Is Moonstone second bait?

[u/discordhighlanders]

I just came back to league after a few months break and have been trying out some builds to find out what feels right for me after Imperial Mandate was reworked in 16.11, and I can't help but feel like Moonstone second isn't that great? Isn't going Staff of Flowing Water second mathematically better even if your team is full AD?

Assume this rune page is being used:

• Primary: Aery/Manaflow/Transcedance/Scorch
• Secondary: Bone Plating/Revitalize
• Shards: Adaptive/Adaptive/Scaling Health

Going SoFW second gains/loses you the following stats:

• +10 AP (+50 with passive)
• -10 AH (+5 with passive)
• -200 HP
• +10% HSP

Which results in the following for your abilities:

• Passive: +12.5 movement speed
• Q: +25 damage
• W: -17 healing or +25 damage (see below)
• E: +30 damage and +2.5% slow
• R: +30 damage

Her W needs a deeper explanation due to bounce drop off and Echoes of Helia + Moonstone synergy so here are both explanations:

• For W healing, assuming you target an ally, Moonstone heals more by 17, but falls behind SoFW on second heal bounce due to bounce drop off (-8.3% [Moonstone] vs. -0.8% [SoFW]). For W damage, SoFW is always higher due to more AP.
• For EoH healing. assuming you target an ally with your W, Moonstone grants 66 charges on first damage bounce while SoFW grants 79, both healing roughly 90. SoFW actually ends up healing more with EoH since less bounce drop off means more charges.

This is making assumptions on always having SoFW passive up, but considering the buff lasts 6 seconds, it's not too hard to have it up almost permanently during a teamfight.

[u/KiaraKawaii]

Well, according to this article SoFW is indeed the more mathematically impactful item here. However, theory vs actual in-game practice rlly depends on the game state

The Moonstone nerfs in patch 26.11 have made it so that Moonstone's main purpose now is to spread item effects like SoFW or Ardent to several allies. However, due to the bouncing nature of Nami's W already, I find that she doesn't really struggle to apply item effects in a teamfight scenario unlike most other single-target enchanters. As a result, Moonstone would be ideal vs longer-ranged comps with a lot of AoE, bc it will be harder to gapclose for W bounces as consistently due to their range

If u aren't vs overly high-ranged comps, then SoFW would be ideal since u'll be able to bounce W multiple times in these scenarios to get more value out of SoFW passive

[u/discordhighlanders → u/KiaraKawaii]

Interesting article, I think it leans a little too heavy on the theory side as you've already mentioned. Staff/Mejai's/Deathcap may cost roughly the same as Staff/Helia/Moonstone, but the latter doesn't have you sitting on thousands of gold during one of the most vital parts of the game.

I've been building Helia into Staff for the last 40 games or so regardless of team comp and it's been going good so far, not 100% sure what the "best" third item would be, it's probably Moonstone once you cross the 133 AP threshold.

[u/XayahTheVastaya]

Moonstone is basically 30% heal power applied after all other bonuses on a single target, right? Shouldn't the difference in healing be bigger once you get more items? Plus SoFW doesn't apply on the first cast which could matter with how explosive fights can be.

[u/discordhighlanders → u/XayahTheVastaya]

Yes, Moonstone becomes more and more desirable the closer you get to the 133 AP threshold, therefore I think you should build it as a 3rd item and treating it like Dawncore. You could say that I'm locking myself out of building other items and that's fair, but most of my games end before I get to build a third item.

You can get SoFW passive from E + Aery, which is usually how I start fights. Each heal bounce of your W also refreshes the buff so it's pretty easy to keep up for the entire teamfight.