#frozen mallet

[bxhl]

bt i didnt get to build my frozen mallet :c

[nothingxs]

Let's Talk About Frozen Mallet

Frozen Mallet right now is severely underutilized.

Rightly so.

There are multiple problems with Frozen Mallet in its current incarnation. Right now, it's a permaslow with a tremendously low amount of counterplay. The champions that would benefit the most from this item are the champions that need the least amount of help of this kind -- it makes characters that have lit If this item were cost-efficient with its current passive, it'd make the Jaxes of the world already more frustrating than they are. There'd never be a way to get away from Irelia once she had it (not like there's much of one already).  The mechanic of a permaslow, especially on something as simple as a basic attack, is wildly toxic. Ashe basically has Frozen Mallet's passive as an ability, but she also trades a lot of possibilities in her kit to get access to it (she has a skill that serves little combat purpose except to provide vision, and her ult is a skill-shot initiator with surprisingly small "effective" area once it impacts). Ashe has ONE active damage skill in her kit to trade off for access to a perma slow. She has no other steroids or similar skills to make up for it -- just a Frozen Mallet on toggle that costs mana. Frozen Mallet is that passive but slightly better, with no mana cost. And you just need a bunch of gold! That's some horseshit. It's so bad that the item has to be grossly gold inefficient to keep it from being immensely abusive. Meanwhile, an item that provides a bunch of fighter utility and damage, Ravenous Hydra, gives 3900g worth of stats for 3300 -- never mind the great things you can get out of the attack reset and excellent waveclear on the item! This item makes champions like Riven immensely strong as it gives them an additional AoE and extra animation cancel component they did not have before.

A lot of champions want to buy Frozen Mallet to help them out when their cooldowns are down or to lightly enhance their kit because they otherwise do not provide much utility once their ability cooldowns are expended. However, the item's passive is, honestly, really toxic. Why not look to the most similar items with similar features for a better idea on what to do?

From the League Wiki:

Ravenous Hydra (Melee Only) - 3300g +75 attack damage +15 health regeneration +12% life steal

Total Gold Value = 3900g

PASSIVE: Damage dealt by this item benefits from life steal. UNIQUE PASSIVE – CLEAVE: Your attacks deal up to 60% of your Attack Damage to units around your target as physical damage (185 range), decaying down to 20% near the edge (385 range). UNIQUE ACTIVE – CRESCENT: Deals up to 100% of your Attack Damage to units around you as physical damage, decaying down to 60% near the edge. - 10 second cooldown (400 range)

Iceborn Gauntlet - 2900g +30 ability power +500 mana +60 armor +10% cooldown reduction

Total Gold Value = 3170g

UNIQUE PASSIVE – ICY / SPELLBLADE: After using an ability, your next basic attack deals 125% base AD bonus physical damage to surrounding enemies and creates a field for 2 seconds that slows enemies inside by 30% (1.5 second cooldown).

Frozen Mallet - 3300g +700 health +30 attack damage

Total Gold Value = 2947g

UNIQUE PASSIVE – ICY: Your basic attacks slow your target's Movement Speed by 40% for 1.5 seconds (30% slow for ranged attacks).

So, if we fix the unique ability on it, we are likely able to put some stats back into Frozen Mallet and feel a little better about it. Alternatively, we're able to reduce the cost of it to bring it more in line with something else. The only other item to give a close combination of stats is The Black Cleaver (health, damage), so let's riff off of that.

I present to you: the Frozen MALLET.

Frozen Mallet (Melee Only) - 3000 gold +750 health +30 attack damage

Total Gold Value = 3080g

UNIQUE ACTIVE - CONCUSSIVE BLOW: Your next basic attack deals 100% base AD bonus physical damage and stuns your target for .05 seconds and slows your target's Movement Speed by 40% for 2.5 seconds. - 14 second cooldown. (This ability resets your auto-attack animation.)

What's the reasoning here?

The new Frozen Mallet trades away the admittedly toxic ability of being able to slow someone with each auto attack for a lengthy, single-attack slow that also applies a microstun. Why a microstun? Well, the microstun allows you to interrupt channeled abilities and kind of screw with enemy movement and positioning. It is a very short microstun, with the specific purpose of acting as an interruption rather than any reasonable CC, with the actual CC being the movement speed slow. The slow itself can be tweaked, but Iceborn Gauntlet, which causes an AREA slow on a shorter cooldown, has a 30% slow instead. Removing the slow with a cleanse or slow break renders this part of the ability moot anyways.

I feel the utility of this ability might be incredibly strong on some champions (Renekton, Garen, Darius), but it certainly feels much less toxic than a perma-slow, and it is on a lengthy-enough cooldown (more than Hydra). Reducing the cooldowns on activated items is really difficult (masteries only, I believe), so this might just be a good enough exchange.

Also important: adding 50 more health is just a tiny bonus that might make it more attractive than Warmog's on Bruiser types -- save for the honestly amazing passive that Warmog's now has.

I plan to make a video about this with a Powerpoint presentation while also looking to explore the implications of an active like this on a bunch of champions.

Thanks for reading.

[iknitsteel]

Riot are removing Frozen Mallet. I repeat RIOT ARE REMOVING FROZEN MALLET. I AM SO DAMN ANGRY LIKE FUCK HOW AM I GONNA ACTUALLY CHASE SOMEONE FOR MORE THAN 3 SECONDS NOW. I EVEN USE IT AS A CORE BRAUM ITEM LIKE SERIOUSLY RIOT SWORD OF THE DIVINE IS OK BUT NOT FM? ...rant over.

[kainypoo]

Frozen Mallet

I've been getting it a lot on Cho'gath lately. I kind of figured why not? I mean, if you're going double GP10 -> Frozen Heart -> Wit's End, you might as well get Frozen Mallet for the extra slow since your attack speed is decent with Wit's End. If you manage to melee someone, it makes your Rupture a lot more reliable (i.e., after the first Rupture it will be easier to land a second one while you're chasing).

I've also tried getting it on jungle Alistar if I'm doing well and it's not bad. Main reason I got it is because my team wasn't... the best, so I was looking for ways to carry harder. There's not really anything that Alistar scales particularly well with, so you're generally just going to be getting support items. You could argue for Trinity Force if you want to carry, but in most cases I feel like it's just not very cost efficient for Alistar. Something like Frozen Mallet + Wit's End would be much better in my opinion (albeit, one more slot and ~1k more gold).

I dunno, I guess I'm just a little surprised that people consider it a core item on Olaf but not on Cho'gath. Sure, Olaf has an AD ratio on his Q, but is the extra 20 damage unmitigated on his Q the reason it's so good on Olaf? Of course not. It's good because of the slow and the survivability. I see it being good on Cho'gath for the same reasons, so it's a little weird for me to see the item so unpopular on him.

Anyone have any thoughts on the subject~?

[hinashy]

Game 1

I was trying out Wu Kong for like the 3rd time, and had to solo top against Nunu. I had never laned against a solo top Nunu before so I was baffled at how it would work. Of course Nunu had ridiculous sustain and hurt pretty bad so the laning didn't go over too well. I did alright mid and late game though that made up for it. :)

Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?bb9r561ca16ruf9

Make sure you have LoL Replay to play the file :)