Analysing Common Rageblade Users in Set 12
Preface
Hi, I'm Goody, I make TFT content on YouTube, Twitch and Reddit
During the PBE and now on live, I've been seeing Rageblade being built countless times for numerous units.
17 Potential Users of Rageblade?
Thus, as a Rageblade enjoyer, I decided to review which units Rageblade was commonly built on and judge whether or not they're truly a good user of the item
Here is my current Set 12 lolchess: https://lolchess.gg/profile/euw/Goody-9999/set12
And my Exalted Only Account in Set 11: https://lolchess.gg/profile/euw/Goody-8888/set11
Conclusions Reached from Data and Opinion
I reached my conclusions from data*, graphs and my personal experience.
This endeavour was to see which units Rageblade is frequently built on, explore its potential, and then reach a judgement.
Feel free to reach your own judgements, plus let me know what you think! I'm very curious to see if we have differing or similar thoughts.
My calculations:
All of my Calculations can be found in this Google Sheets Document and all graphing was done in the following Google Colab instance.
*As of writing this post, I went through both tactics.tools and MetaTFT on the 2nd of August at 11am, filtering by Gold+ for the greatest sample size possible to avoid anomalies.
Note: I apologise for not having inline images, I use old Reddit and frankly do not know how to have them inline.
TLDR
VIDEO FORM HERE
[Video Duration: 11 minutes]
(i made a TLDR table too!)
| Unit | Rageblade User? | Double Rageblade? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Twitch | No | No | Mislabelled as Attack Carry |
| Warwick | Yes | No | Warwick needs Artifacts |
| Ashe | Yes | Possible | Ashe has potential |
| Cassiopeia | Yes | Yes | Stacks Incantor quickly |
| Kog'maw | ? | No | Rageblade is secondary to Red Buff/Shojin |
| Kassadin | Yes | No | Rageblade/Archangel's allows Kassadin to hyper scale |
| Galio (Hero) | Yes | Yes | More Autos = More AP |
| Nilah | ? | No | Rageblade Nilah requires Pyro |
| Tristana | ? | No | Tris is an AD Caster |
| Zilean | No | No | There are better mana items |
| Syndra | Yes | No | Syndra has a small cast animation |
| Jinx | Yes | Yes | Takedowns are important |
| Kalista | Yes | Yes | The best user of Double Rageblade |
| Ryze | Yes | No | Ryze loves to scale |
| Varus | No | No | Shojin/Red Buff is better |
| Smolder | Yes | Yes | Pyro/Frost Spat above all else |
| Milio | Yes | ? | Give Milio whatever to give more items to team |
Warwick
Warwick loves Attack Speed due to his passive.
Permanently gain 1% Attack Speed and movement speed for each champion killed. Attacks heal for 15/20/30 Health and deal 23/34/51 bonus physical damage. Gain double the healing and physical damage for targets below 25% Health.
More autos result in more damage and healing, thus making Rageblade an obvious choice for him, right?
This is likely due to how demanding each of Warwick's item slots are.
Warwick wants Attack Speed to keep sustaining and dealing damage, CC immunity so he is uninterrupted, and he wants AD and AP to further increase his sustain and damage.
Twitch
As of writing this post, Rageblade is Twitch's most built item, which is understandable as Twitch is labelled as an Attack Carry, hence the game recommends you build Rageblade
I believe this is a mistake.
Twitch has a very poor Attack Speed scaling as his ult does not scale with AS, his ult does not stack/proc items like Rageblade and Twitch's base Attack Speed is 0.7.
Fire a shard of ice at the target that pierces through enemies hit, dealing 100/150/225 physical damage, reduced by 10% for each enemy hit. Targets are Sundered for 5 seconds.
Twitch is more akin to an AD Caster
And so his ideal items should be damage multiplying items like Infinity Edge, Deathblade, Giant Slayer and so on, especially with the raw stats from Frost and Hunter
Ashe
Ashe is a very interesting unit as her ult is akin to Runaan's
For the next 5 seconds, Ashe fires an extra missile dealing 25/38/56 physical damage at a target near Ashe. This effect stacks.
So of course, more Attack Speed on Ashe allows her to fire more missiles. And with enough Attack Speed, Ashe can fire numerous missiles as her ult can stack.
Despite Ashe having a base Attack Speed of 0.7, she can gain a ton of Attack Speed with Rageblade and her Multistriker trait.
Is Ashe Bugged?
In my YouTube video, I said that multiplies of 10 AP (10, 30, 50 etc) is great for Ashe as she gains an entire second more in her ult channel.
However, after looking into this more, AP doesn't seem to increase Ashe's ult duration as expected.
Here's a clip of Ashe with Rabadon. Rather than increasing the ult duration to 8 seconds as per the tooltip, the duration is closer to 5 seconds.
From that single clip, it doesn't seem that Ashe's ult is truly scaling with AP.
I apologise for missing this in the YouTube video but please let me know if you've experienced anything similar with Ashe
Nonetheless, I believe Ashe has a ton of unexplored potential.
Cassiopeia & Galio Hero Augment
Now these units are straightforward users of Rageblade as more attacks result in more AP
Cassiopeia stacks AP through Incantor
When Incantors attack or cast, all Incantors gain stacks of up to 40. Every other attack grants 1 stack, and each Ability cast grants 3 stacks.
And she'll want to auto as much as possible to both stack Incantor and deal as much damage as possible during her ult.
For the next 6 seconds, attacks instead deal 95/145/230 magic damage.
These same sentinents can be said for Galio's Hero Augment, as he functions similar to Cassiopeia
Gain a Galio. Your strongest Galio has +3 range and gains 15 Mana and 6 Ability Power on each attack. His Ability deals 125% more damage, but no longer stuns or reduces damage.
Double Rageblade is common for these units to make them accelerate as quickly as possible.
Kog'maw
Now I believe Kog'maw is similar to Twitch in the sense that Kog'maw is also labelled as an Attack Carry despite being more akin to an AD Caster.
With items like Red Buff or Shojin, Kog'maw can keeping casting and sustain his bonus Attack Speed from his ult.
Launches a honey wad through the current target, dealing 160/248/402 physical damage to enemies hit. Adjacent allies and allies hit by the trail are set abuzz, gaining 20/25/30% Attack Speed for 4 seconds.
But of course that means Kog'maw can accelerate Rageblade's stacking through his ult.
So while Kog’maw will prefer items like Shojin and Red Buff (like any AD Caster) to increase his upfront damage, he can use Rageblade.
Although, I personally prefer Kog'maw with 2 Damage Items (IE, LW, GS etc) + 1 Utility (Shojin/Red Buff/Rageblade)
Kassadin
With more Attack Speed Kassadin, can scale exponentially due to his increase passive magic damage on-hit
Deal 110/165/255 magic damage to the target and gain 300/335/370 Shield for 3 seconds. For the rest of combat, attacks deal 35/50/80 bonus stacking magic damage.
The Attack Speed Loop
This may be due to Rageblade stacking vastly faster due to Multistriker procs.
More Attack Speed results in more Multristriker procs, which gets more Rageblade stacks and more Attack Speed.
This loop allows Kassadin to scale much faster as opposed to Archangels which provides AP at fixed time intervals.
Nonetheless, either item is currently commonly built alongside QSS and BT to give Kassadin survivability and ample time to scale
High Winrate Artifacts
As a side note, Kassadin performs incredibly well with Artifacts
I also find that Double Rageblade Kassadin build very interesting. I've not personally come across it yet or played it but if you have, how is it?
Nilah
Going from PBE into Set 12's live cycle, I initially thought Nilah was a good Rageblade user.
However after many discussions and stat perusing, it became clear that Rageblade on Nilah only performed alongside a Pyro Spatula
Here's stats on this from tactics.tools
Otherwise without these items, it looks like going Damage + Sustain is the correct build.
Tristana
Now Tristana is very interesting because she has 2 sources of Damage Amp through the Queen's Crown and Blaster.
Damage Multipliers are Additive
In TFT, damage amplifiers are additive and so stacking them is somewhat suboptimal as you ideally want multiplicative damage.
For example, if an Attack crits, the Attack Damage gets multiplied by critical strike modifier which gets further multiplied by damage amplifiers.
Thus to maximise Tristana’s damage, you should be aiming for more multiplicative damage like higher AD or more Crit, as she is an AD Caster.
Tristana is similar to Kog'maw
Tristana is similar to Kog'maw where they can use Rageblade to some extent but still prefer damage items.
This includes items like Infinity Edge, Runaan's, and Deathblade
Here's a Graph of the number of autos with Rageblade vs Red Buff on Tristana
But Giant Slayer is still great?
Having said that, Tristana still performs well with items like Red Buff and Giant Slayer.
Of course, for Red Buff, the sheer raw attack speed is great and will help her stack Crown quickly.
Similarly, Giant Slayer provides a ton of great raw stats and it's very possible that Tristana is able to consistently utilise the Giant Slayer passive with the presence of massive HP pools like Shapeshifters
Syndra
Now Syndra is a Mage that I did not initially expect to be a good Rageblade user, however after seeing her minute cast animation and her scaling ult, I decided to plot a graph to determine this
A Graph of Shojin + Rageblade/Red Buff/Nashor's Tooth
We love casting Spells
So for Syndra, a Mage who wants to cast as much as possible, Rageblade allows her to do exactly that, especially early game.
And while Red Buff has more upfront damage, Rageblade allows Syndra to hyper scale and will provide her with more Attack Speed after around 11 seconds.
No more need to scale
However, it was pointed out to me (thank you Alan) that some late game combats won't allow Syndra to scale.
In these cases, Syndra will usually have sufficiently scaled her passive and so replacing Rageblade with more upfront damage is better.
I learnt this lesson in this game against Multistrikers
Furthermore, I would recommend being cautious when building Rageblade on Syndra as to not sabotage your overall item economy by consuming Rods.
Zilean
Now Zilean is similar to Syndra in the sense that they both have a minute casting animation, so does that also mean Zilean is also a good Rageblade user?
Frankly, no.
Faster is Better
In vertical Chrono comps, you want Zilean to cast as much as possible as fast as possible to proc the Chrono effect sooner.
Furthermore, in vertical Preserver comps, Zilean is less reliant on autoing for mana as the trait gives him a significant amount every 3 seconds. Adaptive Helm has better synergy in this case as it also isn't reliant on autoing for mana
Adaptive vs Shojin
This can be seen in the following graph where Adaptive Helm and Shojin have the same casting frequency on Zilean (with no other items) at 4 Preserver.
A Graph of 4 Preserver Zilean: Adaptive vs Shojin
However, Attack Speed on Zilean will of course favour Shojin as demonstrated here with Shojin taking a lead after the first cast by around a second.
4 Preserver Zilean + Nashor's: Adaptive vs Shojin
Jinx
Jinx’s ability absolutely loves Attack Speed to maximise her true damage.
For 4 seconds, gain 105% decaying Attack Speed and her attacks deal 27/41/63 bonus true damage. Takedowns refresh this effect for 3 seconds.
More attack speed enables her single target damage, so of course Rageblade is good here.
Double Rageblade vs Red Buff + Rageblade
But now let's look at this graph comparing Double Rageblade Jinx against Red Buff + Rageblade
Jinx Attack Speed against Time: Red Buff + Rageblade vs Rageblade x2
Jinx Autos against Time: Red Buff + Rageblade vs Rageblade x2
Now this is assuming Jinx gets no takedowns. If she does get any she'll accelerate much faster.
And that is the priority, takedowns. With more, Jinx can snowball far faster as she resets her ult
Thus Runaan’s can easily replace a Rageblade so Jinx can overcome her single target identity and get as many takedowns as possible.
Kalista
Now we're onto the most common user of Rageblade, Kalista.
Passive: Attacks embed a spear in her target. Every 3/3/1 attacks, also embed spears into 2/2/3 nearby enemies.
Active: Deal 27/43/170 physical damage to each enemy for each of their embedded spears.
So like Jinx, Kalista's ult uses Rageblade extremely well, however Attack Speed benefits both Kalista's single and multitarget damage.
And of course, by now you've probably seen numerous Kalistas building double Rageblade to maximise that effect.
Varus
Rageblade is also built frequently on Varus.
However that is not ideal.
Varus' cast animation is extremely long and heavily punishes Rageblade builds as he cannot stack Rageblade in the channel duration
Varus is an AD Caster with huge burst, which you want to maximise like through more critical strike chance or more AD.
Furthermore, items like Red Buff and Shojin are best to enable his casting.
Ryze
Ryze is somewhat similar to Kassadin wherein his best builds are scaling.
And at some point (level 16), they hit incredibly hard.
Scholars gain bonus Mana on attack
More attack speed also helps Ryze get more value out of the Scholar trait as well as increase the number of bolts he shoots
Open portals that fire 12/12/24 magic bolts split among the 4/4/6 closest enemies. Each bolt deals 80/120/300 magic damage.
Although, Rageblade does not seem to be absolutely necessary for Ryze, and AP items are appearing to be more impactful.
Stacking Rageblade during his ult
From my Ryze games, it felt that he scaled incredibly well with Archangel's and not so much with Rageblade despite Ryze being able to stack Rageblade during his ult
I personally believe this is due to Ryze only receiving a single Rageblade stack per 3 damage instances during his ult. Historically in TFT, units that can also stack Rageblade during their ult usually got a Rageblade stack every 2 damage instances.
That was the case for Set 8 Twisted Fate, who Ryze is modelled after.
Smolder
Smolder is another unit that adores Attack Speed
Passive: Fly around and attack the nearest enemy.
Active: Gain 50/50/500% Attack Speed and replace Smolder's attacks with fireballs that deal 173/268/2486 physical damage for 6/6/60 seconds.
Dragon Upgrade: Each fireball also heals 20/30/200 Health.
So of course, this opens the possibility of Double Rageblade on Smolder
However, as Smolder frequently changes his target, he can be a great applier of Sunder through Last Whisper. This is incredibly useful for other carries like Varus.
A Dragon of Fire and Ice
Furthermore, Smolder's best item builds are completely dominated by Spatulas like Frost and Pyro
So while Smolder can stack Rageblades, the difference these Spatulas make is incredible due to their sheer raw stats, and should be the priority for Smolder.
(I also suspect there may be some synergy between the Dragon Burn and the Pyro execute)
Milio
Lastly like Ryze, Milio is also a Scholar, which is useful to keep him casting
Throw 2/2/8 completed items to allies with open slots. If an ally has no room for items, they instead gain a stacking 12% Damage Amp for the rest of combat. Then, throw 3/3/8 knick-knacks at enemies that each deal 290/435/999 magic damage.
So of course, any items to help Milio cast are great to give your team more items.
Any mana generation or Attack Speed will do the job for Milio.
Summary
So despite Rageblade typically appearing to be a noob bait item, it does seem to be very versatile in Set 12.
However I will stress that you should focus on item economy above all else.
If making Rageblade means you can't make items you lack like Archangel's/Raba for AP or Ionic Spark for Shred, then, in my opinion, it's not worth it.
Of course, I have double checked my maths but I still could be wrong! If you spot any errors, let me know and I'll address them!
Rageblade Bard?
As I was finalising this post, I heard about Rageblade also being build on Bard now as well.
Shockingly, it seems Rageblade is not performing too poorly on Bard. I have not personally seen or experienced this Bard tech, so if you have, let me know how it was!
Fin.
But I think that's it for this post!
Let me know if you have any questions
And thank you for reading <3
Edit
/u/GetRektS0n raised a fantastic point that I missed
it's one of the best slams early.
pretty much if you slam ragebade for tempo early you are either hard forcing the optimal rageblade 4 cost (kalista in this set's case) or tossing it onto a random milio/reforging it and calling it a day
Another case might be game forcing you to play varus with a rageblade, you either play for top 3 here or have a remover ready to transfer it onto a smolder