Reign of Gaming

New Item Previews - Tiamat and Ravenous Hydra

Xypherous hits the forums with more item preview today. Make sure to check the redtracker for any Q&A he does in the thread.

Hello again Summoners. Continuing from my initial discussion here of upcoming itemization changes for the preseason, I’d like to talk about a current item to which we’re making changes, as well as its new and exciting upgrade.

It’s Tuesday. You know what’s coming.

Tiamat (Melee Only) +50 Attack Damage +15 Health Regen per 5 seconds UNIQUE Passive – Cleave: Your attacks deal up to 60% of your Attack Damage to units around your target – decaying down to 20% near the edge. UNIQUE Active – Crescent: Deals up to 100% of your Attack Damage to units around you – decaying down to 60% near the edge – 10 second cooldown.

For a very long time, Tiamat has been sitting in this quasi-state of ‘Is this a good item? Is this a terrible item?’ No longer. We’ve cleaned up Tiamat to be far more streamlined in the new item set, giving it a larger cleave range (at the cost of reduced damage near the edge) and greater synergy with other items by removing the restriction of dealing damage based on the damage of the original attack.

So what’s different?

1. It has a Unique Passive. Tiamats no longer stack to form odd cases where you deal more damage to a secondary target than the primary target.
2. Tiamat no longer cares about the damage you deal with your main attack; thus, Tiamat procs don’t need you to itemize heavy critical strike in order to take advantage of dealing crazy damage. You will always deal a set amount of splash damage based on your Attack Damage.
3. It has a short-cooldown active that allows you to perform a stronger version of the passive Cleave at any time.
4. It is Melee Only, meaning it is no longer a trap item on ranged characters. The active and passive components will literally turn off and be unusable for ranged characters, with the same effect kicking in for dual form characters such as Jayce or Nidalee when they’re in ranged form.
5. It has a much larger cleave radius, at the expense of damage falloff.
6. It no longer has mana regeneration.
7. It has an upgrade.

Let’s examine how this might affect your use of Tiamat:

1. It lets you clear minion waves more quickly

Having a larger passive cleave and an active cleave allows melee fighters or carries who pick up Tiamat to farm waves more efficiently, granting decent wave-clear ability to characters who lack it. Characters like Poppy, for example, can now clear a wave with Tiamat in a relatively short amount of time through a combination of passive and active procs.

2. It makes your burst combo more flexible

Having the active Crescent ability means an additional AoE physical spell that you can weave in to your burst combos. A Riven, for example, might take the time to use the Crescent active in between her dashes – while a Fiora would want to use Crescent as soon as she descends upon a target with Lunge.

3. It can be used effectively by a wider variety of characters and be useful in more situations

Being built out of high Health Regeneration and Attack Damage gives Tiamat a very smooth build up path for the early game. With the ability to itemize both heavy regeneration and attack damage early in the game you can gain a very strong staying presence in lane.

The Upgrade

Ravenous Hydra (Melee Only) +75 Attack Damage +15 Health Regen per 5 seconds +10% Life Steal Passive: Damage dealt by this item works with Life Steal. UNIQUE Passive – Cleave: Your attacks deal up to 60% of your Attack Damage to units around your target – decaying down to 20% near the edge. UNIQUE Active – Crescent: Deals up to 100% of your Attack Damage to units around you – decaying down to 60% near the edge – 10 second cooldown.

Introducing Ravenous Hydra, a life steal upgrade for Tiamat. While it doesn’t enhance any of the damaging aspects of Tiamat, Ravenous Hydra allows you to drain from surrounding enemies via your life steal statistic. This can grant melee fighters incredible staying power when outnumbered or assaulting the front lines. While Hydra won’t decimate teams on its own without a huge amount of Attack Damage, the combination of the active ability and life steal will allow experienced players to gain a burst of healing by using Crescent to attack and drain multiple enemy champions.

But wait! I’m a Ranged Carry type of player. What do I get in order to do AoE damage?

Stay Tuned.

-Xypherous