https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/b/b4/The_Brutalizer_item.png
And AD assassins were not balanced around those items?
Did Riot forget that armor pen increases damage EXPONENTIALLY against squishy targets? No wonder why people are getting one-shotted when there's so many lethality in the game.
Eedat38 votesWhy would you pick the removal of one of the most oppressive stat sticks the game has even seen to use as an example of damage going up?
The Brutalizer
Gold 1337 (Gold 637) Long Sword + Long Sword
+25 attack damage UNIQUE: +10% cooldown reduction UNIQUE: +10 armor penetration
Lets put it this way. Coming back to lane as a level 5 Zed with a Brutalizer gave you 10 armor pen and 10% CDR with the 25 AD. Coming back to lane as a level 5 Zed with a Dirk gives you 7 armor pen with 25 AD.
Thats not even factoring in runes. Just some Flat Armor Pen reds gave you an additional 11.5 unconditional armor pen. Contrast that with Sudden Impact that gives 7 Lethality.
So lets look at the whole picture.
Level 5 Zed with Brutalizer and armor pen reds: 21.5 flat armor pen (unconditional)
Level 5 Zed with Dirk and Sudden Impact: 12 armor pen (only after he reactivates his W or Ults)
Plus you get a bonus 10% CDR. Not to mention base armor levels were increased since then
So I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. Lethality was a straight up nerf to Armor pen. Thats not even factoring in the many, many nerfs to BC over the years and to Ghostblade. This thread doesnt make sense lol.
Remember when there was only 2 armor pen items in the game?
As opposed to the whopping 3 now? Wow, a difference of one. Gamebreaking.
JeaneGreene2 votesThere are 5/6, if you count black Cleaver.
Eedat6 votesTalking about flat armor pen items
Old: 
Current: 
JeaneGreene1 votesOk I see
Hibeki3 votesBut did you factor in the flat armor people took? If youre going to calculate armor pen reds, you need to calculate flat armor seals too.
Pika Fox13 votesYou mean the flat armor that nearly everyone got added to their kit in preseason?
YumaS2Astral5 votes[{quoted}](name=Pika Fox,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1Ob7ywFA,comment-id=000600010000,timestamp=2018-09-25T01:26:15.235+0000)
You mean the flat armor that nearly everyone got added to their kit in preseason?
Not everyone. Most mages didn't got armor added to their base stats, they got HP instead.
His Benevolence3 votesCries in Sona and most mages
We didn’t get armor even though we took the seals too.
Eedat3 votesPretty irrelevant because champs got stat adjustments to make up the difference when they retired the old runes. If I recall correctly most champs got 9-12 base armor added (armor seals gave 9) and/or a bunch of HP
Z3Sleeper2 votesDirk gives the bonus damage effect though and costs 237 less gold. I think they're roughly even.
Also there are 4 now. Gotta include Dirk just like how we are including Brutalizer.
Nevrankroaton4 votesCareful with making good point about topic the board hate, it could break the actual cosmos.
LynXerf2 votesThere are some other factors to consider though - taking armor pen reds meant you were sacrificing attack damage from your runes. On the flipside you could get AD from quints then though - but now you can also get AD from other sources like eyeball collection.
Electrocute now does adaptive damage so it is better vs squishies (as it also benefits from pen) but worse vs bruisers/tanks who can itemize armor.
Armor yellows are now gone. This, for me is possibly the biggest issue. Base armor increased is all well and good (and didn't mages get health instead of armor increase) but still falling short of the armor you'd get from seals.
With all of these factored in, it's clear why ad mids are so strong now. it's the lack of armor more than the "additional pen items" in my opinion.
Edit: also lethality is calculated after armor pen % now which is huge for mid-late game for anyone who gets cleaver.
Rexxiee2 votesWhy would you pick the removal of one of the most oppressive stat sticks the game has even seen to use as an example of damage going up? Long Sword + Long Sword UNIQUE: +10% cooldown reduction UNIQUE: +10 armor penetration
Lets put it this way. Coming back to lane as a level 5 Zed with a Brutalizer gave you 10 armor pen and 10% CDR with the 25 AD. Coming back to lane as a level 5 Zed with a Dirk gives you 7 armor pen with 25 AD.
Thats not even factoring in runes. Just some Flat Armor Pen reds gave you an additional 11.5 unconditional armor pen. Contrast that with Sudden Impact that gives 7 Lethality.
So lets look at the whole picture.
Level 5 Zed with Brutalizer and armor pen reds: 21.5 flat armor pen (unconditional)
Level 5 Zed with Dirk and Sudden Impact: 12 armor pen (only after he reactivates his W or Ults)
Plus you get a bonus 10% CDR. Not to mention base armor levels were increased since then
So I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. Lethality was a straight up nerf to Armor pen. Thats not even factoring in the many, many nerfs to BC over the years and to Ghostblade. This thread doesnt make sense lol.
As opposed to the whopping 3 now? Wow, a difference of one. Gamebreaking.
Thats still less damage than now because every champ had access to runes and could take even more than +9/12 armor against zed.
And there was no other flat arpen item to stack it with.
Not to mention dirk costs 1100 and bruta almost 1400
Eedat2 votesAlmost every champ got the armor added to their base stats when they removed the old runes. I thin the champs that didnt get much armor got more base HP and HP/lvl
Tegash1 votesPeople are also far squishier now. When Riot took away the old runes, they left mages in a lurch because they were the only class that didn't get much base armor compensation, other than ADCs.
Fiora and Jax got like 9-12 added to their base armor. Lux? 3ish. Ashe? 5ish.
And no, there is a LOT more variance in AD pen items, as opposed to the ONE added to the AP tree (which doesn't even really count since Liandry's had its pen taken away):
The amount of speciation has doubled in comparison to earlier seasons.
Eedat1 votesChamps that didnt get much base armor added got more HP and HP/level
Tegash1 votesAnd what defense is that against assassins killing you at level 2 with a longsword electrocute and ignite? or at 5 with a dirk and no ult? And further more, how does that counter the point that AD speciation is three times that of AP speciation?
EDIT: I'm not sure how you can call the Brutalizer "having one of the most oppressive stats in the game," when Serrated Dirk is literally a copy of it without the cooldowns. The current Youmuu's gives DOUBLE the AD of the old one, and by the end of the game has the SAME amount of Armor Pen through Lethality as the old Armor Pen stat used to give.
Just because "oh well, Lethality scales up throughout the game" doesn't matter, because the new AD items give MORE AD than the old items used to, no matter how oppressive the stat of Armor Pen used to be. Last Whisper used to be it's own item for christ's sake, and now it builds into two other items that double its AD again.
IEvenTiltTime2 votesWhy would you pick the removal of one of the most oppressive stat sticks the game has even seen to use as an example of damage going up? Long Sword + Long Sword UNIQUE: +10% cooldown reduction UNIQUE: +10 armor penetration
Lets put it this way. Coming back to lane as a level 5 Zed with a Brutalizer gave you 10 armor pen and 10% CDR with the 25 AD. Coming back to lane as a level 5 Zed with a Dirk gives you 7 armor pen with 25 AD.
Thats not even factoring in runes. Just some Flat Armor Pen reds gave you an additional 11.5 unconditional armor pen. Contrast that with Sudden Impact that gives 7 Lethality.
So lets look at the whole picture.
Level 5 Zed with Brutalizer and armor pen reds: 21.5 flat armor pen (unconditional)
Level 5 Zed with Dirk and Sudden Impact: 12 armor pen (only after he reactivates his W or Ults)
Plus you get a bonus 10% CDR. Not to mention base armor levels were increased since then
So I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at. Lethality was a straight up nerf to Armor pen. Thats not even factoring in the many, many nerfs to BC over the years and to Ghostblade. This thread doesnt make sense lol.
As opposed to the whopping 3 now? Wow, a difference of one. Gamebreaking.
But you didn't factor in how much damage armorpen equaled to back then, it's calculated through an entirely different equation nowadays, and you didn't factor in how gold gain used to be slightly slower too.
ForFoxSakes14 votesI always built BOTRK first on 
back then for an added active damage and to slow people to let me land Qs easier for his ult. I dont think I was able to kill most people without that added damage. Now people are dying before my ult even pops lol
XeroKimo1 votes2 reasons for that
Electrocute, and the removal of the additional Q's deal reduced damage on same target.
BotRK active used to deal 15% max or was it current? hp damage in magic, and that damage is entirely been replaced by Duskblade which could be up more often than a 90 second active. Either way, with electrocute out of the picture, and re-adding the Q penalty, I'm sure Zed would rely 100% on the ult pop to assassinate people again from full
Pokemonred2002 votesit was 10% max HP physical damage that healed for the same amount of damage dealt. (It used to be 15%, but it got nerfed to 10% when they upped the passive damage from 5% current HP to 8% current HP)
ZephyrDrake13 votesyou do know that was the entire point of making lethality items right? to make it so assassins are able to kill squishies easier? to have a stat that is mainly for assassins instead of assassins cannibalizing bruiser/ADC items since they had no other choice? Assassins are meant to one shot squishies. That's their job!
DoktorKaiser3 votesassassinate =/= 1 shot
One of them means that there is time to react and outplay or even an ability to outplay. Other means you are either dead before you blink or if you aren't you will die easily even if all skillshots are missed by the assassin player.
I always listed Zed as top 10 most balanced champions since he was released. Now I would put him in top 10-20 champs with least counterplay. It's so fucking obvious that the old items gave more counterplay and required actual skill from the assassin players.
ZephyrDrake5 votesassassinate =/= 1 shot
One of them means that there is time to react and outplay or even an ability to outplay. Other means you are either dead before you blink or if you aren't you will die easily even if all skillshots are missed by the assassin player.
I always listed Zed as top 10 most balanced champions since he was released. Now I would put him in top 10-20 champs with least counterplay. It's so fucking obvious that the old items gave more counterplay and required actual skill from the assassin players.
sorry but you can outplay one shots. it's called not letting the dude get to you. Dodging skills, kiting not being alone while there is someone that can destroy you. You seem to be one of those who ae 7 lvls behind, splitpushing and somehow think that they should survive an assassin trying to kill them because "muh counterplay!" counterplay isn't just 1v1 scenarios. Learn to be with your team, learn to build defensively. Assassins are supposed to destroy squishies if they find them. DEAL WITH IT!
DoktorKaiser3 votesObviously pointless to argue with you, assassin abusers don't have a functional brain unfortunately.
ZephyrDrake3 votesObviously pointless to argue with you, assassin abusers don't have a functional brain unfortunately.
"assassin abuser"... wow I abuse assassins so much that I don't have a single game or own ANY assassin in the game. Sorry that people actually have opinions that differ from your own. If you cannot defend your opinion and have to resort to "insults" then you already lost the argument. You are right about one thing though, it's pointless to argue with me since you have zero intention of even attempting to start one
AvisPraeda5 votesOne shots are not what assassins should do as a default condition.
I'm only speaking from my experience here, but as I recall from back around s2 to around s4-ish(?), assassins weren't supposed to "Oneshot/one combo" as the default setting if their kit unless you were someone like Sona. Even someone like Zed, who when he was released really looked like the champ made to one-combo people, had to poke you down to around 60% health with his shurikens in lane before he could all-in you with his ult.
I'm trying to say that this idea or entitlement that assassins are treated like their default condition is "I should be able to kill anyone under 2.5k health if I'm even or ahead", and that's simply not good to play against. Before, when dealing with some of the older "assassins" who really were just souped up burst mages (Katarina, Leblanc, Fizz, old AP riftwalk Kassadin), they could only insta-kill you by punishing you for staying somewhere with half health. You knew if you kept your health high and stayed with your team, they would peel you and you'd survive. No one is saying assassins shouldn't be a huge damage threat when ahead, or in the lategame when everyone's builds have diverged. They should be made to punish people (Or entire teams) who are alone, wounded, and overextending. However, now we have stuff like Rengar, Kha Zix, Camille, and "Miss all my skillshots and kill you Zed", who have enough damage in a short span that they're nigh-unpeelable. The counterplay is gone.
Now that assassins are entitled to the 100-0 one shot as long as they "play well enough" (Let's really be honest here, league is not a very mechanically challenging game, not even when playing certainlyt champs), the whole class becomes unsatisying to play against. Combine the damage from new runes and Zed becomes basically AD Annie, who as soon as they hit R will nuke you for all your health. It sucks.
Tl:DR : Assassins shouldn't one shot and the attitude that they should is what makes them suck to play against.
His Benevolence4 votesI had a game yesterday as Sona where the Shaco would literally walk into my team while invisible and kill me, in 0.00 seconds, over and over again. I even built armor to prevent this. For that, I got to live 0.3 seconds until he finished an item, then back to 0.00. There’s absolutely no counterplay to this. You can get a red trinket, but then he waits it out and goes in right after. Actual zero counterplay. Zed killing squishy bot Laners without ult by shadow>spin>auto>shuriken in .36 seconds with 1 item and 1-2 kills is absolutely obnoxious and bad for the game. If that’s what Riot wants assassins to be, they deserve people leaving the game en masse. Honestly, assassins in general are just horrible from a gameplay perspective for a game like league of legends, as they either suck or are completely busted and unfun with almost no middle ground. They should never have been added.
D357R0Y3R10 votesyou mean back when assassins had no itemization?
don't you dare to tell me the opposite fucking talon bought IE BT LW or LW+ 4 BT
how the fuck was that a good thing?
Pokemonred20010 votesThe builds I remember were 
, personally.
The way I remember it, Cleaver before 5.8 was supposed to be for AD Casters and Assassins, but always felt super mediocre because of how its flat pen and %pen had too much synergy if the item was ever allowed to be good.
I feel like giving assassins after they lost Cleaver was a pretty good thing, but... I don't think the rest of their build was really that bad.
D357R0Y3R3 voteshydra didn't exist same for black cleaver
if you meant season 3 then assassins had more than one armor pen item
Marothennan2 voteshydra didn't exist same for black cleaver
if you meant season 3 then assassins had more than one armor pen item
hydra didn't exist? cleaver didn't exist? are you fucking high? Hydra is in the game since patch 1.0.0.152 and Cleaver is in the game since a patch from fucking 2009
D357R0Y3R3 votesyea confuckingrat you're proving my point hydra didn't exist before and talon was forced to build full BT
anyone who played the game back then would know it
Xhaiden6 votesI don't know, but back in Season 4 - i used to have +19 Armor Pen from start with the help of Runes:
Wolfeur5 votesDid Riot forget that armor pen increases damage EXPONENTIALLY against squishy targets?
That's…why lethality exists…
Edge of Daybreak4 votesI too remember when their kits were actually good so they didn't need busted items just to function. I remember the good ol days of having no real items to build so you just grabbed whatever had the most AD and your targets died instantly but at the same time there wasn't a damn thing you could do to tanks and fighters.
Then riot started to change classes and champions to suit the complaints of mostly lower mmr players. Now we have assassins with terrible kits but busted items and almost every class has huge outliers and clear losers. I miss the league before they started caving because it was a game where everyone was a champion and felt powerful for something. Unless riot purposefully gutted the fuck out of you for being too broken in a land of broken.
iPooUnicorns3 votesIf you're going to circle jerk, circle jerk right, like so:
Member when every champion had access to flat and scaling armor bonuses from runes? Oh I member.
Shablagoo3 votesReally because I'm pretty sure everyone completely hated assassins back then. In fact the whole reason we had the assassin rework was because people didnt like the no reaction oneshot, which is still in the game. Really doesnt matter what stat assassins are in people will complain.
KFCeytron2 votes[{quoted}](name=Lil Homie busta,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=1Ob7ywFA,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-09-24T20:56:36.883+0000)
armor pen increases damage EXPONENTIALLY against squishy targets
Does it?
After a bit of math, it looks like the damage increase between successively lower armor levels increases as armor approaches 0, then starts dropping off again. Penetrating 10 armor on targets of various armor values gives you the following damage increases:
100 armor to 90: 5% 50 armor to 40: 7% 10 armor to 0: 10% -40 armor to -50: 4% -90 to -100: 2%
Seeing as how the damage amplification plateaus and then reverses direction, I don't think there's any exponentiation going on here. You can go ahead and remove the word "EXPONENTIALLY" from your post. 👍
Alzon2 votesYou can’t pen past zero. Only reductions can go below zero, something you’ll only ever see on jungle monsters, Eggnivia, and a Sejuani, Leona, or Rammus whose defensive steroid ends during Trundle’s ult.
KFCeytron2 votesYou can’t pen past zero. Only reductions can go below zero, something you’ll only ever see on jungle monsters, Eggnivia, and a Sejuani, Leona, or Rammus whose defensive steroid ends during Trundle’s ult.
Ah, so it drops off even harder, then. Very not exponential.
Alzon2 votesYou’re not very likely to ever be in that situation. Champions will typically have at least 50 base armor before late game, some much more. Even with all three Lethality items plus Sudden Impact, you probably won’t hit zero armor. Pretty close, though - which is the goal.
KFCeytron1 votesYou’re not very likely to ever be in that situation. Champions will typically have at least 50 base armor before late game, some much more. Even with all three Lethality items plus Sudden Impact, you probably won’t hit zero armor. Pretty close, though - which is the goal.
Does it increase damage exponentially against squishy targets, though? I haven't found any formula or expression for armor pen's damage increase that involves exponentiation.
