Why Adagio? Top
Adagio is really the only support hero in the game. Being The only one with abilities that can be casted on teammates makes him unique. He can lane, he can jungle, he can roam, he can tank, he can carry, he can support, he can build weapon, he can build crystal. He can truly build into whatever role is needed. His only weakness is assassins like taka and koshka who have a high amount of on demand damage. No one even needs to ask me what hero I think is the best because my bias is plain and clear. For me, the pure versatility of adagio makes him vastly superior to any other hero. You will never get frightened when you see a koshka go weapon, you will be frightened when you see an adagio do it though.
The weapon route Top
Weapon builds will always do the most damage. You should only build weapon if you're the carry and are solo laning. You need to make the most gold in order for a weapon build to be effective. So make sure that you can farm in the lane before you commit to this kind of carry build.
When building weapon builds, and this goes for any hero not just adagio, ALWAYS go for crit + crit damage over weapon power. The reason is because an item like sorrowblade may look nice on paper but in reality it doesn't do as much damage as a tornado trigger. Why, you might ask? Well the reason is simply that sarrowblade increases your damage by a static rate. So, if I bought a sarrowblade it would increase my dmg by a flat number, and every other sorrowblade after that would increase my damage by that same number. The number is very high, but it doesn't compare to the multiplicative damage you get from a tornado trigger, or to a lesser affect the monocle. At level 12 if I hit the Kraken with 2 tornado triggers my damage per hit would be about 53 on a crit. Now with 2 sorrowblades my damage comparatively is 88 damage per hit. However, my tornado triggers make me hit 2 times as fast, so that 53 damage per hit is actually 106. And that number keeps getting larger with every crit item I get after that. My damage will grow at an exponential rate where as with the sorrowblade or any weapon power item for that matter, my damage increases at a flat amount. Crit is just better.
At the point when you're sitting on 2 tornado triggers and 2 monocles your stats will read (100% crit, 150% crit damage) and then of course the 150 atk speed from the triggers. If your buy a sorrowblade at this point the damage increase from that weapon power is multiplied 150%, so almost twice as much, and then it hits twice as fast so you do the math. This is why I say always go for crit and crit damage first because in the late game you can literally take down turrets in 3 seconds.
Of course you will hardly ever get to build this to the max, the game will probably be over by the time you get 100% crit. However, you can change this build in subtle ways to make it more effective. Obviously if the enemy team is building heavy armor then you want to switch a trigger for a bonesaw. If you're getting ganked in the lane consider a fountain, and if they have a ringo or an adagio you might want to invest in a reflex block mid game. Aside from that, if you do manage to build this fully there will be no build that can rival it. You will do far too much damage.
The Weapon + crystal route Top
This build is all about attack speed and alternating current. Why the hybrid? Well, the answer is simply that it's harder to build against. If you do a fair amount of crystal damage and a fair amount of weapon damage the enemy opponent has to make a choice about whether to go armor or shield, and at that point if you see them building more armor or more shield you can invest more damage in what ever they're weakest in. This is where building a blazing salvo first comes in handy. If you go into a salvo you can build a tornado trigger, or you can go into alternating current and go pure crystal, or you can hold onto it while you build defense and then pop out a breaking point at level 10 and just destroy as those breaking point stacks get higher and higher. The first item is really the most crucial, it informs everybodys decisions going into mid game. And with an item like blazing salvo there is no way to gauge where you're going to build.
This is a much more versatile alternative carry build to the weapon route. If you want to do a lot of damage and yet still have the ability to support your team this may be the right build for you.
Breaking point is broken Top
If you are forced out of the lane for whatever reason, there are few build options as powerful as a tanky breaking point. When the team fights last a long time, IE you're versus a lot of tanky heroes like Catherine and glaive, then this build will outperform pretty much everything else in the game. Breaking point is an item that builds stacks every second you're attacking an enemy player, but you lose a stack everytime you aren't firing at a player. So that means, it is great for long engagements and bad for chasing people. The down side to this build is that it relies on the enemy team in order to be effective. So without someone there to build your stacks you will effectively do no damage. In other words its great for killing players, bad for killing kraken.
However, on the up side (and why I day Breaking point is broken) it is virtually impossible to build against breaking point. Build armor so you can reduce the damage? NOPE, because it has a scaling armor pierce embedded into the stacks. Build a lot of crystal so you can gank the BP player first? Well that will be difficult with all the tanking items they have, and if you're forced to focus the tank then that means the other two heroes can basically get away with building what ever they want. So, it's an extremely effective build. In my opinion the item shouldn't even exist but hey might as well take advantage of it while it's still broken.
Crystal support and why clockwork is the worst item for adagio Top
This build is the only one that doesn't build on blazing salvo, so you want to start with iron contract and focus on jungle primarily. The burn effect for this build does an extreme amount of damage, and you're not going to be gimping your scariness at all. The healing ability for this build does an insane amount, and it makes you the mvp in all team fights.
Now one contention that I have with adagio is that it basically hurts him to have CD(cooldown) reduction. Which is why I find it hilarious that his first recommended item is clockwork. At max rank your first ability is going to do a lot of burst healing at the initial cast, and then a healing over time effect is going to be placed on the target for 7 seconds. Seven long seconds... Why is that so important? Well because if you have enough CD reduction to get your first ability to come off before that 7 seconds is up, well guess what you just wasted your first ability. Because what they neglect to tell you in this game is that if your healing buff is currently on your target when you go to heal them a second time, the burst heal effect does NOT go off. Let me repeat that one more time because it's very important, If you heal the same target while your healing over time is still active the flat bust heal DOES NOT go off. What happens instead is your healing buff gets refreshed and you or your target die. And with 50% cooldown reduction your first ability CD will be reduced to the shorter end of 6 seconds which opens yourself up to sniping your own heals. You can test all of this for yourself for anyone that doesn't believe me. Clockwork is a fools item.
So, if you're building for crystal support you never want more than 35% cooldown reduction. It just doesn't help.
What about the Ultimate Top
What about it? it is by far the worst ultimate in the game. NO CONTEST. It's the easiest to counter with a huge graphic and a two second countdown. In order for it to go off you need to invest in a reflex block and even then it just takes one crucible to render it useless. At least with Ringo you get a heat seeking missile that can accurately go off. With adagio they can just run out of it. It is good for initiation just because it forces the enemy team to scramble but any high level team has zero problem with countering this ability. IF only there was a healing effect tied into it... COUGH COUGH COUGH
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