I think the way you build Tiamat--while annoying to take up 4 slots before completing-- particularly the final 15hp5 you receive is reallllllly useful, especially in synergy with the lifesteal provided by RH.

I have been experimenting with starting 9/0/21 top with Riven, getting double-bead 3 pot, and since I am 21 in Utility, having a biscuit and ghost ward to start. It keeps level 2 ganks from happening and provides you with an ungodly amount of sustain (10hp5 from just the beads), while still being two components to a Tiamat. Also it's hilarious to start out the game with 5 item slots full. I would recommend this for Renekton as well.

I gotta try this^ and maybe this will help out in favor of building into tiamat/RH especially for really weak champions such as poppy and nasus who rely heavily on farm

You probably don't want it on Nasus because he subsists on single-target damage to farm his Q, and Tiamat would make his Siphoning Strike do a % of his AD aoe. You would not receive +3 damage credit for enemies killed this way. I recommend a Frozen Fist/Iceborn Gauntlet (Frozen Fist is such a better name) rush on him for the sake of experimentation and complete lockdown, but that's me.

I have really enjoyed double-bead since I started it, though you are admittedly not as physically dominant in the lane. You CAN heal off a stupid amount of harass and still get farm though.

On the subject of Hydra not providing any defenses for its cost, I would say that the LS and the ability to LS off the active is a sizable amount of sustain, and sustain is another form of hp5.

Confirming the fact SS doesn't get +3 for each extra guy killed in the tiamat/RH cleave. So lame. Frozen Fist is a must have rush item on him I think. I enjoy it a lot more than I enjoyed TriForce on nasus. The CDR, AOE Slow, and Wither will keep pretty much anyone without flash + Goes fast from escaping. Even then some guys still won't get away.

The thing is if it wasn't a channel it'd be a swing reset on everyone who buys it, if you've played anyone with swing resets (Darius W, Sivir W, GP Q, Garen Q, etc) you know how useful it is to get two AA's off in a split second. The channel balances out and makes it a timing factor cause you still can use it to land free damage during down time.

Here's an example, I E-Q with Jarvan, during the dash I am doing not damage outside of my Q damage till the animation ends. With Tiamat active if I time it right, I get my E-Q off and tiamat active at the same time lowering my down time where I'm doing no damage. You can do the same with ult, land on your target after you hear DEMACIA Tiamat active to cancel the ult animation and get the Tiamat off and attack normally. You can do the same with Darius Q, Garen E, and alot of other skills with no channel time. The active only really becomes annoying when you have more then 1.000 attack speed. In which case you use it to sweep multiple targets for high damage. It's a 10 second cooldown, so it has to have a down side of some sort.

That isn't true at all. Active items are completely independent from auto-attack resets. No active resets the AA counter.

For example: what currently exists is Riven's W (although Tiamat locks you down even longer.) What I would like to exist is Skarner's Q. Neither of those have anything to do with AA counters.

Think of it like this, if it had no channel time anyone who bought it would just AA and Tiamat active unless they had a swing reset in which it'd be AA, reset, Tiamat. It is a no resource, low cooldown, active that does decent damage and has okay range. It's a matter of giving an item too much use, Tiamat is ment for melee AD damage dealers who want to transition their single target damage to AoE damage. You can use the active for extra damage already, it isn't convenient or for every character. But that's the point.

What most posts seem to say is "I want to use Tiamat active while chasing" which isn't the point of the item. Tiamat users should go in, AoE teams down with AA's and Crescent, and make them weak enough so they have to run or get cleaned up. If you did that, then you used Tiamat to it's full effectiveness. If you want more chasing power, get BOTRK, Youmuu's, any movement speed item, or a different champion. Skarner's Q is ment to allow Skarner to permaslow and beat people up while chasing, that is what Skarner is supposed to do. Riven's W is ment to blast at multiple people or use the mini stun to lock people up for an AA or another spell. Tiamat is for every melee in the game, you can't give an active with such a low CD so much power that it is too useful. That's why DFG got nerfed, reworked, and almost removed from the game.

It isn't convenient for any character. It isn't about having "chasing power" it's having an item in your inventory which impedes your chasing and teamfight navigation when activated.

DFG still has no channel. And Tiamat would not be broken in the slightest if you could just cast it in combat. It's still the equivalent damage of 1 autoattack, subject to resistance and damage decay over distance. It's not broken, it's not overpowered; it's supplemental.

And currently it's very inconvenient. Painting this change as if it suddenly makes combat unbalanced is an overstatement. This is a quality of life suggestion, nothing more.

Again if you use it during animation times where you do nothing anyway you can land more damage in a team fight or while harassing. Like for example I walk up to harass someone as Darius, My Q hits them, now I could do nothing after that (without using more mana) cause Darius is still in the half second of animation time or I hit the Tiamat active and do more damage, or just AoE more things around me. My Jarvan example is still true in which I can fly in with E-Q and use the active while their in the air and I'm doing nothing, land an AA as they fall.

Let's use this example in a simple trade. I throw my flag (E) at say rank 2 for about 90ish damage, then Q at rank 5 for about 200 damage + armor shred. During this time I am dasing to my target and they are in the air. Now before I can start attacking, I have to wait a split second to dash forward and do some split second animation. The knock up is only a second so I'm wasting time, now if I use Tiamat active I land it after I reach my flag, stopping the animation and due to being next to my target I get the full damage which is 100% of my attack damage which is about 100 damage. Then I AA with my passive for about another 100-150 damage. By this point my opponent can attack freely. This entire trade I did 500ish damage due to using the active of Tiamat with no counter attack unless they poked me with something after I threw my flag. That's a pretty solid trade if you ask me. If you don't want to use the active to restrain yourself, just don't. What makes you have to use it all the time when the point of it is to do a strong sweep of AoE damage against multiple targets?

With Hydra this active gives you a huge amount of AoE damage with LS with a low CD. There is 0 downside to this without the channel. Just cause you have to plan things out and can't just use it whenever you want doesn't make it bad. The CD is tiny, the use is clear, and there are ways to make it's downside less apparent and restricting. It's a 5th spell that can become a huge difference in some situations and on some characters. Actives are ment to change playstyles and add options to characters, Crescent gives you the option to do AoE damage around you in a high amount and for an extra 900 gold you get to LS from it every 10 seconds.