physical damage is worth less then magic damage because of resistances. So even if there is a lot of magic resistance on your standard tank, there's even more armor.
For LW's 32.8% increase in damage to be equal to Bloodrazor's 60 damage (your numbers), you'd have to be doing 183 damage, against someone with around 50% damage reduction. That's probably not going to happen, even in late game.
Regardless, you seem to be comparing Madreds to Last Whisper, because LW is designed against someone with high resistances. But that's not always who you'll be up against; it depends on the game. LW also requires other items. such as IE and BT, to be effective. This makes it an ultra late-game item, which is not the role I'm giving to Bloodrazor. I'm saying that its a good item to rush to (while finishing boots and getting a few dorans) not a lategame item.
Also, I disagree that Bloodrazor is useless before its combined. Madred's Razors is great for dragon clearing and last hitting. Mostly dragon clearing. Madred's Razors, along with Wriggles Lantern, are some of the most cost-effective items in the game. Also, the Pickaxe is a decent amount of damage as well.
The problem with rushing Bloodrazor is the same problem with rushing Triforce: you drop roughly 4k gold for your first item to get...very little by itself. I will concede that getting Madred's Razors early on allows for easier last-hitting, so it does have that going for it, but as a rushing item, it's just not very good at all. In fact, I'm starting to understand why you only had it listed on a couple of carries.
While lifesteal is getting nerfed in the next patch, at the moment just about any other carry item is better (aside from PD unless you go Wriggles). IE costs 30 gold more and gives a crit boost and a boost to crit damage. BT costs 800 gold less and gives up to 100 AD and 25% lifesteal. Bloodrazor only beats PD because PD has no direct damage increase.
Basically, Bloodrazor is like an extended-overkill version of building Wriggles as an AD carry. You sacrifice damage for some survivability early on, except Bloodrazor doesn't even have lifesteal. You also don't get nearly enough damage or attack speed to warrant the cost as the only item you'll have (aside from berserker greaves and double doran's blades). Honestly, as a rushing item I think that Bloodrazor becomes even MORE situational than as a last item.
Lastly, a late-game carry will have IE, PD, and Bloodthirster for sure. Against someone with even 250 Armor (225 with 10% APen mastery), assuming they have roughly 300 AD (totally feasible) and the crit damage mastery, they will have 55% crit and be doing just shy of 100 damage without crits, and 240 with crits, assuming I understand how the damage works correctly. Taking a weighted average, they will be doing 174 damage per hit before Last Whisper. This is just below the mark you set...but this is also assuming a 250 Armor target. Keep in mind that 250 Armor is generally the highest one would ever want to go before building other stats (unless against full AD) and that most units who build that much would likely be safe to ignore as they would do no damage.
tl;dr: Bloodrazor is still a decent item under the right conditions, but it's a situational last item and a HIGHLY situational first item.
It doesn't really make sense to say that Bloodrazor suddenly becomes better in later game because it doesn't really syngerize with any items. Attack damage synergizes with crit chance, crit damage, and attack speed, for example. However, Bloodrazor only really syngergizes with attack speed.
Perhaps I misspoke. The way that I play getting Bloodrazor as your first item, but you're building it as you're building other items. For example, you can get a Zeal while building it in bottom lane. My Teemo build is Maldred's Razors into Malady into Bloodrazor for tons of damage. (Malady, being less than 2000 gold, is a comparatively small item.) You don't have to rush Bloodrazor, as in you get it as your first item.
Bloodrazor is not a farm item as you imply, it is an immediate "I wanna kill stuff" item. You can get it early and it immediately has the damage of a late-game item.
In order to have 300 AD, you have to have Infinity Edge, Bloodthirster, as well as a third AD item (say, Black Cleaver) and you'll be around 300. (PD doesn't have AD stats) Its not "totally feasible"; 300 AD is a fed hypercarry. The only advantage of the classical AD build is that the IE/BT/BC/PD combo can then be further built and it syngergizes with the next items; Bloodrazor doesn't do that unless you want to build pure OHA. But most games do not go long enough for you to have a six item build.
300 AD isn't feasible? Henry, BT gives 100, and IE gives 80. That's 180 right there, plus 13 from masteries, making 193. You're honestly telling me that with how popular AD reds/quints are, that you're not gonna break 300 AD with just those? Did you think I meant 300 bonus AD?
Also, Bloodrazor has good synergy with AS, hence why you would at least get PD (Malady in your case) before it to maximize its effectiveness, just like how you wouldn't usually get PD before IE or BT since they give you hard damage.
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