Doesn't that cause the "oh, need to build this resist to counter him" trap? You think that since he builds AD, his damage is primarily physical. But since his hyper does magic damage based on your max health, building armor...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA
What's Riot's logic to this? Is it because "if Gnar deals all physical, he's useless"? What happened to Last Whisper all of a sudden?
Deep Terror Nami2 votesTon's of AD champions have a little bit of magic damage somewhere. You even have some with tons of AP scaling like Tristana. This is not new.
darkdill1 votesTrist's old, Gnar's brand new.
Different Champions.
Deep Terror Nami1 votesAre you staying they should just, not do it anymore? I'm not sure what your point is.
67chrome2 votesOnly 8 champions in the game have no AP ratios at all, and AP causing physical damage or AD causing magical damage is incredibly rare.
So, by tons of champions having magic damage somewhere - it's ~95% of the roster.
exiledFromBadmen1 votescough
cough
67chrome2 votesPretty sure the point of hyper is so Gnar can actually lane against top-lane tanky derps. He was designed as a top lanner after all. Says so in the champion spotlight.
Also - it keeps his anti-tank damage pretty consistent throughout the game.
If it was physical damage it would be shut down incredibly hard once an item like Randuin's Omen is completed, but would move to be more powerful than magic damages once Ganr grabbed %armor penetration.
Not to mention AD powers physical damage skills and AP powers magical damage skills in pretty much every case, so causing AD to power %HP damages causes another problem.
%HP damage scales automatically as the game goes on. With flat damage, a 100 damage skill is fine and dandy against 500 HP opponents, but against 1000 HP opponents you want to bump it up by another 100. With a 20% HP damage skill it just scales to begin with - which defeats the purpose of adding AD/AP scaling in the first place. But Riot likes putting scaling on most damaging skills, so in the case of Gnar, Varus, and Kog'Maw you have a choice of solid physical damage with a pretty flat and consistent level of %HP damage, or you essentially do nothing but %HP damage. Garen and Vayne don't even get ratios at all on their %HP stuff.
TLDR - %HP magic damage on Gnar is there to make him relevant in all phases of the game, without going from useless to OP.
12tales1 votesif Gnar did all physical damage, he'd be better. By lowering his ability to scale with armor penetration, you can allocate more power to other parts of his kit.
darkdill1 votesProblem with that logic: I was a Leona with about 300 armor, and his Hyper was what was killing me, not the rest of his kit.
Nerf Hyper, buff other parts.
12tales1 votesYeah, magic damage is like that.
darkdill1 votesHence why it should deal physical, so you're not lured into that "armor is better when it's not" trap. If Hyper didn't do a percentage of max HP as magic, I'd be fine with it.
12tales1 votesI would suggest that the easiest way to avoid falling into that trap would be to understand that Hyper does magic damage, and not build 300 armor with the expectation of tanking Gnar.
Shrikesnest1 votesI think it's just so the little bit of AP that Trinity Force gives him isn't a complete waste. And the percent health damage on BORK is also magic damage, so if he's going the shred route you have some recourse against it. (EDIT: Yeah, I was wrong.) Look on the bright side: at least it's not True Damage. There's nothing you can do against that.
Shrikesnest1 votesWell, shut my mouth. So it does. I apologize for the mistake. And now I'm just as perplexed as you.
Hyrum Graff1 votes(This is just my guess, but I'm going to state it as facts 'cause that's fun)
Hyper deals magic damage so Gnar can feel good when building Bruiser. If he builds bruiser and it dealt physical damage, he'd be required to build a last whisper in order to feel good while he's in mini (or else he'd tickle frontline tanks). This allows gnar to build bork, triforce, and tank items, and still be a damage threat, instead of being required to do a marksman build in order to be a damage threat.
TehNACHO1 votesWhat happened to Last Whisper all of a sudden?
Okay, so here's the thing, you can't just view Gnar in isolation, you really need to consider the rest of the team. Namely, the usually Magic Damage dealing Mid Laner. See, if your team is a balanced team comp, enemy tanks and fighters need to optimize for a correct balance of both Armor and Magic Resistance. Now, as a primarily Physical Damage dealing champion, what item do you build in response to this? The Last Whisper. Now, what about your Magic Damage Dealing Hyper? Do you buy a Void Staff to make sure it continues to do damage despite the opponent's resistances? Yes? No?
Think of it like this. If Hyper was Physical Damage, this means that the moment you buy a Last Whisper, Hyper bypasses your opponent's resistances as well. What this means as a defender is that you are under a constant threat of that percent HP shred no matter what you try, because Armor is getting weakened by the Last Whisper, Health scaling Hyper goes through any Health you build, and Magic Resist is virtually useless. However, if Hyper is Magic Damage, this means that if the defender in question is building for a balanced team, they're able to bypass a good chunk of Hyper's damage even if Gnar builds the Last Whisper.
Not to mention that many champions actually have more Magic Resistance than armor at early levels, if your complaint that Hyper being Magic Damage is massively OP or something like that, you really need to take into consideration that Hyper may in fact be stronger if it actually were Physical Damage.
XxXDarkSideXxX1 votesTrinityForce, He Was Designed As A Trinity-Tank