The LoL balance team has made a few statements on Twitter regarding the current state of mages in League of Legends and what they're testing and trying to improve the play satisfaction and strength of the class.
Mages haven't had the best time in League of Legends as of late. One thing that Riot balance team has acknowledged on Twitter and even explained that they're working on to fix in the future. Even pro players have expressed their dissatisfaction with the class, so it's about time that Riot does something.
In a recent Twitter thread, Riot Truexy expressed the teams approach to mages and what their thoughts are on the current itemization problems with the class that has made them some of the most dissatisfying champions to play in League of Legends as of late.
LoL Mages: Riot Working on Making Them More Satisfying
Riot Truexy explained in his Twitter thread that in Season 12, HP was added to mage items to try and give the champions some more durability. This was done so they wouldn't be burst down and one-shot every time an assassin so much as breathed on them.
ShowMaker has some harsh words for Mages right now:
This in-turn has been at the cost of higher AP ratios to try and balance out everything from keeping mages too strong and durable at the same time.
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The durability update from halfway through Season 12 was also mentioned, which only seemed to set mages back further since they just aren't able to keep up with other classes in the game.
Riot Truexy acknowledged that there is an issue with build diversity for mages in League of Legends right now, elaborating on his tweets on a Reddit thread.
Mages need to build damage to be relevant. But will eventually need both Pen and some defensive (usually zhonya's) to be relevant lategame. This funnels your build extremely quickly into the same items every game. That's not bad if the items are exciting and different from champ to champ.
Riot Phroxzon also explained the reasoning behind their mage item balance from Season 12 and how certain mage items are difficult to balance since they need to fit a multitude of completely different champions. Zoe is a completely different type of mage from an immobile champion like Xerath.
Most AP designs were generic, because they needed to fit many diff champions. If we had to do it again, we'd probably do a lot of things differently and we've learnt a lot about items since then.
He went on to explain that some items for mages, when buffed, are way too strong for other classes as well, which is why these items are difficult to properly balance, taking Cosmic Drive as a prime example, "Cosmic was meant to be the savior of mages, giving a choice of haste vs damage, I still think it's only a minor reshape from being good for mages, but straight buffing makes it too good for melee."
With the lack of build diversity and the lack of power, mages have become some of the most unpopular champions in the game. That's also why Riot is going to attempt to make some specific changes to mages outside of just buffing damage and AP items.
Some of those changes can already be seen in LoL Patch 13.4, where Veigar will be receiving some buffs to his range to try and make him feel more satisfactory.