You cannot convince me this WPA stat isn't a psyop, shadowflame is one of the best AP items in the game. There is no item you can buy that increases your damage more than shadowflame except for rare cases of enemies having 500 MR or your champion having insane AP ratios.
Do NOT Autopilot Your Builds! 📉
These items all have over 1 million buys this patch & below a -0.30 WPA, a strong sign they are being overbought.
Some may be situational and players are buying them in the wrong spots, such as Thornmail when another teammate can apply Grevious Wounds more effectively or Zhonyas against specific counters like Cait trap.
However, many of these items often have stronger alternatives but are being bought without thought such as Blackfire over Ludens or Umbral Glaive over Hubris.
Further examples of potentially overbought items include Eclipse (-0.45 WPA after 891k buys) or Rapid Firecannon (-0.57 WPA after 800k Buys).
Negative WPA does not automatically make an item bad, but these numbers show why your build choices should be responses to game states rather than always being the same.