personal experience, played a malphite game in which i had 540 armor and a thornmail.
Lucian and friends who were mostly ad still wreak havoc on me. Mind you thornmail returned 107 damage + 15% of the incoming from lucian. He still deals nearly 2.5k damage in a few seconds.
Is it better to just stack hp items with one armor item in build? Or am I missing something.
Warlord Zudane13 votesPeople here aren't saying it clearly... but I can help lay it out some. I put a lot of work into figuring out some of this for runes for my own build and found out one useful bit of information:
Armor in LoL doesn't give a flat bonus. It actually reduces the amount of damage you take based off your HEALTH and ARMOR. Building armor is great, but unless you are building health too at a rate of (personal estimate here, but seems to be good) of about 750-1000 health per 100 armor. It also helps to build up mana and MR because you can build 
, 
, 
and 
and end up tanky as hell. If the enemy gets a bunch of armor pen that is making you take more damage then focus on health and not armor.
Since armor is based off health you NEED to keep a high health with it, armor alone will not help. Using armor alone is why people complain tanks melt. Build a ton of armor and HP and you will be really tanky.
Edit: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor for more information
underscores2225 votesThe defensive bonus from armor is not based off health. 100 armor on Lux and 100 armor on Malphite provide the same amount of physical damage reduction. However, damage reduction has amazing synergy with health, and so it is a good idea to get health and armor/mr
for example (with nice numbers)
A champ with 1000 health takes 10 hits to kill (each dealing 100 damage). A champ with 1000 health and 25% reduction in damage from armor takes 14 hits to kill (each effectively doing 75 damage due to the resistance). A champ with 2000 health would take 20 hits. A champ with 2000 health and 25% reduction would take 27 hits. In order to match this number, a champ with 1000 health would need about 67% reduction. Due to the way armor scales, it takes a lot more armor to get to that point.
Thus, resistance is better with higher HP because it takes more hits to deal enough damage to kill you.
Warlord Zudane2 votesWell, I'm not sure where all the information you got is from, but I got mine here: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor which has the same formula that I find on any other site.
I did word it wrong a little bit, but I was trying to get the point across. If you take reduced damage then it takes more damage to kill you: that means you have a higher effective health. Increasing only one without the other doesn't lead to an efficient effective health, so it's not all too inaccurate to say that the benefit you get from armor is based off the relationship between your armor and health.
underscores2222 votesI based my analysis on math - the relationship between damage reduction and health, as a purely hypothetical situation with the given stats. Because the reduction from armor/MR is not linear, I didn't base my analysis on numbers from in-game to keep things simple.
Armor/MR is not reliant on health, but your survivability (and therefore tankiness) is dependent on both.
ClatoVerataNicto1 votesEvery single point in Armor or Magic Resist is as effective as the last. 1 point in either stat raises your Effective Health to that kind of damage by 1%.
What this means: If you have 1000 health and 100 armor it takes 2000 physical damage to kill you If you have 1000 health and 200 armor it takes 3000 physical damage to kill you If you have 1000 health and 300 armor it takes 4000 physical damage and so on.
A tank with 3000 health and 200 armor requires 9000 physical damage to kill. The 9000 is your effective health against that damage type.
You need to properly balance your health and armor purchases to get the most gold and slot efficiency since health and resists work multiplicatively together.
This is all assuming no penetration for the purpose of explaining the concept.
underscores2221 votesYes, but that wasn't my point. I was talking about the effect of damage reduction and health - which armor and MR provides. Each point of armor/MR does not provide the same amount of damage reduction, but because the equation yields a percentage-based damage resistance, each point does ends up providing the same increase in effective health.
My issue was with the specific wording that the defenses from armor are based on your heath, which is not true. 100 armor works the same for any champ, regardless of how much HP they have - it provides the same amount of damage reduction. Now, the damage reduction works a lot better with champs that have more health, as noted and agreed upon, as it allows them to take more hits.
dEAdbUs3 votesPlaying tanks with 300 armor and 3.5k hp. Still dying in moment. There was post about GA becoming popular on tanks. So tanks need it nowadays to survive in fights.
FreshOutta4Skin1 votesI wasnt lacking in tank here... My items all contained hp (sunfire, randuins, dead mans, etc) i had 4k hp when i was getting evaporated.
Warlord Zudane1 voteshttp://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2305807492/37699689
Is that the game in question? Roughly 5 days ago, malphite build that ended in defeat?
For a total of +245 armor and +1150 health. My point from the same comment you replied to says that you should be sitting at +1500 health or more and at +150-200 armor. And then look at the fact that the enemy team had 3 people with 
and 2 of those also had 
. The armor penetration on those items means that your armor build is EXTREMELY inefficient because for each point of armor you gain you lose half of it in a team fight automatically.
Seriously, re-read my statement, the one you commented on. If you were to go for more health over armor and followed my suggestion then your build should have been:
Which at 4 items gives you +1800 health and 115 armor. At 4 items we area already nearly 700 HP higher, and we aren't even done yet. Remember that armor penetration, so armor is effectively at half benefit (not really, but the game is complex, so this makes an easy decision) and it makes it worthless to buy more armor.
I'd then suggest go go for something aggressive (maybe even earlier, especially if you're top lane) and take 
for an extra +450 hp and damage based off your max health. Now you can hold your own in a fight. Boots... maybe you could use them, I'd say Ninja Tabi if you go early on, otherwise you might want 
for the CDR.
This way you'd have well over 5k health, be dealing a ton of damage from it (5 + 1% maximum health at 5k hp = 505 damage per hit + more in a cone behind) and still some armor and MR.
Not trying to call you out on it, but you said all items had HP, and out of 6 items only 3 did and Deadman's plate wasn't even built. So, having a shit ton of armor against a high damage team with armor penetration will lead to a tank melting if he doesn't switch to mostly health. Building every armor and MR item that exists is NOT the way to go tank.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo12 votesarmor by itself isnt enough you need armor and hp
vs heavy ad comps that have dps or high attack speed items like
helps greatly to reduce damage taken
MunchCrunchLunch9 votesyou will still die in pretty much the same period of time. lucian culling does upwards of 2k damage. thats about half your hp as an hp stacking tank..
meanwhile. 1 mr item. and mages deal no damage to you lmao.
Spoofghoul10 votesThats not true, mages can still deal alot of damage
tanks have always been inherently stronger vs burst though, they simply have too much hp and the sustain to regen some of it back
vs dps though they melt so incredibly fast
azir, cassio, ryze always were good vs tanks for that reason
buying 1 mr item is enough for 2 reasons mainly, that after buying 1 it is impossible to die anymore to a mages burst, provided you aren't more then half dead already and secondly because mages for the aforementioned reason try to avoid hitting tanks
Ralanr2 votesThough I do wish that they didn't nerf the health from Banshee. I had to grab it over visage last night on Poppy jungle (because more MR increases her MR passive and I didn't have any sustain yet for visage) and having 300 health from it didn't feel great.
We still won, but I felt I couldn't build many heavy health items because I rushed trinity after my jungle item, grabbed swifties, and then grabbed a spellblade after banshee (it was a heavy AP comp). End game I had above 3000 HP, but I'm pretty sure a tank should try to get above 4000.
Tychusfindlay9192 votesThough I do wish that they didn't nerf the health from Banshee. I had to grab it over visage last night on Poppy jungle (because more MR increases her MR passive and I didn't have any sustain yet for visage) and having 300 health from it didn't feel great.
We still won, but I felt I couldn't build many heavy health items because I rushed trinity after my jungle item, grabbed swifties, and then grabbed a spellblade after banshee (it was a heavy AP comp). End game I had above 3000 HP, but I'm pretty sure a tank should try to get above 4000.
Absolutely, I break 4000 as darius while still having over 200 armor mr.
Banshees has a very underwhelming hp amount. Id rather a more expensive veil with 75-100 more hp.
Limrick2 votesI think he meant burst mages, which is true. A Maw makes you completely useless as a burst mage.
LordGeovanni1 votesif they have maw sure you wont get the kill but thats just people not accounting for spell sheild they know is there and you force that enemy out of lane or they will die when your cooldowns come back if 4 or so seconds either way is a win just not an obvious you got more kills win.
Votable Jester1 votesDon't forget that when Maw triggers, the holder gets lifesteal and spell vamp until they leave combat.
I've triggered it against Zed, and he just auto attacked minions under tower for the next few seconds, and was back up to 2/3 hp and climbing.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 voteswell if you stand in the middle of his ult and take all of it you need to die ...
MunchCrunchLunch2 votesas a tank you need to bodyblock for squishies. also lucian has most likely more mobility than you .BC gives his ms during the ult and he has a dash and can move. so its not always an option to not take the damage.
chipndip12 votesYou aren't as learned as you think you are when it comes to League of Legends...
JafarThePanda1 votesyou will still die in pretty much the same period of time. lucian culling does upwards of 2k damage. thats about half your hp as an hp stacking tank..
meanwhile. 1 mr item. and mages deal no damage to you lmao.
Riiiiiiiight.
MunchCrunchLunch7 votesits really more of how ad interacts with auto attack.
100% ad ratio on every auto.
250% with IE and crit.
game been poorly designed around auto attackers and crit and ad.
does it matter how much resistance you can get if the enemy ad damage attack speed multiplies to ridiculous amounts.
Spoofghoul6 votesyea dps scales way too hard
it doesn't help that armorpen hypersynegizes with itself and that armorpen also tands to be put on itmes which have high ad or othwerways of making your life difficult like youmous active
CameronM946 votesI think you have to look at what peoples roles are, you're a tank yes but ADC's are supposed to shred tanks and objectives whilst being very squishy, you are required to tank some of that damage but usually for doing so it should give your Mid laner or jungler/top laner to get on them and remove them from the fight and if they do so, that's where your tankiness will benefit the most.
If you're taking this damage without the opportunity for your assassins to burst the ADC then you're taking unnecessary damage.
ADC kill tanks Assassins mid/jungle kill ADC's Bruisers are a half way between the both and deal damage and have tough skin.
I hope this helps :)
ZT Xperimentor5 votesMarksmen being squishy? That was dropped in preseason with all the buffs to sustain & durability.
CameronM942 votesThey have some defence now which I think is acceptable, considering how you can burst a squishy even with these items. Still squishy, just a reasonable amount now
LordGeovanni3 votesadcs always had defense but previously they had to use the same defense items that tanks and everyone else had to use now they get extra defense with out sacrificeing any damage and lifesteal too boot giving them more effective health than tanks if you dont insta gib them which riot nerfed nearly out of existance to adcs by nerfing everyone elses damage in season 5 and then giving adcs more offensive items with defensive stats on season 6
CameronM941 votesI think you've got me all wrong, I'm not saying they're any more squishy that in previous seasons but when I take 
jungle, it doesn't matter if they build the items above
MunchCrunchLunch5 votesgaining about 500 hp per second because of lifesteal makes you very tanky.
dEAdbUs4 votesAdcs are not squishy in this season. Reduction from phantom dancer, go from black cleaver etc.
CameronM941 votes from my experience jungling, I know the adc goes down a hell of a lot easier that any other lane unless mid has no dashes etc. They aren't 'squishy' but they're certainly the squishiest
Slythion5 votesthe effects of armour diminish the more you have, so if you had 300 armour (75% dmg reduction) to your 540 which would be about 85% at most I can imagine. It's far better to stack health after the 270ish armour range
Robert Smith3 votesUnless your Rammus, Malphite or Taric. Their damage scales with armor
Slythion4 votesyes but we are talking about the survivability granted by armour, not damage.
Silmaril3 votesThat is not now, and never has been true. Every single point of armor gives the exact same amount of survivability: 1% of your maximum HP.
In this case, assuming you somehow had 1000 HP for less complicated math, at 300 armor you would have 4000 effective HP, 540 armor would bump that up to 6400 effective HP, a far greater difference than the apparent ~10% difference in damage reduction would suggest. Of course, % penetration heavily depreciates the value of the stats (and is also too prevalent right now) and there are all sorts of variables involved, but armor is mathematically a linear survivability boost, not a diminishing curve.
You're right about one thing though, the value of health increases drastically as you acquire more armor (and vice versa) so you need both to reach decent levels of tankiness.
Slythion1 votesUh...I don't think I follow
If 1 point of armour at 300 armour gives you another 1% dmg reduction, how does that have the same value as 1 point of armour at 30 armour for 10% more dmg reduction
(numbers aren't exact obviously, but you get the idea)
WoonStruck2 votesBecause you aren't doing math. You're using a representative value to gauge the true value of a statistic.
Think about it this way:
As far as damage reduction goes, 0-100% is not as 'small' as it seems. Its not just 0 to 100. Its 0 to infinity. You are using the values 0 to 100 to represent 0 to infinity, which is not really accurate. If you look at the actual values, which is +1% total health vs physical damage per point of armor, its linear. Entirely linear, and based off of the amount of health you have.
1 point of armor is +1% effective health vs physical damage. 2 points of armor is +2% effective health vs physical damage. This continues on even past 1000, where 1000 points of armor is +1000% effective health vs physical damage.
That is called linear scaling.
Also, if you have 0 armor, +%10 reduction means you are taking .9 of the damage you would take (100 x .9=90 damage). If you are at 50% reduction, +10% reduction is actually .8 of the damage you would have taken prior (100 x .5=50 damage-> 100 x .6 is 40 damage, which is 80% of the value of 50). Yeah, each % of reduction is twice as hard to get, but it also has twice the effect. After 66% reduction, it is then three times as hard to get, but 3 times as effective. 75%+ is 4 times as hard to get, but 4 times as effective. At 80%+, a 1% increase in damage reduction is 5 times as hard to get, but each 1% increase is 5x as effective.
Each 100 armor brings you up one 'tier', in that regard. 0=0% reduction (100% EHP). 100=50% reduction (200% EHP). 200=66% reduction (300% EHP). 300=75% reduction (400% EHP). 400=80% reduction (500% EHP).
This is the damage reduction that your EHP represents. Notice how you get the exact same increase in EHP per point of armor, even though it appears that your damage reduction is increasing by less.
It is, in fact, linear. Not diminishing.
What you're thinking of is % increase of your total EHP. Normally you have 100% effective health as a base. 10 armor makes that 110% effective health vs physical damage. To increase this by another 10%, you would have to purchase 11 points of armor, leaving you at 121% EHP. To increase by another 10%, you'd need 12 more points of armor, so on and so forth.
If you have 5 apples and buy another 5 (+100%), that doesn't mean you have to then buy 10 (+100%) to get the same value. Each apple is still worth just as much as the next. You using % values to measure your increase in apples doesn't somehow make each apple worth less just because it doesn't provide as much of a boost to your % apple intake with each flat increase in apples you make in purchases.
ForgiveColour5 votesYou forgot to mention that you dove enemy team 1v5 and their adc jungler mid top are attacking you at the same time
WiegrafOfValor5 votesThe problem is ADCs are out of control and Thornmail is garbage now, for the AR/MR vs HP thing, only aim for 220AR/MR and 4K HP.. After 200 AR/MR it really isn't worth build it anymore and you get a nice 70% resist from it.. after you get to the 200 mark just get a Warmog and go ham.
dEAdbUs5 votesDon't listen to those guys. Tanks are not effective because: Juggernauts can do same + sustain (try to kill Darius). Most armor pene items are core for most AD champions.
So yeah, armor sucks this season.
Phoenix Kotori 2 votes
has 
he literally gave up lifesteal to counterbuild you since you had a lower HP build going two armor items w/o hp additionally 
both had and zed had 
that's a lot of armor pen.
So yeah with that much armor pen on their comp you needed more hp.
Also you were playing SUPPORT 
thus behind on the gold and level curve.
LordGeovanni5 votesso they can counter build him where is his counter build you telling me the safe ranged champion gets to have the end all be all build that cant be stopped no matter what. and if 3 people were focusing a support TANK not like hes good for anything else but the only thing hes good for is invalid he cant survive for long enough to have allies do something
Phoenix Kotori 1 votesThe counterbuild has trade-offs going specifically means you're giving up damage vs non-tanks to deal with tanks, you get no lifesteal, lower damage vs no tanks due to no IE, no real defensive item, etc.
Also the fed master yi probably shred his no hp build with his true damage.
LordGeovanni2 votesNot being able to do anything because some one built something sounds doesnt sound like you can counter play that and thats what riot says they want to be able to happen no life steal yet. and you get survivability so even if you do less intial damage you still have ton of utility in speed boost and dashes and double hit passive you just take about a second longer to do the same thing not to mention doing near true damage to anyone who didnt build armor
Phoenix Kotori 1 votesIt's a team game some roles counter others, a support tank generally won't be able to 1 vs 1 much less 1 vs 3+ as the OP implies and no one on his team was really doing at all the entire game
LordGeovanni2 votesor survive general damage from 5 man team because thats their job to stand in front of 5 people and take their damage already takeing the damage aspects of a tank that is inherent in games besides taunts tank classes are usually not cc bots like league is makeing them they are also damage and tanky ness with their weakness being that they dont have mobility spells they still slower than everyone else and vastly out ranged.
Vallalan1 votespeople do not understand that being tanky does not mean you can just tank a late game adc for 5-10 seconds. if an adc is free firing on you, they are going to melt you. lord domink's regard cuts through bonus armor at 45%. so like you effectively have only 250-300 armor to that lucian which is still quite a bit but not going to make you this unkillable monster to Lucian. especially since the other part of lord dom's is increasing his damage overall to you by 15%). If he further has a cleaver and crit on top of that well you are now losing another 1/3 of that armor. so 75 armor? you are now at around 175-200 which lets be real, you are going to be cut through by an adc at that point.
this is why tanks go down so fast to adc's late game. because adc's have the one item in the game designed to cut through a tank. if an adc gets to free fire on you, then your team failed to get to the adc which is a key part in winning team fights.
being a tank does not mean you can just blindly walk into the enemy team's carries late game and then soak up all their damage. its to ensure that they have to focus you down or you will be a menace.
Tanks are actually at the strongest in the mid game when they have two armor items and the ads don't have their pen items yet, and no one can deal with their tankyness since they simply do not have the items yet.
XxxLumberJackxxX4 votesWhy not though? Seriously. Why can't tanks tank
Vallalan1 votesthey can tank them for a reasonable amount of time, but an adc is the highest dps in the game. in the late game carries blow up instantly but also deal insane damage to make up for their squish builds.
tanks by contrast do not, but also do not deal enough damage to blow up a carry by themselves. so if you aren't getting to that adc or no one else is he is going to kill everyone. thats how it should be.
tanks can tank for most of the game and can still tank late, but an adc will shred a tank late game. that is pretty much their job. mages still struggle with tanks late game relative to how squishy they are. unless you are a high dps mage like azir or cassio.
and in the mid game tanks are oppressive because they deal decent damage while being tanky as fuck and having cc.
LordGeovanni2 votesIm pretty sure riot lessened instagibs expecially for adcs and mages. tanks cant tank cause they farm slower and less reliably considering that they buy survivability that doesnt make farming easier while adcs get damage from their first back that makes missing cs super hard meaning adcs build faster than tanks also adcs get kills funneled into them more gold to build faster tanks sustain nerfed cause warmogs allowed tanks to have too safe a laneing phase but being able to stand out of your enemies range of damage all game unless you didnt ward your flanks isnt too safe game play. but adcs only do damage right thats what makes them dangerous isnt not like they have extra mobility that makes you have to catch them multiple times or cc where they say fuk nope when ever you engage them (-.-) how about being easy too kill you got 1 combo on them so they are down to 30% of their hp they are totally out of the fight now right not like they gonna auto attack 3 times and be back to full hp again