Pythagoream's Piece - ?

Honestly, I think that Pythagoream's Piece is a good item, with good magical power (though not as much as Bancroft's Talon), and the most magical lifesteal of all the items (15+10=25%), and a good earlygame aura. Why do I never see it picked? personally, I would pick it for the lifesteal and the aura - if you want a lifesteal item with a focus on power, Bancroft's Talon is much better.

But what do you guys think?

It's largely because Magical Lifesteal in general is not a good stat. Nearly all magical skills affect an area or inflict a DoT, which results in using a weaker lifesteal formula compared to basic attacks (of which most magical basics are weak). Very few gods can utilize it well, and those who can (like Freya) benefit from other items much more.

It also has to compete with better items for that slot. Typically, any offensive mage is going to have the following in their build.

-Shoes (either Shoes of the Magi or Shoes of Focus)
-M.Pen item (either Spear of the Magus or Obsidian Shard)
- Rod of Tahuti

In addition, they may have any of these two items for utility. There are others, but these are the common ones.

- Focused Void Stone
- Chronos' Pendant
- Gem of Isolation
- Soul Reaver

This leaves just one slot left to squeeze in that Pythagorem's Piece, and unfortunately, it's got to compete with a lot of other items. Most notably, Polynomicon is that one item that a lot of mages like to throw in for that extra punch after their spells. Sure, it gives less lifesteal, but who cares? It's a helluva lot cheaper than Pythagorem's Piece, and once you've got Rod of Tahuti built, you do ****tons of damage with that passive!

Ultimately, it just boils down to the item not being able to fit well into builds. By taking Pythagorem's Piece, you are potentially sacrificing much better utility for the sake of an aura that might benefit nobody and subpar stats.

In addition to the post above me, the general 5 team meta involves one mage and one tank with three physical gods. Lifesteal aura is pretty useless in that case. Even with multiple burst mages, you probably don't want them standing close enough to each other to proc the aura for too long anyway.

I get some use out of it in assault where you're forced into having multiple mages in a small area with no backing for sustain. It gives a nice little extra bit of punch and sustain for the team.

It's not a bad item, but I think it's limited to assault because of all the other good items for mages there are. Maybe if Poly wasn't stupidly cheap and shoes/void stone/breastplate/rod weren't required in every build it would be picked up more.

It is good Ares item, not for too many other Gods though. The only reason it is any good on Ares is his aura passive stacked with the item for 130 power, better than all others in category, and 25% lifesteal on Ares can actually keep him up then.

Its found its use. Vulcan MOTD buy this thing, trust me. (Y)

Ooh, good idea.. I played it earlier, our team went 4/24...

on my second game of it we had two vulcans build phys (Clearly pros) and 3 of our team didn't buy ANY potions despite having 50k +. also most of them didnt buy actives. Needless to say we lost. XD But piece is great on it, the life steal really makes you last ages :D