I'm trying to make AS/On-Hit meaningful again, because I think it's feasible given the item changes in S3.

Now, AS/On-Hit has previously suffered from a lack of end-game scaling in multiplicative damage scaling, in addition to the inability to reap the rewards of lifesteal OR spell-vamp. Lack of sustain is still an issue for Dominion, but let's take a look at what is available to players now for AS/On-Hit:

• Black Cleaver, The
• Blade of the Ruined King (TT & SR ONLY)
• Entropy
• Frozen Mallet
• Guinsoo's Rageblade
• Kitae's Bloodrazor
• Muramana
• Malady
• Nashor's Tooth
• Runaan's Hurricane
• Statikk Shiv
• Wit's End
• Zephyr

I think there's a bit more diversity here than previously. Wit's End, for example, was staple because of it's cheap price for a high damage addition. Malady was a toss-up, because while cheap, it mimicked Wit's End while providing a very meager bonus of MR shred (that required many hits to stack up.)

Why do I think this is a viable build now? Runaan's Hurricane and to some extent, Statikk Shiv. This effectively gives AS/On-Hit builds a chance to specialize in AoE magic damage, instead of single-target critical strike.

Runaan's Hurricane has some very interesting interactions with champion skills and item abilities, in addition to potentially boosting damage output by as much as 200% (when looking at On-Hit damage alone). Here is where the 'multiplicative scaling' so desired by AS/On-Hit users lies.

Runaan's Hurricane allows one to:

• Apply 100% On-Hit damage to three targets (Duh.)
• Charge Statikk Shiv faster.
• Shred as much as 28 (7x4) MR from three targets (Malady)
• Expend 9% mana per attack to deal 6% of mana worth in damage to three targets.
• Stack MR from Wit's End 3 times faster.
• Slow three targets. (Phage and it's variants)
• Apply Grievous Wounds to three targets (EC)
• Stack Sanguine Blade 3x faster.
• Slow and deal true damage over time to three targets (Entropy)
• Reveal three targets (Lightbringer)

I'm sure there's more. Champion skill interaction gets even more interesting when it starts charging passives 3 times faster (confirm), or Twitch double-dipping while Spray & Pray is active.

Further, Statikk Shiv allows the player to have a further AoE benefit from Critical Strike, allowing the player to create kind of a hybrid AD/AS-On-Hit build to maximize AoE damage.

Zephyr permits the user to rush Berserker's Greaves, while not sacrificing Tenacity given by Mercury Treads. It also adds Movement Speed, giving the user the positioning power required to maintain auto-attacking - critical to any build reliant on auto-attacks.

Finally, the new Malady in addition to Void Staff give the user the penetration required with an on-hit build damage output through higher defenses. Malady deals on-hit damage scaling with AP, and since the flat reduction applies after the 40% reduction of Void Staff, the two would go very well together (assuming the champion in question can utilize the AP). This also opens the door for Nashor's Tooth, because the AP will benefit Malady's scaling in addition to offering CDR to keep on-hit abilities (Kayle's and Kog's W, for example) up as often as possible. Guinsoo's Rageblade offers some synergy here as well; as the MR reduction stacks up, so does your AS and AP, increasing the magic damage you're dealing from two dimensions with each hit.

AD users may wish to use The Black Cleaver, especially with heavy AD teams, to 'spread the shred' across multiple targets, allowing your AD Carry to have multiple options for improved damage output (permitting them to maintain focus on single-target attack damage). Black Cleaver and Malady in conjunction with one another may also have some interesting benefits for hybrid users and mixed damage teams.

Thoughts? Ideas? I haven't seen many on-hit builds as of recent, and I think one can explore some really interesting combinations with the items introduced in S3, especially those that benefit the team as a 'debuffer', with slows and mitigation shredding across multiple targets.

On-Hit builds have always been particularly weak because of their lack of sustain. Certain Champion kits have interesting and powerful interactions with Runaans like Kog and Twitch(which you mentioned) but outside of that most champs should stick to either an AP or AD path plus AS. I demonstrated this with Kayle on stream when the season 3 changes rolled around building Nashors/WitchCap/Malady/Voidstaff. With Kayles E+Malady+SpellBlade Mastery i was dealing 55% of my AP in Auto Attacks, Massive nuke on Q and Decent healing with W. It was a pretty fun build. What I'm trying to say is that people concentrate on the AS portion too much and forget about the actual damage portion. So don't go building Runaan's and Wits end and wonder why you deal jack**** for damage but attack a billion times a second.

Malady still applies before Void Staff, since Malady is reduction and Void is penetration.

I've had some sucess with lulu, running malady, sorc shoes, wits end, hurricane, haunting guise > BFT, Phage > Frozen mallet

But yea, if you don't know how to kite well with Q and W, you will die so fast

I didn't know that, thanks. For whatever reason, I thought it was % reduction, % penetration, and then flat reduction & penetration. I'll update the OP.

@Nyx - I agree, with the assertion about focusing on damage over AS. I think that applies to any auto-attack build... there's nothing like someone rushing a Phantom Dancer without a single AD item. I look to Runaan's as a later-game addition to your build, to offer the multiplicative damage scaling that AS/On-Hit doesn't get from Critical Strike. Instead of gaining a 200% bonus from critical strikes, you're getting that 200% from dealing 100% to two additional targets.

I also didn't mention the interaction between Malady and Guinsoo's Rageblade. That's interesting too, because the enemy gets less and less MR while you're dealing more and more damage per hit.

The On-Hit damage is weak and doesn't scale well into lategame. Enemies also don't tend to stand around and let you attack them 20 times in a row at your attack speed. I do think Statikk Shiv is better than Phantom Dancer for ADC though if you go the Infinity Edge route, so you could get a bit of on-hit there.
Also Statikk Shiv with Fiora ult looks pretty epic (500 or 750 magic damage to every enemy).

Well of course I'm not going to suggest it has the scaling of a IE/PD build. Not to a single target, anyway.

Figure a critical strike typically deals 200% damage to a single target. So, take your AD, multiply it by two, divide by your attacks/second. There's your Raw DPS. With IE, it's 250% damage.

An On-Hit build used to have really crappy single-target late game scaling. Now, it's not as bad because Malady is better... but it's still bad.

However, read what I said about Runaan's as a late game item. You've invested primarily in on-hit damage. So, Malady, Wit's End, Guinsoo's - for argument's sake. Now you add Runaan's. 100% of the on-hit damage is now transferred to two additional targets. 300% damage, divided by three targets, for each attack (assuming a teamfight situation, best-case scenario). Late game scaling has been addressed by dividing it among three targets.

Again, I don't know if it's a good way to build at this time... but I think it's interesting. I think it has potential, and deserves to be looked at on more than just paper. That's really the only point of this thread. On-Hit has a bad name that carries over from S2 itemization, and Xypherous aimed to make AS/On-hit useful again. I want to experiment with it and evaluate whether or not he succeeded. I know people on TT have been having success with AS/On-Hit Kayle, specifically. I had a great game with Kog'Maw and Runaan's + Sanguine Blade. *shrug* I'm curious.

To be clear, there's more to it than just raw damage. It's damage across as many as three targets. It's team armor/MR shred. It's kiting three enemies at once. Raw AD and Crit don't have those options.

S3 made this all way too expensive to build into, while also making ad much cheaper. Yet another attempt to have bruisers overtake all ranged carries.