Improving Midgardian Mail

Compared to other roles, guardians and warriors actually have a broad choice of items to choose from, depending on their playstyle and opposition. There is one defensive item, however, that very rarely sees any use.

I am talking, of course, about Midgardian Mail.

Theoretically, it shouldn't be a bad choice: it actually provides nice tankiness for it's cost: you're actually getting 50 more HP than a Mystical Mark, for 600 gold less, and it's effective health comes rather close to Hide of the Nemean Lion. But as soon as we look at the passive, it becomes all too clear why nobody takes this item.

For starts, it's one of the few probability-based items leftover from closed beta. This means you could get hit ten times and that 30% chance still might not proc on your attacker. The effect is nice (30% slow and attack speed decrease), but it's too unreliable, and you're better off relying on actual CC abilities or Enfeebling Curse to achieve the same result. The attack speed debuff is also typically overshadowed by Witch Stone in terms of anti-carry capability simply due to being more reliable and also weakening their power on top of it to improve it's effectiveness.

So it's clear this item needs improvements, and I have some ideas that could help.

My first would be to change the passive so that it works on stacks as opposed to probability. So let's say every time you are hit while wearing Midgardian Mail, it applies a debuff to the attacker that decrease movement and attack speed by 10%, and stacks up to three times.

Another idea I had was to create a Tier 3 split called Midgardian Hauberk that applies just a 15% slow that stacks twice, but works against skills. It would make it an ideal counter against ability-based gods and even mages (despite providing no magic protection).

Thoughts on this idea?

I was thinking stacks as well. Having the passive proc in that way would make the item much more viable.

A 3rd tier option is a good idea. It would tbe better if there were magical protections on the item, so maybe it could split the protections like this:

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Midgardian Hauberk

30 Physical Protection
30 Magical Protection
350 Health

Passive: When hit by an enemy basic attack or ability, your enemy is slowed by 15% for 2 seconds (max 2 stacks).

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I don't think the tiered variant should work against both basic attacks and abilities, but I do agree with splitting it into both magical and physical protection and slowing enemies that damage you with their abilities.