I'm just wondering. It seemed to me like the tradeoff for the huge defensive boost would be foregoing that early penetration. What was the reason behind adding it to the item instead of it building from a pickaxe?
SirPurrr1 votesbecause why not? I was surprised too.
swiftsnipe1 votesmaw used to give some awkward bonus damage based on missing health. i think the idea was to replace that passive
YuGiHo1 votesSo we can build 
And the new ad assassin item along with 19 armor pen from runes and masteries and nullify the shitty armor you get from 
/
and be hit for true damage from 
=D
TehNACHO1 votesI can't help but point out that if you fall behind at all, all of your stacked up Armor Pen is now useless.
Risk is disproportionately high for the reward after all.
YuGiHo1 votesI can't help but point out that if you fall behind at all, all of your stacked up Armor Pen is now useless.
Risk is disproportionately high for the reward after all.
Can you explain how its all useless? marksmen have no armor items, and mages just get hourglass. your 2 most value targets have the least amount of ways they can viably build against a assassin. even if they do fall behind having massive amounts of flat armor pen means you dont need to have very much actual damage so you can fall behind and still be fine.
TehNACHO1 votesI hope you realize that Armor pen, mathematically, is mostly a multiplier in nature. If you're multiplying zero, you're still stuck at zero. If you're multiplying a small number, like the amount of damage you'd do if you fall behind, you won't magically be multiplying into one shot territory.
You also need to consider how long it takes for you to invest in that much Flat Pen. All three items are +3000 gold. By the time you amass all three and presumably boots, it will be well into the late game at many champs will be at their 85 or so average base armor vs your grand total of 59 Armor Pen. You won't ever realistically reach a stage where you are reducing the enemy's Armor to zero with all these massive and slow investments. Meanwhile, every Armor item your opponent buys is disproportionately better than normal because Flat Penetration gets countered by high Armor values on the enemy team.
Zero Skill Tank1 votesMaw of Malmoritius is 'risk'.
Yeah. Totally.
TehNACHO1 votesAgainst just about every other champ in the game it is.
MR shield can, against a balanced team, at most protect you from half the threats of the enemy team.
Whereas Flat Penetration is countered by virtually any and all armor stacking.
Not to mention its massive 3250 gold sink.
It's a great one off rush item against enemy mages, but if you make it the crutch of your build by, for example, obnoxiously stacking 3 3000+ gold Flat Penetration items, it's a risk at that point.
Yosuke Apperu2 votesSo we can build
That still isn't going to hit you for true damage.. lol
TehNACHO1 votesShh, don't tell them. They'll just insist it works and then down vote my posts anyway.
Zero Skill Tank1 votesIt is very important change, back than in S5 it was waay to easy for mages to abuse Zed's energy problems.
TehNACHO1 votesMakes it a very "anti-mage item" vs "generic damage item with MR Shield"
Early penetration is great for fighting squishies, so giving Maw Flat Penetration gives a very roundabout item for an AD champ to purchase to fight mages. This also makes it so any armor the enemy team stacks on you gets amplified, and makes it harder for you to fight tanks. It makes it so that if you are planning to invest against a Mage, you are investing against that Mage for the long haul.
Lao Fu the Tiger1 votesAh thanks! This helps clear it up. :)