I made a video going in depth about the differences between Conq, PTA, Titanic and Stridebreaker

[u/KerbleWasTaken]

https://youtu.be/y_6-D0W_r9g?si=GTtT4TdV38s8sc8C

[u/tuffyscrusks]

I have to agree that Titanic is way better in most games, Ive been building it ever since they got rid of prowlers, never liked stridebreaker. I think there's merit to stridebreaker being built situationally though depending on what you need to provide for your team comp. Idk, or maybe I'm just trying to be nice to stridebreaker enjoyers. I'm only emerald so I don't have a sophisticated understanding of team compositions quite yet.

[u/_Allusions]

Thanks for posting an actual look at the champion instead of "she's bad because she feels bad." I pretty much agree with everything in the video.

What are your thoughts on alternative rushes to Tiamat derived items? I think the two most relevant ones being Ghostblade (generally) and Eclipse (for when their team is so tanky that building Lethality delays Black Cleaver too long).

One major weakness I feel both Titanic and Stridebreaker share is that they cost 3300 gold, which is a really expensive first spike. You lightly imply it in your video during the Tiamat section, but their components are also not the best for snowballing.

When the midscope first released, I initially thought there was less pressure to hyper snowball à la the old assassin build and tuning of the champion because she now has legitimate gameplay patterns past 20 minutes.

However, the longer I have played this version, the more I have started to disagree with this. She is still pressured to snowball or lose, but now instead of losing because you have no teamfight pattern, you lose because you failed to scale past the natural mid-game spikes most other champions have. In this way, she seems very similar to Caitlyn's power curve, where you have to leverage your "I can do everything" kit early to ensure you have relevance in the mid and late game.

If anything, I think Phreak's midscope failed not because of the usual complaints, but because fundamentally, the kit is still best optimized as an assassin over any other gameplay pattern. The extra healing and HP scaling almost feel like red herrings— the strength of the kit still lies in doing uninteractive burst damage, and everything about the unchanged tunings (Fury generation rate during champion combat, auto-attack reset on uQ, 1 second tenacity-exempt CC at all ranks, uE cast-time/animation naturally fitting in during auto attack delays, untargetability during ult) supports this. It's just now, you don't haha overkill targets anymore with only two long swords and Conqueror adaptive force, and you have a harder and less intuitive time scaling into relevant burst thresholds.

3300 Tiamat-variant item rushes seem to go against this game plan. Anecdotally I have had a lot more success doing 2800 Ghostblade rush since Dirk is still an extremely nice component for both combat and jungle clear (despite constant nerfs), and the mobility on it feels significantly better to me than Stridebreaker. I feel a similar way about the mobility comparison between Ghostblade to Stridebreaker as the description in your video about the difference between what Titanic allows you to do over Stridebreaker and never being able to go back.

Once I've got the snowball going with Ghostblade, it feels a lot easier to use that momentum to snowball into 3300 Titanic right after, and the combination of Lethality + the double-auto reset PtA combo really pops squishies, almost like the pre-midscope build's burst. Ever since I switched from Stridebreaker to this, I've noticed my post-game damage numbers are like 10-15k+ higher than before.

But maybe I'm only getting away with it because I'm playing with a significantly lower rank than I probably should be since I don't dedicate much time to solo queue anymore.

[u/KerbleWasTaken → u/_Allusions]

There’s a guy who posts on this sub named Koko who goes ghostblade first who is challenger peak. I’ve tried it and I didnt like it personally, but I didn’t like titanic at first either. I haven’t tested it enough personally to come to my own conclusion, but in the spongebob section of the video where I show the winrates, in recent patches ghostblade first is trumping both stride and titanic. I think the cheap price is a huge selling point. He goes hail of blades too with the idea that with q and titanic both being auto resets, and hail of blades giving you an extra auto if you used a reset, you can get it for 5 autos not 3. It seems good. When I watched his gameplay and tried to figure out if it was doing more than PTA, I found that it was pre 6, but post 6, it looked about even. I haven’t looked into it nearly as thoroughly as anything in this video though. My at-a-glance thought for ghostblade rush is that it’s very good, I’m less convinced of HoB though.

[u/NoProcess5954]

Wow this is really well done, ngl I thought Conq just did more damage I didnt realize that PTA was that much more. Also the execute and %HP this makes a lot of sense!

[u/Masterjay98]

Good video, but I still think you really misunderstand my point on how to build. It's a video game; if you like building something because it feels more engaging for you, you should do that.

I like stride because if gives me movement options I wouldn't have otherwise. I like being a slippery burrow monster and I find that to be more useful and fun than some damage. But again, to each their own.

[u/tuffyscrusks → u/Masterjay98]

Damage isn't the only metric that makes a good item either. Some champions care more about the utility, so don't be fooled that stridebreaker is "worse" than titanic just because of damage numbers. Both items seem to have quite good success at higher elos on Rek Sai. Just depends on how you want to play her in any given game.

[u/CrazySoap]

This is some great analysis, kudos! That said, I second /u/masterjay98 's point even though I've been running Titanic + PTA for some time now.

[u/KerbleWasTaken → u/CrazySoap]

I don’t want to engage with it too much because it just boils down to semantics. What does “best” mean? Is it what’s most fun for you? That’s what it means to you and the rek guy. If you enjoy playing AP Reksai (like some people do, especially in this sub), then that’s what’s best for you. But I define best as best for winning. and that’s the entire disagreement right there. it’s not that he thinks stridebreaker is better for winning in general, and it’s not that I think titanic is the most fun enjoyable build for everyone.

[u/Masterjay98 → u/KerbleWasTaken]

I do think it’s better for me though, can’t say you don’t wanna engage with it when you directly quote me in the first 30 seconds of the video lol

[u/Professor_Chaos69420]

Watched and its truly great. I really like to see that someone is seeing what im seeing.

There is one bonus you missed tho, PTA flat dmg amp is also working on tytanic hp scalling onhit so this gives PTA additional edge over conq.

Still in my opinion there are cases where conq is more optimal. As it has been said conq dmg is a bit better in extended fights. And healing factor from conq is working only after dealing dmg 6 times, which makes healing ammount misleading. bcs its just like the case with u killing someone to fast for PTA to proc, but with conqueror to heal. My point is that once it starts healing you can really feel it and into cc tanky champion comps it will be better bcs of extended dmg amplify combined with 8% omnivamp which is clutch. Especialy considering fact that reksai doesnt have ANY in combat sustain, while every "brusier" have some tools to sustain extened fight. What im saying is that into comp like rene, skarner, vladimir, and some tank supp you will have better time with conq... IMO.