@Meddler: What is your view on Thornmail? Is it even healthy being in the game at this point?

For pretty much the whole year, the item has been a bad choice for countering physical damage when compared to . 100 armor might be appealing to some, but the Thorns effect continuously gets washed out by enemies who build MR, lifesteal, or . Most notable is ; if the enemy ADC gets that item, Thornmail pretty much gets hard-countered because the MR soaks up the Thorns while the lifesteal counters what remains.

Picture a game I had last night where I was Malphite, had +500 armor, and yet the enemy Vayne wasn't hurting herself when attacking me. I know 500 armor doesn't help against Vayne in terms of surviving her damage (nothing does), but I was pissed off to see her lifesteal was STRONGER than the Thorns damage. I build all that armor and she doesn't even feel the Thorns? What a kick in the balls.

Most of the 'advice' I've gotten from other players is to ditch the item for a Randuin, and I'm starting to agree with them. Thorns in practice just never seems to work; even if you're Rammus it doesn't do all too well. The problem is that Thornmail requires too many stats to work properly: you need bonus armor for the Thorns, HP for survivability, and MPen so the Thorns doesn't get hugely reduced by MR. You also have to hope your opponent doesn't have MR or lifesteal in their build, which is wishful thinking. Much like Spell Vamp, that creates a problem where you simply cannot have all the necessary stats; after all, when's the last time you saw a Rammus with a Void Staff?

Since Thornmail hasn't even gotten any mentions from Riot, I am led to believe that Thornmail is considered toxic by the dev team, but I could be wrong. Do you think you could speak for the devs and tell us whether or not you think Thornmail is actually a healthy item for the game?