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"But thornmail serves its purpose better now"

makkii·7/13/2017, 11:15:18 PM·5 votes·563 views

For the past few days threads have been popping up about the new thornmail, in these threads more than a handful pf people pipe up about how thornmail "fits its niche" or "serves its purpose" better than before, no it doesnt, you're wrong and heres why.

Oft the first thing mentioned in these arguments is grievous wounds, people look at it like some shiny bauble, and say how it means that tmail now provides more anti draintank utility, but they dont bother to read the fine print, which is that it only applies for one second.

What this means is that the GW effect is only relavent when the wearer is being continuously attacked. Now at this point the detractors might be thinking, "well isnt that the point of tmail?" Yes it is

HOWEVER

What this means is that keeping in mind that total healing= Lifesteal-damage taken, the current lesser damage+GW tmail is FUNCTIONALLY no different than the old tmail.

So if they are functionally no different, how do we determine which one "serves its purpose" better?

Simple

Damage recieved vs healing recieved.

lets take for example An adc with 300 dmg IE 0 arp and 60% crit base magic resist of about 28%

With say 20 % lifesteal think DD+ masteries or BT alone

Before armore including crits every hit averages 570 damage

Lets assume for this calculation that the person being hit has 220 bonus armor 250 total Post nerf tmail

Damage per hit to recipient: 165 Damage done to aDc with 28% mr: 33 Lifesteal with GW applied: 18 Healing total: -15

Pre nerf tmail

Damage per hit to recipient: 165 Damage done to adc: 106 Lifesteal: 33 Healing total-: -72

How about 200 total armor 170 bonus with same adc stats?

Post nerf:

Damage to recipient: 188 Damage to adc with 28% mr: 30 Lifesteal: 22 Total healing: -8

Pre nerf

Damage to recipient: 188 Damage to adc with mr 91.8 Lifesteal: 37 Total healing: -55

150 bonus 180 total?

Post nerf Damage to recipient: 205 Damage to adc with 28% mr: 29 Lifesteal with gw: 24 total Healing: -4

Pre nerf Damage to recipient: 205 Damage to adc WITH 28% MR: 88 Lifesteal: 42 totaL Healing: -46

Alright but what about a higher lifesteal count?

How bout a 380 damage 30% crit 35% life steal? Avg damage per hit before armor: 551 250 total armor

Pre nerf:

Damage to recipient: 160 Damage to adc: 98 Lifesteal 56 total Healing -42

Post damage to recipient: 160 damage to adc: 34 lifesteal with GW: 34 total Healing: 0

200 total

Pre damage to recipient: 133 damage to adc: 92 lifesteal 47 total Healing: - 45

Post damage to recipient: 133 damage to adc: 30 lifesteal: 47 total Healing: +17

As both trends show, old tmail inhibits drain tanking better in both situations, as a note, the gap would close slightly if mercurial is bought but not enough to make a difference.

Caveats: cold steel, this is a double edged sword, yes it slows healing by slowing attacks, however, they arent healing until sub 190 armor these calculations were made with both pre and post recipients having the same armor, but new tmail has less which technically widens the gap, so these things somewhat counter eachother.

Tmail is now better vs bruisers, but they werent draintanking like adc's do they get ls/vamp? Yes, but they get less of it and less crit in exchange for actual defensive stats, so its less of an issue in the first place and tmail wasnt built with countering bruisers in mind.

Im not going to post the math for armor pen but if you do do the math you will reach one conclusion, the only way old tmail becomes even possibly equivalent let alone worse to new tmail is through the golden trifecta /lifesteal/bonus magic resist/armor pen, this means you HAD to build mercurial+(bt/dd/bork)+Mortal/doms in order to completely counteract thornmail.

Now since the power of old tmails damage has been converted for the GW effect you can effectively forgo getting mr to counter tmail.

Which means adc's can now opt for higher damage builds while still countering tmail for example BT+Mort/doms+TBC

The thornmail change has made it easier to itemize high ARP builds that require little to no Bonus MR, which makes the tanks who build tmail lives even harder.

16 Comments

Pippen The Short7/13/2017, 11:33:43 PM2 votes

Man, you put a lot of effort into this to be wrong.

I've never bothered building as consistently as I do now. Cold Steel + Health + Damage reflection = a more generally viable item. If you catch someone out and get them low, Thornmail actually gives you a chance. Whereas originally the ADC only need to evade long enough to lifesteal back to full heath.

Thornmail beforehand was somewhat useless unless you're against an all AD team. But even then, if the ADC could output damage fast enough and lifesteal high enough it was still only a subpar at best. It would have been better to choose either a Frozen Heart or Randuins. In terms of utility and overall function they are better.

rtbf2216514127/14/2017, 2:01:57 AM1 votes

Were people not complaining about how bad the new thornmail was?

Why is it being praised like five hours to a day later?

makkii7/14/2017, 4:18:32 AM1 votes

also in reference to late game builds, it is important to note that in conjunction with the talent warlords bloodlust your typical attack speed/crit adc build will completely negate any damage done by thornmail with a single lifesteal item, before any armor pen is even considered, if you look at my numbers above, almost all new tmail calculations for health fluctuation are in the single digit damage range or single/double digit healing range depending on the armor value meaning a single energized attack with 300 ad which is 120x.6 because of grievous wounds is 72 healing which given the rate of energized attacks lategame is enough to fully negate any negative health fluctuation from the new thornmail(with i repeat, a single lifesteal item, no armor pen, no magic resist).

so much for a deterrent.

every other subclass in the game has to at some point alter their typical build to fit the situation, outside of heavy mage teams, prenerf thornmail was the only thing that forced(albeit not so well) adc's to alter build for maximum efficiency, now adc's can completely ignore thornmail exists with a stock build.