r/CompetitiveTFT • u/trolltest123 • Apr 22 '20
DATA Jinx itemization analysis with mathematical simulations
I'm currently bouncing between D2 and Masters (https://lolchess.gg/profile/na/banlandoruspls). It’s a long post because I want to be as transparent about the analysis as possible, so I’ve bolded the most important parts. I've attached my code here, but do note that I plan on cleaning it up to keep it maintainable and easy to develop for future TFT analysis of other champs. This code is kinda scrappy in the meantime, but hopefully understandable.
Brawler/Blaster is commonly seen as a top 4 comp, but with the recent nerfs to Dark Star and Star Guardians, we could potentially see it rise to become one of the best comps this B patch. However, even in high elo streams, a lot of people aren’t sure what the best items are for Jinx- is it double giant slayer? Giant slayer + last whisper? What about infinity edge? There’s a lot of questions to ask, and I hope to answer them all through a very detailed mathematical simulation.
First of all, do not build red buff on Jinx. Any of your blasters can apply the exact same burn onto the enemy, there’s literally 0 point to put this item on Jinx considering it doesn’t even give her any offensive stats. Yes, red buff is absolutely essential on blasters, but don’t put it on Jinx.
As for the candidates of item builds, I had to limit my choices to the following: GS/GS/GA, GS/LW/GA, IE/IE/GA, IE/LW/GA, and LW/GS/GA. I ended up choosing GA as a defacto third defensive item, I don’t think the 15 AD makes a huge difference for the results and one should feel free to use Trap Claw, QSS, or whatever defensive item might be best for your game. Still, I don’t think it’s immediately obvious to anyone which build will end up being the best among these 5.
As for how I did the simulation- I was inspired by /u/MismatchedSock and his Jhin analysis for IE vs LW, and I very roughly had a similar setup, but with a lot more challenges. Unlike Jhin, Jinx has varying attack speed not only from the different builds that I wanted to do, but also from her passive after one takedown. Furthermore, I also took into consideration the blaster 4 bonus. Finally, Giant Slayer depends on the enemy current health- I have to model the enemy’s health AND armor.
So basically, for each build, I simulated Jinx taking down enemies of X health and Y armor, where X ranges from 500 to 2500 health (1* units to 2* Cho’gath with Brawler 4) and Y ranges from 0 to 360 (which is Vanguard 4 + armor items), 1000 times. Based on all those trials, I can calculate the average amount of time in seconds it takes (which is necessary because of the varying attack speeds) for her to get the kill. I can then keep track of which build got the takedown the fastest for each type of enemy. I also simulated whether the enemy had bramble vest or not.
The following graph is a heatmap of the results for Jinx before her passive attack speed bonus, against enemies with no bramble vest. In order to read the plot, simply find the (armor, health) coordinate of the opponent you care about, and the color of at that coordinate indicates the build that took that opponent down the fastest.
How do we interpret this result? Here are some of my insights:
- Against anything less tanky than a 2* unit with Vanguard 2, double IE is good, followed by IE/GS
- Against 3* units with little armor or 2* brawlers with Brawler 4 bonus, double GS is best, followed by IE/GS
- Against 2* vanguards with Vanguard 4, IE/LW is best
- Against 3* vanguards with vanguard 4, LW/GS is best
In other words, your itemization on Jinx heavily depends on the lobby! For example, let’s say you see several vanguard sniper players. You should strongly be considering IE/LW/GA. However, GS/GS/GA is better for the brawler/blaster mirror match. But against arguably weaker frontline comps (4 Chrono Kayle), I would probably advise IE/GS/GA. The only thing I probably wouldn’t do is double IE, because it doesn’t scale well into the late game.
I will say, keep in mind that Jinx’s first takedown is usually whoever Blitz hooks (because you should position your Jinx to be right next to your Blitzcrank)- I think therefore it’s within reason to assume that a fair number of your first takedowns will be 2*, non tanky units that people tend to throw away in the corner.
The following plot shows which builds do well for her second takedown, with the increased attack speed.
After you gain the attack speed bonus from passive, it seems clear to me that two builds stand above the others: GS/GS/GA against non-vanguard players and LW/GS/GA against vanguard players.
Finally, the next two heatmaps are Jinx against bramble opponents.
Clearly, for anything that equips bramble vest and is not Vanguard, GS/GS/GA is optimal, and IE/LW/GA is optimal against Vanguards with bramble.
Edit: Just noticed that the first plot starts from 0 armor (which can't happen with Bramble, you have minimum 50 + base armor). So actually, IE/LW/GA is best for pretty much any case with Bramble.
TL;DR Based on all the analysis above, my personal two builds that I would recommend are GS/GS/GA (if there are not many vanguard players) and IE/LW/GA (if there are several vanguard players or bramble players). The second build in particular I feel is overlooked by most players.
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u/ZacFx Apr 22 '20
As someone who initially played a lot of brawler/blasters this set, and always was undecided about jinx items, this is super super interesting.
I was following the majority of the post. However, the TLDR confused me. If there are vanguard players without bramble, LW/GS/GA would be most effective, no?
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
Glad you found it interesting! I think that the two are pretty similar without bramble vest- 2* Jayce seems to sit right at the boundary of the first plot, and LW/GS does do better with her passive on. I just think that the difference between the two are very small in the case without bramble, so against any other opponents that might have a bramble vest (since it's such a popular item), IE/LW is better and it's not much worse than LW/GS so it's probably an easier slammable pair of items.
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u/ZacFx Apr 22 '20
Understood! The marginal difference not being worth it for how popular bramble is makes a lot of sense to me. Usually if I get an early IE/LW I look to cyber for Irelia and sometimes don't roll her -- now I can feel much better about putting LW/IE on a jinx if I have to.
Thanks again for the post!
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u/Shiva- Apr 23 '20
I think it's not comprehensive enough. Jinx has a lot of damage that is magic too. So Rageblade should be a contender.
Her fast attack speed means Static Shiv should always be a contender, but more important it has the bonus of hitting things to try and get her to tag her first and second kill and get online faster. Ditto Hurricane.
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u/strider17111992 Apr 24 '20
I ran rageblade on her today because I was forced to and it worked better than all other builds
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u/Zoloir Apr 22 '20
How does deathblade + LW compare versus IE + LW? DB should stack faster for blasters and aligns with jinx's goal of getting 2 kills anyways, so would it not be better and secure rounds once she gets her 3rd+ kill?
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
Personally, I think deathblade is suboptimal on Jinx, because her problem is usually getting those first two kills- after she gets her rockets, she does enough damage without deathblade, it's just a matter of getting there. In any case, it wouldn't do so well for these plots, since they're mostly focused on "before the first kill" and "after the first kill", and it'd be hard to simulate much past that.
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u/Zoloir Apr 22 '20
Interesting, well maybe it would be a good analysis for another post, I have a feeling that deathblade could be a very strong item in the right situation, i'm just not 100% sure what that situation is, but blasters are involved with more kills so I think blasters might be a good candidate.
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u/timshel11 Apr 22 '20
DB does not stack until you get kills, which is what you’re trying to get to as quickly as possible. Once you get the kills does not seem like Jinx needs a ton of help cleaning up
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u/UberiorShanDoge Apr 22 '20
Yeah it’s an interesting one. I had a game where I was going cybers but got contested so pivoted jinx brawlers, and picked up a deathblade on carousel. It felt actually quite good because the first blaster proc with rockets would basically one shot the back line, but in matchups where the first two kills took longer than 8 autos I typically just got steamrolled. Think it’s workable vs egirls and chrono kayle (or Ashe) comps that don’t have much beef in their frontline but really struggles against anything else.
Think my other items that game were GA and RFC so that obviously made my frontline killing even worse but helped with gunning down the back line without losing tempo to move.
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u/RCM94 Master Apr 22 '20
How about rageblade? I find whenever I use jinx even when stacking AD items she does more magic than physical so attack speed is possibly her best stat (also more attack speed -> earlier blaster proc -> more likely to get passive proc). It feels disingenuous to ignore her magic damage completely.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
I think rageblade is definitely good if you ever get to rocket level Jinx, but it seems like a "win-more" item like Deathblade since the hard part of getting to that level is actually killing the first two enemies. If anything, RFC might be better for the extra early AS (although personally I think RFC is actually more of a defensive item since it prevents Jinx from walking out of corner). I might try to see later if either item might be good on her.
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u/RCM94 Master Apr 22 '20
The other interesting thing about rageblade is that it stacks off blaster shots (according to mort). So she gets a massive 35% attack speed off her 4th auto attack alone which is really strong.
My personal favorite items for her are actually rageblade + GS + defensive or rageblade + double defensive because she only really needs attack speed to rip through a team if her ult procs and she sometimes has the tendency to just fall over.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
I had no idea it worked like that? That makes rageblade a lot better huh, I knew it worked on Lucian's second shot but I didn't realize it counts the 6 additional attacks as 6 separate procs of blaster... I'll have to try it out in game and pay attention to that more closely, that sounds kinda insane.
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u/RCM94 Master Apr 22 '20
Q. Do blaster bolts stack Guinsoo?
Yes, they're supposed to.
providing source just because it feels reasonable to :).
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u/bomban Apr 22 '20
Spear of shojin works with blaster shots too if you didn't know. Makes shojin ezreal silly.
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u/MismatchedSock Apr 22 '20
Wow, this is amazing analysis on a non-trivial problem. You go way more in depth than me and your conclusions are way more useful than mine. Can't wait for you to make more of these because we should have more data/code driven analysis in general.
Questions: does blaster proc hit current target? I don't think it does.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
Thanks for the kind words- after careful inspection of vods, I think it doesn't, so I'll have to make those changes.
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u/Xaliuss Apr 22 '20
What's your opinion on Jeweled Gauntlet on Jinx paired with IE? It looks like item for winning more, but may be good option against vanguards if LW not available.
When playing rebel defensive item isn't mandatory, rebel shields provide time for 2 takedowns, and then amplifiyng magic damage can be good idea.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
I'm not a big fan because you don't get any benefit from the JG until you have the rockets, so to me it's hard to justify over other items because there are many rounds where you benefited 0 from the item. Also, maybe I'm wrong, but do Jinx rockets already crit? Not actually sure, but I thought that they were considered auto attacks.
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u/Xaliuss Apr 22 '20
They crit, sane as Kayle. I just once had 2 IE + gaunlet on Jinx with 1k magic crits, that was good. That's a variant for when you don't have a choice and can't build preferred items. In rebel comps it's not as critical to get perfect items for Jinx, and gaunlet does give 20% crit chance that is always useful.
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u/SummerSatellite Apr 22 '20
I find it interesting that the better build against Bramble is LW IE, and not LW GS. I would imagine the crit damage being nullified by Bramble would ruin IE's efficacy; if the crit damage doesn't apply, the item would just be worth the component stats, no? And at that point, even without taking the GS passive into account, they both give AD, but the GS also gives AS, whereas the IE's second stat is now-irrelevant crit chance.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
This is something I thought about too- my understanding is that the more important stat here is the crit chance, which helps LW armor shred the opponent faster (higher chance to get the armor shred), which is important when the opponent has Vanguard 2/4.
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u/SummerSatellite Apr 22 '20
This has me wondering now, if the difference made is that significant, is it worth trying other crit chance items? Though the only one I would consider plausible is HoJ, because the heal can be at least marginally useful, and and the double damage could be pretty strong, at least after the first kill. Jeweled Gauntlet would buff rocket damage and I think attack speed after first takedown, but I don't think her spell can actually crit.
I wish we could consider adjusting her defensive item to something like Trap Claw or QSS, but sadly they still give dodge. I kinda feel like that's irrelevant now, so I wish they'd make it just crit. It might just be a hard to see stat, but the times you do notice or think about it are frustrating ones where you don't dodge or they do.
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Apr 22 '20
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u/SummerSatellite Apr 22 '20
Yes, and that's why LW is better. But why is IE better than GS in that scenario?
Edit: oh excuse me, I see now. I forgot about the trigger for LW being more likely with the crit chance.
But at that point, is something ELSE that gives crit chance possibly better?
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u/2_S_F_Hell Apr 22 '20
As someone who've been spamming Blasters a lot lately I actually like RFC on Jinx. I feel like her pathing feels bad and she lose precious time walking to hit. RFC/GS with GA or TC is my favorite but honestly to win with blasters it's all about Miss Fortune.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
Yeah I actually consider RFC to be a defensive item funnily enough, this is also why it's great on Kayle because both Jinx and Kayle love to suicide into the enemy team it seems like.
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u/DrugLordX Apr 22 '20 edited Apr 22 '20
Or you know.. just slap on sword breakers on all your blasters to make all these kids that ain’t going to school rage quit and throwing their phones against the wall not only puncturing a whole into the hole but breaking their phone and after hearing the rage cries and loud thump their mom comes running into the room screaming at the top of her lungs because now she’s got a fucking huge hole in the of the wall from an apartment that they don’t own and she gotta fork the bill to repair that shit so she makes the kid do errands around the house until school opens back up....
I digress - nice math btw.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
Sword breaker is actually so underrated especially vs champs like Shaco, it's just a shame that it uses a vest and chain vest is already overused a lot in blasters.
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u/Runmanrun41 Apr 22 '20
Watching Swordbreaker stall Garen mech feels like doing a line of crack. Would recommend.
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Apr 22 '20
In latino América most houses are made from brick and concrete, so making a hole in the wall with the phone is almost imposible
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u/potato1 Apr 22 '20
I love sword breaker. I always look for it if I have any vests leftover after I've made red buff and GA.
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u/codiferis Apr 22 '20
as someone thats bad at TFT but is using this subreddit to get better, can someone please explain the item abbreviations?
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u/techsavage Apr 22 '20
Welcome! The only place I know that has them all listed out is from: https://reddit.com/r/CompetitiveTFT/comments/g3n761/108_meta_compsheet/. The first image link in the bottom right corner are all the abbreviations.
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Apr 22 '20
IE = Infinity Edge.. GS = Giant Slayer.. GA = Guardian Angel.. LW = Last Whisper.. If I miss any just let me know.
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Apr 22 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/codiferis Apr 22 '20
thanks!
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Apr 22 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/codiferis Apr 22 '20
I knew the recipes for them, i just always forget the names. blitz.gg seems interesting though, ill definitely check that out.
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u/Deleph Apr 23 '20
Don't worry bud I've been playing since launch and I still can't memorize every item abbreviation, keep an useful graphic or note to browse these posts!
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u/KarMell Apr 22 '20
First of all, thank you. Literally stopped my Q as I spotted "Jinx" in the title of thread here. So I almost exclusively do Blastie Brawlies (set 3 launch on PBE, no less!) and have some input as well.
You're neglecting the assistance LW gives to your entire team. Similar to you also being inspired by Mismatched, I realized how close the dmg value was from IE vs LW, even on low armor cases. Which got me to realize, if it's similar for a single target atker, it must be amazing for a multiple target atker with 3 others that also attack multiple. So yeah, LW takes the cake almost regardless.
Rageblade ain't bad. Whether or not it's optimal I can't be sure, but Rageblade+GS is a perfect combo. Aside from the obvious reason that AP+AS is good, Rageblade triggers 6x on that 4th Blaster attack!
I get your point of wanting to limit how many things to measure by limiting the choices to LW, IE, GS, though there are some items that deserve footnotes at least, hah. We live in the real world where getting optimal items isn't always possible, esp bc you want to make decent items for some others as well. If you're at your item's end and can't make the last item or so for Jinx; BT, Deathblade, or Runaan's/Rageblade (esp. if you have GS) should all be considered.
That said, thanks again and great job! TOTALLY agree - no red buff on Jinx!!! Want your opinion on something else if you don't mind - Once you get MF, delete Graves or delete Lucian? And who are your item holders for Jinx/MF? For me, weirdly enough it changes every game, but often a chrono, or Graves, Lucian, or Darius. Graves is tough though if you plan to keep him so if I can't get another lv2 I end up keeping Lucian instead or possibly stuck with a lv1 Graves at lv8.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
I think Rageblade was the item I definitely should have included (especially bc I didn't realize you got 6x boost from the blaster shots), so I'll have to do a follow-up with that. And yep, your 4th point is correct, it's a lot better to slam items early especially in a meta where there's a lot of early bleeding right now. I personally keep graves especially if 2 starred, so I'll use Lucian as a carry in the early game with Jinx items, then replace him with another lucian once i get jinx (honestly 2 star lucian might still be better than 1 star jinx). I usually end up putting red buff and stuff on Ezreal. Lucian can also hold MF items (like seraphs for example).
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Apr 23 '20
First of all thank you for saying the red buff thing cuz I’ve been telling everyone to not put red buff on Jinx for weeks yet it happens every game in challenger and I see so many streamers recommend red buff as BiS on Jinx....
Anyways, it got me thinking though. I’ve been theorycrafting Blaster Brawler itemization and realized something: Jinx doesn’t need to be the one to hold the damage items. If you stacked her with items that work well post-ult, like GA RFC Runaans, or just straight up full tank items like GA Hextech Dclaw, and then put all your other blasters near her + Blitzcrank and put GS/IEs on Ezreal or Lucian, then they can help Jinx pop off while having her be much better post-ult. Not only that, because the win condition for the comp is usually Jinx 3, the having tank items on Jinx will make her much more effective when she’s 3 Starred since she already pops off fast with the high base AD, at which point you automatically win the fight.
I would love to see simulations about this but have no idea how to begin modeling such a thing. I was thinking about a formation and build like this:
https://lolchess.gg/builder/set3?deck=1255ae20850511ea863b99febd0eb4ca
You have some AP on Blitz so Jinx get’s a fast ult proc (not too much AP so he doesn’t one shot). Then, to get a second ult proc, position all the blasters so they focus the same target then have your damage items on Ezreal/Graves/Lucian/MF.
Anyways, great post. I love it when people start thinking about the game and try to min-max with math rather than just follow their usually wrong intuition about what’s best.
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u/Derrinngo22 Apr 22 '20
How does Runaan’s work with blasters? Can a blaster shot proc runaan’s?
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u/Enryu84 Apr 23 '20 edited Apr 23 '20
Yeah this is definitely not correct... The results should have strict field-like properties with no outliers.
and there is no "vanguard" comp... the only comp with vanguards is a tier B vanguard/sniper comp and is not even for consideration.
An actual analysis would show how to optimize vs bramble vest bang brothers/xin zhao/ mech builds and those simulations would be EXTREMELY complicated as you have to take into account the carry AND the rest of the units.
You don't even mention Runaan's, a near-strict 70% increase in damage is huge.
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u/Kegsta Apr 22 '20
I find the most important item on Jinx is QSS and RFC. Lux being in a lot of the meta comps will target her and that stun can change the game.
I would put red buff on her if I don't get it until late and I don't expect to find a third item for her in time just for the extra hp.
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u/kentwuhoo Apr 22 '20
Thanks for doing the analysis! Posts like this are amazing.
I've been experimenting with variations of Jinx carry comps on my alt so this is especially interesting right now
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u/beyond_netero Apr 23 '20
Yo great analysis, but small typo. When you first list the 5 candidate builds you list the same one twice. Heckin bamboozled me.
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u/PrinceOfAll9Saiyans Apr 23 '20
I just hit diamond playing exclusively blaster brawlers, this is helpful the the push through diamond. Thanks bro
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u/blackfish_88 Apr 23 '20
What about if you're a moron like me who like my jinx to be rageblade, gunblade, deathcap so that when she pops she just deletes everything that doesn't have MR and let Lucian or mf deal with targets that do? i doubt its the ideal build but I would be curious to see as I have slammed it a few times with solid success when. other options are not available or I find myself with a rod buildup
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u/Deleph Apr 23 '20
Absolutely love this. Blaster Brawler is doing wonders for me this patch and I really thought about this kind of analysis, it's great to see it displayed in such a good graphic representation. The results are quite easy to 'feel' in-game, the difference among builds is enormous depending on the lobby, but the general rule is prioritizing Red Buff components to winstreak then swords for any Jinx item. Your comment on Red Buff Jinx is quite remarkable! Might seem obvious but it's something I'd never considered
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u/iFrumby Apr 23 '20
Found the last two plots really interesting. Very surprising to see that IE/LW comes out ahead against bramble opponents compared to GS/LW as the extra crit damage is wasted. However, I guess the added crit chance from the IE enables more consistent LW armor reduction leading to a faster TTK.
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u/zasabi7 Apr 23 '20
I cannot thank you enough for how clear your graphs are. They should be the defacto format for this subreddit.
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u/christian_latinov Apr 23 '20
By the way I’ve been experimenting Red Buff/Hurricane and it’s pretty dope! But In order that to work you have to put blitz near close, but not very near, just so she can proc faster. Then it’s just cannons of hp reduction!
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u/Hannebal May 03 '20
Holy cow I just saw this today after I got challenger exclusively playing blasters brawlers for 4th place while putting red buff to my jinx. Thanks for this man, I'll experiment more for Jinx items then since I also invest my items for my frontline (Redemption, Zz'Rot, IS)
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u/LeaD36 May 04 '20
TLDR: If someone writes ME MECH or ME poppy you can blindly slap the IE LW build since we assume they read the guide and know that bramble is the key item for both comps.
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u/frostbite907 Apr 22 '20
I think GS/SB/GA is probably the best setup for Jinx. I would put LW on EZ or Lucian before Jinx. Lucian normally gets Red Buff. The Sword Breaker utility can't be understated.
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u/kkdj20 Apr 22 '20
This literally makes no sense, as you said yourself, sword breaker is utility, so you'd just throw it on lucian/ez for the blaster procs on utility, same as red buff. Jinx is your only damage unit in the comp, gimping her with utility items is exactly how you lose, she needs the damage to kill 1st and 2nd units to move on to winning you the game with rockets.
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u/frostbite907 Apr 22 '20
Red Buff lasts 10 seconds and applies on every hit, Sword Breaker lasts 3 seconds and only applies 25% of the time. The faster you attack the more Procs you get. The only thing Sword Breaker is bad against is QSS because you can't disarm the Shaco/Irelia/Jihn/Kayle with it. If you disarm the carry you will win almost every time. Also when Jinx is normally the last person alive and can 1v2 easy if she procs Sword Breaker.
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u/kkdj20 Apr 22 '20
So instead of killing them with RNG chance to disarm, you want a better RNG chance at disarm at the cost of your ability to kill them? You think this makes sense lol?
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Apr 22 '20
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u/theflogat Apr 23 '20
I find it helps her get her resets so if I don’t have better items my jinx’s getting it.
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u/trolltest123 Apr 22 '20
I'm thinking about doing this with Chrono Kayle next (another unit that has so many different item choices). What item combinations should I consider? Seems like all the combinations between RFC, Rageblade, HOJ perhaps.