THORNMAIL should apply GREVIOUS WOUNDS

ll League God ll·Mar 1, 2016·320 votes·9,477 views

No really... it should....

This item is shit by every standard immaginable.

Even on Rammus, the god of armor, EVEN ON MALPHITE the damn mountain! this items kick back is completely overshadowed by so much lifesteal in the current meta.

31% life steal 100% counters any kick back damage thornmail does... thats not the intended purpose of the item...

Im even in favor of a slight armor reduction to add this implimentation.

ADCs are overrunning everything, and tanks are getting shredded with ease.

Tanks need a solid counter... This needs to be a thing

280 Comments

SlythionMar 1, 201695 votes

#MakeThornmailGreatAgain

CrettMar 1, 201617 votes

I'd rather tanks just. Don't die in 4 seconds under ADC fire Like

Braum didn't deserve this. Alistar might have deserved it but come on he was ulting

ValyrianBladeMar 1, 201615 votes

Thornmail is a cheap item. It's 2350g, compared to your typical ADC item that's from 2600 (e.g. item 3094 ) to 3600 (e.g. item 3031 ).

If you're playing a tank, and you've got thornmail, and you've got the same number of items as the ADC, you're actually behind in gold.

Now, why am I bringing this up? Because thornmail is actually strong. Quite strong. I've shown the calculation before and I'm not going to bother again - if an ADC builds lifesteal and % armor pen against a thornmail tank he still takes way more damage than he heals.

The reason you, or anyone else who complains about thornmail, think thornmail is weak, is because you think you're getting destroyed by an ADC that you're even with when in actuality you're getting destroyed by an ADC because you're behind and should be getting destroyed by someone ahead of you.

Whenever I'm an ADC and the enemy tank who is even/ahead builds thornmail, it's very noticeable. I immediately go from being able to kite 1v1 them easily to killing myself in the process.

BonipherusMar 1, 20163 votes

But I want to see the calculations...

[zombie-nunu-bummed]

ValyrianBladeMar 1, 20166 votes

Copied from where I did them: Let's assume the person with Thornmail has a total of 300 armor (after base armor + 100 from thornmail, that's only about 120 from other items).

UNIQUE: Reflects 15% of the physical damage taken (+ 25% bonus armor) from basic attacks and on-hit effects back to its source as magic damage (Calculated before any resistances or reductions are taken into account).

So 25% of 300 is 75.

Let's assume that the ADC has the 7% armor pen mastery, the 45% bonus armor pen item, and 10 flat armor pen: 300 x .93 = 279 after % armor pen 279 - 73 = 206, so 206 x .45 = 92, so 279 - 92 = 188 after % bonus armor pen 10 flat pen --> 178 armor after all pen applied.

So the ADC is dealing 100/(100+178) = 36% damage.

Let's just use 400AD as an example.

If the ADC has a bloodthirster and doran's blade, that's 23% lifesteal (then boots + Infinite edge + zeal item + last whisper item is 5 full items plus dorans blade).

400 x .36 x .23 = 33 life healed per attack 400 x .15 + 75 = 135 damage applied from thornmail per attack, if we assume 50 MR that gets reduced to 85 magic damage.

Healing 33 per attack while taking 85 damage per attack - it nets out strongly in thornmail's favor.

Yes, the ADC is steal dealing 144 damage per attack, but the person with thornmail should still be dealing damage from their abilities as well.

As my point - thornmail does indeed counter lifesteal.

Lil Lewd WitchMar 1, 201612 votes

I do agree that ADCs are way too much right now for armor to handle. I had roughly 350 armor on a 6 item DArius and barely survived a 1v1 with a horrible lucian simply because lucian

Spaceman5pffMar 1, 20162 votes

TFW Miss Fortune can 1v1 a Malphite with item 3110 item 3047 item 3068 item 3512

Hayaishi2Mar 1, 201612 votes

No it doesn't.

ll League God llMar 1, 201620 votes

{quoted}

No it doesn't.

Please explain. You hoenstly feel like an item that is countered by any standard build shouldnt be brought up to a viable level?

So tanks should just sit there and get face tanked by ADCs with gobs of lifesteal? thats absurd

Hayaishi2Mar 1, 201640 votes

[{quoted}](name=ll League God ll,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BW7iZzZM,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-03-01T01:30:59.206+0000)

Please explain. You hoenstly feel like an item that is countered by any standard build shouldnt be brought up to a viable level?

So tanks should just sit there and get face tanked by ADCs with gobs of lifesteal? thats absurd

ADCs don't face tank tanks, that's an horrible exaggeration.

What was absurd is tanks building thornmail and sitting infront of the ADC zoning them by doing nothing.

Punishing ADCs for doing what they are meant to do is dumb, and that's the exact reason why thornmail is how it is at the moment. Tanks are meant to die to adcs.

ll League God llMar 1, 201610 votes

{quoted}

ADCs don't face tank tanks, that's an horrible exaggeration.

What was absurd is tanks building thornmail and sitting infront of the ADC zoning them by doing nothing.

Punishing ADCs for doing what they are meant to do is dumb.

Go put 30% lifesteal on ANY adc, or go warlords + 10-15% lifesteal, and please tell me how you cant facetank a tank with an ADC?

Its far from an exaggeration.

Corki, Vayne, Trist, Lucian, even Cait just to name a few, can facetank, and when that isnt necessary, they simply kite. There is no solid tank that can stand to an ADC

And thats because lifesteal in this ADC meta is rediculous

Hayaishi2Mar 1, 20168 votes

[{quoted}](name=ll League God ll,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BW7iZzZM,comment-id=0001000000000000,timestamp=2016-03-01T01:38:48.354+0000)

Go put 30% lifesteal on ANY adc, or go warlords + 10-15% lifesteal, and please tell me how you cant facetank a tank with an ADC?

Its far from an exaggeration.

Corki, Vayne, Trist, Lucian, even Cait just to name a few, can facetank, and when that isnt necessary, they simply kite. There is no solid tank that can stand to an ADC

And thats because lifesteal in this ADC meta is rediculous

Yeah corki is running around rushing bloodthirsters and bork while running warlords lmao

ll League God llMar 1, 20169 votes

{quoted}

Yeah corki is running around rushing bloodthirsters and bork while running warlords lmao

Corkis half magic damage is bypassing the thornmails kickback as it is. On corki you dont even need 30% to have thornmail negated.

Fact is, scimitar has become an almost staple defenssive item for any ADC, and currently even its 10% lifesteal in alot of cases allows out sustaining of thornmail.

WimbledofyMar 1, 20164 votes

that math simply does not add up. In no situation should scimitar alone allow you to heal for more damage than you are taking. Thornmail does 15% of damage taken before resistances are considered. Lifesteal applies after resistances. An adc with mercurial will have ~ 40% magic damage reduction. If an adc attacks someone with thornmail and has 100 ad they will take about 9 base damage (including adc's resistance) from thornmail + however much armor the tank has. If we assume the tank has 200 armor he will have about 70% physical reduction meaning he will take 40 damage from each auto. If the adc is only dealing 40 damage he will only receive 4 health per hit with 10% lifesteal. If you include dorans blade and lifesteal masteries then he will recieve 6 health per hit. As you can see the base damage alone from thornmail (by base i mean the 15% reflection) is greater than the amount the adc will receive from lifesteal.

5000000000000000Mar 1, 20163 votes

most of corki's damage comes from his spells anyway, so thornmail shouldn't counter corki.

LaserDeathBladeMar 1, 201650 votes

The point of Thornmail is to mitigate lifesteal so that any damage you put out ontop of TM actually does damage, TM alone isn't supposed to kill ADCs that'd be stupid.

FreshAsFebrezeMar 1, 20166 votes

Tanks are meant to die to adcs? Maybe the dumbest thing I have ever read

VorazunMar 1, 201615 votes

Is it really? Suggest another class that should have the power to take them out.

Is it the Assassin? Well no, their job is to target squishies. Is it the Mage? Well, no, most of them have too long a cooldown and too little sustained damage to kill tanks. Is it the Support? Well no, their job is to debuff the enemy/buff allies and so scratch damage. Is it the Fighter? Well no, their sustained damage isn't high enough to quickly remove tanks, and are easily caught by the Tank's CC. Is it the Tank? Well no, that's the wet noodle fights of early S5.

So what do we need to take out other Tanks?

We've gathered that we need high damage, preferably from range, which should be sustained. Doing this in a short period of time would be preferable, so burst would be pretty nice too. So what do we get? Well, golly gee! It's the Marksman class (or ADC). Of course, their primary purpose is to quickly secure structures, but the criterion to take them down is similar to that of a tank. High, sustained damage.

FreshAsFebrezeMar 1, 20165 votes

Having a "tank" vulnerable to one type of damage is probably the dumbest thing. This game is turning into an ADC/Assassins kill all/last man standing type of genre. All of my fave mages are on the way out because of one item, my fave top lanes cant even last 5-6 auto attacks and how does riot counter this? by adding a different type of auto attack

Zenthon PrimeMar 1, 20164 votes

If they aren't vulnerable to something, well, then we get the nightmares of the early Cinderhulk meta with 3 tanks, a bruiser in mid and an ADC. Have "fun".

Also Duskblade is overrated as hell. This is coming from an immobile mage main whose best champion is hard-countered by assassins.

FreshAsFebrezeMar 1, 20162 votes

I agree there, I havent seen duskblade really do anything. But I dont agree with what Vorazun said in that each person has a defined role. Why cant a tank just roll in and maybe be able to sit around and work on taking attention away? Im not saying Tanks should be able to live and kill with no problem. Im just saying they should have to build multiple resistances to live. Not just a fuck ton of armor because AP is completely worthless.

ShinjusukeMar 1, 20167 votes

Either your'e new or just ignorant of the game's intended class design (which isn't meant to be an insult, just a statement).

-Tanks are supposed to counter Assassins. -ADCs are meant to counter tanks -Assassins are meant to counter ADCs and Mages -Mages are supposed to be mostly target-agnostic, dealing as much damage as they can to as many targets as they can. -Fighters are meant to be a middle ground between a tank and an assassin, which is why they're usually OP.

In theory, Tanks are meant to be frontline, Fighters are meant to be "Mid-line" and ADCs and Mages are meant to be the back line.

-Assassins are meant to join the fight late or at the very start and focus the backline. -Tanks are meant to control the position of the frontline for both sides -Fighters are meant to drop tanks who push too hard toward the fighter's backline, or push into the enemy backline -ADCs are supposed to take down the enemy frontline -Mages are meant to drop damage wherever is most congested, softening up as many targets as possible for the Assassins and potentially ADCs

This is how the game has been designed literally since beta, even if Riot consistently fucks it up with champions whose kits break the mould too hard or are overtuned.

FreshAsFebrezeMar 1, 20163 votes

Nice post. It just doesnt make sense to have someone be front line when who they're weakest against is in the back line pummeling them to death. If thats the way it is w/e, all I know is Fuck the meta, I try to do things differently. Thats why Nautilus is my favorite right now and in past years. He can say "Fuck your lines, Im coming through"

ShinjusukeMar 1, 20163 votes

Well, it makes sense when you consider how many threats the back line is under.

If the game had no assassins, it wouldn't make sense. Or, if Mages were primarily melee champions, it wouldn't make sense. Or, if Fighters didn't have a lot of mobility, it wouldn't make sense.

Fortunately none of those are the case.

ADCs can drop tanks because teamfights are a fluctuating situation. To clarify, consider this situation, where one member from a team is fed and can guranteed do their job:

-If the assassin is fed, the assassin can definitely kill the enemy ADC, thus theoretically rendering the enemy team unable to drop the assassin's tank and causing the assassin's team to win the teamfight. -If the Tank is fed, the tank requires an extensive amount of effort or time to kill, allowing the tanks teammates to do their jobs despite not being fed, thus allowing the tanks team to win the teamfight. -If the ADC is fed, they can drop the enemy Tank quickly, which leaves the enemy team without a frontline to protect their backline from the ADC's fighters and assassins. -If the Mage is fed, they can soften up the majority of the enemy team, allowing the Mage's fighters and assassins to take out the majority of the tank's team, resulting in a one-sided teamfight where the Mage's team can take all the time they need to drop the tank cuz he doesn't have damage backup. -If the Fighter is fed, then he can heavily punish, scare off, or zone the enemy tank, OR punish the enemy tank by assassinating their ADC or Mage when the enemy tank mis-positions or burns their peel. (As stated before, this is why Fighters are OP: too much versatility).

People tend to examine champion kits and say "oh this character can do X which means that they must be Y class" which isn't always the case. For example, using Nautilus or Amumu as an example, people view their abilities and think they're meant to charge the backline. They're not, they're meant to use that heavy CC to peel off enemy fighters/assassins, or in Nautilius case his ult can be used to disrupt an enemy ADC or Mage long enough for the Nautilus' assassin to get to thenm, while the rest of Naut's CC is used to peel.

FreshAsFebrezeMar 1, 20161 votes

Well said. Im curious, what do think of todays meta and strategy where tanks are not really chosen and new team comps are 3-4 adcs?

ShinjusukeMar 2, 20162 votes

Well, the first thing I would have to say is that "new teamcomps are 3-4 adcs" is a blatant exaggeration, as no remotely high-ranked group of players is going to achieve a significant amount of success with a teamcomp like that.

That said, in most cases where there's more than one ADC, it's because those ADCs aren't actually occupying their intended role.

Examples being... -Graves being so immensely overtuned that he is/was a common jungler or top laner due to his ability to waveclear safely and quickly (jungler) and punish heavily in a trade (top). -Alternatively you currently have a lot of Corki, sometimes mid lane, because of his mixed damage output, AOE attacks and long range allowing him to occupy the role of a mage without actively building AP (thus allowing another siege damage output or tank shredder without actually having to lose a mage). -Last to consider is Ezreal, however I've LONG been a proponent of the belief that Riot has consistently and REPEATEDLY fucked up with Ezreal, and if they would get their heads out of their asses and realize he's a fucking mage and balance him as such he'd be a vastly more interesting champion and almost every problem he's ever had would disappear (he LITERALLY only gets popular when some item he can abuse does: It's NEVER because of the actual champion kit, just the abuse of an on-hit effect). Apologies for the vitriol, Riot's treatment of Ezreal outright pisses me the fuck off.

Cinderhulk era DEFINITELY had major, infuriating balancing problems and anyone who tells you otherwise has their nostalgia goggles on, but my opinion is that the meta should in any competitive game following a class structure like the one used by League should be using the Tanks are their baseline.

Tanks are the most important class in terms of design, and I am saying this as a through-and-through Assassin main (feel free to look me up on lolking or w/e if you don't believe me, I fuckin' love Assassins lol). If your Tanks are functioning properly, all the other classes can be designed and balanced significantly more easily and accurately. In any other class-centric meta, they warp and distort the relationship of classes with each other. As an example, if Assassins are too strong, they invalidate most characters, because when Assassins are top of the meta Tanks aren't strong enough to punish them and the game revolves around "which assassin gets fed" and teamfights degenerate into an assassin dropping half the enemy team without meaningful repercussions (fed Talon is a great example of how un-fun and un-interactive an Assassin meta can be: Just extrapolate Talon into an entire class and you have an Assassin meta).

Fixing an Assassin meta is incredibly frustrating.

How much damage should they do?
Do tanks need more damage to stop them? If so, does that make tanks too good at being fighters?
Should fighters get tankier or more damage to punish assassins? Do they need buffs at all?
Do ADCs need to become safer? If so does that push into an ADC meta?

The list can go on for ages, I just don't wanna type out more questions that you have to ask lol.

However, when Tanks are the centric class, every other class can receive minor tuning to bring them in line with relation to tanks.

If ADCs aren't dropping tanks, buff their %hp damage output to bring them to the state you want. No repercussions
If Assassins aren't able to assassinate because tanks are too strong, give Assassins more mobility options or nerf vision slightly.
If Fighters can't punish tanks who position poorly, examine fighters on a per-champion basis and buff relevant fighters (buffing "fighters" as a class almost assuredly fucks up class relationships. Juggernauts gave some examples of this (Fiora, anyone?))
If mages are exceptionally weak, it's usually not directly related to tanks and rather is related to their interactions with other classes, however granting more CC to the class (within reason) allows the mages to potentially control Tanks to a degree required. Alternatively, nerfing Tenacity is usually the route Riot has taken in the past to accomplish the same thing. Lastly, mages have significant diversity on a per-champion basis with regards to their best target. Malzahar for example can make tanks his bitch, if you build for that (it's honestly the biggest reason to pick Malzahar imo, since other mages do his other things better)

All of that information is an awfully roundabout way for me to say "This meta kinda fucking sucks." Frankly, I've been of the opinion since around the end of season 2 that Riot needs to undergo a major class rebalancing. If they just bit the bullet and redesigned from the ground up, League would be an infinitely better, significantly less frustrating game. But due to their dependency on E-Sports, the likelihood of that happening is very slim, as they'd have to ACTUALLY stop playing favorites with champions they like that outright break their own design but are flashy (not going to name any names but I'm sure most people are aware of a couple that I'm referring to).

darkdillMar 1, 201612 votes

The thing is, Thornmail's design is a tad toxic itself. You attack someone, and they automatically damage you for doing so? How do you outplay that? Answer: YOU DON'T.

Besides, even if your opponent has tons of lifesteal, if they're hitting someone with thorns, they aren't adjusting their current HP by nearly as much as if they were to attack someone without thorns.

ll League God llMar 1, 20166 votes

{quoted}

The thing is, Thornmail's design is a tad toxic itself. You attack someone, and they automatically damage you for doing so? How do you outplay that? Answer: YOU DON'T.

Besides, even if your opponent has tons of lifesteal, if they're hitting someone with thorns, they aren't adjusting their current HP by nearly as much as if they were to attack someone without thorns.

hit someone with thorns 3-5 times, hit a minion or someone else once... bam... any potential HP lost is 100% recovered

AnidanMar 1, 20165 votes

The point being here is that Thornmail has a, uh, less than optimal design. If it was to be really strong, it'd feel like a must-buy and that'd be counter-productive to that fact that ADCs are the natural counter to tanks - that's their design interaction with you, just like tanks counter burst, sustained damage is the drill that continually goes at the wall until it breaks. Giving you an option to counter your counter for the sake of countering your counter would be bad design outright. They can make the item more akin to DotA2's Blademail or something so they aren't punished just for that items existence or something, but making it even more of a passive 'fuck you' to auto-attack based champions that they can't do anything about beyond "don't attack this target, ever" is bad design.

KillerKellMar 1, 20169 votes

Why are ADC, who do Attack Damage of which is negated by Armor, the Counter to Tanks?

If Armor is to diminish the damage of AD, then in fact Attack Damage Carries SHOULD NOT be the Tank Destroyers.

Which I do believe was the point of Thornmail, so that Attack Damage didn't delete the Tank, designed to withstand Attack Damage via Armor.

It's beyond stupid that something Stacking Armor should be melted in any form or way by something stacking Attack Damage.

The real idea was that a Tank would take forever to kill an ADC because despite the Low HP and Low Armor of the ADC the Tank would do Low Damage... while the usually Large Damage of the ADC wouldn't quickly kill the Tank because of the absurd amount of Armor and HP stacked to negate the AD. They were designed to balance against each other, with Life Steal and Thornmail being the natural steps to evolve that.

The problem is, Life Steal continued finding it's way onto more and more Items, allowing it to be stacked far more than Return Damage (Thornmail) can be stacked. The one thing that kept Thornmail up as long as it did was the fact it returned Damage based on the 'Before' or 'Pure' Damage dealt, not the amount after mitigating via Armor and other things (like 10% Reduced Damage vs. Auto Attacks from Ninja Tabi's)... so the Tank only had to take the Mitigated Portion while the ADC suffered the Return based on % of Non-Mitigated Damage on Auto Attacks.

If any attempt is made that Attack Damage should directly defeat Armor, then they need to close shop due to stupidity. Ability Power beats Armor, like Attack Damage beats MR, True Damage defeats Armor and MR, and % Max Health defeats HP. % Current HP is just a small bonus against High HP Targets that loses effectiveness as the HP Pool lowers, so a Starter... with % Missing HP being an Execution.

So no, it was never intended for AD to Beat Armor since the entire purpose of Armor is to mitigate that Attack Damage. It was intended that it take the Tank forever to kill the AD (Kiting) due to crap damage, while the AD has to keep the distance to avoid finally being pummeled to death. The Tank taking forever to kill the AD allowed the APC to blast the Tank down to a manageable level of HP to be finished.

It is the AP's job to bypass the Armor by using AP instead of AD, thus rendering all the Gold spent on Armor useless for the Tank when being focused by the AP Members of the Enemy Team.

Fighting Armor with AD should be akin to fighting fire with fire. The last thing an ADC should want to hit is something stacking Armor. The last thing an APC should want to hit is something stacking MR.

So if the idea is the ADC is DESIGNED to beat a Tank... then they've already screwed up beyond belief.

Generally Tanks have held their own as well, but then Riot lowered the AP on a few 120 AP Items down to 100 and did a general Rework of Mage Items... suddenly Tanks didn't die as quickly. So, in typical Riot fashion the idea was to (1) nerf Tank Items then (2) Buff AD Items to make Tanks die again. Instead of just, you know, putting back the 120 AP Items.

AnidanMar 1, 201610 votes

I'll answer this simply:

Tanks are akin to raid bosses in terms of durability, comparative to game type. What do you value in raids in terms of taking it down? High sustained damage. You know who has the highest sustained damage through their design? ADCs.

You know what has very low value against a raid boss? Burst damage. You know what tends to be more dependent on burst damage? Casters of any sort, which would include most AP champions due to their cooldown-based nature and low damage AAs between cooldowns.

Part of the AP's job is to make it so the tank can't afford to spend all his gold on armor, NOT to punch through the tank themselves because for the most part, they're much worse at killing the tank due to their bursty nature.

Tanks have 1 form of multiplicative defense (armor x health = EHP) against AD Carries, whereas AD Carries have 2 multiplicative forms of damage adding up together with a base (AD x attacks per second x Crits = DPS). Mages have one form of multiplicative offense (AP x AP scaling of combo).

It is not bad design for AD Carries to naturally counter a tank because of their naturally high sustained damage. You don't take a PvP-oriented character in an MMO with their 50-75% crit rate and minimal haste (that they'd use for repeated burst patterns against players) against a boss and expect them to have the throughput necessary to keep up with the guys building Haste and a bit lower crit for sustained combat.

AP Champions are not the tank-busters (with a couple special exceptions), ADCs are. That's why armor items have to be stronger than MR items - that way they're strong against burst ADs but the sustained ADs are going to continue doing their job, just a bit slower.

In short: Yes. ADCs are designed to counter Tanks. And no, that is not bad design. That is basic game design dictating that.

KillerKellMar 1, 20165 votes

Except this isn't a Raid.

If I had 1,000,000 HP and everyone on the 'Enemy Team' had 5,000... sure. That's not the case. I generally have X2 to X3 the HP of the lowest HP on the Enemy Team... not X500.

A Tank... is not a Raid Boss. A Tank... does not require 5 people to bring him down 5v1. A Raid Boss requires many to take down JUST himself.

So your entire premise is flawed... by the exact fact than a Tank CAN be 1v1'd, something NO Raid Boss should be capable of falling to.

AD should not counter a Tank stacking Armor. Period. At all. It should require the BY PASS of the Armor (like Armor Pen, or Ability Power, or True Damage, or % Max/Current HP... all of which for some reason a lot of ADC can now get in the form of Items and/or Scaling Abilities).

The reason an ADC can beat a Tank today is because they can BotRK can get large chunks out of those first few shots, while negating 30% of the Armor Built, plus negating some Flat Armor, plus adding some AP Ratio to deal Magic Damage to by-pass the Armor, on top of gaining Sustain through Life Steal which should be way more than enough since the Tank SHOULD NOT be able to BURST the ADC, so the Sustain will out-pace the incoming damages.

In other words, we've now given the ADC pretty much every form of Damage possible through a combination of Items, Abilities and Buffs.

An ADC should have to Specialize, which is where Builds come in. An ADC building Pure Damage+Crit should be able to burn through a Squish (Low HP Target), but have a much larger issue when that Damage is by a Tank (High Resistances) and take some time on a Beef (High HP)

Where then an ADC should have to, when facing Tanks instead of Beef, go deeper into Armor Pen to crack the Tank... which would LOWER his Overall Damage against those NOT building Armor, so now he's not hitting that Enemy ADC as hard because he Spec'd for the Tank Target instead. This will hurt him against the Squish and the Beef, but he will dominate the Tank.

To which leaves the Beef, to which he grabs %Max/% Current HP to bleed the Beef... but makes it useless vs. the Squish and the Tank who don't stack a ton of HP.

Instead, an ADC just builds a Standard Build... and gets to kill every build in the game.

Tanks are NOT Raid Bosses... and an ADC isn't a 20 Man Party. AD should never be the answer to Armor. Just like AP should never be the answer to MR.

AnidanMar 1, 20166 votes

My premise is analogous. Just because the situation is not 1 for 1 does not make it automatically wrong. Note that I loosely compared durability, not coordinated effort.

A tank is durable enough that burst will be less effective, which makes it a far less effective means of dealing with a tank, high armor or high MR. This leaves the best option as sustained DPS, which is much less common in AP champions. This leaves mostly AD Champions, however, therein exists a class of AD Casters that function also primarily through burst, so those champions are also less effective at dealing with tanks, even if that tank has MR built, due to the raw health the tank will have. This tends to leave most ADCs (only most, because some are effectively AD Casters that rely on burst, but those champions tend to want to end the game quickly before the tank really starts rolling) because their standard build path has them flaunting some of the highest sustained DPS in the game, routinely, which is the best way to deal with a tank, regardless of what they have built. A 4000 HP tank with, say, 100 MR but 300 Armor will still be handled much more easily by that Sivir, Ashe, Draven, Jinx, etc., than AP Champions like Orianna, Lux, LeBlanc, etc. Why? The sustained damage those ADCs put out due to their build path.

Tanks are naturally countered by how AD Carries are played and built. That is their intention. Even if that tank has 300 armor but only 100 MR, that tank is still going to die easier to the high sustained damage of an ADC than the burst of a mage. AD isn't the answer to their armor or their MR, but their sustained damage is the answer to their wall - they are drilling at it until it breaks. That's the core of why ADCs counter tanks, not some inane interaction with AD and Armor or MR.

KillerKellMar 1, 20165 votes

Which is part of the problem.

But I would suggest strongly that coordination IS the key to killing a Tank, the idea that ONE Champion can just destroy a Tank is wrong to begin with.

When you get an ADC dealing as much with a Single Basic Attack as a Mage is getting for his Ability that has a Cool Down... it gets sort of idiotic.

What SHOULD kill a Tank is a mix of Burst and Sustained Damages of varying Types. I mean, that IS the reason of being a Tank... to draw the Focus of the Enemy Team. Not to draw the focus of the ADC who deletes you then moves on to everything else.

We also tend to think that Burst Damage doesn't work... but it's a large part of it. If Katarina can Ult after the Tank has used his Disrupt, she can take a HUGE chunk out of the Tank. Sure, she likely won't kill it unless extremely fed, but she'll take the Tank down to a manageable amount of HP that others can finish off.

The only reason a Tank should ever die 1v1 when on equal footing is when they find themselves caught in a Kite, to far to engage but not far enough to disengage, slowly being taken down. This should take a large amount of time, as the Armor vs. the AD should be High and the HP Pool should be Large. So even with this the ADC should have to decide if he just disengages to safety or continues after the Tank in this dance while he COULD be getting flanked.

What it SHOULD NOT BE is the ADC grabbing a Last Whisper Item and instantly chunking off 45% of the Armor built (plus Grievous Wounds to negate 40% of all types of Healing, if going Mortal Reminder), and then being able to waltz around and 1v1 anyone in short order.

Think about that, 1 Item an ADC buys for 2,700 Gold instantly invalidates 45% of the Gold spent on Armor and 40% of the Gold spent on Sustain. 2,700 Gold does that, instantly.

And THAT is why the ADC beats the Tank, because with 2,700 Gold an ADC can turn 15,000 Gold spent on Armor and Regen into about 7,500 Gold. Can INSTANTLY turn a 6 Item Full Tank into a 3 Item Tank.

Obviously, a 6 Item ADC should crap all over a 3 Item Tank.

This is where the entire 'ADC beats Tank' comes from... the fact that even before Lord's and Mortal, one Item could ignore 35% of the Gold/Items a Tank Built. Even then it was like a 6 Item ADC vs. a 4 Item Tank.

The combination of needing to Stack Armor for it to truly be effective, and the Diminishing Returns that Armor brings... just to have 1/2 of it negated by 2,700 Gold, is stupid.

Concentrated Damage, i.e. FOCUSED Damage, SHOULD be what kills Tanks, both of the Burst and Sustained variety. The Trade Off is that the Tank itself shouldn't be effective at killing anything (it's why we have Bruisers, Brawlers and Juggernauts... to deal Damage... the TRUE Tank is just there to disrupt and absorb focus).

Which leads to the common 'ignore the Tank, focus the Carries' mantra. Because, in theory, the Tank shouldn't be able to kill you unless you let him on top of you and forget he's there... so you take out the threats that CAN burst you away into nothingness... THEN use the remaining TEAM to either Finish the Tank, or ignore him as you push an Objective.

Instead now it's Pop the Tank, then GO! Because 2,700 Gold renders a Tank completely useless against some one that he specifically BUILT to be able to withstand, thus wasting every bit of Gold he has spent the entire game.

It's down right idiotic.

ChaoticPineconeMar 1, 20162 votes

Heres how the general roles tend to play out:

Burst > Squishy Sustained damage. Squishy Sustained Damage > Tanks. Tanks > Burst.

Of course there are exceptions and its a range of options - some mages are squishier than tanks, but tankier than other mages (Swain, Vlad). Some tanks do more damage and are less tanky (Sej, Ammumu). Some sustained damage dealers do less than others, but have more upfront burst (Ezreal, Corki).

You are asking for Tanks > Squishy Sustained damage. Thornmail is supposed to level the playing field a little if youre ahead, but tanks really shouldnt be 1v1ing ADCs past 3 items. ADCs, as a role, are meant to be the tank/baron/dragon/tower killers.

Spaceman5pffMar 1, 20164 votes

I was under the impression that the ADC by design was meant to deal massive sustained damage, but only with the help of their team keeping them safe. Or at least, that is how the role initially took shape years back.

Now that they get all these items to keep them safe, they just kill anyone they want while peeling for / supporting themselves.

item 3031 item 3094 item 1305 item 3139 item 3153 item 3053

EvewynnMar 1, 20169 votes

Brb consoling the WW crying in the corner.

Joe DreddMar 1, 20169 votes

So what you're telling me is that you have to build multiple lifesteal items to counter the effect of this one item. seems pretty good to me.

KoechopheMar 1, 20162 votes

Or just build Bloodthirster. That's really all it takes. Warlord's and the passive lifesteal will make up the rest.

Spaceman5pffMar 1, 20162 votes

I mean we are talking about tanks anyway, so just build BotRK and run warlords, now by default your ls item is a tank shredder with built in peel, and you get like 28% lifestal + a flat onhit heal

Ruin LanceMar 1, 20168 votes

i agree that thornmail is weak right now but adding grievous wounds would outright break this item, because then NOBODY would be able to kill tanks, instead adcs would just kill themselves to thornmail and tanks would still have the majority of their health bar

NaramielMar 1, 20169 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ruin Lance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BW7iZzZM,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2016-03-01T01:45:28.449+0000)

i agree that thornmail is weak right now but adding grievous wounds would outright break this item, because then NOBODY would be able to kill tanks, instead adcs would just kill themselves to thornmail and tanks would still have the majority of their health bar

You realize that this suggestion would have 0 effect on the time it actually took to kill a tank, right? It would just mean the ADC was gaining less health while the tank died.

KillerKellMar 1, 20167 votes

Not to mention that Thornmail ONLY works vs. Basic Attacks.

So ABILITIES by all Champions wouldn't return any Damage UNLESS they are On Hit Abilities tied directly to a Basic Attack landing.

So they'd still be able to destroy the Tank... just make sure you don't Right Click it if you want to get HP by LS on something else during the duration.

bill84Mar 1, 20165 votes

It's good on Ashe though.

Also, they should let it crit along with rammus w so that a caitlyn might be able to oneshot herself. Someone do the math on this please i'm too lazy.

/sarcasm (I do wanna find out if a critting thormail could make cait oneshot herself with enough armous on rammus+dmg on cait.)

KillerKellMar 1, 20162 votes

Crit applies.

Thornmail returns are a % of the Total Damage of the Basic Attack, BEFORE being mitigated. So it calculates as if facing 0 Armor, and applies the Crit Damage if the Crit occurs, then divides the % and returns that amount.

While the Tank takes the Remaining Damage AFTER Mitigation, so the 10% Less from Basics by Ninja Tabi, the 10% less from Crits Randuin and the X% due to Armor.

So let's say Cait Crits. Let's assume 500 AD, then let's give that 250% assuming Infinity Edge. That's 1,250 Damage. (500+500+250).

Thornmail returns 15% of the 1,250. So 125 and 62.5, for 187.5 Damage Returned to Caitlyn for hitting and critting on a Thornmail.

While the Thornmail Champion would look something like this. Let's assume 50% Damage Reduction from Armor, 10% vs. Basic Attacks from Tabi and 10% from Crits from Randuin's.

This goes one of three ways, depending if Ninja Tabi and Randuin's are calculated before, after or with Tabi.

WITH: So 1,250 - 50% (Armor) is 625. The 750 Crit would lose 75. The 1,250 would lose 125. So 425 Damage Received.

So Damage Received would be 425 Damage and the Damage Returned would be 187.5.

BEFORE: So you go ahead and knock down the Crit from 750 to 675 (75 off thanks to Randuin's, which I believe only reduces the Crit portion). This takes the 1,250 down to 1,175. Now 1,175 loses 117.50 due to Tabi, dropping to 1057.5. From here you take down 50% due to Armor, for an Actual Damage Received of 528.75.

Here we would have Damage Received of 528.75, with a Damage Returned of 187.5.

AFTER: So you take the 1250, drop it by 50% due to Armor... 625. Of the 625 you'd lose 10% to Tabi for 62.5 down to 562.5 Damage. The Crit portion is now confusing for me, as I feel it should be 325 left reduced by 32.5. So 530 Damage Received.

Which leads to 530 Damage Received and 187.5 Damage Returned.

So reducing BEFORE the Armor would be better than After, but taking everything down TOGETHER would be the best (for the Tank) by a large margin. Unless I didn't carry a 2 or something, by all means check the math. Maff r hardest.

AntithesMar 1, 20163 votes

No, just no. The only counter to thornmail is life steal, take that away and that makes ADCs useless against tanks. The whole point of an ADC is to carry though damage, but if you do more to yourself what's the point? There's no counter-play, if there's no counter play it just makes the meta more toxic.

If anything they should just get rid of the item and design something else to replace it, something that has some counter play. The fact that you take damage for attacking them is already stupid.

People complaining in the post about not being able to do anything against ADC and dying in 4 seconds is kinda dumb. Unless you're behind, if you're a tank and build write against an ADC, they can't do shit without their team. Frozen Heart destroys any ADCs that relys on attack speed and combine that with thornmail, guess how much armor you have. You slow their attack speed and make them take their own damage back at them. OR MAYBE USE YOUR FUCKING ABILITIES ON YOUR CHAMP TO STOP THEM FROM HITTING YOU FOR 4 SECONDS STRAIGHT, if you fuck up that's on you, not because ADCs damage output is OP.

Also, ADCs are squishy, but with really high damage output, that's the whole point. If they get caught they are basically fucked.

If tanks get basically a hard counter to ADCs, then ADCs should get a hard counter to assassins. Just because they kill you really fast doesn't mean you can't do the same to them. If you take away their damage then what do they have left to offer? Nothing.

Thornmail: Reflects 15% of the physical damage taken (+ 25% bonus armor) from basic attacks and on-hit effects back to its source as magic damage (Calculated before any resistances or reductions are taken into account). It's already OP as is, you get this item when you already have high armor, the damage is calculated before the armor, thing about that damage. Without life steal we should shred ourselves. Basically 50% of the damage we do is reflected back at us, not including life steal.

If anything, it should apply grievous wounds, but in turn completely get rid of the whole reflecting damage back to the source.