The first statement is simply wrong.

The Tear of the Goddess gives a mana regen of 6, and since you get 4 Mana for a casted spell, you somewhat only lose cost of the ability - 4 mana. Still less than what a Chalice or an Athene's gives, but it is not FLAT MANA. You have a regen AND get mana.

The second statement is exactly why i'm picking Tear into Morellonomicon. Tear + Morellonomicon gives stats comparable to the Athene's Unholy Grail, EXCEPT the magic resist. But because Brand especially can harass without taking damage i gor for a more offensive, more cost efficient route, that gives me a stronger mid game damage due to the upgrade to the Seraph's Embrace. Just because Seraph's Embrace + Morellonomicon + Rabadon's Deathcap is the most cost efficient damage route.

[S4] Brand - It's hot in here

so take off all your clothes?

might be too old of a reference for yall but had to do it.

Ofc but isn't generally the main reason for picking up the item. Brand especially who can harass without taking damage.

What about the magic resistance? You shouldn't simply leave such an important stat in the mid lane out. :(

Athene's Unholy Grail = mana regen + cdr
Tear of the Goddess = flat mana

That's why Athene's is a million times better on almost everyone, even though Brand has like 0 mana issues. Additionally, Tear is 700 gold wasted on something that doesn't help your laning one bit.

I do not really buy the tear to stack it fast and get the Seraph's Embrace as fast as possible. Gnerally, Athene's Unholy Grail is better than the Morellonomicon in two aspects: The Magic Resist and the mana regen. To somewhat compensate the mana regen you get Tear + Morellonomicon. Tear + Morellonomicon is still more cost efficient as the Athene's in terms of AP, cdr, and mana reg. So the only thing you don't get is the Magic Resist. In turn, you can upgrade the Tear, into an extremely cost efficient item, that boosts your damage in the mid to late game. Most of the times i upgrade the Tear AFTER i finished the Deathcap or even a Zhonya's. So i just try to get as much DPS as fast as possible, pretty much a route you take to snowball pretty hard. This why i also said only to build it in the right matchups.



I disagree. Though mana doesn't help you to win a straight 1v1 duel, you get some constistency. More mana makes it able to harras more times, use your spells more times, farming, zoning and harrassing at the same time. This is also why many players stopped to rush the DFG on LeBlanc and started with the Athene's.


Champions that normally would like to build the Athene's, can build the Tear * Morellonomicon, get somewhat the same stats, and invest the saved money into armor.

I do see though, that i should do some more explanation about that Tear + Morellonomicon, maybe add some maths.

Before the tear nerfs that was actually a good strategy but most mids do well with an armguard.

i always thought tear nomi was against ad and athenes was against ap?

Tear is absolutely terrible on Brand; it destroys your laning power (which is kind of the only reason to pick him in the first place) and he doesn't need huge amounts of mana anyway.

I'm really not sold on your explanation of why you go Tear + Nomicon. While yes, the combo deals more damage, tear stacks quite badly on Brand and mana isn't really the #1 benefit on him. The item won't pay off for you till at least 30 minutes into the game while athene's actually solves all your mana problems early on and is gold efficient from the get-go.