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Can we get a rioter to explain how armor in league works?

Marshbouy··11 votes·1,621 views

I have heard that 1 armor=1% of effect hit points against AD, but a the same time i have heard that rioters have stated that 1 armor=1% AD EHP is untrue because armor has diminishing returns... Which is it? From my knowledge if you have 500 armor and 2k health you have 10k EHP against AD, but that doesn't seem right. If you have 500 armor then every armor point get is only adding tiny fractions of a % in damage reduction.

The statement that EHP has no diminishing returns and the fact that armor in game has diminishing returns are contradictory. 100 armor in game is 50% damage reduction, but 400 armor is only 80% damage reduction (approximately). Am i then being told that 100 armor=100 bonus EHP against AD AND 50% damage reduction but 400 armor=400% EHP against AD but only 80% damage reduction? Those numbers don't seem to add up.

Can we please get a rioter to confirm if EHP has diminishing returns or not? Now if you'll excuse me, i need to go lay down in a dark room to let my headache subside [slayer-pantheon-rainbows]

31 Comments

GaleWinUnleashed11 votes

Armor and HP have no diminishing returns when examined individually. However, they DO stack with each other for a multiplicative effect.

It's not that Armor or Health becomes less efficient as you purchase more and more on top of what you already have. As you get more Health, any additional Armor you buy afterward does more to increase your survivability than it would have if you had bought the Armor without buying Health first. Buying more and more Health is not getting any less efficient. It's making potential Armor purchases more efficient, which means that while 1000 health is still exactly as good as the previous 1000 health, it would have been a better idea to get some Armor instead. This goes the other direction too!

You do seem to understand how armor works, but you're looking at it from the wrong angle. 100 armor is 50% damage reduction, 200 armor is 67% damage reduction, 300 is 75% damage reduction, and so on, exactly as you said. It appears as though those numbers are increasing by less and less each time. But look at it this way; 100 armor (50% reduction) turns 1000 health into 2000 health, 200 (67%) turns it into 3000 health, 300 (75%) turns it into 4000. Every 100 armor increases your Effective HP by 100% of your Max Health.

So despite each stat being additive by itself, Health multiplies Armor, and Armor multiplies Health. If you have 100 armor and buy 500 health, you're actually increasing your EHP by 1000. If you then buy another 100 armor, that 500 health is now effectively 1500 health; exactly the same increase that you got from the first 100 armor.

TL;DR There's no diminishing returns. It's actually increased returns on every other defensive stat, which by comparison makes additional stacking of one stat, while not less efficient, not as efficient as the alternative stats, which creates the illusion of diminishing returns. You don't get any less out of buying tons and tons of health, but you would get more by buying some armor instead.

https://i.imgur.com/1HvNiEO.png?noredirect

MunchCrunchLunch2 votes

lmao. are you joking. the mathematical formular is designed to have diminishing returns so you can't get 100% damage reduction. its FACTUALLY designed that way. the damage reduction increase. falls off. and that is a fact. if i get 100 armor. i have 50% damage reduction. if i get an another 100. that isn't giving me an additional 50% damage reduction. thats how you look at it. there are diminishing returns. that is a fucking fact

how the fuck does armor not have diminishing returns. just like MR. health. does not have diminishing returns. it gives you. a line of stats. its not multiplicative by itself. armor however. IS multiplicative. with itself. and with health. otherwise we would be able to get 100% damage reduction. the way your putting it in is ridiculous. you are comparing stats early you get from your own champion base stats WITH ITEM STATS. to stats you get solely from items.

you're full of shit

Evewynn2 votes

You obviously didn't read or understand the post correctly, because he's right. The percentage DOES diminish, but the effect of the stat on your health DOES NOT. Every 100 armor increases your total effective health by your actual health, no matter how much armor you have bought previously.

Sebbo the Plebbo1 votes

Every 100 armor multiplies your effective health by x2

This is wrong. Every 100 armour increases your effective health by your actual health, which is x2 for the first 100, but less and less for each one after

Evewynn1 votes

Ah right, that's what I was thinking when I said it.

Silly math.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

oh then am wrong i guess. lol

/sarcasm.

Sohleks2 votes

99% damage reduction from armor is twice as much time to live as 98%

That's why it takes twice as much armor as whatever crazy amount 98% requires. Each point of armor isn't less effective than the last mathematically (ignoring for % pen that carries build and start with a little)

GaleWinUnleashed2 votes

That would be 4900 armor to 9900 armor, if you're curious.

Shadowatom1 votes

{quoted}

lmao. are you joking. the mathematical formular is designed to have diminishing returns so you can't get 100% damage reduction. its FACTUALLY designed that way. the damage reduction increase. falls off. and that is a fact. if i get 100 armor. i have 50% damage reduction. if i get an another 100. that isn't giving me an additional 50% damage reduction. thats how you look at it. there are diminishing returns. that is a fucking fact

He acknowledges this, saying that the extra 100 armor (for 200 armor total) would equate to 67% damage reduction to AD, so... you agree there.

how the fuck does armor not have diminishing returns. just like MR. health. does not have diminishing returns. it gives you. a line of stats. its not multiplicative by itself. armor however. IS multiplicative. with itself. and with health. otherwise we would be able to get 100% damage reduction. the way your putting it in is ridiculous. you are comparing stats early you get from your own champion base stats WITH ITEM STATS. to stats you get solely from items.

What basically occurs is you just gain HP against different damage types, so you can technically think of it all like HP in a way. If you buy 1000 HP when you already had 1000 HP, then you have 2000 HP (common sense of course), but this effectively reduces any damage taken by 50% compared to when you only had 1000 HP. Buying another 1000 HP on top of that then reduces it by 67% compared to when you had the original 1000 HP.

1000 HP - 500 AD = 500 HP (50% HP lost) 2000 HP - 500 AD = 1500 HP (25% HP lost, cut by 50% compared to 1k HP) 3000 HP - 500 AD = 2500 HP (16.7% HP lost, cut by 33.4% compared to 1k HP) 4000 HP - 500 AD = 3500 HP (12.5% HP lost, cut by 25% compared to 1k HP)

Now with Armor instead of HP:

1000 HP + 0 Armor (+0.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 500 HP (50% HP lost) 1000 HP + 100 Armor (+1.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 750 HP (25% HP lost, cut by 50% compared to 0 Armor) 1000 HP + 200 Armor (+2.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 833 HP (16.7% HP lost, cut by 33.4% compared to 0 Armor) 1000 HP + 300 Armor (+3.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 875 HP (12.5% HP lost, cut by 25% compared to 0 Armor)

What if we alternated?

1000 HP + 0 Armor (+0.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 500 HP (50% HP lost) 2000 HP + 0 Armor (+0.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 1500 HP (25% HP lost) 2000 HP + 100 Armor ( +1.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 1750 HP (12.5% HP lost) 3000 HP + 100 Armor ( +1.0 x Max HP) - 500 AD = 2751 HP (8.3% HP lost)

You may look at this and say, diminishing returns, duh; however, like you said, HP doesn't have diminishing returns and if HP doesn't have diminishing returns, then this proves that Armor and MR don't have diminishing returns either.

GaleWinUnleashed2 votes

You've got the wrong idea about armor. The numbers given when you mouse over the stat tell you how much damage reduction you're getting, but it's more accurate to say that armor is increasing the amount of damage you can take before you die. Starting from 0 armor, every 1 unit of armor you get increases the amount of damage you can take (and the amount of time you can survive consistent dps) by 1%. It's perfectly linear forever, though obviously in practice it's capped by how many item slots are available.

But just because armor does NOT have diminishing returns, that doesn't mean that 6 Thornmails is a good build. Aside from the obvious waste of the unique passive on 5 of those and the lack of other useful passives from other items, it's inefficient because the health value being multiplied by all that armor is nothing more than your champion's base health.

Despite having it wrong, thinking of armor as having diminishing returns doesn't hurt you; the end result is that you still build a mix of health and resists, even if your reasoning for it is incorrect.

The main takeaway from this is a better way to think about armor and health while in-game. With the correct thought process you can know in seconds whether you'd be better served by buying more health, more armor, or just a Randuin's.

https://i.imgur.com/1HvNiEO.png?noredirect

Astôlfo3 votes

It's basically like a logistic graph. The increase is greatest in low amounts and then basically levels out to a smaller and smaller effective gain per amount.

Marshbouy1 votes

That's what i expect. 100 armor is more efficient when scaling in damage than 400 armor but according to players on the boards and the wiki there is no difference in scaling.

ZT Xperimentor2 votes

Which is diminishing returns as I've noticed too; but it would be nice to hear from the actual designers.

Sire Hippington1 votes

not exactly. If you just look at the %damage reduction, it is, but if you look at the effective hp vs physical damage, it is a **linear **scaleing.

BloodyTompon3 votes

From my knowledge if you have 500 armor and 2k health you have 10k EHP against AD, but that doesn't seem right. If you have 500 armor then every armor point get is only adding tiny fractions of a % in damage reduction. The statement that EHP has no diminishing returns and the fact that armor in game has diminishing returns are contradictory. 100 armor in game is 50% damage reduction, but 400 armor is only 80% damage reduction (approximately). Am i then being told that 100 armor=100 bonus EHP against AD AND 50% damage reduction but 400 armor=400% EHP against AD but only 80% damage reduction? Those numbers don't seem to add up.

It's not contradictory. A lot of it comes down the the language used. There is a diminishing returns in terms of damage reduction (which is what you see on the display). There is no diminishing returns in terms of armours increase to EHP (it's static/linear at 1%). Think of it like acceleration and speed. When acceleration is linear, speed is not. EHP has no diminishing returns ( linear), damage reduction does (not linear). The reasons I disagree with the statement 'armour has diminishing returns' is because the concept of interest is not the damage reduction that is displayed. It's the amount of damage required to die - that is EHP and that has no diminishing returns.

Now, that doesn't mean that armour is always gold efficient nor optimal. EHP relies on both resistances and HP. Shadow has a nice reply for this part. So does GaleWinUnleashed.

Marshbouy2 votes

shadow explained it to me, im good now

BloodyTompon1 votes

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Shadòw2 votes

When you have 1000HP and 100 Armor you have 2000EHP With 400 Armor you'll have 80% damage reduction and + 400% EHP = 5000EHP

Here is the thing why armor stacking isn't effective:

When you have 1000HP your EHP is basically double the value with 100 Armor. (2000 EHP) 400 Armor means you'll basically need to stack Armor only, this would increase your EHP by 400% of your base health value, but the problem here is that you have no HP that make these 400% count.

So, if you have 2500HP and 200Armor instead, you'll get 200% (5000) EHP as bonus, which results in having 7500EHP in the end.

So, stacking Armor is basically bad because you have no high base value.

Marshbouy1 votes

But what if you have 500 armor and 3.5k health? You would have 500% bonus EHP, which comes out to 17.5k EHP against AD. that seems like a lot but in practice it doesn't work. I've build 480 armor on poppy and had about 3.5k hp but i still got melted relatively fast, because the damage reduction is only around 87%.

EHP should be calculated off damage reduction from in game stats, 50% damage reduction from 100 armor should mean 100% bonus EHP, but then 400 armor is 80% damage reduction which, means that you have only 160% bonus EHP vs AD. Right?

Shadòw1 votes

made another comment on this below.

the reason why you get melted is because of Armor Pen and last whisper most likely.

BloodyTompon1 votes

This. Like Shadow says, there is still a point where is is more gold efficient to buy hp to reach optimal EHP though. The percentage increase has a relationship to (not effective) health so if there is a low HP value, the EHP will be low. I reckon the misunderstanding is often in the language. There are no reduction in effectiveness, there is a reduction gold efficiency.

Shadòw2 votes

To your other point, the values are right

400 armor=400% EHP against AD but only 80% damage reduction?

Yes,

take 1000 HP as example, with +400% EHP this is 5000EHP

80% of your 5000EHP is the Damage that didn't get applied because of your Armor, which is 4000HP

So, when you have 1000HP, the enemy needs to deal 5000 Physical Damage, of which 80% (4000) are wasted.

The same you can try out with 100,200,250 Armor, the values are correct.

Marshbouy1 votes

ok. I think i get it now. Thank you

Skystrike72 votes

Nobody has posted the armor-damage reduction formula so I will.

Dmg multiplier = 100/(100+armor)

If you have 100/200/300/400 armor:

d = 100/(100+100) = 100/200 = 0.50 d = 100/(100+200) = 100/300 = 0.33 d = 100/(100+300) = 100/400 = 0.25 d = 100/(100+400) = 100/500 = 0.20

You will take a half as much damage with 100 armor, a third as much damage with 200 armor, a quarter as much damage with 300 armor, and a fifth as much with 400 armor. Notice a pattern? Damage reduction per armor is lower the more armor you get.

Edit: To calculate your effective HP vs AD, take the reciprocol of the fraction and multiply it by your actual HP. Say, with 300 or 400 armor.

For 300 armoe, our fraction is 1/4, and the reciprocol is 4/1, which is just 4. Multiply your actual HP by 4 to get your effective HP verses AD. If you have 2,000 actual HP, you will have 8,000 effective HP.

For 400 AD, our fraction is 1/5, and the reciprocol is 5/1, which is just 5. Therefore, multiply your HP by 5 to get your effective HP. You have 10,000 effective hp verses ad if you have 400 armor.

So, in short, it APPEARS to have diminishing returns, but it actually does not. Feel free to build 6 thornmail Rammus or Malphite.

Skystrike71 votes

Just for fun, if you are a Malphite with 6 thornnails, you will have 600 armor from items, plus 96 base armor at level 18, PLUS 30% bonus armor from W. That equals out to 905 armor!

d = 100/(100+905) = 100/1105 = 20/221 = 0.0905

The reciprocol of 20/221 is 221/20, which is 11.05

Malphite at level 18 has a base health of 2194. 11.05 times 2194 = 24,246 effective hp verses ad!! That's astounding lol.

Let's see what happens when we replace one of the thornmails with a Warmogs.

Armor:( 500+ 96 )*1.3 = 775armor

d = 100/(100+774.8) = 100/875 = 4/35 = 0.114

Reciprocol of 4/35 is 35/4, which is 8.75. Malphite's hp at this point will be 2194 base + 800 warmogs = 2994 total hp. Multiply 2994 by 8.75 and we get 26,198 effective HP vs ad. Astonishing!

This goes to show armor stacking is powerful, but mixing it with HP is better, even on malphite!

Yes this did take a while to type lol. Did it on my phone xD

420 grams1 votes

Off topic, but when building armor, also build ninja tabi as most Ad damage is usually in the form of a basic attack

Marshbouy2 votes

and randuins omen against crit champions.

TTK Dreadnought1 votes

i build randiuns more often than Sunfire and deadman anyway. 10 more armor and a usable active that helps peel, disengage, reduce kiting, and even engage. lol.

xBushx1 votes

You can wikik. No need for "Rioter" wiki is accurate.

Hibeki1 votes

Armor is a flat scale.

Every point of armor is an additional point of physical damage that it takes to deal 100 damage to your health. Like this is actually what it is.

40 Armor is 40 extra damage, 100 armor is 100 extra (So it doubles your effective health), and so on.

If you have 450 armor, it takes 550 damage to deal 100 damage to your effective hp. It's just the amount of resistance shred makes it not really feel that way.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

armor does not have diminishing returns

if you build one armor then you get one armor

armor growth rate does have diminishing returns but armor growth rate is a derivative of armor and is not the same as armor itself. Armor itself does not have diminishing returns

The formula is

raw damage * damage modifier = total damage

where damage modifier = 100/(100+phyisical defense)

Where physical defense = the endsum of all antiphysical defenses

In the simplest terms physical defense will = armor

So the simplest form of the original formula would be

raw damage * 100/(100+armor) = total damage

or if you want to know what % of damage your armor is blocking just do 100/(100+armor) = damage modifier

Effective hp is a mental shortcut used to calculate just how tanky you are. You can calculate it with (1+armor/100) * total HP

In short, the fact that you can calculate effective hp in this way is proof that armor does not have diminishing returns or this formula would be wrong or half done. You cannot use this formula while claiming otherwise.

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