Among the items that increase skill damage in Teamfight Tactics, Rabadon’s Deathcap provides the largest boost. Specifically, this item increases the skill damage by up to 75 for the champion that possesses it. However, Rabadon’s Deathcap is often rated lower compared to other magic items like the Glove of Thundering, Archangel’s Staff, and Morello’s Evil Tome. So what is the reason for this underperformance of Rabadon’s Deathcap?
Essentially, Rabadon’s Deathcap only provides your champion with a substantial amount of skill damage. While Archangel’s Staff increases skill damage each time the champion casts a spell, and the Glove of Thundering provides critical hit effects, Rabadon’s Deathcap does not offer any additional value.
For instance, if a champion’s ability deals 100 damage, equipping Rabadon’s Deathcap would give that character a skill damage of 175%. When casting the skill, the damage dealt would always be 100 x 175% = 175 damage. In the case of equipping the Glove of Thundering, your champion would have 110% skill damage and 170% critical damage. The damage dealt when casting the spell could reach (100 x 110%) x 170% = 187 damage with a 40% chance.
In fact, the damage discrepancy would be even larger when the skill damage of magic carries is much higher than that initial 100. It’s important to remember that powerful magic carries in the current meta like Heimerdinger, Vel’Koz, and Teemo… all have abilities that deal area damage. And that 40% chance mentioned earlier will apply each time the champion’s skill deals damage to different targets. Therefore, the potential for the champion to deal critical damage in the late game will be greater than that theoretical 40%.
For Archangel’s Staff, this item increases skill damage for the champion each time they cast a spell, and this increase is not capped. Meanwhile, Morello’s Evil Tome effectively counters champions that rely on healing and also deals true damage based on maximum health. In contrast, the damage provided by Rabadon’s Deathcap is limited to a certain threshold.
When the output damage is inferior, the weakness of Rabadon’s Deathcap in terms of versatility gradually becomes evident. This item does not provide any energy regeneration or survivability effects for the champion, thus having relatively low utility value. As a result, Rabadon’s Deathcap is rated low by many statistical websites, and players are not keen on using this item.
Perhaps to address the issues with Rabadon’s Deathcap, Riot Games should highlight the ability of this item to provide a massive amount of skill damage. They should consider adding a stacking damage feature upon securing kills, similar to the effect of the Death’s Sword. This change would help champions with Rabadon’s Deathcap to snowball more easily in rounds instead of having this item provide a fixed amount of stats as it currently does.
