Okay, so even on Rammus, Thornmail is still a piece of garbage.

darkdill·Jun 12, 2017·4 votes·489 views

Just won a Rammus game where I had Thornmail, but Kog'Maw had a setup that basically neutralized its damage completely. combined leave Thornmail pretty useless.

Then I exchange Thornmail for and suddenly Kog'Maw is getting owned. What the crap?

The match history is above, so check the details. But I'll just say something I've been saying for a while:

#Thornmail is a piece of shit

Riot, I don't think anyone would weep if the item was removed. You didn't do anything to it during the Vanguard update, so I assume it's going to end up like WotA and Atma's Impaler and get tossed into the junkyard.

8 Comments

AlienPrimateJun 12, 20172 votes

Thornmail needs to apply grievous wounds for it to be good.

Makior72Jun 12, 20171 votes

with that much life steal, yeah, its gonna counter the effects of thorn mail.

darkdillJun 12, 20171 votes

That's what I'm getting at. If Thornmail gets countered so damn easily and can't be good because of "toxic gameplay", it probably shouldn't exist.

SalronJun 12, 20171 votes

"So damn easily" I'm sorry is your single thornmail supposed to outweigh his TWO lifesteal items? What?

ProfDrDeathJun 12, 20172 votes

Even then, Thornmail does outweigh the two Lifesteal items here. To counter Thornmail, an ADC needs MR and ArPen in addition to Lifesteal.

{quoted}

Let's just look at the numbers, shall we.

The ADC in your example probably has 51 MR, since you did not buy him an MR item. Converting Phantom Dancer's passive, said ADC has 72 effective MR.

Lifesteal = Percentage of damage x ratio of (Thorn user's Armor + 100) to (Thorn attacker's MR + 100)

With current Thornmail in the above formula, a with his 109 base Armor would need, against an AD with your build, 101 bonus Armor after Last Whisper's ArPen (155 bonus Armor) to negate all the ADCs 27% Lifesteal - but merely for the scaling damage part of Thornmail. This calculation does not account for the flat damage.

So, no, Thornmail is not useless because it gets countered by Lifesteal. In fact, it is the other way 'round - a Thornmail user is NOT a valid Lifesteal target. Thornmail is simply not used because the item is too specialised and too cost-ineffective - it doesn't help you much against possibly 4/5ths of the enemy team, and it is a 2200 gold item for a class that is starved for item slots as is.

SalronJun 12, 20172 votes

Yeah I know it does, because i've played ADC with a Lifesteal item + Red Pot, and still found myself dying to Thornmail People who say "one lifesteal item invalidates thornmail" are full of shit

ProfDrDeathJun 12, 20171 votes

Quite possibly.

Although I'd say that Thornmail's effect could be communicated better - for example, by displaying, for the Thornmail user and his attacker, Lifesteal and Thornmail damage in a single instance (for example, by saying "+ 50 - 70", the 50 being green for Lifesteal and the 70 being purple for magic damage).

ProfDrDeathJun 12, 20171 votes

Let's just look at the numbers, shall we.

The ADC in your example probably has 51 MR, since you did not buy him an MR item. Converting Phantom Dancer's passive, said ADC has 72 effective MR.

Lifesteal = Percentage of damage x ratio of (Thorn user's Armor + 100) to (Thorn attacker's MR + 100)

With current Thornmail in the above formula, a Rammus with his 109 base Armor would need, against an AD with your build, 101 bonus Armor after Last Whisper's ArPen (155 bonus Armor) to negate all the ADCs 27% Lifesteal - but merely for the scaling damage part of Thornmail. This calculation does not account for the flat damage.

So, no, Thornmail is not useless because it gets countered by Lifesteal. In fact, it is the other way 'round - a Thornmail user is NOT a valid Lifesteal target. Thornmail is simply not used because the item is too specialised and too cost-ineffective - it doesn't help you much against possibly 4/5ths of the enemy team, and it is a 2200 gold item for a class that is starved for item slots as is.