with the new ADC items, Thornmail will be even more useless. how you might ask, well merc now has lifesteal and you could easily get 100% crit through a regular build path or atleast close to it. make thornmail deal 30% reflected damage with a 15% bonus armor scaling Or make thornmail deal 15-30% reflected damage with a 5-15% bonus armor scaling (levels 1-15 maybe) to prevent it from being an oppressive first buy like it used to be pre nerfs.
LynXerf13 votesOr perhaps keep thornmail exactly the same as it is, but add a new passive:
UNIQUE Passive: Stranglehold - Reduces lifesteal from basic attacks from attackers by 30%.
This would keep it in-line and away from most bruisers, but actually give some way of mitigating huge lifesteal builds.
YumaS2Astral2 votesOr perhaps keep thornmail exactly the same as it is, but add a new passive:
UNIQUE Passive: Stranglehold - Reduces lifesteal from basic attacks from attackers by 30%.
This would keep it in-line and away from most bruisers, but actually give some way of mitigating huge lifesteal builds.
This could be a good way to reduce their sustain, without actually hurting champions that rely on healing that is not lifesteal. This is because many people suggest that Thornmail thould have in-built Grievous Wounds, but this can be dangerous, as if you make it so that an enemy that auto-attack you gets Grievous Wounds, then this may cripple mages such as 
and 
because they can acidentally auto-attack an enemy with Thornmail and get Grievous Wounds.
This also means that champions like 
and 
would counter Thornmail users because they have on-hit healing, which is not the same thing as lifesteal.
BMFB2 votes10/10 on name
KnivingDude1 votes
junglerboy161 votesRather than stifle healing based champs even more (e.g. 
), instead that passive should apply to ranged auto attackers as Grievous wounds (40% reduced self healing) for each given auto attack, rather than a given time.
48983507DEL12 votesAll it really needs is a higher bonus armor ratio. The point of the Thornmail changes was to prevent squishy champions from building a Thornmail and it being just as effective as a tank building Thornmail. It was unfair that you can build straight damage but still be unduelable because you bought the cheapest armor full item with the best passive in terms of extended trades.
Clockwork Mouse2 votesWith how much crit items there are now i feel that building zeke's herald is pretty worthless. By the time you get it what is that extra 50% Chrit gonna do fro your ADC?
MLDzXnRRR1 votesThornmail was good only for cutting lifesteal... If there was no lifesteal on items, there would be no reason to have it in the game.
Shroom Junkie2 votesThornmail was good only for cutting lifesteal... If there was no lifesteal on items, there would be no reason to have it in the game.
Not really. Before it was bought to win fights as top lane tanks. The enemy top laner(assuming they're AD which they obviously are else you wouldn't be rushing it unless you're just weird like that) would do so little damage to you and damage themselves in the process, not to mention your base damage. You'd win most trades just because they couldn't.
Azirious Mistake1 votesThornmail is strong enough as it stands, buff it any more and top lane becomes the League of Malphite ft Rammus.
Evil Jester1 votesI say make it so it deals grievous wounds with slight reduction on reflected damage. I am so sick of ADC's who can 100-0 a tank with less than 10% of their HP left, and after you die there hp pops back to full instantly.
Kuroi861 votes10% life steal and 30 mr. I'm not impressed. Thornmail won't be either.
I also fail to see how critical strike chance is going to matter a whit against Thornmail? Whether they crit or not, they are still going to hurt for that damage.
junglerboy162 votesSince most of the damage from thorn mail now comes from the % armor ratio instead of % damage dealt, gritting more means more damage and lifesteal relative to the amount of damage returned.
For old thorn mail it wouldn't matter, but for new thorn mail it's a pretty noticeable nerf.
Kuroi862 votesOh Thornmail got nerfed, it got nerfed hard. That said, it still does it's job. You require at least two life steal items in order to out heal the damage from Thornmail. That extra item is one less you can put into crit which is going to matter a lot now that AD has been lowered. Mid game you're pretty much forced to choose between dealing decent damage to the enemy tank or actually having some sustain whilst trying to deal said damage.
Rebonack1 votesEither:
A) Active that deals damage based on your bonus armor and inflicts Grievous Wounds on the target for 5 seconds.
OR
B) You deal bonus magic damage OnHit equal to (percentage) of your bonus armor.
Either would make Thorn an active threat. As it stands right now if you're aren't getting attacked it is UTTERLY worthless. All other Tank items afford you with passives that make you more of a threat to the enemy team whether directly or indirectly. Thorn is the only one that doesn't.
ZT Xperimentor1 votesMaybe if thornmail reflected as true damage, or applied grievous wounds, not both yet unless carries are stupidly out of hand.
SoMNia1 votesOkay, just...very briefly: the sky is not falling. You cannot get 100% crit without skipping either life steal (except the crit mastery, which has a cooldown) or armor penetration. AD and attack speed itemization values are significantly lower. Overall ADC DPS from items has gone DOWN, not up.
Reflecting 30% of pre-mit damage ALONE was ridiculously broken and made it impossible for ADCs to fight Thornmail users at all, whether they fought back or not. Asking for it to be buffed even beyond that old broken state is essentially saying "I want to win without playing". Thornmail is not useless just because it's not an automatic win.
: Ok.
