I disagree. Broken Myth is only mandatory if your opponents build shield items. Now, you could argue that everyone does, especially the higher ranked you get, and thus it's mandatory, but there are economically and damaged based choices that are superior to Broken Myth if your opponent isn't building shield.

And yes, you can technically say Crystal Power and Crystal Damage are different, but in the end they really aren't. Since Crystal Damage is based on how much Crystal Power you have, they are essentially the same thing. Then the next argument would be well since it amplifies the damage it turns into true damage because the amplification is applied to what damage you truly do after shields are calculated in.

But if we look closer at that, there is no difference. Example:

If you have a Shatterglass so you are doing 150 CP, vs an Aegis you will actually deal 67 crystal damage. If I take Clockwork and amplify my CP before the damage is done, the 30% amp increases that CP to 195. 195 CP vs Aegis deals 86.667 crystal damage, which will be rounded up to 87.

Now, if I were to apply the amplification after the fact to the actual damage, which is what Broken Myth does. For this example I'm going to keep using 30%. I understand Broken Myth maxes out at 35%, but we aren't comparing items, we are comparing amp applied to CP vs CD. So we take the 67 damage we do to Aegis and amp it by 30% and we get 87.1, which will be rounded to 87. Same damage.

And before anyone says well, the damage amp was still greater so the more you do the bigger that difference will be.

I'm going to use Joule's Big Red Button overdriven with 5 Shatterglass. To my knowledge this is the most crystal damage you can in the game. The ability does 2200 +460% Crystal ratio. Maybe there is an ability I'm overlooking, but that's okay. With that ridiculous build that ability will do a disastrous 5650 damage. (I only did 5 because we need a slot for the item that's going to amp it).

Now. If we amp the CP with Clockwork prior to the Aegis calculation, in the end vs Aegis it does 3264.4444, which rounds to 3264.

If we amp the CD after the Aegis calculation (which is 2511 for those keeping score at home) we get 3264.3, which rounds to 3264.

So while yes technically Crystal Power and Crystal Damage are different, they are essentially the same thing in the final calculations.

Of course it's preference. I personally think Aftershock is a situational item. It depends on the comp of your opponents. For a very tanky composition it could be a good choice. For example a Phinn roam with a Lance jungle.

However, allow me to demonstrate Aftershock vs Clockwork

I'm going to use my CP build as the example.

Understand the Aftershock perk does 15% of the hero's max health. This is going to work better on characters with higher health, however I can't account for all of that. What I'm going to do for this example is use the average health for lane character. The average health of characters scripted to the lane is 1573 at level 12. Keep in mind most lane characters aren't going to build bonus health items, so it's fair to assume these characters are not going to have buffs. The Aftershock perk will deal 236 damage to your average laner, only once after an ability, and only to one target (I'm fairly positive the perk isn't applied to the splash damage), and only from a basic attack. CP Baron can typically attack with abilities much further away than his basic attack will fire from.

With my CP Baron build you have a total of 205 CP from Eve of Harvest and Shatterglass. Clockwork amplifies this CP damage to 267, which is higher than the occasional 236 from the Aftershock perk. If you swapped Aftershock into my build for Clockwork your total CP is 240, which is still less than the 267. It applies to every time you cast an ability, and it can damage more than one target depending on how many you hit with your abilities.

With Clockwork you get +507 CP from Porcupine Mortar ratio vs 456 if you were to use Aftershock. That means you are losing 49 CP every time you cast Porcupine Mortar. Which is essentially eliminating CP you gain from Eve of Harvest.

With Ion Cannon that turns into 601 vs 540 from the CP ratio.

Now we can look at the cool down. With Clockwork you can cast an overdriven Ion Cannon every 36 seconds instead of every 60. With Aftershock's cool down It takes nearly 10 seconds longer at 45 seconds. At that rate you can choose not to overdrive Ion Cannon and with Clockwork you can still cast it every 45 seconds.

Just some food for thought Aftershock vs Clockwork

I've updated my ability build path for WP Baron. After all the discussions, this one included, I've looked at more math, and done some more testing. While I'm under no illusion that people are going to build what I think is best over what works best for them, I do like to think of these build guides as just that, guides on how to use a character well, and also to give people something to think about. Sometimes I am the one who needs to think things over. The solution I've decided I'm comfortable with, which I think works well, is to overdrive both Jump Jets and Porcupine Mortar and not Ion Cannon. Yes, there is a significant power increase from the overdrive on Ion Cannon, I am a huge fan of certainty. Ion Cannon is extremely easy to miss with, and I'm pretty good at predicting. I am very efficient, for example, at landing Samuel's Oblivion as where the complaint when he was released by many was that it was useless because it was too difficult to land. So I think a good solution for those who want to overdrive Jump Jets whether due to play style or preference, so overdrive the A and B. That's what I've started doing.

Yes. BLG3RNT doesn't HAVE to have these items, and if you are so pushy about it, make your own guide.

Feel Free to create your own guide :)