u/Sephyrias

There is no shortage of champions with shields, but against which of them is it worth it to rush Serpent's Fang?

Lvl 8 vs Training Dummy 1400 HP, 60 armor, 40 magic resist (= Ambessa with Doran's Blade).

Starting each combo with 0 Conqueror stacks.

• Combo 1: E-W-Q1-auto-Q2-auto-Q3-auto

• Combo 2: Q1-auto-Q2-auto-Q3-auto-W-auto-E-auto

• Combo 3: E-R-Q1-W-auto-Q2-auto-Q3-R

Item	Combo 1	Combo 2	Combo 3
The Collector	857-1267	1141-1830	1141-1514
Voltaic Cyclosword (100 energy)	1073	1382	1444
Umbral Glaive (with Nightstalker)	1034	1353	1390
Profane Hydra (with Cleave)	1022	1331	1392
Bastionbreaker (with charge)	1021	1340	1376
Titanic Hydra (with Cleave)	977	1216	1270
Bastionbreaker (without charge)	958	1277	1299
Ravenous Hydra (with Cleave)	958	1250	1289
Umbral Glaive (without Nightstalker)	957	1276	1296
Bloodthirster	941	1258	1266
Axiom Arc	931	1241	1256
Profane Hydra (without Cleave)	931	1241	1256
Blade of the Ruined King	915	1221	1129
Kraken Slayer	907	1161	1026
Eclipse	902	1185	1191
Edge of Night	887	1180	1187
Voltaic Cyclosword (0 energy)	882	1175	1178
Ravenous Hydra (without Cleave)	872	1164	1162
Endless Hunger	872	1164	1162
Giant's Belt + Pickaxe + BF Sword	872	1164	1162
Sundered Sky	852	1111	1131
Death's Dance/Maw	850	1133	1128
Trinity Force	841	1185	1086
Stridebreaker (with Cleave)	831	1080	1098
Black Cleaver	813	1089	1082
Spear of Shojin	810	1070	1090
Titanic Hydra (without Cleave)	793	1066	1020
Hullbreaker	758	1124	992
Stridebreaker (without Cleave)	758	1007	992
Iceborn Gauntlet	651	908	819

Combo 3 is there to let the AD ability scalings show, so I specifically didn't do a third auto.

That Kraken Slayer and Botrk aren't at the top for combo 2 is interesting. Usually on-hit items rank very high on these tests if I include many autos.

Titanic Hydra also stands out, so much so that I wonder if I made a mistake, but I'm pretty sure I doubled checked it. Must be because the Cleave of Titanic procs Riven's passive or something like that.

Trinity Force performs poorly because you would have to delay your Q activations a lot to wait for the Spellblade cooldown, which I didn't do.

Other than that it's probably what you would expect. Lethality items and raw AD at the top, bruiser items at the bottom.

Which off-meta AD melee midlaners are worth playing? Here an attempt to answer the question with numbers. This chart shows the winrate and popularity of all melee AD midlaners from Platinum onwards across the past 30 days, sorted by popularity. Cut-off point at 2000 games.

Champion	Games played	Total Win%	AvG WR
Yasuo	826,096	50.1%	48.79%
Zed	797,874	51.28%	50.31%
Katarina	648,848	51.03%	50.07%
Yone	559,252	49.88%	48.63%
Naafiri	288,089	53.37%	52.17%
Irelia	270,921	50.75%	49.6%
Talon	240,412	50.08%	49.15%
Qiyana	201,674	50.33%	49.66%
Sion	101,585	53.44%	52.52%
Pantheon	85,108	52.57%	51.46%
Xin Zhao	52,869	51.43%	50.73%
Garen	52,097	53.03%	51.93%
Nasus	51,503	52.8%	51.79%
Gangplank	41,401	50.87%	49.87%
Tryndamere	30,237	52.82%	51.81%
Renekton	25,596	51.17%	50.08%
Briar	25,364	52.94%	51.77%
Ambessa	25,081	50%	49.62%
Riven	24,762	53.19%	52.12%
Viego	19,878	49.8%	48.92%
Yorick	19,004	50.32%	49%
Sett	17,131	53.24%	52.03%
Aatrox	14,356	50.35%	49.72%
Master Yi	13,459	51.37%	50.06%
Kled	10,702	54.35%	53.35%
K'Sante	9443	49.19%	48.42%
Lee Sin	9386	45.07%	44.32%
Shen	9323	52.02%	51.09%
Dr. Mundo	9131	49.06%	47.8%
Darius	8954	48.44%	47.68%
Wukong	7832	50.37%	49.05%
Jax	7593	50.03%	49%
Jarvan IV	7169	49.38%	48.02%
Nocturne	6800	50.47%	49.86%
Vi	6447	47.76%	47.05%
Pyke	6111	46.8%	46.22%
Camille	5969	52.04%	51.36%
Zaahen	5589	49.51%	48.27%
Olaf	4331	52.44%	52.23%
Fiora	4079	51.97%	51.32%
Bel'Veth	3935	43.48%	43.36%
Warwick	3540	52.80%	52.3%
Trundle	3059	47.83%	46.92%
Kayn	2840	49.93%	48.74%
Shyvana	2737	44.72%	44.4%
Gnar	2701	49.46%	47.47%
Shaco	2657	43.47%	42.15%
Poppy	2594	53.43%	52.17%
^source

Gangplank and Gnar are cheating a bit, since they're only half-melee. Katarina, Shyvana, Shaco and Xin Zhao also cheat by buying AP sometimes.

Total Win% tells you how much those players are winning in reality, AvG WR tells you the champion's winrate in comparison to other champions. I'm comparing champions here, so AvG WR is the more useful number.

Going by winrate alone, the ones most worth looking at are Kled, Sion, Poppy, Naafiri, Sett, Riven, Garen, Briar, Tryndamere, Warwick, Nasus, Pantheon, Olaf, Camille, Shen and Fiora. Kled stands out the most, almost a full 1% above those next in line.
Meanwhile the numbers show that it isn't worth picking Shaco, Shyvana, Trundle, Pyke, Vi, Darius, or Lee Sin midlane. You could even argue that everyone with a winrate lower than Yasuo or Yone isn't worth playing mid, since there are so many other AD mids with both higher winrate and higher popularity to choose from.

The 4 most popular midlaners in the game are Ahri, Yasuo, Malzahar and Zed. Olaf might be an underrated counterpick against Ahri and Malzahar. Poppy is worth checking out too due to the anti-dash.

Also worth mentioning is that if I increase the filter to Diamond+, Riven becomes the highest winrate midlaner in the game. I'm surprised something similar doesn't happen with Irelia and Yone, their AvG WR mid keeps dropping past Silver, their skill ceiling doesn't pay off at all, contrary to picks like Katarina, Riven or Qiyana, who get better with every rank up.

(I had previously posted this on /r/summonerschool, but the mods there removed the post and sent me here instead.)

Which off-meta AD melee midlaners are worth playing? Here an attempt to answer the question with numbers. This chart shows the winrate and popularity of all melee AD midlaners from Platinum onwards across the past 30 days, sorted by popularity. Cut-off point at 2000 games.

Champion	Games played	Total Win%	AvG WR
Yasuo	826,096	50.1%	48.79%
Zed	797,874	51.28%	50.31%
Katarina	648,848	51.03%	50.07%
Yone	559,252	49.88%	48.63%
Naafiri	288,089	53.37%	52.17%
Irelia	270,921	50.75%	49.6%
Talon	240,412	50.08%	49.15%
Qiyana	201,674	50.33%	49.66%
Sion	101,585	53.44%	52.52%
Pantheon	85,108	52.57%	51.46%
Xin Zhao	52,869	51.43%	50.73%
Garen	52,097	53.03%	51.93%
Nasus	51,503	52.8%	51.79%
Gangplank	41,401	50.87%	49.87%
Tryndamere	30,237	52.82%	51.81%
Renekton	25,596	51.17%	50.08%
Briar	25,364	52.94%	51.77%
Ambessa	25,081	50%	49.62%
Riven	24,762	53.19%	52.12%
Viego	19,878	49.8%	48.92%
Yorick	19,004	50.32%	49%
Sett	17,131	53.24%	52.03%
Aatrox	14,356	50.35%	49.72%
Master Yi	13,459	51.37%	50.06%
Kled	10,702	54.35%	53.35%
K'Sante	9443	49.19%	48.42%
Lee Sin	9386	45.07%	44.32%
Shen	9323	52.02%	51.09%
Dr. Mundo	9131	49.06%	47.8%
Darius	8954	48.44%	47.68%
Wukong	7832	50.37%	49.05%
Jax	7593	50.03%	49%
Jarvan IV	7169	49.38%	48.02%
Nocturne	6800	50.47%	49.86%
Vi	6447	47.76%	47.05%
Pyke	6111	46.8%	46.22%
Camille	5969	52.04%	51.36%
Zaahen	5589	49.51%	48.27%
Olaf	4331	52.44%	52.23%
Fiora	4079	51.97%	51.32%
Bel'Veth	3935	43.48%	43.36%
Warwick	3540	52.80%	52.3%
Trundle	3059	47.83%	46.92%
Kayn	2840	49.93%	48.74%
Shyvana	2737	44.72%	44.4%
Gnar	2701	49.46%	47.47%
Shaco	2657	43.47%	42.15%
Poppy	2594	53.43%	52.17%
^source

Gangplank and Gnar are cheating a bit, since they're only half-melee. Katarina, Shyvana, Shaco and Xin Zhao also cheat by buying AP sometimes.

Total Win% tells you how much those players are winning in reality, AvG WR tells you the champion's winrate in comparison to other champions. I'm comparing champions here, so AvG WR is the more useful number.

Going by winrate alone, the ones most worth looking at are Kled, Sion, Poppy, Naafiri, Sett, Riven, Garen, Briar, Tryndamere, Warwick, Nasus, Pantheon, Olaf, Camille, Shen and Fiora. Kled stands out the most, almost a full 1% above those next in line.
Meanwhile the numbers show that it isn't worth picking Shaco, Shyvana, Trundle, Pyke, Vi, Darius, or Lee Sin midlane. You could even argue that everyone with a worse winrate than Yasuo or Yone isn't worth playing mid, since there are so many other more popular AD melees with a better winrate to choose from.

The 4 most popular midlaners in the game are Ahri, Yasuo, Malzahar and Zed. Olaf might be an underrated counterpick against Ahri and Malzahar. Poppy is worth checking out too due to the anti-dash.

Also worth mentioning is that if I increase the filter to Diamond+, Riven becomes the highest winrate midlaner in the game. I'm surprised something similar doesn't happen with Irelia and Yone, their AvG WR mid keeps dropping past Silver, their skill ceiling doesn't pay off at all, contrary to picks like Katarina, Riven or Qiyana, who get better with every rank up.

>Lich Bane

>Spellblade AP ratio: 40% AP → 45% AP

>Movement speed: 4% → 6%

Previously Dusk and Dawn lost a bunch of damage:

>V26.09

>Health reduced to 300 from 350.

>Ability power reduced to 60 from 70.

>Attack speed reduced to 20% from 25%.

>New Effect: Spellblade now heals the user

Back in this thread I posted some damage test numbers: https://www.reddit.com/r/shyvanamains/comments/1sgxwpk/hullbreaker_2nd_item/of9ceef/ When I do the same thing now, level 11 with conqueror rune, maxing Q>W>E, the result is as follows:

VS 1600 HP, 60 armor, 40 mr training dummy (lvl 11 Jinx)

• human E-W-auto-Q-auto-Q-auto(W): Kraken Slayer+Trinity Force=1240dmg, Triforce+Hullbreaker=1218dmg, Kraken+Hullbreaker=1255dmg, Kraken+Dusk&Dawn=1222dmg, Rabadon's+Shadowflame=1101dmg, Dusk&Dawn+Rabadon's=1027dmg

• R-W-auto-Q-auto-Q-auto-Q(W)-E: Kraken Slayer+Trinity Force=2248dmg, Triforce+Hullbreaker=2047dmg, Kraken+Hullbreaker=2153dmg, Kraken+Dusk&Dawn=2029dmg, Rabadon's+Shadowflame=2439dmg, Dusk&Dawn+Rabadon's=2055dmg

• R-W-QQQ-E-(3autos)-QQQ: this test doesn't work anymore because the Q cooldown is longer now, but if I stand still for 2 seconds after Q3-E, then the damage for Trinity Force+Kraken Slayer is now 4432, slightly higher than the previous 4343, but D&D+Kraken only gets 3971dmg, while it was 4110 previously. Shadowflame+Rabadons barely even touches 3700, with those items you don't care about hitting a second Q3.

If I max E>W>Q instead:

• human E-W-auto-Q-auto-Q-auto(W): Kraken Slayer+Trinity Force=1259dmg, Triforce+Hullbreaker=1247dmg, Kraken+Hullbreaker=1288dmg, Kraken+Dusk&Dawn=1268dmg, Rabadon's+Shadowflame=1176dmg, Dusk&Dawn+Rabadon's=1088dmg

• R-W-auto-Q-auto-Q-auto-Q(W)-E: Kraken Slayer+Trinity Force=2242dmg, Triforce+Hullbreaker=2044dmg, Kraken+Hullbreaker=2135dmg, Kraken+Dusk&Dawn=2043dmg, Rabadon's+Shadowflame=2559dmg, Dusk&Dawn+Rabadon's=2083dmg

If I max W>Q>E:

• human E-W-auto-Q-auto-Q-auto(W): Kraken Slayer+Trinity Force=1258dmg, Triforce+Hullbreaker=1240, Kraken+Hullbreaker=1266dmg, Kraken+Dusk&Dawn=1239dmg, Rabadon's+Shadowflame=1120dmg, Dusk&Dawn+Rabadon's=1049dmg,

• R-W-auto-Q-auto-Q-auto-Q(W)-E: Kraken Slayer+Trinity Force=2244dmg, Triforce+Hullbreaker=2045dmg, Kraken+Hullbreaker=2135dmg, Kraken+Dusk&Dawn= 2035dmg, Rabadon's+Shadowflame=2448dmg, Dusk&Dawn+Rabadon's=2032dmg

My main takeaway:

1. Trinity Force is competitive and Kraken Slayer is still viable too, but Dusk and Dawn is weaker than before.

2. It is not clear if AD Shyvana should max Q or W first. The damage is almost the same and the Q cd nerf is noticable.

3. E max AP Shyvana deals equivalent burst damage to AP Diana, but AP Shyvana's dps is weaker since her cooldowns are longer.