Last Whisper and Void Staff need to be nerfed honestly

HateDaddy·Dec 18, 2014·65 votes·6,975 views

300 armor and 200 MR becoming laughable to a 5-6 item AD/AP item carry shouldn't be a thing

143 Comments

Pollyanna WrightDec 18, 201418 votes

You have two solutions.

Make a balanced medium where armor isn't over bearing and armor pen won't be needed.
Have other ways built in to ignore armor that you can control better. I.E. Crit having pen, Making it Bonus only, or putting it on different items as a tier work.

Duke AnaxDec 18, 201422 votes

The solution I like most Is to turn it from 35% penetration into like 45% bonus penetration.

That way it does roughly the same to tanks, but is useless against squishies and beefies.

However this would benefit tanks as well, because the carries need to think twice if they really wanna spend an item spot, just to deal with the tank.

flibitydooDec 18, 20146 votes

Last Whisper is actually gold inefficient against every champion assuming every champion never built at least 1 armor item.

The issue right now is that Last Whisper is a 1 item solution to tanks. Just build this one item and armor based tanks become irrelevant.

Cale017Dec 18, 201411 votes

Not every armor based tank.

Rammus

Duke AnaxDec 18, 20145 votes

All champs have natural armor. LW works on that too.

NarasimhaDec 18, 20142 votes

Its less efficient the lower the enemies's armor is. Straight AD will actually get you more damage for your gold if they haven't built any defenses.

Gentleman GannonDec 19, 20145 votes

Don't forget that straight AD increases your damage by a flat amount, while Last Whisper increases it by a flat amount and then multiplies it. Look at Kha'zix's Q for a good example (it has a very high bonus AD scaling ratio):

Max Damage Evolved Q: 401+260% Bonus AD With +80 AD vs. 50 armor (being exceedingly generous here; no one has armor this weak) 406 damage With Last Whisper vs. 50 armor 381 damage

So it would /appear/ that the +80 damage item is better, right? But look what happens when LW is the second item instead of the first:

With +160 AD vs. 50 armor (this is as "straight AD" as you can get in two items) 544 damage With Last Whisper+80 AD vs. 50 armor 538 damage

As you can see, the gap gets substantially smaller the more AD you add (especially flat-pen items), because Last Whisper multiplies all your previous items. If I added a third AD item or AD runes and masteries, the scale would tip in LW's favor. This calculation is for unrealistically small armor values, too; look what happens when I bump the armor up to 100 (an ADC with armor/level runes):

With +160 AD vs. 100 armor 409 damage With Last Whisper+80 AD vs. 100 armor 432 damage

This swings more heavily in favor of LW the more armor you add. The point is that Last Whisper is not a good first damage item on most physical damage characters, but it is categorically the best second/third damage item on all physical damage characters, no matter what the enemy team is building.

PentaJumpDec 18, 20149 votes

As an AP assassin player, I've done math on Void Staff, and.. it's gold efficient against people who have built no mr items. The equation for determining damage with resistances and magic pen is flawed, imo. The way it works, each point of magic pen is stronger than the last. This means that magic pen synergizes with itself.

Gentleman GannonDec 19, 20148 votes

Exactly this. Void Staff and Last Whisper effectively provide "flat" magic penetration equal to a percentage of your target's MR. Against low-defense targets, you want LW/VS to edge them down as close to 0 defense as you can. Against high-defense targets, you want LW/VS to invalidate the target's defenses. It's a false choice; you always want one of these items if you're building for damage.

DirkTarTarDec 18, 20149 votes

I think you are extremely over exaggerating this, HateDaddy.

The AP/AD Carries are made to be the highest damage dealer on their team
Since they are the highest damage dealers on their team, they are supposed to be focused down and ANNIHILATED
If they are focusing the tank, like a scrub, why aren't said AP/AD Carries DESTROYED by YOUR AP/AD CARRIES and/or your jungler and/or your initiator or your Akali/Zed/Ahri/Whatever Assassin that most teams have?
The only time a competent team would EVER focus the tank, which I'm automatically assuming you are with "300 armor and 200 MR," is if you were caught out of position, picked, or otherwise doing something you probably weren't supposed to be doing.
A tank is an expected casualty in a team fight. They are expected to live long enough to a) protect their carries and b) lock down the enemy carries. So if you died, and you lost the team fight, it might have been because you weren't adhering to your purpose as a tank, or your team made a massive mistake

With that said... I await your rebuttal

not a starburstDec 18, 20147 votes

The AP/AD Carries are made to be the highest damage dealer on their team

Since they are the highest damage dealers on their team, they are supposed to be focused down and ANNIHILATED

Yep.

If they are focusing the tank, like a scrub, why aren't said AP/AD Carries DESTROYED by YOUR AP/AD CARRIES and/or your jungler and/or your initiator or your Akali/Zed/Ahri/Whatever Assassin that most teams have?

The problem is they focus the tank and kill them too quickly. The assassin tries to get in place to kill the carries quick enough- but the tank is dead because the penetration the carries have makes the armor and MR the tank farmed to stack for so long almost irrelevant. Now, if those champions are hypercarries like Veigar and Kog'maw that's not too much of a problem, since that's their niche as champions, but when Graves or Syndra can still reliably kill the tank 50 minutes in, you have a problem.

The only time a competent team would EVER focus the tank, which I'm automatically assuming you are with "300 armor and 200 MR," is if you were caught out of position, picked, or otherwise doing something you probably weren't supposed to be doing.

Not true: the tank is busy trying to kill the ADC, who is the only person who can probably win the fight (unless you have an assassin on your team that wasn't banned, which is rare). You don't just go "oh but its the tank we cant focus him" you get him off the ADC so the assassin doesn't just waltz in and wreck the ADC's face. That involves focusing the tank.

A tank is an expected casualty in a team fight. They are expected to live long enough to a) protect their carries and b) lock down the enemy carries. So if you died, and you lost the team fight, it might have been because you weren't adhering to your purpose as a tank, or your team made a massive mistake

No. Tanks are designed to charge in and survive, usually engaging, locking down the ADC's for a bit, CC'ing, then relying on the ADC, APC, and bruiser can clean up before the crackback kills them. The reason most people think tanks are supposed to die is because the carries have such good pen that unless you're Maokai or Alistar, the best viable option is usually to go full kamikaze CC-bot into the enemy team, knowing full well you're probably going to die because the carries are just so strong.

serpensortia1Dec 19, 20144 votes

This so much. Full 5-6 item tanks should be extremely hard to kill, as a trade-off for their low damage output. On the other hand, bruisers with 2 damage items and 3-4 tank items shouldn't be super tanky, but should still be able to survive for a decent amount of time so they can deal a respectable amount of damage. Full damage builds should of course deal a crapton of damage but be killed by a light breeze.

The trouble is making tank items that are good in full tank builds, but don't let bruisers build full tank and get by on base damages, turning them into unkillable damage machines.

MidEvilKnight3kDec 19, 20145 votes

It wouldn't be that difficult to buff tank itemization without letting bruisers get too ridiculous. AP carries have deathcap which helps scale all other ap items, ad carries have crit, which scales their auto attacks and requires significant item investment (ie and ss/pd).

Just give tanks a core item that has a passive like ancient golem used to have that gives +x% bonus health, or maybe scale resistances instead of health. That way tanks will get more value from their tank items, and hopefully it can be tuned to not be worthwhile if you are only buying 3 tank items so that the bruisers with two offensive items don't become invincible. This would probably mean making the passive very strong and the base stats significantly lower than other tank items.

HateDaddyDec 18, 20148 votes

Like, unless you have some sort of ridiculous %dmg reduction, resistances suck. The only 2 good armor items currently are thornmail and frozen heart because of their passives and utility. The armor values alone are nice but still become laughable to an ADC with LW. Then MR itemization got nerfed for some reason, when AP itemization is already super strong.

metaworldpeace10Dec 18, 20146 votes

The big issue with penetration is not arguing if its too strong/weak. The argument has already been resolved. %penetration is WAYYY too strong. The problem is without LW and VS being strong, tanks become unkillable machines late game. A Mundo becomes literally unkillable. When it comes to the E-sports scene, its boring to watch a mundo face tank all poke/cc/dmg and come out alive and well to carry his team to victory. I'm not saying that I agree with how Riot has balanced, but it would be ignorant to no admit that Riot balances around E-sports.

DuroxxigarDec 18, 20147 votes

I actually enjoyed watching every second of Mundo running into their team and not giving a F**K. I was cracking up the entire time.

CindikleDec 18, 20145 votes

Delete both New item:

Last Staff of the Void Whisper(I'm creative) +10 Magic Pen +10 Armor Pen

Passive: Attacks ignore 30% of bonus magic resistance and bonus armor.

Now has base pen to keep it somewhat in line with old versions vs low armor targets.
30% only effects bonus armor. More armor/MR is more effective.
Item no longer grants AP/AD. To me this made it too strong of an early buy. The AD wasn't amazing, but wasn't bad. And the armor pen made it so it was overall never a bad buy.
Hybrid now viable? Probably a buff to Corki/Ezreal.
Overall this should help secure it's roll as an Anti-armor/MR item. Instead of what it is now, an item you'll always make anyway because there is no downside to having it. If you end up paying for +10 mpen/armpen for 2400 and don't make use of the passive, you'll be disappointed in yourself. Since it doesn't grant any other damage stats.
This makes it viable on more champoins. If you're vs a tanky team as a tank yourself. This could prove to be a strong damage item if a good chunk of your damage comes form abilities(Shyvana for example).

JustMyBassCannonDec 18, 20144 votes

Riot has addressed the idea of % Bonus Penetration, and they've stated that, basically, for the % Bonus Pen to be strong enough to be worthwhile, the numbers would need to be ridiculous (see also, Yasuo's ultimate granting 50% Bonus Armor Pen).

CindikleDec 18, 20142 votes

Then add other options

Small Shield +350 Health

Unique Passive - Armored: +35 armor. (This will be shared with Omen so getting both isn't a good idea.) Unique Passive - Cold Steal: When attacked by a basic attack, reduces attackers attack speed by 15% Unique passive - Reduces the physical damage taken by basic attacks by 1.5xlevel.

This will contend with Omen. Facing a heavy AA team or a fed AA would be better with this item.

Thickened Hide +300 Health

Unique passive - Increases bonus health by 20%. Unique Passive - Reduces the damage taken by basic attacks and on hit effects by 15%.

Filling a unique area. On hit effects are not exactly strong, but they don't really have a counter. Maybe Kayle wouldn't be such a pain to balance for Riot if this existed.

Add options that counter armor pen. But weak and rare enough that they wont be an every day buy. Ninja Tabi are an example. Effecting only basic attacks makes it so it doesn't start to hard counter every AD caster/assassin.

Omen will still be strong vs Small Shield. It grants an AoE slow. Has higher armor if their ADC is caster heavy(Lucian, Graves).

Along with that, there are more issues with tanks than just this.

What summoners benefit tanks the most? A lot of them(all?) are balanced around non-tanks getting them. Most take what helps them in lane instead of in fights.
What tanky items can a tank get that keep them as a threat? Not all of them honestly benefit from the common damage items.
What masteries truly define a tank? They have a whole tree. But it's not uncommon for a tank to use damage masteries instead.

JustMyBassCannonDec 19, 20142 votes

Building a counter to a late-game counter to defense. I have Anti-Armor Penetration! Now I have Super Armor! Now I have Super Armor Penetration! Now I have Anti-Super Armor Penetration!

I'm not saying you don't have a valid point; we could use some more specialized defense tools, like Ninja Tabi's basic attack reduction.

And to those questions

Most of the summoners are extra utility, damage or defense to be chosen as needed per your playstyle rather than your champion's role. The closest to an exception of that rule is Smite, except Jungler is both a playstyle and a role.
What defense items can a non-tank get that can keep them alive while keeping them a threat? The truth is, unless you're a bruiser, you almost can't benefit from tanky itemization outside of one 3rd-5th slot item like GA. AP is better off than AD in that regard, because some AP items have defense-ish stats on them, but they have to rely on damage to remain a threat; tanks often have innate damage (bruisers) or utility/CC (traditional) for the purpose of threat.
This points back to the same idea as the Summoner Spells, but the masteries and runes are to fit your playstyle. Yes, there is going to be an optimum set of runes/masteries for playing a particular champion in their projected playstyle, but what rule states you can't fiddle around with Runes/Masteries to what suits you?

MidEvilKnight3kDec 19, 20142 votes

{quoted}

Riot has addressed the idea of % Bonus Penetration, and they've stated that, basically, for the % Bonus Pen to be strong enough to be worthwhile, the numbers would need to be ridiculous (see also, Yasuo's ultimate granting 50% Bonus Armor Pen).

You can mix different kinds of penetration in one item to get a good medium. For example, an item could have 10 flat armor pen + 40% bonus armor pen. Part of the problem right now is that armor pen is effective against squishes as well as against tanks.

They will probably have to nerf all resistances at the same time they nerf/rework penetration. Because in theory, 300 armor is supposed to reduce physical damage by 75%, which would be ridiculous without the ridiculous penetration that you can get.

JustMyBassCannonDec 19, 20141 votes

Or we can let Last Whisper and Void Staff ignore the 24-34 Armor and 11-19 MR that it ignores on squishy targets who haven't built any resistances. Because, while that is having an effect on them, it's not exactly punishing them for not having resistance, like Sorcs+Guise.

Also, please reread what I said. The numbers would need to be beyond what they've ever been in order for Bonus Pen to be worthwhile. As in, more than old Last Whisper/Void Staff, not less than or equal to old LW/VS.

MidEvilKnight3kDec 20, 20142 votes

The thing is, ignoring 24-34 armor with last whisper is not much worse than other items for killing squishies, which makes LW an item you always have to buy because its necessary for tanks and still good for everyone else. The point of an item that did % pen on bonus resistance would be to target tanks specifically, and it wouldn't need to be over 60% for tanks to realize that the 200 armor they bought is not nearly as effective as advertised.

However, that does make it so some armor is worth more than other armor, which really is not good. It would be stupid for Zhonyas hourglass to only give 25 effective armor because you also have a tank on your team that the enemy carry was countering. We shouldn't discourage carries from taking one defensive item just because the other carry decided to build one item.

I also would say that flat penetration really has no place in league since it is more effective against low armor targets than it is against high armor targets. Penetration should be to deal with lots of resistance, not to punish those who don't build it.

I spent some time tinkering in excel and came up with this equation that could be used for penetration (to replace flat pen).

effective armor = armor * (1+armor/100)^-(pen/100)

The results if you have 30 armor pen follow

Target Armor 30 100 200 Armor reduction 1.3 18.8 56.2 Percent reduction 8% 19% 28%

Pollyanna WrightDec 18, 20144 votes

And personally with how bad MR itemization is in this game I don't get why we have % pen in the first place.

Pinker 10Dec 18, 20141 votes

Beacuse on june 12 2009 we recieved this http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Force_of_Nature so http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Void_Staff was created to deal with it.

hence why the patch that removed http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Force_of_Nature lowered http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Void_Staff pen by 5%

SouL1essDec 18, 20145 votes

Lowering VS staff by 5% in MR penetration was due to the order at which percentile penetration and flat penetration applies being changed, not due to FoN being removed.

Pinker 10Dec 18, 20142 votes

The whole reason they changed the order was FoN and SF/Rand

If the full tank items hadn't been so broken we wouldn't have needed % before flat

SammystormDec 18, 20143 votes

Well we have gone pretty far in the opposite direction. Tank items are just not as cost efficient as carry items.

hashinshinDec 18, 20145 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pinker 10,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7UOOEjoE,comment-id=0004000100000000,timestamp=2014-12-18T08:31:55.850+0000)

The whole reason they changed the order was FoN and SF/Rand

If the full tank items hadn't been so broken we wouldn't have needed % before flat

That's the opposite of true. The order was changed so that assassins would be better against squishies and worse against tanks. Hence Black Cleaver was released for AD assassins.

Epilogue of LifeDec 18, 20143 votes

So do you want to tank nexus tower like that Master Yi back in the old days? Penetration items are fine as they are; if resistances becomes strong again, then bruisers will abuse it and 1v3 all the way through mid game. A udyr with just a sunfire raping the AP and ADC simultaneously...nah, fuck it, just delete resistances from game altogether.

HateDaddyDec 18, 20148 votes

{quoted}

So do you want to tank nexus tower like that Master Yi back in the old days? Penetration items are fine as they are; if resistances becomes strong again, then bruisers will abuse it and 1v3 all the way through mid game. A udyr with just a sunfire raping the AP and ADC simultaneously...nah, fuck it, just delete resistances from game altogether.

What did resistances have have to do with master Yi? His meditates ap scaling was absurd and gave him insane bonus resistances, it has nothing to do with anything. Towers shit on you hard as it is, penetration items has nothing to do with this. What I'm complaining about is how quickly you can melt with 300 armor, 200 mr and 3.5k health, that's what's absurd. It shouldn't take insane %dmg reduction to be a tank or durable after a certain point, but it does.

Epilogue of LifeDec 18, 20143 votes

Well, then it shouldn't take a completely DPS oriented skillset and build to be ADC/assassin/AP. And guess what? It does. What I'm complaining about is the fact that tanks can survive 5 people for 5 seconds, while squishies can only survive five people to approximately one second....and I rounded up....

HateDaddyDec 18, 201415 votes

{quoted}

Well, then it shouldn't take a completely DPS oriented skillset and build to be ADC/assassin/AP. And guess what? It does. What I'm complaining about is the fact that tanks can survive 5 people for 5 seconds, while squishies can only survive five people to approximately one second....and I rounded up....

Let me sum up what you're saying:

I want my zero defense champion to be able to be durable and champions who commit to durability shouldn't be durable.

And you're so off its not even funny. Nobody focuses all their resources on one champion, and if they did they wouldn't last 5 seconds. They don't last 5 seconds with just 2-3 focusing them. And I'm no including or even mentioning the capacity to kite them and disrupt them.

OJ191Dec 18, 20144 votes

{quoted} Nobody focuses all their resources on one champion, and if they did they wouldn't last 5 seconds. They don't last 5 seconds with just 2-3 focusing them.

hatedaddy were you even here for season 2

because that was pretty much the exact opposite of your sentences there, and it sucked, fucking god complex bruiser mains.

HateDaddyDec 18, 20148 votes

{quoted}

hatedaddy were you even here for season 2

because that was pretty much the exact opposite of your sentences there, and it sucked, fucking god complex bruiser mains.

Funny you should say that, especially towards the end of season 2, I vividly remember the first adc to get a GA basically won the game

OJ191Dec 18, 20143 votes

{quoted}

Funny you should say that, especially towards the end of season 2, I vividly remember the first adc to get a GA basically won the game

because ADC's were the only things that could actually even remotely hope to kill bruisers

And they needed GA so they could keep fighting after jax 2 shot them

meanwhile 98% of mages at that point in time could blow their ult and then full combo 3 times and barely take off half their hp...

HateDaddyDec 18, 201412 votes

{quoted}

because ADC's were the only things that could actually even remotely hope to kill bruisers

And they needed GA so they could keep fighting after jax 2 shot them

meanwhile 98% of mages at that point in time could blow their ult and then full combo 3 times and barely take off half their hp...

You're so full of shit, mages were gods. Double ap comps were like half of season 2. Vlad, karthus, ori, Morgana, tf etc were all great. Quit being so dramatic, defense actually meant something back then, that's all.

EthriDec 18, 20142 votes

[deleted]

WhereTheNamesAtDec 18, 20143 votes

I feel like a lot of people complaining about these items have never seen that. I played against a full tank Garen the other day and it literally took our entire 5 man team to kill him and it still took over 30 seconds to do that. I believe that these items are fine and our definitely needed or this game will just turn into League of Tanks...

hashinshinDec 18, 201410 votes

{quoted}

I feel like a lot of people complaining about these items have never seen that. I played against a full tank Garen the other day and it literally took our entire 5 man team to kill him and it still took over 30 seconds to do that. I believe that these items are fine and our definitely needed or this game will just turn into League of Tanks...

Was your entire team ALSO full tank Garen?

Linna ExcelDec 18, 20148 votes

I'm thinking no one on his team built Armor Pen or Magic Pen.

RebonackDec 18, 20146 votes

[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=7UOOEjoE,comment-id=001c000000000000,timestamp=2014-12-18T20:04:09.723+0000)

I'm thinking no one on his team built Armor Pen or Magic Pen.

See, that's what I'm thinking.

The existence of %pen/shred dramatically skews resist values. Riot has to assume that every damage dealer will be buying Void/Whisper because let's face it, only stooges who doesn't grasp just how flagrantly broken these items are won't. And because of this resist values need to be artificially inflated to deal with how overbearing %pen is.

The least disruptive solution would be to turn Whisper/Void into flat penetration items (about 30 I would say) and then adjust resist values to a sane level since %pen is gone.

WhereTheNamesAtDec 18, 20141 votes

I had a crit tryndamere, irelia, lux (with a void staff), lulu, and i was lucian (with last whisper, botrk, and youmuu's). So we had both of the items you are qq'ing about and it still took all of us to take him down.

ArveanorDec 18, 20145 votes

This is simply not true.

WhereTheNamesAtDec 19, 20141 votes

How do u know? Were you in my game? Don't tell me it isn't true when u weren't even there

ArveanorDec 19, 20144 votes

Because I can do basic math?

WhereTheNamesAtDec 19, 20141 votes

what does this have to do with basic math?

ArveanorDec 19, 20145 votes

You know people die when their health is

serpensortia1Dec 19, 20144 votes

Maybe if Garen stayed away from trynd/irelia and you, lux and lulu missed all skillshots. But that still shouldn't take 30 seconds if even just lucian has LW and BotRK with his autos and Qs and passive.

Gentleman GannonDec 19, 20145 votes

So I think the main issue here is that we want items like LW+VS to be powerful against enemies who are stacking resistances, but a weak option against enemies who are not. Right now they're just strong against everyone.