I'm kind of wondering about my support gold digger morgana.  Now - I play alot of support - its safe to say I run about 5-6 diff rune pages at least based on support.  Anyway, got bored and decided to try out gold digger morgana.

Here's the test - 1st note - I'm taking mr and armor.  I have 8.2 arm vs a more common 9.0 arm. I have 5.4 mr +1.7 mana regen.  Everything else is in gold per totally 5.3.  That's 31.8 gold per min, 318 gold at 10 min, 636 at 20, 954 at 30.  Most games get to 30, but we'll just do math on 20 min.  So, not that big a deal (even on a support imo).

Now, add in a support running 0/9/21 (or at least 21 util).  Now its 1.5 gold per sec

that brings us to 6.8 per 10.  40.8 per min, 408 at 10, 816 at 20, 1224 at 30.  Honestly i think 30 is a better num to look at, but I stick w 20 min.  It's looking better - That's more wards and pinks at least with minimal (imo) trade offs as as support.. BUT - it gets better

spellthief gives you 2 gps as well.  So now you are 8.8 per 10 sec. 52.8 per min, 528 at 10, 1056 at 20, 1584 at 30.

Now, we are talking some difference that means something.

So good news - those are your stats if you are POS.  Now there is the passive gain on Spell thief.  3 stacks giving 5 gold a pop.  When upgraded, its 3 stacks giving 10 gold a pop.  I haven't done the math, but I think its safe to say you get a decent income on this as morgana.  

BUT WAIT there's more.  with 21  points into util - you probably have that fun +1 gold per minion dying near you.  Oh - and you also, as a ranged morgana, get 3 gold every time you dmg someone (5 sec cd per champ).  So, the math continues to stack.

Too tired to try to make up some formula with those last bits, but I want to add that its really, REALLY easy to hit champs with her pool - which means you have a steady income burning blue stack + getting mastery gold as well. 

Just as a VERY conservative estimate, I think you EASILY hit 65 gold per min.  650 at 10, 1300 at 20, 1950 at 30..  Realistically, I think 75 gpm is more likely... 750/1500/2250

Compare my stat choices to someone like krepo - I have 8.2 arm, 5.4 mr, 1.7 mana reg, + a bunch of gold.

krepo has 4.26 arm, ZERO mr, 7.83 mpen, 17.04 ap, .99 mana regen, 72 hp.

So, I pack less of a punch and am down 72 hp (but I have 4 more arm +mr). Early game morg dmg isn't exactly high with those stats either.  Anyway, I propose that you can get away with gold digger morg with a decent skillcap and that the rune choices aren't hurting her in a major way.  They also are enabling her to get better buys, rewarding her for skill shots, and with lower dmg, you don't f your adc as much if you use a pool on the enemy champ near some creeps. 

Oh - and one last thing.  In order to properly evaluate this, its best to look at what you get playing morg with normal runes and with these gold per.

My best estimate with gold per runes = 75 gpm, 750 at 10/1500 at 20/2250 at 30

If you remove the 5.3 gpm on my best estimate, now you are earning 69.7 gpm. 697 at 10, 1394 at 20, 2091 at 30

Less impressive that way eh.  At any rate, gets you thinking about the gold income stuff, so hopefully that's interesting at least.  I do want to stress that having gold peaks earlier translate into better items early - that extra gold translates DIRECTLY into pinks, etc at a faster pace.  

Whatcha think?

That sounds a little too scientific to pull off in Teambuilder Cow.  You never know when Pacov's Challenger nemesis will show up in bot lane and skew the results.

Going by results from games with the crew tonight aren't much better.  We got FB against a Graves one game, but his Bard was off at the time looking for chimes.  Then the last game we tried it, Pacov DC'd so who knows how the lane would have gone if that didn't happen.

So that's two games that we pretty much learned nothing about whether GP/10 runes are worth the lack of combat stats.

Gold Digger Morg is not anything new.  It's retro.  Those runes used to be standard on Supports, and Morg was the original AP Mid turned Support so she was around during the time.  There have been roughly a billion games played and the general consensus is that the risk of losing your lane, losing your tower, losing the first dragon, dying from ganks, having your ADC fall behind, and losing all ins from having less combat stats on your Support is not worth the extra gold.  Extra gold on a Support...

Now I'll admit that the general consensus is wrong a lot of the time and things like the strength of 'level 2ing' your opponents bot lane have changed a little since then.  Also for me it didn't 'feel' bad at all laning with GDM so there might be something to this. 

But I don't think Pacov is willing to test this out the way he'd actually find out if it's viable: SoloQ Ranked.

Playing against or with a Challenger ADC in Teambuilder one game and then against or with a Silver ADC the next isn't going to show if it's viable.  Playing against fellow Plat 5s who are checking their opponents runes for vulnerability and playing Kalista/Annie would be a better test.

To be fair, there IS a huge difference between a Morg who has Zhonyas and one who doesn't.

Morg can also be played in a very safe manner (similar to Janna), against single-target CC lanes. Blitz probably being the biggest one, and actually being one of his opponents last night and he WAS able to get a pretty early NLR. So there is some method to his madness (even if it is "situational" madness - which is the best kind of madness).

i agree that GP10 is "often" not going to be the strongest thing in the support, since you generally want to funnel gold into the ADC, rather than split it more evenly (your ADC will probably lose a handful of CS over the first 10-15 minutes due to slightly weaker initial lane presence).

i also am not convinced that like, GP10 lost us the game last night. Pretty sure that was a combination of:

  1. pacov getting DC'd for 2-3 minutes, and we get absolutely vision chocked during it

  2. Even though i was completely obliterating my lane, there was a 3v1 rotation that resulted in me losing BOTH midlane towers, so my "midlane fortress" was lost, and i lost a huge amount of my presence since i was using Barrier rather than using TP - though their teamcomp required me to take Barrier

  3. The "let's all die to save bot tower then lose it anyway AND dragon" botlane shenagins. We had a curious issue where it was 2v3 (?) for about 5 minutes, but people would keep dieing, respawning coming down into a brief 3v3, then one of us would die, they would repush, someone would respawn...

  4. Hecarim had a very tough time, rarely used TP (and when he did, it was very poorly done), and we lost all vision of toplane, resulting in a few red steals and eventually a sneaky baron to close out the game.

Our team comp was pretty good against theirs, regardless of the strong Lucian (3 melees, one of which was Udyr, against Anivia + Morgana). We did somewhat disrespect their dragons, due to their Yasuo + Lucian + Udyr being so effective at dragons, but that's just because of Morg DCs more than anything else. Being 2-0 in dragons really isn't a huge deal if we end up winning every teamfight later on... And at least 1 dragon was traded for a tower so it was more 2 dragons vs. 1 tower, which isn't that different.

That said, i do agree with Thunder and Karl: the real way to test it IS in Ranked SoloQ. After a half-dozen test games in Normals, in any case. (one advantage of that is also probably your own ADC won't know that you have gold runes, and is less likely to blame you for game-outcomes that had nothing to do with your runes. Or if, for example, Thunder was slightly-overcautious and gave up 6 CS when he really only needed to give up 2)

I didn't even know that was a discussion. I don't think gp/10 impacted us negatively in that game.  my unfortunate dc amongst other things you listed did.  Felt like we were actually doing really well prior to that dc. 

Well, that's interesting.  I don't think we noticed that to be the case, but I can see why you'd have that conclusion.  Morg still has a pretty high lane presence with the threat of bindings though - and the added dmg with spell thief.  I'm doing pretty consistent dmg, albeit every slightly less I'd think (also something to do the math on - I'd normally be running magic pen, but I pretty much never put more than 1 point in her aoe clear until later (max Q).  So, keeping that in mind, most of my dmg comes from spell thief and the hitting like a hammer with upgraded bindings + adc follow up.  My pool mostly keeps them from generating much and just drops their hp a wee bit. 

Well, like i said, it's only a handful. Typically < 100 gold for the first 10-15 minutes, and almost no impact from then on. Lane matchups and jungler ganks have FAR more of an impact in the typical game.

The only time it, really truly, has an impact is when you die only barely (< 50 hp) and health or armor quints would have saved you. Suddenly, there's a 300 gold swing, your ADC gets zoned (or dies instead of getting the kill!), etc.

So, it's going to be something like:

 - your ADC probably loses somewhere between 50-100 gold over 10 minutes. Generally will not be a huge difference (an extra hp pot or ward?)

 - you gain much more gold, enabling you to purchase additional wards or items that far surpass what you would generally get from Quints at that point in time

 - occasionally, you "barely" die by 50 hp. This death cases something like a 600-1000 gold gold swing (first blood + assist is 450. ADC losses 6 creeps, another 150. Enemy ADC comes back with a BFS, yours doesn't, they get to get a 20 CS lead over you).

 - sometimes, your item thresholds win a teamfight that wouldn't have been won otherwise (eg, Zhonyas 5 minutes faster in a close game). To a lesser extent, you could say the same thing about buying an 2 pink wards and securing objectives, but that's "only" 100g. Supports can afford that with only an assist.

You can make a strong argument that the advantages of #2 often can surpass the disadvantages of #1. As you said, Morg poses a lot of threat by existing, she can be played effectively + safely in certain lanes (eg, Blitz). That said, #2 will not "always" surpass #1. For example, you are the "aggro" against a hypercarry: Graves versus Kog. It is essential Graves gets his items ASAP in that lane, and support Morg won't outscale Kog. Luckily, you have 20 rune pages and you chose a more aggressive setup in that case. You could say the same thing if you are playing the "scaling" lane: Kog might need you to have that 50 more hp level 1 so you can posture aggressively, thereby securing him the farm he needs so desperately. 

#3 and #4 are rather difficult. Even if you lose bot lane because "the worst" happens, it doesn't necessarily mean you lose the game. It does, however, probably drop you to only a 30% chance of winning. Similarly, a successful #4 can push a game into near-certain victory.

Luckily, both of these are also easy to decide about in champ select. If the enemy team is very melee heavy, #4 becomes more likely. If both bot lanes are passive, and the jungler is someone who is unlikely to gank botlane early, #3 becomes very unlikely without large misplays.

As long as the expected value of #2 + #4 exceeds #1 + #3 you're going to be okay. The only way to truly verify that, however, is by playing AT LEAST 10-20 games of Morgana in Ranked SoloQ (not duoQ...) and only once you attain whatever you think is your fair MMR. So that's a lot of work \:

heh - yeah - I'm probably not going to do that and, realistically, will just keep trying it out here and there and make note of how things play out. I'm thinking more of it as an experiment and am wondering how far I can progress the concept.  There are just too many variables.

My starting point is still that I don't think its worth it if we can demonstrate that it will hurt her adc.  And even that's difficult to fully analyze, but we could start with does an adc necessarily lose cs as a result of GDM.  And the follow up, outside of CS, is an adc at a disadvantage due to GDM in fights.  All focus only on laning phase.

Does an ADC necessarily lose CS as a result of GDM during laning?

I'd argue, no - not if she's played well (eg exactly the same way someone would play her with any other rune setup imo).  There's no difference in play style between GDM and normal morg.  She's roughly as durable as a normal morg setup (common to have hp yellow or hp arm + mpen reds) and my setup is only off on arm by 1 in comparison. I also, depending on setup, do less damage.  To be fair, its not a huge difference based on power levels early game for her, but it is a difference.I don't think that minor variation results in unfavorable trades, etc. 

Now, where there is a more real threat.... if I look at the stats before a game and I see the support is running gold per anything, I'm generally going to try to break that person.  I'm also very likely to even say something before the game to my teammates about it - which will likely result in additional pressure on the lane.  Now, not everyone is like me ofc, but I'm literally going to work very, very hard, to punish that support as I will better stats than them.  BUT - that said, if they are using GDM and I am playing another support - well, they are still morgana. They can still easily proc spell thief, still have black shield + binding.  Morg has a pretty good kit to avoid that sort of aggression.  As opposed, to say, a nami running gold per... as I would crap on that champ with a gold per setup. 

Anyway, I don't think this costs the adc anything.

Is the adc at a disadvantage due to GDM in fights during laning?

Nope.  You are morgana - as long as you aren't being a jack arse and skimping on wards, you still have excellent peel and engage.  If you die because of a small hp difference, you are not doing it right.  She ain't leona - she shouldn't be chilling in melee range needlessly (pre 6 anyway). 

I always aire on the side of playing safe. If you try to fight at all your stat deficit could impact the outcome. If you don't fight you avoid the chance that your lower hp/resistances/damage will effect the outcome.

Oh please, claiming that there will be no difference due to laning due to the loss of ~17 AP and ~70 hp is absurd.

Those amounts of stats around level 1-5 is HUGE.  Pretending that it won't matter in 2v2 situations is silly - we've all played with the wrong runes/masteries and felt the effect.  It is especially large when the opponent can obviously notice it ("HEY, THAT GUY HAS ALL GOLD GENERATION") and play qualitatively differently to take advantage.

New laptop in the near future... got my taxes back... hopefully will stop the freezes... still not sure what's causing it.

Also... if there's room, cow, may i get in on that fantasy league for summer?

Thanks,

SWAN BB

There would be less variables in Ranked.  You'd have people your own skill level trying their hardest.  And not playing Yasuo ADC.  

Experiments conducted under sub-optimal conditions are the worst kind because of inaccurate feedback.  Gold Digger Morg might be absolute garbage but if you play it in games with DanKnee as your ADC against Gold players, you might start thinking it's good.  Or you might actully be onto something strong and innovative but end up shelving it because you end up having bad experiences laning against Challengers.

It's not just Teambuilder.  Matchmaking is shitty when it involves groups of 4-5 with players who have large MMR gaps.

Well, that sounds like it just goes back to Karl's point about needing to outplay people to make a strategy work.

Combat Stats > Future Gold Earning Potential at the start of the game.  Unless you outplay your opponents or they don't adapt and take advantage of their early game superiority.  

It sounds like you feel you have a Rune setup that essentially nullifies the disadvantage that GP/10 runes give you in the early game.  I don't think that's true but I don't really know that for sure.  Perhaps Morgana is the one Support who can essentially go without Quints or Seals and not lose any effectiveness whatsoever early game.

If you're never going to take this experiment into Ranked we'll never really know.

Morg isn't a niche pick - you can always use "Krepo" runes/masteries and change them to GMD once you see both teams entirely. 

also, factor in the actual value of the ap with the abilities.

her q adds 90% of her ap (nice - but oh, even with 25 ap, that's 22.5 more dmg on a skill shot).  The ratio on her tormented soil is 11-16.5% ( 2.75 dmg-4.125 dmg).  And spell shield is 70% - so 17.5.  The only ability you have an extremely high chance of hitting the majority of the time benefits very little from the bonus ap.  Now, to be fair, the tormented soil dmg does add up a little, but not a heck of alot imo.  

Missing 22.5 dmg on a q is something, though.  Still not a big deal imo.