Explain to me how leathality is stronger than armor pen previously was

Professor Ward·Feb 18, 2017·2 votes·774 views

Serious question. And i dont want to hear anything about the passives or actives of

15 Comments

MatakeFeb 18, 20174 votes

The only thing that makes lethality stronger than the previous flat armor pen is the fact that there's is significantly more lethality right now but Rito seems to be fixing that. From what I remember with my experimentation with flat armor pen in the past: it was expensive and not viable to build a lot of it because it was all in a single item.

Professor WardFeb 18, 20171 votes

{quoted}

The only thing that makes lethality stronger than the previous flat armor pen is the fact that there's is significantly more lethality right now but Rito seems to be fixing that. From what I remember with my experimentation with flat armor pen in the past: it was expensive and not viable to build a lot of it because it was all in a single item.

this is the answer ive been looking for.

WoonStruckFeb 18, 20173 votes

Basically same value on-purchase (~93% vs lvl 1 targets), while scaling an additional 66% of that value.

Big LincolnFeb 18, 20172 votes

there's more of it

MaeDoSanFeb 18, 20171 votes

And it applies before % pen

WoonStruckFeb 18, 20172 votes

It applies after % pen.

There was no difference between armor pen and lethality outside of values.

MaeDoSanFeb 18, 20171 votes

Ya my bad, and applying after it makes it stronger

Warlord ScrapFeb 18, 20171 votes

It makes it weaker actually say thw opponet has 300 armor and your have 40 lethality and 20% pen. 300-40=260. 260-20%=208. Now 300-20%=240 240-40=200. So actually applying lethality first makesbit weaker.

Professor WardFeb 18, 20171 votes

{quoted}

And it applies before % pen

wouldnt this would make it weaker?

MaeDoSanFeb 18, 20171 votes

Nope , my bad

SkiasFeb 18, 20172 votes

There is more total pen. Runes and masteries combined, you can start with higher pen then in the past and it scales even higher. At 40%, it was worse. 60%, its higher. Its just the simple math. Strong early pen leads to early leads. Higher scaling means it doesn't fall off and remains more effective than in the past. Precision is far too effective of a mastery and 60% starting value on pen compounded the issue.

Professor WardFeb 18, 20171 votes

As far as i remember lethality was a nerf to armor pen soooooooooooooooooo

how come none of you can tell me how "LETAHLITY IS BROKEN AS FUCK REMOVE IT RIOT" wasnt a thing with armor pen?

or does the name lethality cause a fad of armor pen builds that people dont know how to handle?

or is lethality not even he problem at all, and is it the items they come with being too strong?

J EevoFeb 18, 20171 votes

I'm assuming you played before the new items?

Armor penetration was a rare stat in the base game, similarly to magic penetration. You had brutalizer which built into Youmuu's ghostblade, similarly to haunting guise building into liandry. Those were the two RARE cases of flat penetration available to champions. The amount of flat pen was controlled, because ignoring armor as it turns out is REALLY REALLY GOOD(if you need proof, try remembering LEAGUE OF CLEAVERS, back when black cleaver reduced flat armor values). Also keep in mind EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER used to buy brutalizer back when it was available, newbies might not know why since they just followed the recommended builds but early armor penetration gives a HUGE spike in damage.

But of course riot didn't like everyone building brutalizer(old youmuss was fine since it had low base ad for a full item, and was a mishmash of crit, attackspeed and ms, and not everyone bought it) So they deleted the item, instead we got serrated dirk, it's weaker cousin.

Also important to note that in between old armor pen and lethality happened the armor rune nerf, which also hurts squishies since everyone tends to run 9 armor runes as standard, which nowadays do less.

And now suddenly lethality was brought into the game, and the amount of armor you can ignore is quite frankly ridiculous. You get three items with a LOT of AD inside them(old youmuss had barely 30 ad), which was fine when the amount of armor pen was low, and you had to wait for it to grow. <--- This one also confuses a lot of people, Lethality by design is a snowball stat(kill squishies get money) but at the same time has a limiter, the amount of armor pen you get depends on the leve of YOUR OPPONENT, NOT YOURSELF, back when it was lower it was more visible, now people seem to forget it.

ErockandrollFeb 18, 20171 votes

Not sure if strictly oppressive, but I feel like their are two neuonces that might be giving it an unfair advantage.

My first though, but I'm a little less sure about this. But I recall that the damage reduction on turrets was replaced with defenses that can be shreded. I'm not entirely sure if or how Lethality affects Armor on anything but champions.

The second thought though, is that Lethality is the more predominant option on Casters. Their really isn't much in the way of special defenses against Casters. Against an AA carry, you have two Armor items that reduce Attack speed, one of which also reduces critical strike damage. The only defense against casters in particular is spell shields, which only exist on EoN and Banshee's Veil. EoN isn't a Viable tank option, (it would only be fire v fire) and BV is stat niche towards magic damage.

WeatheredFeb 18, 20171 votes

Here is the wiki page with the math of Lethality, along with Armor Pen for comparison.