Opinions on MR thornmail?

I don't see such an item adding to the game's health, more detracting from it.

Thorns is one of those mechanics you add because you can, not because it really adds anything particularly good to a game.

I mean - the fantasy thorns fullfills is killing someone while you just stand there, or seriously harms someone trying to attack you.

Killing someone that landed all of their skills and got within striking distance, and you just kill them by not doing anything. That's a substantial amount of power without gameplay.

It also has very little in the means of counter-play. Once thorn mechanics become strong enough, "don't mess with that guy ever" is the only optimal stratagy, and if an optimal stratagy within playing a game is "don't play the game", then why would you even bother playing the game?

The only reason Thornmail really gets to stay in the game is because of 1 specific stat: Life Steal. Regardless of what champion you play, anyone who auto-attacks enough to have issues with Thornmail will build life steal at one point, so Thornmail can exist to counter life steal. Due to how thornmail works, it's essentially impossible to life-steal off of an opponent with it, but at really low reflected values Thornmail isn't doing much beyond halting life-steal. Both essentially cancel each other out.

With magic damage though? Spell Vamp really isn't a thing. Only a very small number of champions feel it's an optimal thing to acquire.

Finally - "stop hitting yourself" issues.

Auto-attacks are all very similar, apply damage the moment they hit, frequently apply their damage slower and more gradually over abilities, and in-general allow enough feedback that taking Thorn's damage isn't to unclear or surprising. Auto-attacks also give plenty of time to swap targets if thorns become an issue, and you can stop taking damage from Thorns any time you wish.

Abilities though? Their range and application methods very so widely that reflected damage could be quite confusing for several players, and difficult to see for more experienced players. Especially considering several have AoE/multi-target components.

Unlike auto-attacks: There are also several delayed and damage-over-time magic-damage effects that could cause an unavoidable death-sentence via reflected damage. Cassi figures out magic thorns are bad and stops casting her skills to avoid being killed by reflected damage, gets killed by reflected damage anyways.

As ammusing as it would be to kill a Teemo via magic-thorns and just stepping on all his mushrooms would be, magic thornmail existing would not be a good thing for the game.

Regular MR and HP is fine against AP champions. Well unless they are The people that give 0 fucks about your MR.

Banshies.

{quoted}

Regular MR and HP is fine against AP champions. Well unless they are The people that give 0 fucks about your MR.

Kat cares about Banshies, Azir's DPS is lowered which is significant, Cass cares until late game, Brand falls off but yeah he cares less, Malz doesn't true.