I could be an idiot but I find thornmail...

YoungFarmer·Nov 2, 2017·66 votes·11,942 views

I find that is kind of unfairly strong early. and then is shit late game.

I feel like we should ton down bramble vests early power and make thorn-mail slightly better.

84 Comments

RiotRiot WittrockNov 2, 201756 votes

Personal opinion here - item 3076 is to item 3075 as item 3155 is to item 3156 . The first is a somewhat narrow, but very powerful defensive lane item that helps you survive against a specific threat - and their upgrades are a relatively inefficient item, that at least provides you something to build your powerful component into. Agreed though; there's a question of if item 3076 is too strong early and item 3075 is too weak, or if having items with this kind of trade off is even a good thing.

ShinkoMinoriNov 2, 20171 votes

Question, will skin shards keep their reroll into a skin permanent? as in 3 skin shards for 1 permanent? or will it be 5 now?

ModThe DjinnNov 2, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Question, will skin shards keep their reroll into a skin permanent? as in 3 skin shards for 1 permanent? or will it be 5 now?

Rerolling into permanents will be removed entirely, to my knowledge.

YoungFarmerNov 2, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2017-11-02T18:23:25.942+0000)

Rerolling into permanents will be removed entirely, to my knowledge.

Really :( thats all I'v ever done haha is re roll my skin shards.

ModThe DjinnNov 2, 20176 votes

[{quoted}](name=Im A Cracker,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2017-11-02T18:38:09.973+0000)

Really :( thats all I'v ever done haha is re roll my skin shards.

Oh, SKIN shards. Misread that and thought champion shards. I don't know about skin shards.

ShinkoMinoriNov 2, 20171 votes

How could you misread that tho... I mentioned the word skin twice

ModThe DjinnNov 2, 20172 votes

{quoted}

How could you misread that tho... I mentioned the word skin twice

I was in a hurry. :P

ModKnightsKemplarNov 2, 20175 votes

there's a question of if is too strong early and is too weak, or if having items with this kind of trade off is even a good thing.

Is that a question that has a history of hot debate around the Riot offices? Just curious.

PennsNov 2, 20178 votes

I dont think it is a good thing because you dont need to upgrade them and having a cheap op lane item like those is pretty... unfun since you dont give up much gold for them.

NevrankroatonNov 2, 20175 votes

They did changed some MU top entirely, notably to stop the dominance of ranged on top lane.

Hexdrinker is a common offender for mage main but I think it is entirely manageable with how assassin are tied to lethatlity now (and with the loss of lethality in runes, it mean that an assassin take hexdrinker will have a hard time doing the burst a serrated dirk would give).

AirKingNeoNov 3, 20172 votes

Assassins are meant to be strong early.

Tanks aren't.

DragonSheaNov 2, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Wittrock,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-11-02T18:08:05.097+0000)

Personal opinion here - is to as is to . The first is a somewhat narrow, but very powerful defensive lane item that helps you survive against a specific threat - and their upgrades are a relatively inefficient item, that at least provides you something to build your powerful component into. Agreed though; there's a question of if is too strong early and is too weak, or if having items with this kind of trade off is even a good thing.

Two questions here:

1: item 3123 . needs to be built into something that is not just item 3033 for anyone that has to deal with one or more sustain based/drain tank how ain't a ADC.

think is fine as it is but could need some help. Especially with nullifying orb coming up in S8, which is gonna make it redundant as is a much better choice or anyone going into fights with.

ModThe DjinnNov 2, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Wittrock,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-11-02T18:08:05.097+0000)Agreed though; there's a question of if is too strong early and is too weak, or if having items with this kind of trade off is even a good thing.

The trade of of power now vs. power later is, I think, definitely one that's worth keeping around so long as game time is, on average, at a point where that choice is interesting and the power isn't so skewed that you feel super bad for having made an early-game power choice. Basically I'm in favor of a FEW items like this, but not really entire builds that leave you lacking in the late-game.

As far as this particular item goes, however, I think Bramble Vest may be simply too strong. It hard shuts down a lot of the aggressive sustain that many melee top laners use to survive, and so hits their laning strength far more than I believe it is intended to, which also punishing their power by returning damage against them. If more healing weren't immediate this might be less of an issue, but as-is it messes with a LOT of patterns. Renekton and Darius can no longer safely weave their healing into a duel without losing 50% of it, for example, and that feels pretty awful.

I still personally think the issue is that Grievous Wounds is a problematic mechanic in a world where not every character has healing abilities, and a large part of the issue is how much more aggressively the item punishes healing-dependent characters, most of whom ALSO auto-attack, making this a 2-for-1. If it has to stick around I know I'd rather see the reduction lowered to 20-25% and healing nerfed where necessary to accommodate.

GGLineaRNov 2, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Djinn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=00020004,timestamp=2017-11-02T18:22:51.120+0000) Renekton and Darius can no longer safely weave their healing into a duel without losing 50% of it, for example, and that feels pretty awful.

You had me up until this sentence. They are so oppressive, I think they deserve every last moment of torment that item 3076 brings them.

PB4UAMENov 3, 20173 votes

Also, Darius' and Renekton's Qs are not auto attacks. Just don't auto for 1 second before the heal (super easy in Darius' case as the cast time on Q is .75 seconds already? Literally just wait .25 seconds, or about equal time to human reaction time to visual cues (like say, the GW effect?) Huh, looks like you'd get 100% healing then) and bam, full heal.

YoungFarmerNov 2, 20174 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Wittrock,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-11-02T18:08:05.097+0000)

Personal opinion here - is to as is to . The first is a somewhat narrow, but very powerful defensive lane item that helps you survive against a specific threat - and their upgrades are a relatively inefficient item, that at least provides you something to build your powerful component into. Agreed though; there's a question of if is too strong early and is too weak, or if having items with this kind of trade off is even a good thing.

I feel like its just the amount of lifesteal that champions have relative to when you buy the bramble vest. By the time you go about buying thornmail the grievous wounds aren't impactful enough late game to really affect the life steal of an adc I find.

Very Hard EngageNov 2, 20174 votes

if you can leave crits, lw, and cleaver as is, there is no reason an item like thornmail shouldn't exist in its previous glory.

upgrading to thornmail at any stage of the game is a gold deficit and a handicap to any build, it doesn't help. any one regeneration/lifesteal item outweighs thornmails damage.

its straight up poorly balanced stat wise. its effect is garbage. and other items simply have better combat stats.

the only thing you can do to save thornmail is to rip off cold steel and add more scaling armor based damage back into the thorns passive. its passives are contradictory in addition to having low base stats.

Shuyin178Nov 2, 201724 votes

A few things I've read on player suggestions is

Remove Grievous Wounds from Bramble Vest, making it a perk and reason to build Thornmail (personally, this is also something I've been saying because with this 1 item all forms of melee heal champion gets shut down hard). or
Causing Thornmail to deal double damage when the owner gets hit with a crit.

DeusVultNov 3, 201718 votes

removing GW fromm bramble would make bramble feel like shit

it is currently the only way to take a tank into matchups like Fiora/jayce/renek, and even other not meta matchups like people (monsters) who take ADCs top. It does tend to make these champs lives hell, but you were already doing that to us. Its kinda like when your against a soraka bot and you pick up an early EC to win lane, even though it slows you build path.

Thornmail doesnt feel as good as a completed item should, but as Wittrock said, its meant to be a powerful early item, while also giving you access to more stats in the late game. Feels great to rush, still decent late game but nothing to rave home about.

DeathBurstNov 3, 20172 votes

2, why not. But 1 only shows you don't understand what the purpose of the item is. Bramble vest without Grievous Wound has no reason to exist anymore, Warden's Mail is just superior in all cases for the same price. You buy Bramble Vest BECAUSE of the GW passive, and ONLY if you need the GW passive. At least when the item is balanced. If you can always buy Bramble, it means it's currently OP, and it will be nerfed, but the good nerf 100% isn't removing the GW passive.

Shuyin178Nov 3, 20171 votes

For 1000 gold you shut down pretty much every primarily AA reliant top laner, mainly the sustain melees. You can shut down an entire gameplay style with 1 item, that is not balanced and definitely not fun to play against.

DeathBurstNov 3, 20175 votes

That's simply not true.

It's not because their sustain was reduced that they don't have tons of damage left and can still out-damage and kill you before you kill them, especially if you're a Tank. Plus, most of them have ways to sustain without suffering from the grievous wounds. Tryndamere can still Q while the passive is off, Renekton can still do his spells in the minion wave, Mundo can R between trades, Garen's passive just works normally, Darius can Q you before using a basic attack, Illaoi can slap you from afar, Nasus can lifesteal from Minions, and so does Olaf.

Saying that "1000 gold can shut down an entire playstyle" is a gross exaggeration.

Shuyin178Nov 3, 20171 votes

In trade and 1v1 brawls, Bramble will win almost every time against an AA reliant champion and even more so against sustain AA reliant champions because their power was pushed back a bit to make up for the sustain they have. Bramble vest straight screws the ladder champions because no only do they deal reduced damage from the armor, but they also get their healing reduced through GW and any get get healing through AAs (like Nasus) heal even less because of the Thorns passive lowering their healing further.

DeathBurstNov 3, 20172 votes

That doesn't answer at all to what I said in my previous posts.

Yes, Nasus can't heal on you if you build Bramblevest, but how will you prevent him from healing on minions? Yes, the Armor on Bramblevest reduces their damage but the Warden's Mail would reduce it even more for the same price (Warden's Mail is 5 more Armor points than Bramblevest plus the Attack Speed reduction).

Bramblevest simply does not shutdown entirely melee champions by itself. That's not true.

PB4UAMENov 3, 20172 votes

Compare to EC that has a cheaper build, and vastly superior end game build, while also being more useful for its intended purpose of applying GW.

BRABBLE ONLY GIVES YOU GW IF YOU KEEP ATTACKING THE MOTHERFUCKER WITH IT. If you want to heal, just don't auto attack them for a second? And boom, they now have no way to apply GW. Where as EC, they get to hit you once, and it lasts THREE FUCKING SECONDS, OR 300% AS LONG and they are the one who chooses to apply it, vs bramble vest, where you have to apply the GW to yourself.

Champion SkinNov 3, 20172 votes

item 3123 also apply on all physical damage (like Darius bleed)

PB4UAMENov 3, 20171 votes

Exactly this as well! It refreshes on physical DoTs, in the case of Darius, letting him have GW on a target for EIGHT goddamn seconds when he hits them with anything other than his ult fucking EIGHT ENTIRE SECONDS or the vast majority of a teamfight from one hit.

MetalGearTeemoNov 2, 20172 votes

If you're concerned about its ability just remove thornmail entirely, or have it build out of cindercloak, and make bramblevest unsellable. So you commit to the investment without a way to recoup your loss once you hit 6 slot.

ThryaleNov 2, 20173 votes

what's your honest opinion about the over abundance of GW in league atm? what with how easy it is to get bramble's vest, and avarice, and with how almost all mages build morello's I feel that champs that focus on healing are completely gimped just cuz the enemy wants to neutralize the adc's lifesteal.

Altonius AmakiirNov 3, 20172 votes

On tank itemization, what are your thoughts on item 3068 ? My friend just mentioned it when I was reading your comment to him and I just went into a panic for a moment because for a moment I didn't remember what it was. And when I did, I realized I haven't used it since the tank update(and I play tanks frequently). Is it just me or do people typically not choose it anymore?

AirKingNeoNov 3, 20172 votes

Here's the issue.

Hexdrinker is a bandaid fix to make a class who is SUPPOSED TO BE strong early, strong in the early game.

Bramble Vest makes a class made to be weak early game ungodly, broken early.

PaffWasTakenNov 3, 20172 votes

Well, item 3075 is an item who counters AD champs who tends to snowball until late game where they are at their full potential, while item 3156 that is emant to counter AP champions, who tends to have more early burst who thens fall of late in favor of AD.

The thing is that their component items do the exact opposite: item 3076 is oriented to early game to counter champions who scales late, and item 3155 just stays as efficient even in late game

WoblyNov 3, 20172 votes

I don't think the trade off is needed. Not every situational item falls off late; look at the Last Whisper items. There might be games where you don't want them, but in the games where they are good, you're happy to have the complete item in your build.

In a game where it was a good idea to build Bramble, it should also be a good idea to finish a Thornmail at some point, and not just because there was nothing better to do with the slot. Thornmail is insanely gold inefficient, with stats worth less than 2300 and a cost of 2900. Thornmail is supposed to be situational, so maybe rather than giving it more universally valuable stats, you increase the passive damage. I dunno what, but it needs something.

Champion SkinNov 3, 20171 votes

item 3075 is kind of a noob trap right now

As it is kind of better selling item 3076 as you only loss 300 gold and can get a much better fully completed item and the 300 gold loss/cost is well worth the bramble vest power in laning phase and the utility it gives with GW (basically a big Dorans shield)

Infinite SaughtNov 3, 20172 votes

What about scaling Grievous Wounds; either "10-40%" (based on level) or "-5% stacking additively each time the target hits you with an auto-attack" or something.

TwitchInMyPantsNov 3, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Wittrock,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-11-02T18:08:05.097+0000)

Personal opinion here - is to as is to . The first is a somewhat narrow, but very powerful defensive lane item that helps you survive against a specific threat - and their upgrades are a relatively inefficient item, that at least provides you something to build your powerful component into. Agreed though; there's a question of if is too strong early and is too weak, or if having items with this kind of trade off is even a good thing.

TBH I think you've nerfed the Vest enough, but Thornmail could be better. Mainly I think the issue isn't with the amount of armor but how later game thornmail compares to Randuins or Sunfire with how potent its unique is. It shouldn't necessarily be better since the buildpath is superior for thornmail early atm but it'd feel more fair if its upgraded power level was closer to the other items, doesn't need to be a big change imo.

DoktorKaiserNov 2, 201711 votes

I would agree that item 3076 is broken because for what it should do its really effective for 1000 gold, but my god without it I would NEVER even try to play top lane or tanks in general, hell even with it you can barely fight champions like Fiora Riven XinZhao and others who buy lifesteal and/or have healing in their kit, ESPECIALLY the ones who buy item 3812 and especially Fiora who I find on the release Xin Zhao or release LeBlanc level of unfair at all stages of the game

ModKnightsKemplarNov 2, 20177 votes

They did this once already to cut down item 3076 's strength in the early game, if I remember correctly.

Not unreasonable to think they might need to tap it again. I'd be interested in seeing how this plays out with the new runes, first, though. A lot of systems are going to be affected by next week's patch.

YoungFarmerNov 2, 20174 votes

{quoted}

They did this once already to cut down 's strength in the early game, if I remember correctly.

Not unreasonable to think they might need to tap it again. I'd be interested in seeing how this plays out with the new runes, first, though. A lot of systems are going to be affected by next week's patch.

I'm terrified for next week. I can only imagine the balance lol.

RiotRiot MapleNectarNov 2, 201724 votes

Never fear, we're somewhat terrified too haha. Ready to act on it super quickly though!

DragonSheaNov 2, 201721 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maple Nectar,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2017-11-02T17:55:09.598+0000)

Never fear, we're somewhat terrified too haha. Ready to act on it super quickly though!

Twitch

undesirable teamNov 3, 201711 votes

{quoted}

item 3504

LordGeovanniNov 3, 20171 votes

attack speed buff isnt bad attack speed buff on top of ranged champions with attack speed buffs on the other hand is why you had that meta a bad overall item super strong on specific picks. Twitch Tristana Xayah

undesirable teamNov 3, 20171 votes

{quoted}

attack speed buff isnt bad attack speed buff on top of ranged champions with attack speed buffs on the other hand is why you had that meta a bad overall item super strong on specific picks.

*lategame carry + item 3504 = outscale at 10 minutes

LordGeovanniNov 3, 20171 votes

only 5 minutes faster than they were doing it before item 3504 came along. not to mention Xayah is designed as a mid game carry with her acutally supposed to use skills isntead of have all her skills just just as auto attack enhancements and executes

YoungFarmerNov 2, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maple Nectar,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8LkExs6L,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2017-11-02T17:55:09.598+0000)

Never fear, we're somewhat terrified too haha. Ready to act on it super quickly though!

Its going to be a fun time, I just hope somehow adcs become useless so I can enjoy a month of unique fun.

Solidair3Nov 2, 20172 votes

Speaking of acting on it quickly: When you guys made it safer to put out minipatches, was that done in advance to prepare for runes reforged?

Obviously it's helpful all the time, but this preseason will likely have the messiest balance of any season before it, so I'm wondering if that was why it was prioritized.

RiotRiot MapleNectarNov 2, 20178 votes

It was actually more just good timing. We wanted the capability for a long time, but hadn't managed to finish all the tech required for it. We started testing it out mid last year, and got true confidence in it earlier this year. If it hadn't been done yet, we definitely would have been prioritizing it before we actually hit preseason this year!

Darkdemon653Nov 2, 20176 votes

Vest isn't that great, but yes, TMail is horrible.

Champion SkinNov 2, 20178 votes

Late game against ADC/Marksmen item 3143 is mostly a better version of item 3075

With item 3143 reducing most AA's damage by 20% (and ADC's usually crit most of the time late game by having up to 80% crit) which also reduces life steal by 20% and both have the same 15% AS slow and Randuins also have the active

And item 3075 Grevious Wounds doesn't help that much if the ADC switches target as it only lasts 1 second