Thornmail
Why is it even in the game?
Serioulsy, lets look at this. It passively deals damage to people who are attacking you. It applies the damage before damage reduction, which is absurd. If I am a fully farmed ADC who can do about 1000 on a crit, I am taking 300 damage from thornmail per hit. Now, a tank with Randuins and Thornmail, who has specced into the defensive tree, with armor yellows will have about 230 armor. At 233.3 Armor, Thornmail reflects more damage than received! So out of my 1000 crit, the target receives 285ish damage, and I receive 300.
Here is something a lot of people don't know either: It reflects most on hit effects (Fiora ult, red buff, BOTRK, etc.) and will still reflect damage through shields and even if the attacker is BLINDED??? What? The attacker is dealing literally no damage, but receiving the full 30% back as if they were dealing damage. Now, the item (according to mathematical value) is 95% gold efficient, meaning the stats -> price ratio is almost even. This does not account for its passive damage reflection. In order for it to be 100% efficient, it must reflect 100gold worth of damage. Considering that as stated above it can reflect 300 damage, which is equivalent to 6 BF swords, I think it can easily be more than efficient. A BF sword is 31gold/1 point of damage. That means at 100 gold for the thornmail to be efficient, it has to reflect.....wait for it....3.3 damage. Considering the above stated scenario in which I have 1000 damage to the 300 reflected, thornmail is how 909% gold efficient.
So on average, an ADC (labelled the attacker) with 250 damage attacks the tank with thornmail (the defender) who has 225 armor. Each 1 point of armor adds 1% effective health (effective health being additional damage required to kill said target). Therefore, the defender with 225 armor has 225% additional health. At around 3000 health, the defender has 6750 effective health. With 40% armor pen on the attacker, the defender has 135 effective armor in which now the defender only has 4050 effective health. Reflect 30% of this effective health, and you get 1215 damage reflected. A general ADC has around 1900 health at level 18. This means that Thornmail is now damaging the attacker for 63% of their total health....passively.
Now after reading all this, a lot of it is rough numbers because every champions health pool and armor scaling is slightly different, but it is fairly accurate. Of course, there is life steal to factor in to the attacker, but any item that can PASSIVELY deal 63% of the attackers life should be looked at. Not to mention that it can be up to 909% gold efficient just on its passive alone. In total it is 994% efficient.
Where the major issue comes into play is that it is extremely efficient at what it does, but is completely useless towards magic damage, physical abilities, and the armor it gives is only 95% efficient. So why am I complaining do you ask? Because we have an item that is so heavily on one side of the scale that it should be completely overhauled or removed. To range between 95% effieciency -> over 909% efficient depending on the circumstance really imbalances this item. It is too good at what it does, but not good enough to do anything else, which makes it a niche item, which when used effectively can majorly upset the scales.
In my honest opinion, this item should be scrapped completely, there is no way to balance this item, it will either be complete garbage and very, very niche, or it will be so utterly dominant that we will have balance issues (remember release feral flame? Yeah let's not have anything like that again). Having this as an ability on Rammus is balanced as it is on a cooldown, and can be avoided, whereas Thornmail is a permanent passive.
TL;DR, Thornmail is too good at what it does, but complete garbage in every situation making it extremely imbalanced in a positive and negative way. Plus, just read the thread because you have no opinion unless you read my argument, you are simply a Bias Benjamin otherwise.
