Adaptive Armor Is Underwhelming.

commit an hero·Jun 25, 2015·70 votes·6,701 views

If you managed to get 200 bonus armor you would only get a whooping 8 Magic Resist. That is just sad.

87 Comments

Lord DusteonJun 25, 201562 votes

Still better than the non respawning 50 hp shield was.

commit an heroJun 25, 20155 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lord Dusteon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BMM6dItO,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-06-25T02:58:02.271+0000)

Still better than the non respawning 50 hp shield was.

True. But really you aren't going to get this mastery. There isn't really a reason, you sacrifice other things for a measly increase in resistances.

BeersteinJun 25, 20154 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lord Dusteon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BMM6dItO,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-06-25T02:58:02.271+0000)

Still better than the non respawning 50 hp shield was.

the 50hp shield did give you that early start at lvl 1, this one gives you nothing, tbh I'd go with the 50hp.

{quoted}

People complaining about getting 8 armor or MR for 1 point yet they gladly take 5 armor, 5 MR, or 36hp for 3 points.

There's a difference between 5 armor from lvl 1 and 8 armor after you've built 200mres...a BIG difference.

Lord DusteonJun 25, 20153 votes

{quoted}

the 50hp shield did give you that early start at lvl 1, this one gives you nothing, tbh I'd go with the 50hp.

There's a difference between 5 armor from lvl 1 and 8 armor after you've built 200mres...a BIG difference.

Let's say someone has 200 bonus armor. They would get 8 MR from that. At level 18, assuming they got some armor items other than just thornmail/frozen heart, they would have ~3000 health.

8 MR is an effective 8% increased magic health, or 240 bonus health against magic damage. Building more armor or health only increases this amount.

Even with only 100 bonus armor and normal base health (~2000) this gives an effective 80 health increase against magic damage, which also persists after being hit once (looking at you 50 health shield)

TerchioJun 25, 20152 votes

8% increased magic health after increasing physical health by 200%... Yeah, not really worth.

By this logic, a Null-Magic Mantle gives 20% increased magic health for 500 gold, and I don't have to build a shred of armor for it. To build up to 8 MR after 200 armor sucks, especially since it's only bonus armor. Most champs have base Armor around 70-100 armor, so you're looking at a 300ish Armor character before you finally get 8 MR, or 2/5 of a Null-Magic Mantle.

Of course, same thing could be said for the AD and AP ones in the Offense Tree... Why do people like those again? You have to go glass cannon to get any real use out of those, and you only see 5 AP/AD when you've amassed 100, all for 3 points. Meanwhile, the higher masteries give you 14 AD or 22 AP (4 AD or 6 AP all game long) higher in the tree. That needs almost 300 bonus AD or over 400 AP to be equally as effective as those upper masteries, no defenses included.

Likewise, Adaptive Armor has no offensive stats included.

ProfDrDeathJun 25, 201519 votes

It is a damn mastery.

For one point, getting 4 MR per 100 Armor is actually rather decent, if you think about it.

TerchioJun 25, 20154 votes

Runic Shield was also a damn mastery. A damn bad one.

And 4 MR after amassing 100 bonus armor isn't that great. Null-Magic Mantle is 5x its value, and you won't feel like you have anything blocking magic with that if you stick with it for too long. You go from 80 to 180 in armor, and you meanwhile go from 54 MR to 58 MR. That's not much, especially to require the 100 armor to do so. Meanwhile, you get 2 MR higher in the tree for 1 point, which values at about 3x that of MR @ 18 based on Runes(meaning same value as about 6 MR @ 18), meaning a real even point would be at 150 Bonus Armor, by which point you have nearly 250 Armor in your build for just 6 added MR lategame(now up to 60 total MR). The 2 MR for one point also builds up to an effect that blocks 4% of all AoE damage, which is supposed to be the main sell on the points. Or maybe you can instead compare to Legendary Guardian, which unconditionally will have 3 Armor and 3 MR (probably more) regardless of the situation, because no one needs MR or Armor if no champions are around.

4 MR is not a lot of MR when forced to build into it.

LankPantsJun 25, 201512 votes

8 armour for 1 point is super high. One of the best masteries in the tree is 5 armour for 3 points.

commit an heroJun 25, 20154 votes

{quoted}

8 armour for 1 point is super high. One of the best masteries in the tree is 5 armour for 3 points.

Of course that requires you to have like 4,000 gold worth of armor.

LankPantsJun 25, 20159 votes

You only need about 800 gold worth of armour for it to break even with the other armour mastery, then it scales better into late game. It's not the single greatest mastery ever, but it's worth a point.

TerchioJun 25, 20154 votes

Of course, the 5 stays with you all game, including the crucial early game (don't believe me? Some people still insist +1 Armor Seals are better than +3 Armor @ 18 ones). By that comparison alone, the 5 Armor is worth the same as 15 increased armor by level 18, which is far above anything you're going to get out of Adaptive Armor. For a point so low in the tree and as impossible to utilize without overbuilding as tank, the Flat Armor Mastery is at very least not a niche tank item, and most likely Adaptive Armor is Guinsoo's Rageblade niche at the end of the day. There's just better ones out there.

Also, that would be more like 2500 gold to break even by your numbers, unless you're talking per point. But, as I said, that's per point of Armor after amassing a crap-ton vs. just getting flat Armor. Even +3 Armor @ 18 runes don't require you to stack it in any way, and that's a 1:3 ratio compared to Flat +1 Armor Seals.

LankPantsJun 26, 20151 votes

A lot of what you say is technically true, the problem is you're assuming the mastery is giving you armour. Magic Resist (which is what the mastery will give you in 9/10 games) is a little different.

Magic Res is less valuable early game since most things (towers, monsters, creeps, autos) deal physical damage early game and not magic. Obviously this is less true against something like a Rumble, but if you're either a Jungler or a Top laner VS an AD Top MR per level is better than flat MR.

Also, that would be more like 2500 gold to break even by your numbers, unless you're talking per point.

Yep I'm talking about per point, that's the only fair way to compare masteries.

ChaoticPineconeJun 25, 201510 votes

Well, masteries arent supposed to be overwhelming.

For example, in the same tier of Offensive masteries you can get 2% AP. If you had 600 AP, that gives you 12 AP increase. In the Support tree, you get 40 gold.

commit an heroJun 25, 20157 votes

But let's be honest. Offensive > Defensive.

Also there are better options in the offensive tree than defensive. Granted they made it a bit stronger but Rito shows obvious favoritism.

Silents429Jun 25, 20155 votes

The defensive tree has vastly superior masteries, but of course, Riot must have a hidden bias for some reason.

Mandang0Jun 25, 20153 votes

This. The last half of the offense tree blows.

Adaptive armor sucks at 4% bonus defense per point? Well, devastating strikes is 2% penetration per point.

% bonus AD or AP are noob trap talents when you do the math. Useless in lane, negligible for most of the game too.

Executioner does nothing half the time, even when you spend 3 points on it. The other half of the time, it's <2% increase in damage per point.

Weaving requires time and valuable cooldowns to set up before you get the bonuses from it.

Defense tree was the strongest pre-changes, and probably still is.

CrettJun 25, 20151 votes

Now hold on. Bonus AD isn't small. If you got even 10 bonus AD from that, your crits are dealing 25 more damage after IE

FrikgeekJun 26, 20151 votes

So you're getting 360g worth of stats for 3 points and only very late in the game. That's 120g per mastery point, nothing that great. And seriously, how the fuck do you stack up 400 bonus AD(so over 500 total AD at lvl 18) and still manage to get enough crit to make IE worth it?

In a more realistic scenario this mastery will be providing under 100g per point, pretty bad for a tier 4.

CrettJun 26, 20151 votes

item 3031 item 3072 item 3046 item 3035 as far as I know, you cant get that much AD while maintaning good crit

unless you stack IE but that's expensive and you lose a lot of AS

Meep ManJun 26, 20151 votes

{quoted}

So you're getting 360g worth of stats for 3 points and only very late in the game. That's 120g per mastery point, nothing that great. And seriously, how the fuck do you stack up 400 bonus AD(so over 500 total AD at lvl 18) and still manage to get enough crit to make IE worth it?

In a more realistic scenario this mastery will be providing under 100g per point, pretty bad for a tier 4.

In reality, if any single mastery provides more than 500 gold by itself, then it might need to be towned down. Notice how I said by itself too.

FrikgeekJun 26, 20151 votes

By itself meaning? I think it's fine if a tier 5 mastery gives you 150g per point and has 4 points.

PartholonianJun 26, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Now hold on. Bonus AD isn't small. If you got even 10 bonus AD from that, your crits are dealing 25 more damage after IE

...to 0 armor targets. Do you see a lot of those at the stage of the game where you have 200 AD?

FrikgeekJun 25, 20156 votes

People complaining about getting 8 armor or MR for 1 point yet they gladly take 5 armor, 5 MR, or 36hp for 3 points.

Raid Boss MordeJun 26, 20151 votes

That's probably because it's very noticeable early game. Getting 8 AR or MR lategame when you have over 200 of a stat doesn't seem like much.

XonraJun 25, 20155 votes

I'm already skipping it after a few games of forgetting I even had it. It is so trivial I don't see a point.

I mean, realistically, what is 8 armor or mr even 1v1? Not much. There seem to be a bit too many little add a few armor/mr here and there mastery tree abilities for my liking. Just feels like there could be a little more diversity there.

4 armor abilities there 4 mr as well, but three of those overlapping. so 5 in all. Just seems that should be maybe 2 or 3 max, but not 5. Seeing as some of them are...how can we put this...um...pointless.

Hardiness at 3 points gives you 5 armor
Resistances at 3 points gives you 5 mr
Enchanted armor at 4 points gives you 10% _bonus _mr and armor, so not near as good as that 10% sounds
Then Adaptive armor at 4% depending on what is higher

So let's say you have a sunfire cape, not super expensive, but not the cheapest item , but this is 45 armor

So you take 10% of 45

So basically that would give you a whopping 4.5 arm

So right now, not counting base champion arm for now, just what is being added, that is 45+4.5+5 armor.

54.5 Since in this case, your armor would be higher, since you bought arm, not mr, you get no extra armor from adaptive armor.

So if you took the above, you would have a whole extra 10.5 armor, but it would take you 8 mastery points to do that. This isn't counting the points you are spending into the mr if you grab that as well, which is another 3.

Basically you can start to see....for the amount of mastery points, you aren't getting all that much in return. The defense tree is a friggin mess because they are afraid of it being too strong, so instead they've managed to make it rather generic and samey.

BeatzBoyFTWJun 25, 20155 votes

So you're saying the bonus MR you get from building Armor should be increasiing even more?

Thresh Thresh Thresh

OnegarionJun 26, 20151 votes

I had this same thought. Infinite Armor AND Mr. Thresh OP

SerBlaiseJun 25, 20154 votes

masteries are supposed to be somewhat underwhelming on their own. I just finished a game as mid diana with my 22-5-3 AD hecarim masteries by accident....and I went 12-3 vs a swain (one of diana's harder matchups). Point is, masteries are not auto win buttons but they work to give you a very very very slight edge in certain situations. for instance:

Double Edged Sword: MELEE: +2% damage Spell Weaving: MAX +3% damage Havoc: +3% damage Executioner: MAX: +5% damage to targets under 50% health

Put it all together: 13% more damage than before. Diana's QWERR combo with just base stats at lvl 6 is:

P: 50 Q: 130 W: 66 RR: 200

Total: 446 bonus % increase damage: .13*446 = 58

That's more base damage as your passive. Even if it's 'situational' (IE, you have to get them below 50% HP, stack 3 autos), it's not an uncommon scenario. And it's not negligible.

GorgannanJun 25, 20154 votes

You realize most of the masteries are terrible bonuses by themselves. 2% increased bonus armor only gives you 4 armor at 200 armor. And that's assuming it's all bonus armor.

ReikkenJun 25, 20153 votes

better than the % bonus AD mastery

I have 250 AD (100 base +150) I get... 7.5 AD, from THREE points. that's 2.5 AD per point

At least adaptive armor is only 1 point. 5 MR for 1 point is pretty nice

CrettJun 25, 20152 votes

250% of 7.5 they have to be sparing with ad bonuses given it's hyperscaling nature

MaeggesMCJun 25, 20153 votes

got 500 armor with taric got free magic resist + my 18 mr and 4% aoe dmg reduction seems alright to me.

Strossus GranJun 25, 20152 votes

I agree, I dislike trap masteries. You don't want to make it OP, but as it is...its pretty bleh. Yes 8 is more than you'd get dumping 3 points into the MR mastery, but that's on at level 1, so it is a relatively much larger boost, rather than waiting until you buy a FH+thornmail.

commit an heroJun 25, 20152 votes

Now my biggest problem is they didn't want carries dipping into the defense tree and getting really good stuff. But let's be honest the slow resistance and tenacity outshines some measly 2hp/5 and 3% max hp. Good job Rito.

i like pie mmmJun 25, 20151 votes

yeah they pretty much buggered all my mastery pages because I'm grabbing the slow resistance on everyone. I mean you usually dip into the tree to get extra health for exchanges but you didn't always pick it up on your hybrid or support champs. For instance when playing sona i would have a mix of utility and damage. Now the points are all over the place.

Ariel the CruelJun 26, 20151 votes

I don't even bother with the utility tree on most of my champs. The defense tree is overall just more useful for anyone who isn't Janna.

commit an heroJun 25, 20152 votes

Plus it seems rather unfair to both them 4% bonuses. Have you not noticed the lack of MR items in the game?

Binxy PrimeJun 26, 20152 votes

Its still pretty strong for a 1 point mastery IMO

Silents429Jun 25, 20151 votes

Pretty sure it's meant for early on when you can't tank Armor and MR right away, not so much late game when you have defenses for both.

Ariel the CruelJun 26, 20151 votes

You have to get large amounts of bonus AR/MR for adaptive armor to do anything. It's useless early game.

Silents429Jun 26, 20151 votes

Early on when you only have 1 tank item, which give plenty of stats to boost your MR/Armor, also note they buffed the enchanted armor mastery from 5% to 10% allowing much more out of your stats then before.

CrettJun 26, 20151 votes

frozen heart will be 110 armor now. i'd be happy about that but last whisper + armor pen mastery makes that like 65

Silents429Jun 26, 20152 votes

Separate problem entirely.

Luner HunterJun 25, 20151 votes

except when you're playing leona... and you pop your max'd W along with your static stats XD you said you were hitting me with what now? a wet noodle?

Ariel the CruelJun 26, 20151 votes

Darius item 3153 item 3142 item 3071 item 3035 I don't know that I'd call it a noodle. . .

Luner HunterJun 29, 20151 votes

except for the fact you'd never build all four of them items on darius in one match without blowing up in 2 seconds to the rest of leona's team while being E+Q stunned

Ariel the CruelJun 29, 20151 votes

I choose him because he has innate armor pen and true damage ult. Just run with the joke, :/

yamimoshJun 25, 20151 votes

just gonna point out that one of the favorite runes to use are armor yellows, a full set of armor yellows give you 9 armor. this mastery can give you 8 armor... just... let that sink in

SpecterVonBarenJun 25, 20152 votes

I think the deal is, yes, 9 armor is great, but it's great at the start of the game, eventually that 9 armor falls off come mid/late game which is around when you'd have enough armor or mr to actually reach that same value of the runes. Not that I think this mastery is bad, it does seem like a nice extra something for the defense tree.

SquishyArchonJun 26, 20151 votes

OP and everyone who upvoted him is an idiot. It is a fantastic mastery point for characters like Malphite and Rammus who like to naturally stack armor. It's also great on a tank against a team comp that's running mostly AD with 1 AP threat or vice versa too. Then you can stack against the majority and still receive free resistance against the other type of carry. It's easy to see a free 12 MR out of this item on Malphite almost every game. That's an entire set of blue MR runes for free. If you think that's bad then you are too.

I guess you could argue it's a niche mastery point but niche =/= bad so not much of an argument there anyways.