What about an "AP Thronmail" item?

Yoella··2 votes·454 views

Thornmail item 3075 gives +100 Armor, and reflects 30% of basic attack damage taken back as magic damage. So what if there was something like...

Runic Plate, which gives +30 Armor, +30 MR, and reflects 30% of ability damage taken back as physical damage with a maximum damage cap that scales with level (? x playerlevel = cap)

EXPLANATION: There has long been an outcry in the community that there's only one MR+Armor item in the game, Guardian Angel item 3026 and this would be a second one. Furthermore, Thornmail is useless against bursters, AP champions, and most anybody who doesn't rely heavily on AA's. One could also argue that there is far less counterplay vs a burst mage who hops in and nukes you and walks out than vs a melee or bruiser champion who has to get up close and personal. As someone who plays a lot of burst mages (Veigar, Orianna, Anivia, etc.) I can say that CD's are the main way in which bursters are gated, but with enough CDR that can change greatly. This would diversify builds, add another hybrid Armor+MR item, and provide more counterplay vs AP bursters all at the same time.

Now I recognize that burst mages are almost always given lower health pools, and so reflected damage would effectively be more deadly to them than others, but Thornmail primarily affects ADC's and they traditionally have lower health pools as well. I have taken that into account when coming up with this item, and so let me elaborate on the details.

Namely, the %Ability damage reflected has to be high enough to not be negligible to abilities that deal lower damage but with multiple hits, but at the same time the maximum reflected damage cap has to low enough so that squishy casters like Veigar don't 100-30 themselves with a single combo. So I was thinking something along the lines of this:

(15 x enemylevel = Total damage reflected) or, in numbers, (15 x 18 = 270 maximum damage reflected per ability hit) at level 18. This would require an ability to deal ~890 damage in a single hit in order to cap off the reflected damage. Likewise, in a three ability combo a burst mage would deal ~890 damage to himself MAXIMUM (only if each ability hits for ~890 damage). And 1080 damage to himself with a 4 ability combo, all hitting at over 890 damage each. As you can see, it would be pretty difficult to reach that cap.

5 Comments

Teridax683 votes

Aside from the fact that AD and AP don't need mirror items, the core problem with any kind of "AP Thornmail" item is that it ruins AoE mages: whereas basic attackers focus on one target at a time and can therefore switch away from a item 3075 user, mages with AoE damage would be forced to damage themselves at every teamfight. Even worse, a full team of AP Thornmail users could cause the enemy mage to one-shot themselves with a spell that would usually be well-placed. Thornmail is sort of manageable for autoattackers because of how prevalent lifesteal is, but most AP champions don't have easy access to sustain, so it would also have a seriously negative impact on the long-term survivability of mages and AP bruisers, the latter of whom are already at a disadvantage versus sustain-heavy AD top laners.

There's also not really a specific need for armor + MR items: health is the go-to stat to defend against both damage types (plus true damage) and is present on almost every MR item, and we already have the upcoming Zz'Rot Portal which gives both resistances.

EffectFX2 votes

No.

Yoella1 votes

How come?

EffectFX3 votes
  1. Copied items are boring.
  2. Low counterplay to the item itself. Thornmail itself is borderline in the same category, but not as bad. Auto attacks are single target and lifesteal is a common component and a lot of MR items are favored as a defensive item on carries, thornmail also does not reflect damage from on-hit items.
  3. This item you're suggesting completely fucks AOE mages. If all 5 enemy players build one, and get hit by a ziggs ult, that alone just dealt 1350 damage back to ziggs with zero means of negating that damage other then maybe a zhonyas, especially since spell vamp isn't very good on AOE mages.
  4. Plenty of item counterplay already exists for burst mages unless they're ridiculously far ahead (which applies to a lot of champs). Several MR items have a hefty chunk of HP built into them already (Banshee's is a good example).
Rustling Bush1 votes

if this was implemented, i'd feel like this would be broken on tanks. abilities aren't constant unlike basic attacks, once you use them cd kicks in and you have to wait to use them again, with something like that burst mages, and ap assassins would end up practically deleting themselves because of their heavy reliance on their abilities, they got no basics, this being cause by one item. unless you make the damage cap very low.

More from Gameplay

More by Yoella