Why Armor sucks compared to MR vs flat pen - A quick look…

Malak · 2018-09-22T20:13:10.146Z

Base costs per each point: Magic Resist: 18g Magic pen: 31.1g Armor: 20g Lethality: 22.5g As you can see, the difference between magic resist and magic pen in cost is really high. You can completely nullify the effects of magic pen with about 58% of your gold, leaving you plenty of gold to do other stuff. This looks like a hard-counter scenario here. Meanwhile, trying to match lethality point for point leaves you with no gold to do anything else. Lethality is scaling armor reduction, at lvl 10 you only get 82% of it converted to flat pen, but that puts it at 27g per flat pen - still significantly better than magic flat pen. "What about finished items, aren't they more efficient?" Nope, armor items don't get much better than 20g per armor in cost. Thornmail 78% efficient without passives, Randuins 78% too, and others are usually around 80-90% without passives. Not saying they are terrible items but armor is still costing about 20g per point. Chain vest, the most expensive pure armor item is also 20g per point. TLDR: Buying armor sucks to buy while MR is fine Not to mention all the armor reduction from champion kits, true damage being dealt here and there, and mixed damage champions (which generally are AD champions that do bits of magic damage)

MalakSep 22, 20189 votes

{quoted}

yes but champions have x2 more base armor than base mr

and they also have scaling AD, auto attacks, and increased damage from leveled skills while magic only has increased damage from leveled skills.

I think flat magic pen is good but buying MR really helps and you can really feel the damage reduction, meanwhile you can buy tons of armor and still get blown up by lethality, the thing you're supposed to counter.

The point im trying to get across is that buying armor does less than buying magic resist - that's it. Not a argument about ad vs ap or whatever

D357R0Y3RSep 22, 20186 votes

Yes But rushing armor is more possible than rushing MR because apprently when MR is rushable it makes midlane boring according to Meddler

lol ok then

MalakSep 22, 20185 votes

{quoted}

Yes But rushing armor is more possible than rushing MR because apprently when MR is rushable it makes midlane boring according to Meddler

lol ok then

I mean...you can buy null magic mantle, +25 magic resist, for 450g. That already eliminates most of the flat pen you can get in the game. What more do you want? You can buy hexdrinker too if you're ad.

EedatSep 22, 20186 votes

and a item 1029 also negates a full completed Lethailty item for the majority of the game as well for 300g. Why does it work one way and not the other?

Beatrice fallsSep 22, 20184 votes

{quoted}

and a also negates a full completed Lethailty item for the majority of the game as well for 300g. Why does it work one way and not the other?

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/455110895551381504/477574307355033601/unknown.png

yes

D357R0Y3RSep 22, 20185 votes

Yes it does, the numbers say it now let's not act as if lethality is the only source of damage

put your bias aside

EedatSep 22, 20184 votes

I should have been more specific I guess. It nullifies the Lethality from a completed Lethality item. Thought that was fairly obvious. But I guess I need to actually explain that buying a cloth armor doesnt mean you take zero damage from a Zed.

LordGeovanniSep 23, 20184 votes

It does nullify lethality but lethality items dont only give lethalty do they

MalakSep 22, 20184 votes

{quoted}

and a also negates a full completed Lethailty item for the majority of the game as well for 300g. Why does it work one way and not the other?

You spent 300g just to stop the lethality but the duskblade has plenty of other stats, so you didn't really win the arms race. You just went even. They only paid 22.5g per lethality point, and you paid 20g per armor. It's not bad at all but compare it to this:

If you buy a null magic mantle you profited over 200g because you stopped their magic pen with only 18g per point, while it cost them 31g per point of flat pen.

DKM BismarckSep 22, 20183 votes

Of course you don't win the arms race, why would a 300g item counter a 2.9k g item LOL

MalakSep 23, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Blade Or Soul,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=B8EBao3s,comment-id=0000000000000000000000010000,timestamp=2018-09-22T22:43:52.059+0000)

Of course you don't win the arms race, why would a 300g item counter a 2.9k g item LOL

sigh someone else explain it better

LordGeovanniSep 23, 20183 votes

15 armor is not negating 55 ad and 7+ scaling 1-13 armor pen for most of any game

Sire HippingtonSep 23, 20182 votes

you can also built armor and get blown up by raw ad or a BC, the issue is not really lethality but how high physical damage overall is and how little armor does about that. Also, if you face a snowballing mage/ap-assasin, i can asure you that mr isn't all that noticeable either...and if you're a **NOT **snowballing talon and you're opponent comes back with a chainmail, you curse as much as a LB spotting a negatron...

Defense overall feels pretty usless as soon as you fall behind or reach lategame no matter if you face a guinsoo's, crit, lethality or AP

Tahminatrix Sep 22, 201811 votes

Every minion / tower / neutral monster in the game does physical damage

item 3031 item 3035 item 3036 item 3071 Darius %ignore Garen %shred Yasuo %ignore after R and infinity edge core item

Kayle Nasus KogMaw (although kayle nasus and kog do both %ar and mr shred)

EedatSep 22, 20182 votes

(although kayle nasus and kog do both %ar and mr shred)

Evelynn Jayce Karthus Trundle as well

If we wanted a complete list it would look like this

Champs with armor pen: Darius Garen Yasuo Renekton JarvanIV Nasus MonkeyKing Kayle KogMaw Trundle

Champs with Magic Pen: Evelynn Karthus Jayce KogMaw Kayle Corki Trundle

I apologize if I missed one or two

Tahminatrix Sep 22, 20181 votes

I was mostly sticking to champions that have % armor shred (or a way to ignore it if they scale with ad)

Since this makes having higher base armor compared to mr alittle bit more reasonable.

Although, I do think armor and mr need some buffs to make their countermeasures not so overkill. Hopefully by not reducing their costs but increasing armor given by things like item 3110 and item 3143

EedatSep 23, 20181 votes

out of those champs, the only one who has flat pen instead of % pen is Corki

MalakSep 23, 20183 votes

{quoted}

out of those champs, the only one who has flat pen instead of % pen is

Karthus has flat pen

EedatSep 23, 20183 votes

Wall of Pain TARGET RANGE: 1000 COST: 100 MANA COOLDOWN: 18

ACTIVE: Karthus creates a wall at the target location for 5 seconds and grants Sight icon sight around it.

WALL LENGTH: 800 / 900 / 1000 / 1100 / 1200

For the duration, all units who cross it are both Slow icon slowed for 4 seconds, reduced by 50% over the first second, decaying over its duration and lose 15% magic resistance for the same duration.

MalakSep 23, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Wall of Pain TARGET RANGE: 1000 COST: 100 MANA COOLDOWN: 18

ACTIVE: Karthus creates a wall at the target location for 5 seconds and grants Sight icon sight around it.

WALL LENGTH: 800 / 900 / 1000 / 1100 / 1200

For the duration, all units who cross it are both Slow icon slowed for 4 seconds, reduced by 50% over the first second, decaying over its duration and lose 15% magic resistance for the same duration.

er yea I don't know what kind of weed I was smoking there

Sire HippingtonSep 23, 20182 votes

way back in the days, he had flat shred...so probably some nostalgic leafs

FireDrizzleSep 23, 20182 votes

I think you just missed Sion and Vi

wildfox99Sep 22, 20182 votes

yes but champions have x2 more base armor than base mr

yes but AD have base AD (and usually more than APs) while AP champions start with 0 base AP also AD champions usually deal more pre-mitigation damage than the AP and have more acces to %armor penetration (also common in many AD kits) and true damage for compensating that,plus they have their AA as DPS

give AP champions base AP and AP damage on-hit on their AA and we can talk about the difference in base armor and MR

DragonSheaSep 23, 20182 votes

{quoted}

yes but champions have x2 more base armor than base mr

But that means that armor is only half as effective.

Daddy AntsSep 23, 20185 votes

{quoted}

yes but champions have x2 more base armor than base mr

No champion in the game has 60 base armor.

Most champs have 30 base MR.

The champion with the highest armor at level 1 is Leona with 47.

Sire HippingtonSep 23, 20182 votes

and 18 lethality **at lvl 1 **give 1 armor pen... People always forget about the scaleing thing 1 lethality = 1pen AT LEVEL 18 Though who can blame them, with that overly complex nameing. Riot could just change the lethality values into arpen/lvl or arpen @18 values and it would be much clearer for people how it actually works...

MalakSep 23, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sire Hippington,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=B8EBao3s,comment-id=000000040000,timestamp=2018-09-23T22:43:54.581+0000)

and 18 lethality **at lvl 1 **give 1 armor pen... People always forget about the scaleing thing 1 lethality = 1pen AT LEVEL 18 Though who can blame them, with that overly complex nameing. Riot could just change the lethality values into arpen/lvl or arpen @18 values and it would be much clearer for people how it actually works...

who has access to lethality at lvl 1 besides runes?

and no, 18 lethality would give 11.2 armor pen at lvl 1...