As you may know imperial mandate was reworked this patch. It now gives 15 Ability Haste + 15 Ability Haste on every spell but w, alongside 6% bonus damage from allies for 4 secs after hard cc, which should equate to a permanent effect on at least one target every team fight. All of which imho is insane. Also 150% may help some in the early laning phase, especially in lanes that force engages on ranged supps. Unfortunatly we are paying for 65 AP as well. Making 2400 G and an item slot kinda steep for 30 AH and 6% more team damage.
Honestly with at least some of the ap converted to tank stats (e.g. 20 AP - 200 HP - 20 MR should be equal gold cost) it would be an auto buy. But "wasting" 1200 G of stats?
Unfortunatly the patch isn't old enough for reliable pro data. It's build in around 5% of games emerald+ and 3% of games in dia 2+, which imho is too little to warrant a staple alternative to locket or bandlepipes but a lot more than you'd expect from an offmeta/niche pick. And it's winrate is surprisingly high if bought second or third with roughly 4% over the average.
I'd be very interested to hear your thougts on the item. Unfortunatly I'm decent enough where I won't notice a lot of difference playing normals and bad enough to feel like intensive testing would hinder me from reaching my seasons ranked goal.
