It is directly contradictory to making Thornmail effective by having it build out of and take the passive of Warden's Mail. Thornmail is an item that punishes people for attacking you. Reducing their attack speed makes the item's own passive less effective at doing what it does. Please don't have it build from Warden's Mail.
Ralanr4 votesSo, thinking it over, cold steel actually strengthens it as an anti healing item.
First you reduce their overall healing by 40%, then you end up reducing it more by making them attack slower so they can't get as steady healing.
Oleandervine3 votesYes, but Thornmail's niche isn't an anti-heal item. It's a damage reflect intended to punish high AS enemies by making them take a lot of the damage they deal. Adding the grievous wounds helps this by making the reflected damage stick better and allow tanks to actually be something to avoid. Cold Steel just makes them a nuisance and ruins an upgrade that could have actually progressed the item.
Meep Man3 votesThornmail was originally supposed to be an anti-heal item actually. Rammus is more of what that kind of niche you are talking about.
Oleandervine2 votesRammus, Shen, Galio, Taric or really any tank with a taunt or who likes to build armor favors it because it allows their armor to be used as mild damage output to contribute to teamfights. It may have started as an anti-heal item, but it's become a little more like Deathcap or Archangel in that it converts a stat into secondary uses.
Ralanr2 votesIt isn't now, but they are making it one.
Br0nzi3 the B34r1 votesNah they're changing it to be a tanky support like item. You're not dealing the damage as a tank so really it's helping the actual damage dealers on your team deal more damage since the enemy focusing you can't make much use of any lifesteal
The JigSAW3 votesUgh, they nerfed the armor amount on it now?? 10% of bonus armor!??!
I agree this needs to be changed but it needs to go back to the original status of 30% of incoming damage reflected back as magic damage from basic attacks. This is getting ridiculous. The Grievous Wounds addition I'm fine with, but seriously 10% of bonus armor plus 25... no. Just no - if I had 400 armor bonus that'd still be 40+25 and that's a freakin' JOKE.
EndlessSorcerer1 votesHonestly, I like the direction they've taken.
While the damage Thornmail dealt could be a nice bonus, it isn't why I bought the item.
I wanted an item which would reduce the enemy ADC's sustain so they couldn't simply lifesteal through my damage. Cold Steal and Grievous Wounds provide me with exactly that.
Oleandervine2 votesIf you want Cold Steel, go Randuin's. It also reduces auto attack damage as well and thus reduces lifesteal.
If you want to convert your armor values into something threatening, that's why you go Thornmail, kind of akin to Deathcap making your AP more deadly or Archangel making your mana pool threatening. Thornmail is intended to reward you for being a tank - you built armor, and you get attacked, so your armor goes to more use as reflected damage to enemies. Turning it into an item with conflicting passives and then being heralded as "a great upgrade to counter life steal" is absurd.
Fuh Queue1 votesHow is having someone's attack speed slowed not a punishment?
Ralanr2 votesHe means is that it just weakens the amount of damage reflected back.
EndlessSorcerer1 votesThornmail would be used by tanks and fighters who wish to duel autoattack-oriented champions.
As they are including Grievous Wounds, one of the items main purposes would be to reduce the enemy champion's sustain.
I'm not sure if it is necessary and the power may be better spent elsewhere but that is a different discussion.
Considering they've stripped out the vast majority of damage reflected, it doesn't seem they want it to be a damage-oriented item.
Oleandervine2 votesWhat you are missing and everyone else is that the AS reduction niche for armor items is already occupied by both Frozen Heart and Randuin's Omen. BOTH of those items hinder your enemy's attack speed and both are high in armor value.
Thornmail, by contrast, exists as an item that supports you for building heavily tanky, but also punishes opponents stupid enough to attack you. The niche for this item it to be the tank that is coming to bash your face in, but you don't want to attack because it will hurt you. The niche of this item is to counter high AS champions, who often favor AS over raw damage, by dealing a lot more damage to them for attacking you.
By outright slowing down their attack speed by the Cold Steel passive, this muddies Thornmail's niche entirely, and shoves it into the niche of Randuin and Frozen Heart. This is not something that needs to be done at all. I could understand this passive if the reflect damage was increased to compensate the drop in enemy AS - since the damage was decreased, though, Thornmail will sting a whole lot less than it does in live, which will leave it in just as bad of a spot as it is now.
Thornmail needs to have it's niche amplified, not shifted into a niche that's already occupied.
Critkeeper1 votesI believe RIOT is moving thornmail away from being an item that punishes people from attacking you, simply because if you run the math you'll see that the PBE thornmail punishes the attacker a lot less for attacking than the live thornmail does.
In fact with a 20% lifesteal 800 damage crit against a 300 armor (220 bonus armor) thornmail wearer, the difference in returned damage is roughly 100.
Here is the exact math:
