...why would Riot decide to remove this item completely? I get that it was only really useful on Shen for wave clearing, but I mean they are keeping and reworking Tiamat. Which is a good thing. Seems like the biggest difference between Tiamat and Ionic Spark was that Tiamat scales with AD and AS, as well as applying bonus damage for Crits, whereas Ionic Spark dealt flat magic damage and only synergized with attack speed.
I think a much better solution for Ionic Spark would have been to make the magic damage scale with AP, instead of completely removing yet another on-hit item. This would make it very viable on AS/AP/on-hit builds such as Varus, Teemo, Kog-Maw, Warwick, Kayle, and yes, even Shen, since his damage scales with health/AS and AP.
What say you?

The biggest obstacle for Ionic Spark is Wit's End.

Wit's End has more damage, more defense, and only slightly less attack speed. It also costs less iirc. Unless your opponents have minimal magic damage AND you rely on AS more than other stats.

Thinking about it, I bet Jax could make good use of just such an item as well. Or AP Sion. Or dare I say, AP Yi?

I use Ionic Spark with AS Lulu. I love the visual. I don't even care it if does anything more that what it does now.Why remove a thing just for the sake of removing it? It people want to use then let us or buff it. But I agree don't remove it.

I think 75% AP scaling on Ionic Spark's passive would be enough to make it competitive, alongside the base damage, which could be lowered a tad if need be. Since the item doesn't add any AP of its own, there is that trade off, so you wouldn't see it replacing Lich Bane per se. This would basically put it in the AP/AS/On-Hit niche, which is where it belongs IMO.
And yes, I understand the base idea of Spark is to add wave clear, but note that Tiamat does the same thing, and scales with AD and AS, as well as Crit for the bonus damage, while Spark currently doesn't scale at all, making it a comparable item built for the same task, but doesn't work as well.
Since it deals magic damage, were it to scale, the scaling should absolutely be AP/AS, thus distancing it further from Tiamat. The scaling potential would also make it a good enough offensive item to warrant choosing it over the flat damage provided by Wit's End, provided you don't need the MR.

Or would AP Scaling be too strong? I mean, it would technically have less scalars than tiamat. I would even be satisfied with an increase in cost. Better than losing this opportunity completely. How will Split Push Shen ever be viable without Ionic Spark?

Question: Will Split-Push Shen even be a viable strategy with Ionic Spark removed?

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This is one of my favorite items and I buy it A LOT... I'ma be sad when it's gone :-(

I love ionic spark on my voli build. Very sad to see this item go