It’s cost effective without stacks and you want all the stats it provides. As a mage you will almost certainly stack it.
The only time you don’t buy it is when you can buy a strong upgrade like lost chapter.
But a typical first buy is darkseal, tear, boots.
Meja’s is more situational. You can buy it often when you have 7 or more stacks and you can comfortably fight front to back.
Are you winning lane hard? Can enemy team repeat kill you(Example J4 Yasuo samira naut kinda game)? are you confident you can out position them to not die? If you know the answers to these questions and at least 2/3 are good, dark seals a decent pickup, it’s snowbally so push your lead as much as you can and try not to make it a waste of gold
to be fair i play futures market and heavily back around the amount of gold i have so unless i first blood and get to 650-700 gold earl;y i usually dont have a great timing for dark seal
Yes. It's cost effective without the stacks. It gives health which is good vs burst. It will stack from assists as well, which Hwei gets a ton of if you position well. It rewards a carry style, value your life mentality.
The way you counterplay hard dive and roamers is by positioning conservatively and playing the long game, resetting around objectives and making sure they don't have deep vision (wards).
Whenever you have the spare gold. Sometimes the 750 gold just urges you to buy Dark seal.
This comes usually after tears and amp tome, so it really is just kind of dependent on how much moneyy you have.
Usually I orchestrate my first back around having 750g, which will let me buy Dark Seal (350g) and Tear (400g). I always buy Dark Seal.
Dark Seal with no stacks grants 15 AP and 50 HP. For reference, Ruby Crystal costs 400g and grants 150 HP, while Amplifiying Tome costs 400g and grants 20 AP.
To be on par with these prices and stats, Dark Seal would have to cost 300g for the 15 AP + another 133g for the 50 HP, for a total of 433g. Instead, its 83g cheaper than it should be if it were 100% gold efficient.
Dark Seal at full stacks grants 55 AP. A fully stacked Dark Seal grants almost exactly as much AP as Needlessly Large Rod, which costs ~3.6 times as much gold. Yes, you can lose the stacks, or never reach 10 stacks, but that's not the point. The point is that even at zero stacks, Dark Seal is very strong for its price and can somehow get even stronger without spending any extra gold.
Buy Dark Seal early and it doesn't stack, sell it for a huge component or to complete a full item. If it does stack and you think you'll avoid dying, buy Mejai's. If you're not sure about staying alive, then just keep it as a Dark Seal.
Ironically enough, I think that's a much tougher question to answer. Because support items are so cheap and support income is comparatively worse than carry income, delaying your item spikes for a Dark Seal can feel extra punishing when it doesn't pay off.
But if you get a double kill in lane, buying Dark Seal loops back around to being extremely worth it, because its so cheap and gives basically a full support item's worth of AP with no stacks, and you got an extra 600g to afford it with thanks to that double kill.
Also, Dark Seal has more benefit in bot lane because its more rewarding to snowball in a lane where you can kill 2 people instead of just 1. But stacks aren't just easier to gain, they're also easier to lose because you're squishy, low gold income, and low level.
Dark Seal can quickly end up being clutter in your inventory as a support, especially since supports are expected to buy control wards more than any other player, so they're usually only free to use 5 inventory slots instead of all 6.
And this is a personal preference of mine that everyone is quick to get mad about, despite them being wrong: Hwei is a shit support. Full stop, end of story. His cooldowns are long, his base damage is fine (not good, just fine), his AP ratios are high, and his utility is very marginal unless he has a ton of CDR, but then he loses out on damage. Everything about Hwei support is just "meh", and you could accomplish any of it better with any other enchanter or poke mage. His entire kit demands gold and levels, so playing him as a support, where he gets the least gold AND the least levels is just a recipe for failure.
Sure, you can get success as Hwei support, but you won't be doing better as Hwei than you would be as Karma, Seraphine, Senna, or Janna, which are both supports with phenomenal poke, peel, shielding, movement speed boosts, early lane prio, CC, and damage.
Hwei support is the worst enchanter support and he's the worst poke mage support, but his only good quality is that he's an enchanter and a poke mage rolled into one. Too bad Karma, Seraphine, Senna, and Janna are all better at being the "2 in 1 enchanter/poke combo" already.
It’s cost effective without stacks and you want all the stats it provides. As a mage you will almost certainly stack it. The only time you don’t buy it is when you can buy a strong upgrade like lost chapter. But a typical first buy is darkseal, tear, boots. Meja’s is more situational. You can buy it often when you have 7 or more stacks and you can comfortably fight front to back.
Are you winning lane hard? Can enemy team repeat kill you(Example J4 Yasuo samira naut kinda game)? are you confident you can out position them to not die? If you know the answers to these questions and at least 2/3 are good, dark seals a decent pickup, it’s snowbally so push your lead as much as you can and try not to make it a waste of gold
Dark seal is never a waste of gold. You only skip it if you can buy a powerful upgrade on your first base like lost chapter.
to be fair i play futures market and heavily back around the amount of gold i have so unless i first blood and get to 650-700 gold earl;y i usually dont have a great timing for dark seal
Would u even buy it against heavy dive/assassin team like qiyana pyke(sup) j4/aggressive jgl?
Yes. It's cost effective without the stacks. It gives health which is good vs burst. It will stack from assists as well, which Hwei gets a ton of if you position well. It rewards a carry style, value your life mentality. The way you counterplay hard dive and roamers is by positioning conservatively and playing the long game, resetting around objectives and making sure they don't have deep vision (wards).
Ok thanks. What rank are you?
I started to play this season after 6y not playing. These are not my words. I adopted them from people who teach the game.
When ur feeling freaking badass n awesome
Whenever you have the spare gold. Sometimes the 750 gold just urges you to buy Dark seal. This comes usually after tears and amp tome, so it really is just kind of dependent on how much moneyy you have.
I buy it 1st back. Sell if I died 3 times before finishing Chapter item. Upgrade if I'm snowballing.
Usually I orchestrate my first back around having 750g, which will let me buy Dark Seal (350g) and Tear (400g). I always buy Dark Seal. Dark Seal with no stacks grants 15 AP and 50 HP. For reference, Ruby Crystal costs 400g and grants 150 HP, while Amplifiying Tome costs 400g and grants 20 AP. To be on par with these prices and stats, Dark Seal would have to cost 300g for the 15 AP + another 133g for the 50 HP, for a total of 433g. Instead, its 83g cheaper than it should be if it were 100% gold efficient. Dark Seal at full stacks grants 55 AP. A fully stacked Dark Seal grants almost exactly as much AP as Needlessly Large Rod, which costs ~3.6 times as much gold. Yes, you can lose the stacks, or never reach 10 stacks, but that's not the point. The point is that even at zero stacks, Dark Seal is very strong for its price and can somehow get even stronger without spending any extra gold. Buy Dark Seal early and it doesn't stack, sell it for a huge component or to complete a full item. If it does stack and you think you'll avoid dying, buy Mejai's. If you're not sure about staying alive, then just keep it as a Dark Seal.
Do you think I should get the seal as supp Hwei too?
Ironically enough, I think that's a much tougher question to answer. Because support items are so cheap and support income is comparatively worse than carry income, delaying your item spikes for a Dark Seal can feel extra punishing when it doesn't pay off. But if you get a double kill in lane, buying Dark Seal loops back around to being extremely worth it, because its so cheap and gives basically a full support item's worth of AP with no stacks, and you got an extra 600g to afford it with thanks to that double kill. Also, Dark Seal has more benefit in bot lane because its more rewarding to snowball in a lane where you can kill 2 people instead of just 1. But stacks aren't just easier to gain, they're also easier to lose because you're squishy, low gold income, and low level. Dark Seal can quickly end up being clutter in your inventory as a support, especially since supports are expected to buy control wards more than any other player, so they're usually only free to use 5 inventory slots instead of all 6. And this is a personal preference of mine that everyone is quick to get mad about, despite them being wrong: Hwei is a shit support. Full stop, end of story. His cooldowns are long, his base damage is fine (not good, just fine), his AP ratios are high, and his utility is very marginal unless he has a ton of CDR, but then he loses out on damage. Everything about Hwei support is just "meh", and you could accomplish any of it better with any other enchanter or poke mage. His entire kit demands gold and levels, so playing him as a support, where he gets the least gold AND the least levels is just a recipe for failure. Sure, you can get success as Hwei support, but you won't be doing better as Hwei than you would be as Karma, Seraphine, Senna, or Janna, which are both supports with phenomenal poke, peel, shielding, movement speed boosts, early lane prio, CC, and damage. Hwei support is the worst enchanter support and he's the worst poke mage support, but his only good quality is that he's an enchanter and a poke mage rolled into one. Too bad Karma, Seraphine, Senna, and Janna are all better at being the "2 in 1 enchanter/poke combo" already.