Why isn't thornmail more common

fluxanna·6/19/2016, 7:54:42 AM·2 votes·766 views

So I have a hard time understanding why thornmail is not a frequent tank item.

The lolwiki says "theoretically" Having exactly 100 more HP than armor is the most optimal way to increase your effective HP.

However doesn't that suggest you want lots of armor, making a first item thornmail technically speaking a good buy for anyone who has more than... 200 HP?

I know thornmail is a rather infrequent tank item, or even just an item for outright tanky stats. And that's what I can't comprehend very well.

Edit: Thanks a ton to everyone who talked about this, even to the one guy who downvoted this for the strangest reason.

21 Comments

Dominick Destine6/19/2016, 7:59:01 AM4 votes

The damage return is very low.

Lifesteal often beats it, especially in conjunction with magic resist. item 3156 item 3139

TheThundersRoar6/19/2016, 8:18:19 AM3 votes

This is extremely theoretical. In the game, you have to factor in the gold value of each stat, and in actual practice, you can only get health and armor in preset amounts from items.

Sure, theoretically if I have 1500 HP and 200 armor I would rather have 500 AR than 500 HP. But I can only buy so much of each stat with the amount of gold I have. I can't easily buy 500 AR, but I can sure buy 500 HP. Even if I could buy 500 AR, it would cost me a ton of gold and item slots that would've been more effective if I had put them towards HP.

Example: I have 1500 HP and 200 AR. EHP (effective health against physical damage) = HP * (AR/100 + 1) = 4500.

For 3000 gold, I can buy item 3075 + item 1029 + OR item 3083 . + + : HP = 1500, AR = 330. EHP = 6450. : HP = 2300, AR = 200. EHP = 6900.

Obviously, item 3075 is far from ideal in this case, even with the item 1029 . This is because 3000 gold can get me a lot more HP than AR.

Note that the ideal combination of stats is probably something else. For example: item 3143 : HP = 2000, AR = 260. EHP = 7200, higher than both.

At higher HP levels, say, 3000 HP with 150 AR, you probably want to go with AR. At lower HP levels, you want HP. The relationship isn't that simple.

Essentially, you are limited by the gold value of the items, and by the actual preset stats you get from items. In further practice, you have options like passives, actives, or other stats like CDR that you might want from the items. You also have to consider power spikes, your future build path, and what the enemy team's composition is. For example, armor might be the slightly more effective option against physical damage in a certain case, but buying health could be a significantly more effective option against magic damage, and you might need health to survive the mage.

There's a lot of decision making that goes into building a tank, and you have to weigh your options rather than rushing a Thornmail every game. It would be very sub-optimal.

ZT Xperimentor6/19/2016, 8:07:55 AM2 votes

Yes & no, armor stacking significantly suffers from diminishing returns. That is the more armor you get, the less effective it is. While it was supposed to keep people from becoming invincible by buying nothing but armor; they overlooked the dps potential of marksmen, and gave them even more armor penetration.

The other reason is that it's passive flat-out sucks compared to what it used to be. It used to return 30% of damage taken, now reflects 15% of damage taken plus 25% of bonus armor; meaning the retaliation damage is negligible even if the attacker didn't have lifesteal. The passive is only useful on someone that can boost their defense or benefit from stacking armor in the first place, which is a minority of tanks.

67chrome6/19/2016, 8:59:37 AM2 votes

Why isn't thornmail more common So I have a hard time understanding why thornmail is not a frequent tank item.

1 main reason: Tanks and tanky champions don't scale the same way carries do.

Base stats across all champions are ~identical for the purposes of rough math, which is a huge issue for champions who need to be tanky to function but have maybe 10% more HP/Armor/MR than everything squish during the lanning phase (or less if you're Shen or Sion). Especially considering most squishy champions get all the defenses they need to do their job through things like range and mobility for free.

As such: tanky champions want to be a tank right away: you can't really get a big armor item, big HP item, and big MR item where you plan to come online 3 major items into the game like a marksman that purchases a big AD item, big AS item, and big %Armor Pen item. So items like Randuin's Omen and Sunfire Cape that offer a nice mix of Health, Armor, and some added flare are much better to be a well-rounded champion 1 major item in, 2 major items in, and then an average game is over 3 major items in.