MY thoughts on Lethality being strong. (And Lethality guide for dummies)

Im going to be going over the changes of lethality so far, the items themselves, the champions relating to lethality, and how I would fix these. TLDR at the bottom.

I am also not an expert on lethality, it is still a really weird stat to me as I never know how much damage its going to deal. However looking at it logically and since i have seen it a lot i feel like i can speak on the subject.

EDIT: BTW it was 2am when i started this and i did nothing but write when I did this, so if i forgot something or there was something i was wrong about let me know and ill fix it, my brain became jelly after writing for an hour straight.

What is Lethality? Lethality is the replacement to Flat Armor Penetration, Flat armor pen was really strong a few patches ago as it made deleting champions without armor really easy, so Riot reworked it into lethality (Note: Bonus Armor pen is still in the game as it is meant for tanks and doesnt affect squishy champions at all.) Lethality is a stat that gives you 0.6% Armor pen per lethality, that ramps up per target level up to 1% Armor pen. This means that with just a you get 9% armor pen against a level 1 enemy, but 15% armor pen against a level 18 enemy.

Lethality on Release On release Lethality only gave you 0.4% Flat armor pen meaning it scaled throughout the game much harder. The only item people really bought was as people still knew how strong it was, but the other 2 items were kind of unknown and underused. Because of this Riot buffed Lethality making it 0.6% against level 1 enemies making it scale less hard, but providing an immediate boost.

The problem with Lethality The problem with Lethality is with this boost, Lethality grants an instant increase in damage, by much more than other AD items. Crit is mainly strong late game when it has a higher chance. Flat AD cant compete with Lethality. Lethality also grants a large buff to AD casters since they dont auto Crit is useless to them.

This means that ADCs (who arent meant to be building Lethality for the most part) now have a much stronger set of AD items, that are immediate buffs. ADCs usually balanced around being Late Game carries not having really strong items at the start. We also have to remember before this buff the meta was stomping out the enemy bot lane as fast as possible and make it IMPOSSIBLE for the ADC to come back. This immediate damage change stopped that meta fast.

Assassins who ARE supposed to be building Lethality now also have a set of tools to INSTAKILL anyone they see. In a recent change riot tried to change this. What ended up happening though is instead of an Assassin needing to combo you, they can just kill you with 1 ability since their combo is slow now.

The Items of Lethality (and fixes) A lot of these items I'm going to say need buffs, but with how this is formated that is because near the end i am going to say to nerf lethality overall and pre-buff these items weren't in the best spot.

Youmuus change was instead of being an Attack-speed steroid to be abused by ADCs it became just a movement speed steroid. The issue with this is with lethality being overtuned ADCs still buy it anyway JUST for the Lethality. I personally think the nerf it got this patch did it justice and now Lethality just needs to get fixed, and Youmuus would be back to being a balance unabused item.

I think the "movespeed item" is quite fitting of Youmuus (although that might be my PARKOUR bias)

Duckblades change from last patch was to make it lose its Zed ult passive as that was easily abusable. The item itself is a little weak (besides its lethality) as evident by how little it was purchased before the Lethality buff. After lethality gets nerfed i would raise its AD by 5 AND its lethality by 5.

Personally I hate this item, if they want to make it the "Stalker" item i feel like its passives are just a little t0o strange, its a sweeper on an item, as well as an auto-attack buff from ganks. I feel like it should be changed into an item that gets you a bigger bonus the more you wait for the opportune moment, but if its passives stay the same then i would just go with the buffs above.

(I just realized the boards item descriptions havent updated yet but i still know what they are soo...) ANYWAY EoN a very controversial item for sure. The issue with it is its being abused by ADCs HARDCORE, they just throw it on before a fight and bingo. The item was TERRIBLE pre-lethality buffs so this is what i think. The reason the Item is a problem is because the ADCs use the active because they have the item, not because the active itself is good. ADCs want edge for the Lethality not the Spellshield.

The spellshield WHEN NOT ABUSED BY ADCs is actually fairly balanced right now. But it needs to be seen as a utility item, as such -5MR and reduce the cost by 400-500g. (2600-2700g)

Poachers is weak, I dont know if it is just me but it just doesnt feel worth building. But onto the main item, I dont like Serrated Dirk having +20 OoC movespeed as it is a 2nd tier component item it just doesnt feel good. At the same time it needs SOMETHING and we dont need a component item with 10AD or 20Lethality, it needs to give something else. IDK what, honestly, maybe like 5 or 10 flat movespeed? Something to give assassins the ability to slightly outchase opponents WITHOUT movespeed items themselves? I don't know, the OoC movespeed just feels wierd on a component item, Maybe 10 OoC movespeed, if 20 is too much but they still want it. I HAVE NO CLUE.

Abusers of Lethality While all assassins and ADCs are good with lethality these champs are KNOWN for it.

They were really strong after their changes, and even though I love Kha, the nerfs they got were deserved. HOWEVER besides lethality i think they are MOSTLY in a good place since their individual nerfs.

Was a monster in the LCS a few months ago, he got nerfed and has been pretty meh since then. But most of Varus' damage comes from his spells, as such Lethality is a TERROR on Varus, He usually builds crit but that doesnt feel good on Varus (personally) While I think Varus should definitely be able to build Lethality as it feels good on him, it feels TOO good right now. I also think that since he wasnt great before Lethality changes he was COMPLETELY undeserving of the nerfs he was given after Lethality. Once they change Lethality Varus should get a buff.

I love Jhin, he is by far one of if not my FAVORITE champion (I let you know this so you can decide whether or not my bias) Jhin for a long time has been a ADC on the decent side, Ironically enough on NOT pen metas I think he usually sits around the 4th best ADC always. However on Pen metas he IS one of the best ADCs, this is because it is REALLY strong on him. After Lethality gets nerfed he should be back around where he usually is. I think the ult slow nerf was fairly okay on him as to maybe make him SLIGHTLY weaker and make it so if he lands 1 shot he doesnt land all for FREE (although his shots can be a pain to land in the first place. Especially now its a pain) I dont think he is needing of any further changes.

SHOULD NOT GET HER Q NERF. I am not a big fan of MF, her Q chunking was the biggest pain in the ass. But before Lethality she was mostly a support (Damn you ANX) and an ok ADC. Her landing her Q was the ONLY part of Miss Fortune that felt decent at all (unless you land a REALLY good ult) Removing the 50% bonus damage on her Q because lethality makes her an even LESS rewarding champ to play, and is becoming 450ip levels of easy to play. After lethality nerfs she could even potentially use a buff.

HOW DO WE NERF LETHALITY??? Make the scaling start at 0.5% or even 0.45% Its really that simple, if 0.4% was too little, so Riot buffed it to 0.6% and it was WAY too much. Shouldnt they just lower the number? Lethality is a WAY to fast buff in stats too quickly. To the point of the scaling hardly mattering. With all 3 items, as well as runes and masteries you can get up to around 60 or so lethality. meaning you have ~40% flat armor pen at 3 items against a LEVEL 1, but by the time you GET 3 items, if you havent completely stomped the enemy to the point of them LEAVING at level 1 you will have around a 50% flat armor pen.

If you make it scale harder again, you will still be able to get these. But ADCs will buy items BEFORE lethality again, while assassins will still build them because it feels wrong to buy anything else on them. ADCs will also NOT buy all 3 items. they might only buy 1 or 2.

TL;DR I am tired after that OH BOY it took me a solid hour to type it. Anyway, Lethality was weak pre-buff, TOO stong after-buff. The items themselves need buffs. The champs were either in weak or semieven places pre-buff. Lethality needs to go somewhere between 0.4-0.6% starting Flat Armor Pen.