Boards›Gameplay

Thornmail needs a buff.

PogChampEleGiggl·12/26/2015, 11:10:35 PM·115 votes·9,516 views

http://i.imgur.com/5sAbQzi.jpg

It really seems like Thornmail ( )has nothing going for it except for the raw armor (only 10 more than Frozen Heart without any of the other good stats) All you need to really buy is 5 - 10% lifesteal or damage healed (let me iterate that almost every melee/ranged AD will buy lifesteal) and you can completely negate the effects of hitting somebody who has thornmail. Even when stacking only armor, thornmail hardly does what it's advertised. I propose that its passive should also affect On-Hit effects that are affiliated with basic attacks (Devourer, Guinsoo's, Wit's End, Sheen, etc) , have the scaling for the passive increase and do a slight portion of whatever it reflects as true damage. In return it should have its base armor lowered moderately. There is hardly a reason to build this item even if you completely ignore the MR you will likely need and just build straight armor in the highest ammounts.

133 Comments

Blue Moon Wolf12/27/2015, 7:03:31 AM10 votes

I still think they should give it the item 3035 , where they give it a nerf and make it cost 1350g, but it builds into 2 different stronger versions. one that gives a slightly larger amount of armor with a stronger passive and another that gives the same old 100 AR and passive (maybe a bit stronger passive, but not as much as the other one) but adds an active ability on top of that.

Dehitay12/27/2015, 3:46:03 AM8 votes

I think the ideal buff to thornmail would be simply to add a grevous wounds proc on champs the wearer attacksl. Not only would this make it an actual threat against anybody with lifesteal, it would finally allow tanks an item that has grevious wounds. There's Morellos for ap damage champs and executioner's blade for AD damage champs, but tanks have nothing they can use to help stop a rampaging Mundo or Vlad when the rest of their team is too stupid to buy grevious wounds items unless they want to ruin their tank build.

Siyther12/27/2015, 12:20:52 AM8 votes

have u used it on Rammus???????? yea it needs no buff or he will have to be deleted form the game entirely cause he is already op as hell with it. As an adc every single game a rammus builds this its gg u cant counter it in this meta where everyone is ad Rammus is king, and thornmail is his crown sword and shield.

Slamurai Jack12/27/2015, 3:40:05 AM4 votes

I'm curious why you think being able to kill an adc without touching them just because you have thornmail is reasonable. Please explain it to me.

J Eevo12/27/2015, 4:26:08 AM3 votes

Considering the amount of Critical chance added to the items, item 3143 is a better alternative, as the item 3075 damage rebound is negated by lifesteal, unless you're Rammus .

If they wanted thornmail to be a better tool against adcs without being obnoxious, just make the thornmail have some kind of passive that lowers the amount of life stolen by lifestealing ADCs.

BluePolarizer12/27/2015, 12:47:21 AM3 votes

I buy it only when I need cheap armor and I can't save up for a Frozen Heart. It is literally useless for everything except that.

qetzel12/27/2015, 1:40:09 AM3 votes

I have a problem with one of the things you are saying. You claim that a small amount of lifesteal cancels out thornmail. It does, but this does not make thornmail useless. An example: A carry is dealing 1000 damage per second to somebody with thornmail. They have no armour, but infinite health (Yes, the carry is stupid to be focussing them...). Therefore, The carry is taking 150dps. The carry also has 15% LS. They are healing 150 dps. So, if the carry is fighting the wall of infinite health one on one and the wall is AFK, you are correct, lifesteal invalidates thornmail. However. The carry is also taking damage from other sources. Perhaps the wall deals 100dps? The carry therefore takes 250dps and heals 150 against a wall with Thornmail. Net -100HPS Without thornmail, the carry would be dealing 150 but taking 150dps. Net -0 HPS.

In a fight it is likely that the only source of damage on a carry will not be thornmail. As this example illustrates, Thornmail still does quite a lot against lifesteal.

Seekêr12/27/2015, 12:00:39 PM3 votes

No. The myth about lifesteal countering it so hard is because people forget thornmail's damage is based on the enemy's damage BEFORE mitigations. So with armor the tank might take 60 damage but the damage reflect acts as if the attack dealt it's full damage(lets assume 100 AD) so the adc takes 30 damage and heals for 10% of 60. You would need a considerable amount of lifesteal/armor pen to render thornmail useless.

Although I do agree it is a bad item. Damage mitigation with no hp is pretty useless right now.

Masala Chai12/27/2015, 7:26:04 AM2 votes

Sad Story: Was playing Twitch, teamfight broke out, I ult naturally, even though no one has jumped on me, I'm losing 150 health every auto. Turns out I'm dying to full Armor Rammus. Had BoTRK too.

Dehitay12/27/2015, 3:40:12 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Orphic Greed,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5FM4oxll,comment-id=0017,timestamp=2015-12-27T12:00:39.722+0000)

No. The myth about lifesteal countering it so hard is because people forget thornmail's damage is based on the enemy's damage BEFORE mitigations.

"Myth"? I think pretty much everybody knows lifesteal counters thornmail hard. Also, you forgot the fun fact that having MR (which to my knowledge, every single champion in the game is born with 30 MR) further reduces the amount of damage done by thornmail. 30 MR is just short of 25% magic damage reduction. Flat MR glyphs add about another 12 MR, and 42 MR will be a little under 30% magic damage reduction.

Keti12/27/2015, 1:04:33 AM1 votes

Thornmail could use a buff, but champs who make really good use of it like rammus and malph would need nerfs along with it since they're both currently very dominant solo queue picks

Melee Form12/27/2015, 5:34:44 AM1 votes

Do you remember the cinderhulk meta when gromp buff+thornmail was really strong? Adcs couldn't get rid of all the damage with lifesteal and were literally killing themselves by doing their job. Gromp buff was nerfed specifically to get rid of that playstyle so I doubt they'll bring it back.