Ability Power VS Attack Questions: How to build...

[quote=DJSetz3R]Okay, I'm pretty new to the game, been playing since Saturday. I've looked up the highly rated build guides and have been following them. Upon browsing several different ones and trying them out I've noticed a few things. A lot of the high rated guides for Ezreal and Master Yi (The ones I started playing a little bit more) focus a lot on ability power. They try to get things like Deathcap etc...while I've noticed both characters my Master Yi and Ezreal both hit like wet noodles when I'm completely decked out in ability power gear. When I get Attack gear Bloodthirsters, Zeals, umm, Inifinity Blade and all that good stuff I seem to crit like 500-600 damage ALL the time. Why are the ability power builds like very high rated? Am I missing something? Do you have to play it much differently? It's interesting, I'm not sure what makes ability power better than attack power.[/quote]

[quote=The Overmyynd]With those two champions in particular, its all about style. [[master yi]], when played AD, [[wuju style]] and the attack speed portion of [[highlander]] are the main focus. Basic attacks are used to do the majority of the damage. However when you build AP yi, you need to have a different attitude. [[alpha strike]] has a good AP ratio and can be used to deal ALOT of damage, especially when you use the cool down refreshing portion of [[highlander]] to cast strike after strike as enemies die. Also, [[meditate]] becomes INCREDIBLY useful, as opposed to AD yi, where it is pretty much worthless after a certain level because the base isn't amazing, but the AP ratio is just plain retarded. I've seen yi's just sit and meditate as 4 people are blasting away at him and his health doesn't budge a bit, or it goes up. It's a fantastic aggro tool, but be warned, any bounce/stun/silence stops the ability. As for [[ezreal]], it's really a preference of which ability, his q or w, you want to focus on. His q gets stopped by minions and is based on AD, whereas his w is NOT stopped by minions (doesnt even effect them) and works based on AP. The homing missile his [[arcane shift]] shoots out is AP based, and his ult works both on AD and AP, although it has the potential to do more damage with AP. But, to trade off, having a higher attack speed based on his passive [[rising spell force]] doesn't really mean much if you have no damage on basic attacks. Again, all about style and where you plan to play ez, as well as what your team comp is. Hope this helps![/quote]

[quote=DJSetz3R]Amazing, actually that makes total sense. There is still a LOT of depth in this game. It is pretty easy to understand and pick up, but seems increasingly more difficult to master! Thanks! Will be paying more attention to comps now (Already been yelled at several times by people who tell me I don't know what comps are) haha.[/quote]

[quote=The Overmyynd]Well, the way the game is generally played now is called the "meta". It includes one person top, one person mid, one person roaming the jungle, and two people bottom. The top laner can be AP or AD, and is generally a "bruiser", or a person that has both decent defensive and offensive stats. The person in mid is MOSTLY an AP carry, or someone that deals alot of magic damage. (there are some that are ad assassins like [[talon]] or [[pantheon]]) They tend to focus alot on damage and skimp on a decent amount of defense (at least compared to tanks and bruisers). The jungler can be ALOT of things with the changes in s3. Bottom lane is an ADC (ad carry), who is a ranged champ that deals alot of damage through basic attacks and abilities that (generally) scale on attack damage. With him is a Support champ, who can be a number of different things. Although no matter what champ you play as a support, they need to either have a decent amount of CC or a healing spell, or both (e.g. [[taric]] and [[nami]]). Generally good team comps have a few things: 1. At least one hard core tank ([[amumu]], [[nautilus]], [[malphite]]) 2. Someone with great initiation ([[amumu]], [[malphite]], [[galio]], [[ashe]]) 3. One hard core magic damage dealer 4. One hard core attack damage dealer 5. A good mix of AD and AP from the other champs (example, if your jungler is AD based and is a "kill" jungler {one that needs kills to be effective instead of just assists, like [[kha'zix]] or [[nocturne]]} then your top might want to think about going AP bruiser like [[cho'gath]] or [[vladimir]] just to keep the damage balanced so the enemy team doesn't just have to build armor to negate 75% of your team's damage) There are always exceptions to this team comp, you can have really weird comps that sometimes work. For the season 3 pro tour qualifiers, One Trick Pony played a match with all assassins. Didn't work, but if they had started snowballing early, it would have crushed. And there are always times where there will be lane swaps, sending your APC down bot while your ad and support go top and your top goes mid for a while, but that's seen in very competitive play, most of the time the people that just play for fun won't do this kind of thing. Hope this helps![/quote]

[quote=Staceylicious]Attack damage is for basic attacks, and ability power is for abilities. Haha :D[/quote]

[quote=The Overmyynd][quote=Staceylicious] Attack damage is for basic attacks, and ability power is for abilities. Haha :D [/quote] Abilities can scale off of ad as well. [[rake]], [[buckshot]], [[decimate]], [[cull the meek]], all are spells that deal damage based on AD.[/quote]

[quote=Embracing]AD and AP are two different damage-calculating systems in the game. More AD leads to stronger auto-attacks and stronger damage for some champion abilities that scale with AD Abilities that scale with AD are orange in game. More AP leads to stronger abilities that scale with AP Abilities that scale with AP are blue in game. Champions all have different scalings. Often times champions who are intended to build AP have strong burst potential while champions who are intended to build AD have strong autoattacks (right clicks / A + left click) and semi-strong burst if they have ad-scaling spells. All champions use one of the two scalings AD or AP for damage. Consequentially resistances for each are Armor for AD and Magic Resistance for AP. Tankier champions often opt for these resistances. AD champions can be categorized into either ranged AD champions (Ezreal, Ashe, Sivir, MF, Varus, etc) or melee AD champions, which is then split into the assassins group (talon, khazix, etc) and offtank group (Renekton, Shen, etc) AP burst champions are like Ahri, Annie, Kassadin, etc. The effects that come from the items are often what people value more. Ranged AD champions rely on consistent damage to all targets, so people prioritize pure damage and often times critical damage, which is why people choose to buy Infinity Edge and Statikk Shiv on them. Assassins rely on their spells to burst enemies, so they tend to stack AD with slight tankiness, with items such as The Black Cleaver and The Bloodthirster. Offtanks rely on their spells and items to create presence, so they tend to buy items that give them presence against carries, such as The Black Cleaver, Randuin's Omen, Sunfire's Cape, Frozen Heart. More damage-oriented offtanks can buy more damage items.[/quote]

[quote=DarkPercy]I made the top Yi guide (I think you were talking about that one?) I suggest you start playing with [[ezreal]] and [[master yi]] as AD champions because, as you said, they are simpler to play and the 'playstyle' needed to play them as AD is just much more straightforward and simple. When you'll get higher level, you'll realize AD Master Yi is too easy to kill because of his lack of defense abilities and his need to always stay really close to the enemy (making him easy to focus). In other words, AP isn't always better than AD because it makes you deal more damage. It's sometimes because it will make you harder to kill/less predictable/more useful :P.[/quote]

[quote=gnomebiter]It really depends on the persons play style when it comes to ad or ap[/quote]