League of Legends Community - The new Executioners Calling

OLD:
Executioner's Calling
Item Cost: 1350 Recipe Cost: 500 +18% Life Steal +15% Critical Strike Chance
UNIQUE Passive: Your basic attacks apply a mark to the target that deals 4 bonus magic damage each second for 8 seconds.
UNIQUE Active: Inflicts target enemy champion with Grievous Wound,causing 50% reduced healing and regeneration for 8 seconds (20 second cooldown).
Built from Vampiric Scepter and Brawlers Gloves

NEW:
Executioner's Calling
Item Cost: 1850 Recipe Cost: 700 +25 Attack Damage +20% Critical Strike Chance
UNIQUE Passive: Your basic attacks inflict Grievous Wounds on enemy champions for 1.5 seconds.
(Grievous wounds reduces healing and regeneration by 50%)
Builds from Avarice Blade and Long Sword

Note: This was mostly written pre season 3 changes so "current EC" or "current live" is probably referring to the old patch.

Executioners calling was first designed to be a direct counter to healers. I believe its first iteration was even cheaper than either of these and was therefore an approachable buy during the laning phase, especially top lane to counter sustainers. It did however turn out to be too strong and got nerfed by cost and changing the on hit-effect to be an active instead.

Now I know there are few fans of this item, but I happen to be one of them. Even though EC is a mid-tier item, it is not necessarily limited to being a mid-game item only. It's great not just for the active but for the stats it gives and how they actually scale into late game when you have lots of AD. It gave ad carries a cheaper alternative to BT and let them buckle down into AD and crit stats. Melee carry's such as Fiora and Tryndamere love this item. It synergizes with IE + Youmuus and rounds out all the stats you'd want coming into mid-late game to assassinate dudes. Consider the alternative of having a Wriggles late game. As an adc, I would rather have 18% lifesteal and 15% crit than 12% lifesteal and 23 AD late game. Bruisers would probably still want Wriggles, but I'm talking about ad carries and especially melee carries.

Now the cost of this item has gone up significantly and the lifesteal component has been removed, making it a terrible alternative to Wriggles and a more out-of reach countermeasure during the laning phase. By the time you get it to counter that lvl9 Lee Sin with Wriggles, the laning phase will be about done.

Now I understand all lifesteal items have been nerfed because lifesteal is too strong. EC was actually the only item that remained unscathed the LAST time Riot did a pass on lifesteal items(when vamp scepter went from 15% to 10% and all its parents were nerfed accordingly EXCEPT executioners) 18% is huge. The only item on live at the moment that gives more is BT with 31 + stacks. EC has been a SIGNIFICANT alternative to other lifesteal items at the cost of having less epic premiums late game and I think I'll miss that part the most.

Another problem I see in the design of the new item is how it builds out of Avarice Blade. Normally I would want to rush Executioners fairly quickly to counter that Chogath/ Lee top lane. But why would I want to do that if I lose all the gold generation I'm getting from Avarice Blade. This is forcing EC into a late game item even though it's mid-tier and gives a low flat damage instead of lifesteal: a 2nd multiplying stat that meshes with other high damage items.

I just don't see the new executioners being that useful to many champions in its current state. This is the EC I would ever so love to have Season 3. :D

PROPOSED:
Executioner's Calling
Item Cost: 1850 Recipe Cost: 300 +10 Attack Damage +15% Critical Strike Chance + 15% Life Steal
/*UNIQUE Passive - Greed: Gain an additional 2 Gold every kill.*/ // Line commented this out as it's not really needed
UNIQUE Active: Inflicts target enemy champion with Grievous Wound,causing 50% reduced healing and regeneration for 8 seconds (20 second cooldown).
Builds from Avarice Blade and Vampiric Scepter

Further discussion:
Is a crit chance / life steal item toxic to the game since they're both stats that scale super well with AD? Perhaps it's the combination of high sustain and the grievous wounds passive that denies the opponent high sustain; if the item was actually good it would be pretty frustrating for opposing sustain champs. The new executioners is easier for bruisers to pick up late game, but not adc's anymore. The problem is, they took away a viable option for top laners to stop the opposing snowball effect by making it more expensive and forcing you to go all in to see the reduced healing effect as opposed to gimping their sustain from afar when they attempt to sustain back up while your abilities are on CD.

Honestly I don't see how top lane is in a better spot than season 2. They took away the very needed HoG for the player behind, and now executioners is much farther out of reach. The lack of 4 extra blocked minion damage isn't going to stop sustain champs from freezing and completely zoning the opponent they've 2-0'd due to jungle ganks. At this point, a lvl 6 top laner can double kill his lvl 4 opponent and his lvl 4 jungler who tries to help.

A good point to bring up is comparing the new 1.5 sec grievous wounds passive to ignite. Since you can't activate it after an engagement anymore to stop their sustain/healing, the only time it really becomes useful is when both opponents are going all-in to the death, which is when you would always cast Ignite anyway. Seeing that Ignite is still a popular pick with about 3 per team, this totally trumps the usefulness of the new passive. Since I'm pretty sure the grievous wounds debuffs of Ignite and EC don't stack, or they stack multiplicative to a diminished effect, there is just absolutely no reason to buy this item now without the adc stats it had before, over just taking Ignite at champion select against heavy sustainers.

Further evidence that EC needs to be reverted. A quick LolKing search has shown that EC has gone from being bought 0.20 % of the time pre patch to 0.02% of the time. That's an order of magnitude less useful than it was previously. As a comparison, old Elysia's Miracle was being bought on average, 0.03% of the time pre patch. That means that the new EC may very well be the least bought item in LoL history.

Edit to people saying Blade of the Ruined King is a good item for AD carries

Quote:

I don't like Blade of the Ruined King. It feels like Riot's attempt to control and restrain lifesteal to a linear value instead of its true value as a high-scaling multiplicative modifier late game when you have lots of damage. (Like what they did to Dorans Blade: it now heals by a flat 5 health every auto). Sure that's easier to balance, but with the way it stands, all the lifesteal items( with the exception of BT) are now predominantly most useful for bruisers to do more bruising.

Items like old EC and now only BT remain as a means for carries to validate building pure damage with no defenses. Being a true adc powerhouse by spending every dime you gain on dps feels really great and needs to stay viable. Multiplicative lifesteal makes this possible in the end game. By buying pure damage and lifesteal with no defenses, you are making the gambit that you will be able to kite and outplay the bruisers that jump you late game. This really only applies to ranged adc's, melee adc's are still a brokenly UP factor in the game.

BotRK will be great for bruisers who can slow and stick to carries easier with its active. But the % current health heal on hit is better suited scaling with attack speed on someone like Irelia. True ADC's will be better off buying BT for the insane multiplicative lifesteal it gives with lots of damage items. The change of EC just removed the only other option adc's had for building pure damage late game, and further crippled melee ADC's. Even though they were trying to diversify and validate different build paths in Season 3, this change to EC has solidified BT as a necessary buy for all ADCs every game, no matter the situation.

I retract that last statement after further analyzing BoRK. It may be useful to combat super tanky teams. Since armor has become a bit of a trap stat due to all the cleavers/LW's, Warmogs stacking may prove to be the most effective meta for tanks. A BorK could help to whittle those healthier champs down in a similar fashion to how the olden bloodrazor was originally designed. BT is still the superior choice for dealing the most AD damage and getting away with it however.

Specifically for ranged AD carries:

Quote:

Old EC was bought rarely over a BT by most players, but some understood the benefit of upgrading that scepter to EC in certain situations. The best time to buy it would usually be after IE to face off against the other adc who's been creaming you with a fully stacked BT. For the extra 900 gold you gain the benefit of having as much if not more lifesteal than a BT, as it's now late game and gaining and maintaining stacks will be harder. You'll also be critting more than the other adc who hasn't finished his IE yet since he rushed BT.

BT was not the only option in Season 2, but with the EC change it will be. They're saying lifesteal is becoming an investment choice rather than something you always have. But I'm saying that now there is no choice and BT will be bought on every adc, period.

Take a look at this Caitlyn auto-attacking graph analysis of three builds

/* http://lol.askmrrobot.com/tools/buil...getDummy,d=Dps */ Link no longer works due to askmrrobot.com updating to season 3 items. Look at the attachment instead.

It's easy to see that EC was actually viable for adc's.

TL;DR If anyone bought Executioners Calling before, they sure won't buy it now

Summary:

Pros:

Some Bruisers itemize with the attack damage better than they would with life steal, but strangely these are the same champs that probably don't itemize well with crit
Rushing this item during the laning phase is now more forgivable to farming. 25 AD makes last-hitting still possible.

Cons:

They took away the only Crit + Life steal item. Tryn, Yi, Fiora, ADC Jayc(etc.) are sad. Did melee AD carries really need a short end of the stick this patch?
They took away a viable alternative to BT for adc's. (Upgrading vamp sceptor to EC cheaply late game is easier than saving up for BT/ gaining and maintaining stacks of BT. 18% lifesteal EC vs a possible 20% from BT) As if adc builds were overly diversified in the first place.
They took away a viable option in top lane to combat the enemy snowball effect. The new higher price just isn't within reach to counter the sustaining Cho'gath/ Lee Sin with Wriggles during the laning phase.
They made it build out of Avarice Blade. Normally I would want to pick up EC early to counter top lane, but then I would lose all the gold generation I'm getting from Avarice Blade. This is forcing EC into a late game item even though it is mid-tier and has low mediocre stats. The other Avarice Blade build options are better suited for late game.
Changing the active from a ranged 8 sec debuff to an on-hit 1.5 sec debuff passive has created the need to go all-in with your champion to see the effect, something that directly conflicts with just casting Ignite like you normally would anyway.
LoLKing shows that the new EC is now bought 0.02% of the time, down from 0.20% pre-patch. This is comparable to old Elysia's Miracle which was averaging 0.03% before the changes (yes the old Philo upgrade that gave you tenacity) New EC is quite possibly the least bought( read: least useful) item in all of LoL history.

PROPOSED:
Executioner's Calling
Item Cost: 1850 Recipe Cost: 300 +10 Attack Damage +15% Critical Strike Chance + 15% Life Steal
/*UNIQUE Passive - Greed: Gain an additional 2 Gold every kill.*/ // Line commented this out as it's not really needed
UNIQUE Active: Inflicts target enemy champion with Grievous Wound,causing 50% reduced healing and regeneration for 8 seconds (20 second cooldown).
Builds from Avarice Blade and Vampiric Scepter

Below is a build damage grapher of Caitlyn from Season 2 who is using only autoattacks.
Cait BT buys BT, PD, IE.
Cait Standard builds IE, PD, BT.
Cait EC buys IE, EC, PD

Enlarged version