I really have no idea if this will work or not, but we have identified that we would like to add a new item with Magic Penetration on it, and I'd like to see if you guys have any good ideas for exactly how to implement it. The reasons for this gap are 1) the ease at which Magic Resist counters Mage champions and 2) the wider proliferation of armor penetration and armor reduction. I think that we will want this to be a mid tier item, but I could also see a use for an uber-tier magic penetration item.

Maybe it could be an upgrade path: Mid tier (cost around 1200-1600) item with flat magic penetration. Big tier (cost around 3000-3800) item with percent magic penetration (ala Last Whisper)

Anyway, I'm curious to know what you guys can come up with. Discuss in IRC or discuss here; I don't care. But make a cool item Consider what items will build into it (as well as their availability/cost), and what types of stats to put on it (try to hit a stat combo that doesn't exist, but would still be very useful).

Legalese mumbo jumbo: I am not guaranteeing to use any of the designs posted here. What if they are all Bad? If I do use a design posted here you get no real credit, just pride! However you have the chance to help design a new item that will go into the game and have an immediate impact.

Thanks,
Guinsoo!

Just a thought (Also from Black Cleaver/Last Whisper's setup), but it seems like % penetration is usually going to be weaker than a flat penalty, so the values should probably be fairly low on that first one if it's going to be a flat pen at the mid-tier bonus.

Also, there's a lot of very, very hard hitting magic users (And some with -mgr in their abilities, something most physical champions lack, as far as comparisons to armor pen go) -- I'd worry about champions like Veigar nuking for 2k damage and being able to knock 100 magic resist down to 40, that's a huge damage boost. Physical DPS champions usually take more attacks to stack up their damage (ie, against armor) so you have more time to react as opposed to the burst that magic users usually apply.

I think it'd be cool to have big tier item that was a combination of Stinger and Fiendish Codex. It'd have IAS, Cooldown Reduction, MP5 and Magic Penetration.

Jozen's Inane Tome:
25% Cooldown Reduction
20 MP5
20% IAS
30% Magic Penetration

I just pulled these numbers out of my ass, so adjust as needed. Not sure how many people would want to have IAS and Magic Penetration... unless its a Battle Ryze.

Maybe Drop the IAS in favor of a buff to the other three stats?

Jozen, you should know that we're already making Fiendish Codex and Stinger build into Nashor's Tooth next patch.

Hmm, this is a tough one.

I kinda want to see a battle caster item out of this. Something that gives AS or damage, and converts a portion of their mana/AP/physical damage or something into magic damage. I'd love to be able to autoattack _while_ I'm casting a spell, but that seems like a huge reach as far as mechanics go. Basically the magic penetration on the item will increase both spells and auto-attack damage.

Maybe a magic penetration aura? Something to parallel starks, but for casters. Maybe add some spell-damage lifestealing in there?

How is % weaker than a flat penalty? Which is better, 40% Armor Penetration(I May have the wrong percentage here) or 5 point reduction in armor that CAN stack 5 times(or was it 7)? At the end of all five stacks, you have 25(35 if its 7 stacks) armor taken away. For that that to be better than Last Whisper, you'd need to be against an opponent with approx 62(84 if its 7stacks) armor or less. That's all assuming 40% is the correct armor penetration number.

Point being, % based reduction is better vs larger numbers and flat penalties are only better vs lower numbers. The % based high tier item will be better in most situations where a caster needs to counter a tank or melee DPS with high magic resist. On top of that, the stacking flat penalty of Black Cleaver only really shines through with multiple stacks. Where as Last Whisper does its full effect on each hit. This is even more important for casters who are hitting less often than a stacked carry like Ashe, Trist or Twitch.

If it was to have a stacking flat penalty, it'd need to be a smaller number of stacks, say 3? But then you might run in to balance issues with Lay Waste and Hate spike and have to put an internal cooldown on the item making it not as good :-/

I kinda like Katai's idea of an aura. It could even be a neat thing like a magic oriented version of Stark's fervor. It could come from Soul Shroud and maybe... Abyssal Sceptre?(Is that too much money?) and then give Cooldoown Reduction, MP5, Magic Resist and Magic reduction as an aura and some more bonuses to self.

Oh good to know. I had heard someone suggest that previously but never thought that was going to happen. I like this a lot better.

Omnibus
Amplifying Tome (435g)
Amplifying Tome (435g)
Recipe (450g)
_______________________
Omnibus (1320g)
+50 AP, +20 Magic Penetration




Arcane Curio
Omnibus (1320g)
Sage's Ring (975g)
Mana Manipulator (475g)
Recipe (750g)ish
_______________________
Arcane Curio (3520g)
+60 AP, +500 Mana,
UNIQUE Aura: Restores 10 mana per 5 to nearby Allies.
UNIQUE Passive: Your spells penetrate 25% of the target's magic resistance.

For one thing, I believe that the flat penalty can go negative.

Anyway, the issue is that going from 200 -> 120 armor is less damage increase than going from 40 -> 0 armor, and the flat penalty will make the second possible where the % increase will simply allow you to fight against someone with very high MGR.

If the mid-tier item only does 10 magic pen (To prevent easily flatlining MGR on low-resist players) and the higher one did a % penetration, that could work well.

I'll put some more thought into this later and see if I can come up with a good item tree, but I think it would be fun to have some sort of stacking effect working in a couple potential ways:

Each time a spell is cast near the wielder they gain a stacking buff that increases their spell pen. by X and stacks up to Y times. This effect lasts Z seconds. Similar to Kassadin's slow ability except it has a duration. Alternatively it could work just like Kassadin's ability and the extra spell pen. will only be added to one attack.

Another idea might be to have it stack like Annie's passive where successive spells either build up to a large amount of pen. on one spell or build up to a high point and restart after that (e.g. 1 stack is X spell pen., and it stacks up to 5X then resets to 1X or 0X).

I had a 3rd idea (which might have been the best?) but I got distracted in the middle of this and forgot it...hopefully it comes back to me.

Let's think for a moment about the intended target of this item.

This item is:
* Intended to counter units who stack magic resist
* Currently, magic resist stackers are tanks or melee champions who want to counter casters

This means that they are regularly trying to close the gap between you and them, in addition to throwing disables at you to prevent you from getting your damage off.

For that reason I propose a mixed offensive/defensive item. However, he's a more likely candidate:

Cup of Blasting
* +40 AP
* +40 Magic Resist
* +10 Mana / 5
* Passive: Increases your Mana Regen by 1% per 1% mana you are missing
* Passive: Your attacks penetrate 50% of the target's magic resist

Reagents:
Chalice of Harmony
Wand of Blasting


Uber Version:

The Penetrator
* +100 AP
* +70 Armor
* Unique: On being hit by standard attacks, returns 20% of damage taken as magic damage.
* Unique: On Kill: Upon killing a champion, permanently gaint 10 AP and steal all of the tareget's mana. Bonuses cap at +70 AP.
* Unique: Your spells penetrate 50% of the target's Magic Resist.

Reagents:
* Mejai's Soulstealer
* Thornmail

(Wanted a defensive component and an offensive component. Maybe this is too confused a concept)

P.S. Could you guys please post a list of all in-game items somewhere on your website for browsing? It would make this stuff much easier. Jumping in-game to look for rarely used components is annoying!

P.P.S. Items with very limited combine paths:

* Bead of Regeneration
* Meki Pendant

P.P.P.S. What about an upgrade to Thornmail that works on spells?