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Has anyone else ever thought about Lifesteal VS thorn???

Apollocliptic·4/20/2015, 11:54:24 AM·1 votes·757 views

Many times, as a jungler, support or top laner, I've seen an AD carry champ (adc or bruiser) get pretty fed, pretty fast, so I get a relatively early thorn (I have maybe 2500hp). I know thorn is best when you have more hp, but that's another matter, my issue is here.

Say I have 150 armour, enemy has 10% lifesteal, but take 30% of their damage before amour back on themselves. If my armour reduces damage by something like 50% (give or take with armour pen taken into account) then they should be healing for 5% of their damage (10% of remaining 50% damage) but with thorn, they should take 30% of their original damage stat, but I have noticed that on most occasions (except when my armour exceeds the 250 thresh hold) that their life steal exceeds thorns damage.

Now I don't expect them to take more damage than me or anything, but I expected it to neutralise the life steal, so that when I corner them with low hp, a few aa's should finish them off (remember I am a tank with reasonable damage, like voli, not a full AD champ like trydamere) The only thing I can think of to make sense of this, is that Thorn does magic damage, and is therefore reduced by MR. But apart from late game champs with Guardians Angel, most adc's I encounter have an MR of about 50 to 70 tops (with an ally iron locket) so that shouldn't be enough to reduce the damage from thorn, to below the amount of hp they are stealing with each hit.

I don't know the exact math, but I assume someone out there does, and can explain to me why thorn does not (usually - sometimes, but not usually) outweigh life steal. And this is specifically from one life steal item giving 10%, not when the enemy stacks multiple or bigger items, or have life stealing passives.

I feel understanding when the thorn will and won't work (which right now is mostly luck) will help my optimise my build better in the future, like if I know they have item X, Y and Z, it won't work, but if they don't have item B, then it will, that sort of thing

7 Comments

The Paulrus4/20/2015, 12:03:51 PM2 votes

Problem is that it's magic damage and is mitigated by any MR. It's not like they just take the damage, they get to mitigate that damage with MR. So even with 25 MR, you reduce the magic damage incoming by 20%. At 100 MR, it's 50%. This reduction to the damage is what gets them.

So let's say they have 200 AD, 20% Lifesteal, and you have 150 armor, they have 25 MR.

You take 200*.4=80 damage

They heal for 16 damage.

They're damaged for 0.32000.8=48 damage.

So net damage.

You = 80

Them = 32

This of course assumes no armor pen or % health damage, nor does it take into effect any masteries.

Extreme Troller4/20/2015, 11:58:21 AM1 votes

nobody buy thorn at high level. It's all about as reduction. pick nasus+malphite+nunu+randuin+frozen hearth+exhaust. And your 2.0as become 0.17as, you can't do anything. Anyone who buy thornmail is a brain dêad, because you won't return any damage, because nobody can't aa, it's all about skill at high elo.

R1104/20/2015, 12:09:48 PM1 votes

Thornmail should basically always outdamage the lifesteal they would have as Thornmail deals 30% of their damage before it is reduced by armor while lifesteal returns health as a % of damage dealt so lifesteal is effectively reduced by armor. I presume if they would have a high amount of MR and lifesteal they might outheal thornmail though.