ATTN: AP PLAYERS & ROD OF AGES!

Now I've been seeing some ridiculous AP players in the few games I play lately. Rod of Ages on Malzahar, Rod of Ages on Brand, and Rod of Ages on LeBlanc.

"What's wrong with that?"

Oh nothing much really, just proves that you can earn money so efficiently you can spend it on items like Rod of Ages when the use for it deems minimal.

"Whaaaaaa?"

Let's first look at the item Rod of Ages:
COST: 3035 gold
+60 ability power   
+450 health         
+525 mana
Passive: Your champion gains 18 health, 20 mana, and 2 ability power every minute. Bonuses cap at +180 Health, +200 Mana, and +20 Ability Power.
Unique: Upon leveling up, restores 250 health and 200 mana over 8 seconds.

After 10 minutes, your champion will have 725 mana.
Now assume you play Brand. Brand is a champion who has mid-high cool-downs on his spells. This means in a fight of about 20 seconds, he'd use at max 2 sets of full combos (once with ultimate) consecutively. Brand's Q, W and E combo's manacost only adds up to (110+50+80) 240 mana. Brand, even at level 1, will have enough mana to execute these 3 skills. At level 18, Brand has about 1000 mana, meaning he can do more than 3 sets of those skills along with his 200-manacost-ultimate. An additional 725 mana will just sit there most of the time unused.

Another reason why the mana is so useless on Brand is that Brand is a high-burst champion. He does not do consistent damage, instead, he unleashes high damage within a 2 seconds or 3 seconds. Normally, that is enough to kill off the opposing enemy's carry; mission accomplished.

"So who uses Rod of Ages then?"

Champions with low cooldown skills that has high manacosts. Some examples are Orianna, Zilean and Veigar. All deal consistent small bursts of damage or have low cooldowns on their skill which require lots of mana.
Another reason may be that your champion is a tanky-type of mage that requires getting in the midst of the battle, for example Swain and Morgana,where the additional HP can be useful for tanking.

"Then why didn't you mention Casseopeia?"

Casseopeia's passive makes her skills have much lower manacosts (the more you cast spells, the lower the mana cost of the spells). Although two of her skills have low cooldown, they also have relatively lower manacosts when activating her passives, so she gets to rush other high AP items first.

"But Rod of Ages synergizes with Archangel's Staff "...

Yes, that is true if Archangel's Staff is still in the AP carry's meta game because other items can give the castor much more utility including Ability Power. Archangel's Staff actually synergizes much better with tanky items such as Banshee's Veil and Frozen Heart.

If you think I'm wrong, leave me a comment. If you have any questions, also leave me a comment. If you wanna play with me, leave me a comment with your Game ID.

Until next time,
-Devinarde