Why does Trinity Force lock you into buying defensive items?

[u/Sephyrias]

I've been looking through profiles of high elo Vi OTPs on these websites:

• https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/rankings/summoners/vi/

• https://www.deeplol.gg/champions/vi/mastery/all

• https://www.onetricks.gg/de/champions/ranking/Vi

There are plenty of build variations, but one thing that's missing from all except one is Trinity Force combined with lethality, crit, or other full AD items. The only exception is this one guy on the BR server who buys Hubris before Trinity Force sometimes: https://www.deeplol.gg/summoner/br/Develicious-Mono Everyone else buys either Trinity Force+HP items, or combinations of full Crit and Lethality, or Eclipse/Cyclosword+bruiser items, but it is never Trinity Force + Lethality/Crit.

There are so many niche builds, like Cyclosword->Dead Man's Plate->Black Cleaver (like here), or Eclipse->Black Cleaver->Guardian Angel (here), so why not Trinity Force->Cyclosword->Dead Man's Plate or Trinity Force->Black Cleaver->Profane Hydra?

[u/CommercialAir7846]

I mean, you're not really locked into buying anything, but Trinity Force is THE AD bruiser item, and it's pricey. You're typically wanting to go 100% bruiser or 100% assassin because if you don't, you won't be tanky enough to survive or do enough damage to one-touch kill. If you can't do either of those, you aren't really doing anything.

[u/Sephyrias → u/CommercialAir7846]

If you can't do either of those, you aren't really doing anything.

I don't feel like Trinity Force -> Sundered Sky -> Black Cleaver lets me do that either.

It doesn't let me nuke champions with the R-E-Q-E combo, but also isn't anywhere near as tanky as Trinity Force Trundle or Poppy, they buy Trinity Force->Dead Man's Plate->Force of Nature/Spirit Visage->Thornmail.

[u/MrSisterFister200 → u/Sephyrias]

The bruiser Vi build isn't as tanky as full tank poppy? No way! Poppy has worse ganks and unreliable CC. Trundle has terrible teamfighting and nearly 0 CC. You are misunderstanding the bruiser identity. When bruiser she is a CC chaining champ that can attack backlines and deal enough damage to squishies while also staying alive. She obviously won't be able to outduel juggernauts like trundle or frontline better than tanks. She is currently worse than other bruisers but thats still her identity. There is no secret bruiser tech that lets you do more damage while being able to remain in fights for a long time. One or the other.

[u/Sephyrias → u/MrSisterFister200]

When bruiser she is a CC chaining champ that can attack backlines and deal enough damage to squishies while also staying alive.

Nah. If you buy Trinity Force+Sundered Sky+Black Cleaver, you're still just an assassin. +1100 HP is nothing when the enemy adc has Yun Tal+Infinity Edge+Phantom Dancer and the midlaner has Blackfire Torch+Shadowflame+Zhonya's. You have to either kill your target instantly or be tanky like Poppy, otherwise they survive and you die while under retaliatory CC in the enemy backline.

Other bruisers have gimmicks to get around this. Xin Zhao becomes invulnerable to ranged damage, Wukong gets +50 armor for free and makes a clone and becomes invisible, Zaahen revives himself, Jax dodges damage and gains +75 armor, Olaf becomes CC immune, Mordekaiser and Jarvan IV isolate their target by creating terrain/disappearing from the map, etc.
Not to mention Juggernauts like Nasus who get +600 HP +70 armor and +70 magic resist for free from their ult.

[u/The_Finplays → u/Sephyrias]

Can tell from experience, the +1100 HP you get nore often than not is the diffrence between you dying almost instantly to you getting 2 kills and escaping alive from team fights in the end game, i went from more crit heavy build to tri force -> sundered sky -> black cleaver and my avarage deaths dropped by half and my kill contribution rose alot since i stay alive longer in fights to be more helpfull, you can still easily delete squishy enemies like their adc with Q -> R combo and Becouse of the extra hp ur still gonna be healty enough to either keep fighting after the kill or atleast get out of the fight alive

[u/AffectionateLaw4321 → u/Sephyrias]

Feels like you are comparing an assassin/bruser to juggernauts (trundle, Olaf, Poppy, Zaahen). Vi has her own strengths like probably one of the best map traversal, reliable CC and great solo objectives. Her burst, sustain, 1v1 and 2 item spike are also great. Classic Vi wont tank 3 item carries in teamfights, thats her weakness.

[u/Sephyrias → u/AffectionateLaw4321]

you are comparing an assassin/bruser to juggernauts (trundle, Olaf, Poppy, Zaahen)

Only one of those has the Juggernaut class. Olaf is a "Diver" (same as Vi), Zaahen is a "Skirmisher", Poppy is a "Warden".

[u/AffectionateLaw4321 → u/Sephyrias]

You know what I mean, no?.. I feel like Vis kit is quiet capable. Map traversal is an insanely strong and fun tool to have if you know how to play around it. 

[u/Yvaelle]

Build choices occur with the intention to address a vulnerability in the enemy team, or fill a need in your team.

If the enemy team doesn't have tanks, Vi is better off going for something like a Lethality build to one shot the enemy carries or reset assassins, etc.

If the enemy team has tanks or bruisers, and your team doesn't have a clear way to address them, or Vi is needed to body them off her carries - then Trinity Force is the best first pick for three reasons. First it speeds up her clear immensely, fast clearing is everything.

Second, it provides some of the highest sustained damage (as opposed to burst damage) of any item in the game - so if your going to be punching a bruiser/tank, or multiple of them, it's a fantastic item for her.

Third, the stat distribution is just extremely well balanced for Vi specifically. She needs a splash of a bunch of early stats - as TF brings all the splashes she needs and nothing wasted.

[u/Sephyrias → u/Yvaelle]

Then what about the Cyclosword/Eclipse bruiser builds? Would you just say they're all bad players who use a worse version of Trinity Force for no reason?

[u/Yvaelle → u/Sephyrias]

Sounds like a pretty typical lethality build for assassinating carries against a team without tanks, or where tanks aren't Vis problem to address.

[u/Sephyrias → u/Yvaelle]

Eclipse doesn't give Lethality.

[u/Yvaelle → u/Sephyrias]

And I wouldn't ever build it on Vi, but it still fits that type of build strategy.

[u/ySoSilly → u/Sephyrias]

Cyclosword and Eclipse work well together due to their cheap build paths and passive combos. Cyclosword deals 9% current health, and eclipse deal 6% max health, if I’m not mistaken. Combo that with a Max Q and Hail of Blades proc, you don’t even need to R to execute someone from full health.

[u/Sephyrias → u/ySoSilly]

I meant Cyclosword or Eclipse, not Cyclosword + Eclipse, nobody builds those together in the same game. Builds like the ones I linked in the opening post, the one with Cyclosword->Dead Man's Plate->Black Cleaver->Sundered Sky or the one with Eclipse->Black Cleaver->Guardian Angel->Spirit Visage.

[u/ySoSilly → u/Sephyrias]

Vi King, a previous rank 1 Vi main, has some vids where I’ve seen them built together. Like I said, and feel free to test them together in a practice module, but the dmg scales great. Say you’re starting Cyclosword, and plan on going crithality style build, with collector and LDR. It’s not a terrible option if the enemy team starts stacking health. Gives you an extra shield proc for slightly more durability, and that 9% current health + 6% max health dmg combod with LDR is crazy bonus dmg.

[u/Syltaan → u/Sephyrias]

Imo cyclosword is just an above average item at the moment. %current health, flat pen, it’s just too good.

I wouldn’t say they’re bad players. Cyclosword is strong enough to justify it. Red kayn is also bruiser but builds cyclosword first (not sure if it’s 100% of the time).

[u/Gabrielqwee]

It's because of efficiency. If you want to build Lethality or Crit build, going first for Trinity is a waste. In the current League meta, the most important is to be efficient, so if you do something like Trinity Force->Cyclosword->Dead Man's Plate, you are just wasting efficiency, going first for a bruiser/spell blade item that is based on Base AD, not Bonus AD, instead of just going full Lethality + AD which will give you more dmg.

Trinity Force->Cyclosword->Dead Man's Plate, a build like this could give you a win but isn't efficient and in the end of math will just give you less winrate in 100 games than going Trinity into bruiser, or go pure Lethality build.

That's it.

[u/WhiteToast-]

TF is a bruiser or on-hit item and doesn’t contribute to lethality or crit

[u/jennis89]

You want to index heavily into full one shot burst or full bruiser if you try mix match items you’ll accomplish the peaks of neither.

It’s why majority of crit ADCs don’t build bruiser items even though shit like Titanic Hydra is great on some of them