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“I don’t wanna run into 4000 hp Veigar who still oneshots me” Late game full tank Veigar: Allow me to introduce myself

I feel like talking about Gwen would have been important, since she is the incarnation of AP Dps with her Q and E. She also builds lots of the AP Bruiser Items, making her very viable for this list.

Gragas doesn’t even feel much like a bruiser, with his kit so centered around denial and disruption, he’s more like a tank

When you build Renekton as AP does he also become an AP bruiser cuz R AP scaling? WIZARD LIZARD

No AP bruiser iteams (mostly). Also the way their sustained damage comes across: an AD bruiser (like Darius) has decent base tankyness, self-protection (Q self-heal), but has good sustained damage, all of his abilities apply his DoT, but he can also auto attack. Comparatively, a Rumble's damage comes almost entirely from abilites. Many AP bruisers have an artificial auto attack buff, Rumble has overheat, Mordekaiser's autos apply the passive AoE burn, but really only Gwen's autos deal enough sustained damage to fight against an AD bruiser. (A Rumble would never stat check a Darius if they are both in auto range)

A bruiser item that's gotten too big for it's britches recently and moved outside of it's intended role is deaths dance. You can build it on any ad champ and it'll work.

The closest thing we have to an AP bruiser item is...Nashor's Tooth. Most mages don't want it. The fact that Riftmaker has backloaded damage means that Riot knows that AP bruisers need something that most mages don't, I'm just not sure if it's enough.

Their items are just horrible. There has never been a time where AP bruiser items (do we even have those? lmao) have been better than AD bruiser items. Mythics: Riftmaker and Protobelt Riftmaker is just a worse Goredrinker, while Protobelt is too squishy and doesn't provide what AP bruisers want. Magic pen? Why? AD Bruisers have 4 mythics, which all at least have their own use. We don't have anything comparable to Death's Dance, Maw, Black Cleaver, or in the past, Steraks. We've got Rylai's for AP, HP, and a slow. We've got Demonic for AP, HP, and a burn... then there's Hourglass that is balanced around mages, since a stasis is much stronger on a squishy target. I don't want to stasis in the middle of the fight and lose my Conq stacks, passive stacks (as Morde), or have the enemy have time to reposition and get into kiting range. Give me something like DD or Maw that let you KEEP fighting while becoming durable. Also full builds generally only hit 15 - 25 Haste, while AD bruisers hit 70+ without even trying to itemize for it.

Wouldn’t Gwen also be an ap bruiser of sorts?

I always thought AP Skirmishers were more like AP Bruisers as well rather than Slayers. People like Gwen, Lillia, Diana and Elise.

"I don't wanna see a 4000 hp akali that can 1 shot" *_Tank Akali enters summoners rift_*

I might be wrong somewhere, but isn't also Gwen an AP bruiser? She builds survivability AP items - sometimes even tank ones - and is melee?

forgot about gwen too she was supposed to be a ap bruiser when they wanted to release her

The fact that he didn't put THE ap bruiser in the thumbnail i.e gwen

Basically every AP item (with some exceptions) are made for shorter fights, there are only "extended fight" mythics for AP: Riftmaker and Liandry's, even then only one of them provides meaninful defense, and it's just because it's the only AP item that gives AP people sustain. Another point is, as i've said: Meaninful defense AP Defensive items are Crown, Banshee, Zhonya's.... and they all last for what? a few seconds or one hit. Why come AP champions get only Riftmemer for Sustain while AD bruisers have Jax's real weapon (that's sunderer btw), Anti-armor cleaver, Eclipse, Viegoblade, R.Hydra? AD champions also have stuff like Maw of Malmorbius and Balance's Dance, Mage's end and Zilean's Angel? Gwen doesn't have any item that gives her defense over longer fights, so she is forced to take an absolutely stupidly designed W to make up for it, Mordekaiser at least is a juggernaut and can reliably tank a little bit more because the juggernaut class has a big statline. Allow me to remind you: Acording to the LoL fandom wiki, the only AP divers are Diana and Elise, and despite the fact that they have a "dive'em" playstyle, they play it more like assassins. We just need an item like DD, Cleaver that allows AP champions to "ramp up" during longer fights.

Surprised that Lillia wasn't in this category, considering that she always goes for more healthy and ap itens in top and even jungle. She can use ludens and more squishy itemazation, but that's niche, just like crit garen and such.

One could argue that swain encompasses an ap bruiser, especially after his mini rework. Battle mage/bruiser is what I’d personally classify him as

Well If aatrox q is already used as an example: to limit the oneshot potential for ap bruisers give them abilities that need to be used multiple times before giving the full Effect. Similar to aatrox q or old mordekaisers. And to give them something to do between the activation e.g. give them ap scaling AA after landen the first hit

Some of them are less bruiser-like now. Mordekaiser is a "juggernaut". Meta around Grag shifts from bruiser to tank a lot. And the others can flex into bruisers but are more like assassins (looking at you Sylas and Diana). I think the main issue is itemization. There are mage items that are glass cannon or provide too much safety. It can be seen with tanks as there are so limited "meta" AR/MR items. As an a Pan, Gnar, who flexes, I think they need to bring the other roles to par with AD itemization (despite a couple gripes with that category)

My suggestion for an ap bruiser item would be an ap item that gives armor and mr for each second you are in combat until a certain cap. This wouldn’t make any mages tanky since they get oneshot anyway but would be excellent on champs like sylas, singed or mordekaiser Edit: As some people pointed out this would be severely reduced for ranged champions

Only AP bruisers are Mord, Diana (if built like one), Elise (in spider form), Rumble, Sylas, and Gwen. Lillia and Singed are arguably bruisers. The rest, are either assassins (Eve, Kat, Akali, Nid, Kass), tanks (Cho'Gath, Malph, Amumu, Galio, Nunu, Gragas, Zac, Mao, etc.), or straight up cheese build bruisers who have hybrid scaling like AP Shyv, Voli, Udyr, WW, Jax, Xin, etc.

my experience with an ap bruiser (im a gwen main lol) like I really wish we had better items.. the idea is so interesting and I love playing gwen but damn they are forgotten lol great video as usual!!!

I think you forgot Gwen in your list of ap bruisers.

Quick question, why isn't gwen on the list of ap bruisers?

AP Bruiser idea: diminishing returns on their AP scaling on abilities. Give them CRAZY high AP scaling on their abilities, but only for, say, the first 100 AP. Every 100 AP after that gives less scaling than the 100 AP before. Then, make AP Bruiser items that give only a small amount of AP (say 45 at most) and some defensive stats, ability haste, and what have you. These items are still good on the AP bruisers because their scaling is amazing with lower values of AP. But standard AP mages, assassins, and even enchanters and the like just can't justify it, because their scalings aren't high enough to make that 45 AP Mythic viable. Meanwhile, the bigger ticket AP items like Deathcap are just less valuable for the AP bruisers, because all that extra AP beyond the first 100-200 kind of gets wasted, and they'd be better off going fort more defensive stats instead.

The fun part of Shyvana is being a hybrid bruiser. Even when you build a crap load of ad, you end up doing primarily magic damage. Your w and e do magic damage, no matter what. And both gain damage from ad. Her e has better ap scaling of course, but if I remember right, her w damage scales with ad but it converts ap into move speed. That’s why sorcerer’s shoes are always good for her. This is why I end up with weird looking builds on her, I like experimenting with her

Gwen: am i a joke to you or am i a true damage bruiser like camille ? Apart from that lil bug great vid as always keep it up i'm always glad to watch them 👍

can't wait for this one. I just realized this issue myself a couple months ago when I wanted to find an ap jungler that fit my playstyle. (or more specifically, an ap drain tanking bruiser if one even existed)

Funny thing is, Veigar is the only burst mage who can build almost full tank items, And still one shot you like a Syndra

Honestly, I do think AP bruiser items could take a lot of inspiration from AD bruiser items, you just have to put in the same restrictions. GA is a very low damage item, and we all already know Zhonya’s gimps a mage’s damage if built 2nd. A low amount of AP on an AP GA could make it a good AP bruiser item. Further, Death’s Dance and Sterak’s Gage all have a major penalty on ranged champs compared to melee champs, that’s a big reason why not many marksmen go DD, not because they need crit or attack speed more, but because the effect is immensely weaker on them.

As usual, loved the video. My man Galio being forgotten made me real sad. I was really hoping for a even a snippet of your thoughts on him. Also, why isn't Gwen in this video? Was she not made specifically to fill this role? Morde was my go-to champ last season, but I still miss the dynamic character that was old Morde =) more diversity for sure =) Keep up the good work. I eagerly anticipate your Rework Retrospective on Galio =)

i feel like malphite could afford to get some changes to become an AP bruiser, seeing as his only crowd control is in his ultimate, which feels less impressive to me nowadays seeing that other champions feel like they can do the same and better, like Diana's enguage being unable to flash away from it, or Tahm's new W having the same range and radius(though slower i know) and Vex's combo from a mile away. especially with Malphite's W claps being an ability he has feeling a bit underwhelming. not sure what exactly i would change, probably his passive is all he would need, since the shield cooldown feels terrible when garen and sett can fullheal while in a minionwave.

The problem with them is the fact they’re AP. AD Brusiers need HP/Def and Damage but Marksmen need AS/ Crit and Damage, thus allowing for two separate item pools. What does an AP Bruiser want? HP/CDR and AP, the exact same thing other mages want. You can try making AP bruiser items not give mana, but even then, mages would still happily give up mana for more damage and survivability. When the only true APB is Morde and maybe Gwen, there aren’t enough AP bruisers in the game to find out what type of stat combinations would work in their favor, but not general mages.

Really great Insights. The thought of Itemization is something I never thought of; Up until now.

This video taught me that turrets deal physical damage. I had legit no idea. This explains why that Malphite basically set up shop and lived under our turrets the other day.

An AP bruiser item that I'd like to see is when you have higher max HP that your target you gain bonus AP that scales with resistances. Mages won't buy those cuz they need armor, MR and HP just to make it viable.

I'd love to see them bring back Rod of Ages in some way for AP bruisers. I miss it so much on Galio

The fix for the ap bruiser exclusive item being broken on normal mages just give them a condition if they're used by ranged champions half their effects or something and make their passive something that would be effective on ap bruiser like staying in combat or taking damage

As others pointed it out, AP champs in general have no item diversity - burst, control, battle, assassin, bruiser mages - all build the same items because there is nothing else they can do, while AD champs have 3 separate item set and classes for ADC, assassin and bruiser.

Here is an idea: design ap bruiser that converts all AD they build into AP. Boom issue solved lol Or is that 200 years?

Despite him being primarily a mage, I see a lot of Swain players wanting him to be a bruiser. I do see where they’re coming from,

Out of curiosity have you ever considered a topic in the future on the differneces between on-hit vs Crit vs lethality for adc’s and certain fighter classes? It’s a topic I had to learn latter on playing League and I’ve seldom seen anyone tackle those classifications. Much like how I haven’t seen anyone go into full AP vs magic pen builds and which is appropriate when

in fact a lot of champs that were initially designed as tanky juggernauts became more glass cannon in a bid for viability, Gragas was once a tanky ward-placing cinderhulk who would engage fights and last a while as a disruptor, now he either builds AP predator jungle or full support on occasion with yasuo and blows the fuck up whenever he engages or doesn't get to 100-0 someone from brush. Galio had a brief stint with Full AP builds(not the overtuned PBE disaster, he just built more AP for a while years ago), and Zac was even reverted to encourage people to build demonic embrace as we stray further and further from the S7 worlds deathball tank meta. With the durability update fast approaching maybe we might even see a resurgence of some bruiser builds but with the damage creep since the item rework, likely not.

It's a dilemma with these bruisers and ap assasins when it comes to itemization. Whatever items ap bruisers have, will be deadlier on ap assasins. I mean we witnessed ad assasins use bruiser items for a while before it got nerfed heavily. Whats to say a scenario like that won't happen to the ap bruisers and ap assasins?

Also I love how Vars uses Akali when mentioning Lethality and Armor Pen

They could make an AP bruiser Darkin. Darkins are severally under used and it would be cool to have one with an lance that scales off AP items

They could create another window in the shop for AP Bruissers, and directly lock you out of it if you are a mage or a AP assassin

Well there is my point Make ap bruisers have high magic base dmg Make some ap bruisers that gives hp/resistances and a small amount of ap + some magic pen Make mages have less base dmg and more ap scaling so they won't be able to use the news ap bruisers items And finally nerf veigar cuz he will be the only one able to abuse ap bruisers items

Simple way to fix them but not for balance: Each mana is converted to hp or something like that.

If it where up to me, I would make the main damage ability of the ap bruiser, have 30% ap scaleing, and between 2% to 5% hp scaleing, this would make the champ build items with both ap and hp, and give him/her the option to go tank items, and a passive that deals damage like a sunfire aegis, that cakes with ap and hp. And I would give him/her a team fight oriented ult.

Here’s the thing. Every AP melee champ that functions as a bruiser currently in the game has one of two things, or sometimes both: an auto attack AP ratio scalar (Diana, Mordekaiser, Gwen for example), and/or a consistent DoT effect + a low cooldown spell (Lillia, Singed, Shyvanna, Mordekaiser for example). Why do these exist? Well, the first one exists for a simple reason. It exists to incentivize building Nashor’s tooth. Out of those three champs, only mordekaiser doesn’t have nashor’s as a core item, but as a situational instead. The other one is much more simple. It’s given to champs in order to keep their pressure up. Lillia was always an AP bruiser, even with her full AP builds because she fits the role of a bruiser. High damage, high survivability, very short ranged. However, she is unique in that her survivability comes from speed, not tankiness. Recently though, a build for her that has always existed has become much more popular: bruiser Lillia. Riftmaker, Demonic Embrace, tank items, maybe a deathcap somewhere. This build became super popular, because it fit way more with Lillia’s playstyle. You will see on every AP bruiser one of the two things I mentioned above, simply because that’s the only possible way to design an AP bruiser. They need consistent damage. And you can’t get consistent damage out of abilities. Therefore, they need consistent damage effects and auto attack scalers. Also, in most cases, AP bruiser is synonymous with AoE. They have the advantage of making it so that if your team clumps up, everyone gets fucked. I honestly wish they would make another AP bruiser item cause currently the only two AP bruiser items in the game are Riftmaker and Demonic Embrace.

For me AP bruiser items should have a similar case like DE where the burn is stronger for melee users than ranged users since most AP bruisers are melee. further classifying them from mage and an AP bruiser As there are only a few AP bruisers out there and most of them have to force buy some standard mage items because there isnt much options overall for their class. Having Ap items that are for melee champs only could be of help so that melee ap scalers are the only ones that could use them similar to how the old both hydras was only for melee champions

This Vid is so wrong, Wdym AP items can be built by everyone??, If an Akali builds Liandry and Demonic Embrace they will become more tanky and dps reliant champion than a burst assassin, It's literally the same with AD, If a Yi builds bruiser they will become more tanky but deal less damage but if they build crit they will deal more damage but be less tanky, If you build Luden Echo on Morde his playstyle will become more of an assassin bc Luden gives more damage than Riftmaker but gives less defensive stats but that doesn't mean he's equal to Lux in damage, You can't say Lux is op bc she can build all the items like you said, AP Champs have restrictions too, Burst champs can't build sustain dmg bc they will deal less damage and probably will never utilize the sustain it gives, DPS champs also can't build burst bc their kit relies on spamming and if you build burst on them they will only deal damage on the first the falls off or probably dies in the first second due to the fact that burst items gives no sustain or defense(That's like saying Kayle can run Night Harvester as good as Akali) and It's not just AP that matters in mages AH is good for battle mages since they rely on DPS, If an Ahri builds AH it can be hard to burst someone bc you're trading things like MPen, Item passives exists too, A Burst can use Luden and Night Harvester better than DPS, A DPS can use Riftmaker and Liandry better than Burst, Yes Bruiser can build Burst but they aren't as tanky as before that's the same with Assassins building Bruiser

A suggestion: This game is so bursty, and Spellblade is something that i'm studying recently. At first glance is just an item, but, by playing i'm considering this is a playstyle. Camile with 3force, Ekko with lich bane. And also, a video about it, can be divided in much categories. I dont know why, but AP spellbladers like Ekko, Elise, Evelyn, Diana, Fizz can deal over 1.5k damage nowadays with the shadowflame. About AD we have Rengar with crit, Vi as well, Camile, Nocturne with Essence Reaver.. So on

13:10 mage with 3000 health that still does tons of dmg. Vlad mains: are we jokes?

Gwen is an ap bruiser??!

So I've always had a theory about item abuse relative to classes: passive class scaling from stats. For instance tank items are too strong on akali, assasins should have a 90% scaling ratio on Armor and MR while maybe tanks get 110% making it way easier to balance the items to a specific class without completely locking them off. Apply that same concept to AP bruisers, what if they had a 110% Resitance scaling. Then you could release a fairly weak defensive mage item or two that are solidly mediocre at best, but when placed on a champ with the correct scaling ratios becomes pretty strong?

Now we need a video on AP Marksmen: Azir, Teemo, Corki, AP Kayle, Twitch, Kog'Maw, Kai'Sa, Ezreal, Varus, Tristana.

Vars: wait I forgot Galio Swain: wait I am a joke to you….? I mean I now he is range. I still consider him as a Ap Bruiser.

ah yes, the bruisers that can't build death dance and maw

Is Gwen not an ap bruiser?

I do have an Idea for Ap bruiser. The main concept is that to prevent him to oneshoot you because he builds Ap, his damage scales are based in how well he can manage his spells. So instead of having a normal Ap ration like: 90%Ability power, he wold Have X(Where X is the number of times he pleased the condition)%ability power. So the dinamic is that he would need time to have his numbers high, that's why he would need to build durability. Let's name him: Project Ap Passive: Sand Hourglass Project Ap have a Hourglass above him with two poles:Foward and Backward, those poles are visible to the enemies as well. Every third ability will make the Hourglass drop(after 0,25 seconds), doing AoE damage and creating an effect based in wich pole the hourglass was. If the Hourglass was in the Forward Pole, Project Ap, and his allies inside the area affected, will gain Move speed. Project Ap will reduce his spells remaining cd by 25% per enemy affected. If the Hourglass was in the Forward Pole, enemies affected will receive slow and project Ap will receive a Shield, those effects scales per enemy affected. Second Passive: Traveling to the infinity. Project Ap spells scales are based on his Hourglass, each drop that successfully affect at least one enemy champion in the last 5 seconds gives him 10% bonus in his basic spells scale's numbers.(Each drop can only give him 10% ) Basic Spell number 1: No Cost Active: Turns the Hourglass in the Foward pole when casted. Project Ap buffs his next 3 autos to be AoE, doing damage in a cone and granting him move speed per each enemy hit. Passive: While armed, everytime he hits someone with his sword, he reduces his spells remaing cd in one second.(0.5 if not a enemy champion) Basic Spell Number 2: 50/55/60/70 Mana Active: Turns the Hourglas to the Backwards pole when casted. Project Ap will create a circular area, after 0.25 seconds, that follows him while activated, enemies inside the are when activated will receive a slow and damage. When Project Ap damages an enemy champion inside the area he will receive a shield based in how much damage he delt to them. Project Ap can cancel the spell to damage everyone inside and gain move speed and slow resistence based in how many people where there when he closed the area. Basic Spell Number 3: 70/75/80/85/90 Mana If activated in close range, Project Ap will attack everyone in his front leaving a temporal copy that will do the same after 0.25 seconds, both attacks do damage, but the second one does more. He will gain a shield based in how many targets hit by both activations. If casted on long range, Project Ap will throw his sword to the target area that will apply damage and slow around the the area when it lands. If he hit at least one person, he can re-cast to teleport to the sword after 0.25 seconds, to do the same damage again, and refund his basic spells cd per enemy affect by it. If he Project Ap doesn't go near the sword, it will stay there for some time making Project Ap disarmed, while disarmed he only does 60% of his the total damage. Ultimate Marks a big area that transforms itself in a giant sandstorm after some time. Enemies inside the area the moment that the storm is formed will have their vision reduced. Enemies receive damage while inside the storm. Project Ap can prolong the storm duration by affecting people with his Hourglass.

Riftmaker's effect is probably the best way to go about this. giving stacks to ap bruisers of omnivamp or other useful stats over extended fights , like how conqueror rune works (not now that half champions can fully stack it in 2 seconds) can go a long way. and it won't make burst champions busted as it forces those extended interractions.

I will always standby that if Riot were to ever do a League of Legends 2 or other kind of extreme megapatch that overhauled things more than all preseasons combined, they should remove the concept of Physical & Magic Damage. I would even remove Armor & Magic Resist, let everything just be true damage. This would make building a team comp much more forgiving since you could focus on actual synergy between champions instead of trying to balance out damage types. Imagine if you're playing Top & the rest of your team comp is Kha'Zix/Akshan/Jhin/Pyke. Now you absolutely NEED to play someone that can both frontline & do a lot of Magic Damage, but ofc the enemy team banned both Singed & Tahm Kench, & the enemy top is playing Sylas who usually wins against Cho'Gath, Mordekaiser, Rumble, & ESPECIALLY Malphite, so what's left? Lillia? Gwen? AP Volibear? TBF that last 1 COOOULD be worth, but that's a massive rut to be in assuming you're not a 1-trick & they somehow didn't ban it

Old mord had decent backloaded with triple Q, demonstrating how it’s possible to back load an ap kit

Talks about assassins needing lethality, show picture of Akali.

They can make items specific for AP bruisers like: Item: Pure Blood Wine (Unique: Grant Drunken Bloodlust if you have at least 850 bonus health. Unique: Druken Bloodlust: Increase current Ability Power by 50% and grant 18% bonus Omnivamp). Loose idea, but might work.

I've only been playing League for a few months but years ago I played a MOBA called Smite. In Smite they had items that were locked from certain characters that could abuse or weren't meant to use them. I think this would be a good thing for class specific items to be implemented and balanced around certain characters instead of punishing everyone who can use it. Shieldbow (before this attack on healing) for example should've been locked off to Marksman only and then they implement something different for people like Yas/Yone/Irelia etc. I also understand though that the ability to abuse and use all kinds of items is what makes League kind of unique.

Tbh I've even gone as far to build Zhonya's on my ADC a couple times, and it has worked. Some games you just get deleted out of the fight and your peel either doesn't exist or isn't good enough. There was one game a Zed would just beeline for me and my peel would totally ignore him, so he'd kill me way before I could do much in a teamfight. So i sold one of my adc items and bought a stopwatch. It worked. It worked amazingly well. The Zed didnt even seem to know what to do, and I was in stasis long enough for my team to turn on him. So i built it into a full Zhonya and it worked. I've done it a couple more times since then as well. It's rare. It's maybe only solo blind/draft picks too cos in a ranked game, your peel should be peeling, but it has worked.

As to items, there is the cosmic drive route - lock the full potential of an iten behind a stat requirement, only defensive this time. Say, item X gives you 60 ap, but if you have over 3000 health, it ramps up to 100.

>bruisers main weakness is lack of mobility and being kited >irellia exists

I think there are plenty of tools out there to design AP bruisers without allowing them to just build full AP: backloaded damage. This could be implemented through a stacking system, like Vel'Koz or Varus, or perhaps a delayed mark like Evelynn or Zed. Give them the high damage when they pop the stacks / mark, and maybe depending on how they pop it they can do either flat damage or %hp damage. But by locking the damage behind these systems (and giving them low target access), you would force them to go off-tank to be able to survive long enough to actually do the damage, and their full damage build would be relegated to meme tier, like full lethality Yorick.

Fiddle and gwen could also easily be added to that category, being that they do build a few tankier items from time to time, also including riftmaker.

Actually, yes. I do have an AP bruiser in mind. I will keep it short this time, but I don't mind elaborating further if necessary. P- Your next ability cast won't go on cooldown. (24 seconds cooldown) Q- Dash on the targeted direction, leaving behind an area that deals magic damage over time. W- Deals magic damage and stuns all nearby enemies affected by damage over time and converts said DoT into instant damage. E- Becomes untargetable and ignores unit collision for a short duration. R (avaliable from level 1)- Empowers your next ability cast. Q gets extended range and speed, W extends the stun and the conversion from DoT to instant damage won't consume the DoT, E also grants movement speed and ignores terrain collision.

Running sunderer and demonic on a champion like sejuani feels so good the dual pen scaling from divine sunderer is so good on an ap tank

Shyvana has an empowered ability ult, can be built ap bruiser, can split push, and technically infinitely scales.

I think that for make a good ap bruiser like mordekaiser, we would need to make all mages have a passive like pyke (his passive which doesn't allow him to scale from health items like warmog), so that even if a mage build an ap black cleaver, the health wouldn't scale, but this would be absurd for riot to do just so they can make new ap melee champions that aren't ad

I miss Rod of Ages + Nashors conqueror diana lol. The healing with ravenous hunter and taste of blood was insane. Was the best at taking towers while splitpushing while being great at teamfights and can even duel. Had very little weaknesses

I think the Mana talk stumbles on something interesting you could do with an AP bruiser, and it's actually something that's been in the game *forever.* What if you had an AP bruiser where instead of their durability coming exclusively from Health, Armor, and Magic Resist, they could gain extra durability from Mana? Some sort of... Mana Barrier that scales off of their Max Mana that makes mage items that would otherwise be purely about ability management suddenly be durability picks on that champion alone? What I'm saying is that, in a parallel timeline where Blitz isn't solidified as the iconic Hook champion, AP Bruiser Blitz is *absolutely* a thing. You could even do fun things with his ult where each of his autoattacks applies a stack of Static, and when he uses the ability he cashes them in for bonus damage, *backloading* his big burst like Darius.

Brusier Diana. I love the reducing of one shots which means bruiser Lady Di is more in the mix. And again I will point out- Guinsu's rage blade causes a double cleave. When the double proc of rage blade kicks in it is Hit, cleave, hit cleave. Combine this with Nashor's, Riftmaker, and Conquerer it makes for (on paper) a very fighty ap champ that lives for the extended fight. You can even choose tanky runes by going tear/archangles for more healing and cdr meaning more up time on your shields up time.

That is why champions like Mordekaiser take the only real ap bruiser item (riftmaker) and maybe one or two mage items (including demonic embrace) and then goes tank items (thornmail, spirit visage, he also usually builds plated steelcaps).

I last played back when Ryze was building mana-cooldown-and-armor items, which effectively make him a magic bruiser.

I have a theory that Illaoi was definitely supposed to be an AP bruiser champion for most of her design, and just ran into the issues of being impossible to balance if she was AP based largely on what you describe. First, more than almost any other bruiser, including mord, her abilities are magical in nature. She is damaging your soul when she tests you, hitting you with a ghost tentacle. Mord hits you with a giant mace and that is magical damage, a ghost tentacle hitting you seems pretty magical. If you were to show someone who never played the game gameplay footage of Illaoi, and Mord, and said one of these deals almost exclusively magic damage, and one deals almost exclusively physical damage, I'm guessing they are going to say Illaoi is the magic damage dealer. Not saying mord doesn't look or feel like someone who should do magic damage, simply saying that Illaoi seems further on the magic damage side than him. She also deals most of her damage with her abilities, which isn't unheard of for bruisers, but rarely to the extent I feel like is true for her. Even her auto attack reset ability isn't usually mostly about the damage the hit does but the tentacle slams it enables. Also, I think they only feel like they can make AP champions with backloaded damage if they do some sort of drain tank thing, and Illaoi's kit is pretty drain tanky.

I can see a champ like Ornn, who interacts with itemization, and converts AD from items into ap. He would obviously have to be tuned like mordekaiser, since ad items tend to give less stats than ap items, but I can really see it working like a more complex corki passive.

My idea for an AP bruiser is actually taken from Karma's tether - multi powered abilities. Q could be a slow but if the target remains close to the caster, they take damage once the slow times out. Basically, design the first part of their abilities to be some kind of CC or sustain tool and then give them damage if a condition while using those abilities is met.

With the future release of Bel'veth, more champions whose abilities scale more with stats beyond raw AD or AP seem to be coming at the forefront, and this gives me an idea about what kind of ap bruiser could exist in the game. What this AP bruiser type would need is to favour a stat that is different to the one usual battle mages would need, either through kit synergies or extra scaling. One good example would be AS scaling a la Yasuo or Yone in one of their abilities, to make them consistently spam them in the middle of a fight while staying close to their targets. It is not enough that they stay in close range, they have to favour a playstyle that differentiates them from their ranged counterparts. Itemization cannot come first, because there is no specific direction in which they could go. There can't be a Steraks for AP Bruisers if we do not fully know yet how AP bruisers are supposed to look like in the first place. Some ramping up effects are a good place to start, and Riftmaker and Demonic Embrace already go in that direction, but what else would they need would have to come from having a pool of AP Bruisers in the game first..

I think the best thing to do for AP bruisers is to make items that can shift their damage from the front to back. Items like Riftmaker and Embrace come to mind, items that let you be stronger later in a fight. Nashor's tooth also fits here. It's stat profile also makes it not the best at up front combat. Lich Bane also sort of fits but it's ability to be preped means that it's more used as burst tool rather than an extended fighting tool. Basically they need to make attack speed more appealing to AP champs for a bruiser identity to be better than a burst one

Im curious to see where my main Sylas stands, as he is much more a hybrid of bruiser/skirmisher and assassin. I almost feel like they added the healing to his kit to supplement the trash ap bruiser items we have, so since he doesn’t really need an item for healing, everfrost became such a perfect item for him simply because of it’s utility and cdr. To this day he is still my favorite league champ for sure.

As someone who mains akali I can say she is somewhat of a AP bruiser, as her q and passive make her do very high amounts of sustanded damge. The only real sorce of burst in her kit (other then generally having very high Base damage and scalling) is her E having 450 + 120ap damage. The twighlight shrowd lets her stay engaged with the enemy for the time needed to lanch severy attacks realistically, even if in pratice it is very unrelable. Her ult has low damage for the first strike, mostly being a gap closer, but the second attack dos a max of 600+90ap exitute damge but has a delay of 2.5 seconds, backloading it. This means it is nearly always the best idea to go conquer, and choses between the 2 ap bruserish mithics, hextec and rift. She can just be a ad bruser or a tank at the same level as the meta build due to good hybrid ratios and base numbers, but those are uncommon builds even if they are more relable due to much lower burst. That being said, with the lack of good iteams beond mithics that give any health or restanse and ap make it so she can't fix her problems staying in the fight well truely being ap.

Love that Dynasty Warriors music being used ❤️

I miss when gragas's abilities scaled off of defensive stats tbh, when his passive scaled with health and his w scaling with his armor and magic resist and allowed him to be more about durability and cc while still having decent damage that wasn't broken. Now it feels like you can only play him full ap or you're trolling.

The best way to deal with the AP bruiser problem is to have champs have base AP increasing similar to AD. For example they could then give bruiser items scaling off of base AP, and other mage items scale off of bonus AP. That way xerath wouldn’t get great mileage out of the AP bruiser items, but a dedicated AP bruiser would be happy using them. Current example being Sterak’s Gage. Only gives AD scaling from base AD which assassins don’t have much of, so assassins don’t itemize it anywhere near as much as an AD bruiser

I liked playing Soraka as an AP bruiser, back when Starfall was an aoe around her. AP + spirit visage + situational tank items meant tough enough to stick in the fight. And though Starfall's AP ratio was a bit low, the stacking MR debuff meant escalating damage. So: tough, some damage, which was escalating / back-loaded. Definition of bruiser. 🙂

Funny how now with ‘tank meta’ of season 13, champs like Sej, Ammumu, Mao, Zac, Cho, Voli have leaned into being AP bruisers rather than tanks and Lillia, Kat, Gwen have moved closer and closer to AP bruiser items

My idea on how to make AP bruisers a thing would be to give them said AP+defense stat items, but lock them on AP Melee champions or something (similar to how they locked Runaan's to ranged champions and the old Tiamat items to melee ones).

An idea, not sure if it would actually work, is that the champion‘s passive is to get +x HP for every finished item and like a quarter of it per epic item.

3:33 actually, the first ap melee champ to pop up in my head when you said that was sylas Wich is strange considering ekko is my third highest mastery champ

Depends on how you build him, but I'm particular to AP Bruiser Volibear myself. Going PtA, rushing Nashor's Tooth, then building Riftmaker is a fun time for me. That damage isn't frontloaded as he needs to stack up his passive to really get the damage pumping, but going AP also allows him to have more survivability/damage with his E.

Make a ap bruiser that gains resistence from ap, so they have lower damage, range e mobility, but still can have resistences from building damage