Is it ok to take hp/level seals on everyone?

Dasdi96·Dec 7, 2016·4 votes·903 views

I find armor seals to be way less efficient than hp/level seals past level 6, and the first 5 levels dont last much.

29 Comments

EschetonDec 7, 20162 votes

I like building mr/lvl and armor/lvl on health stackers. Other than that, health/lvl seems objectively better now. Unless you have high regen/lifesteal or something. Then you want the hp to have weight. Not to have more flat hp.

dakota saturnDec 7, 20162 votes

The first 5 levels dictate the rest of laning phase and is one of the most important parts of the entire match. You -should- be picking your runes to help your early game as much as possible, and if you're vsing a AD-reliant assassin like Talon or Zed, yes you should take armor runes 100% of the time.

If you're vsing a snowball champion, a single kill in lane will mean the difference between being able to hold your own, being able to waveclear meaningfully, and being able to roam after said waveclear, or cowering under turret the entire laning phase and letting the enemy do whatever they want all over the map.

NineTailedMysticDec 7, 20161 votes

I really like HP/level Seals even in AD match ups because it give more Effective HP when you pick up Seeker's.

dakota saturnDec 7, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I really like HP/level Seals even in AD match ups because it give more Effective HP when you pick up Seeker's.

Seeker's is 1200 gold, and is a pretty big commitment. You are giving up potential CDR, mana regen, flat mana, and a good deal of AP to get it. If you want to pick up a second doran's for the extra health, that's now 1600 gold you have to farm to be safer in lane. If you don't have the flat armor runes to get you by until you're able to pick it up, you're in a pretty bad spot in lane vs Talon/Zed/Darius, etc, because not only do they have such huge pressure if they do end up getting a kill, but you also have to change your build even if you do manage to do well in the early game.

Picking scaling anything vs a snowball, early game champion like the above is not a good idea - a truly scary champion will end the game by 20 minutes, all stemming from that one kill you gave them at lv 4 because you took scaling hp and scaling resists and lost a trade.

nm1010Dec 7, 20161 votes

Let me take it to a math level, at level 6 you have 38 more effective health ( I forget who I did these on originally, Leblanc I think?) with scaling hp rather than armor. The only other hard spikes champions have mid lane are level 2-3 usually, at this point you have less than 22 effective health difference. Plus you are more resistant to ignite all ins, this means that you are losing very little level 2-3 while gaining a huge amount of resistance to level 6+ all ins.

Once you pick up a cloth armor even these numbers jump up to ~100 extra effective health which is a very significant chunk of hp. It is even better since armor pen was nerfed assassins have a hard time getting through early armor.

dakota saturnDec 7, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Let me take it to a math level, at level 6 you have 38 more effective health ( I forget who I did these on originally, Leblanc I think?) with scaling hp rather than armor. The only other hard spikes champions have mid lane are level 2-3 usually, at this point you have less than 22 effective health difference. Plus you are more resistant to ignite all ins, this means that you are losing very little level 2-3 while gaining a huge amount of resistance to level 6+ all ins.

Well - 1 point of armor = 1% more worth of hp they have to do to kill you. Essentially, vs ad damage 9 armor = +9% hp. Meaning it already is scaling with the HP gains your champion gets per level.

LeBlanc is another example of a champ you want to take flat resists and flat HP against. You want to avoid giving her an early kill by all means necessary - because she is one of the hardest snowball champs, along with Kata, Talon, and other assassins. When I play LB, my goal is to get a kill before the enemy hits 6 and gets their ult, and an enemy taking flat resists and flat HP makes that very difficult. When I see an enemy come into lane with scaling MR and scaling HP, it's basically a free lane, and I'm going to be much more likely to all-in early because I know my burst will kill them.

Let's say you're playing Lux at level 5 with flat armor. She will have 873 HP without any hp runes. Taking 9 flat armor seals gives her a whopping 78 effective HP based on her level 5 health. This is far better for her survivability than taking scaling hp runes, and has full effectiveness from levels 1-5, the most critical levels for the Lux to not die. Lux dying to a Talon Yasuo or Zed before 5 is devastating and she will be free food until her jungler bails her out. Once Lux hits 6, like most midlaners, she gets a huge amount of outplay and kill potential and it's all about surviving to get to that point to win the lane. It's the Zed/Yasuo/Talon's job to kill her before she reaches that point.

Just a single death against one of the above mentioned champions can singlehandedly lose the entire match for your team. If you're playing against a snowball reliant champion -ALWAYS- take the flat resists over scaling.

nm1010Dec 7, 20161 votes

Maybe if base armor didn't exist you would be right, however as I already explained (and will now do again) the difference is negligable pre6 especially vs ignite where the hp is actually better.

Lux at level 3 effective hp with flat armor

594 hp x 24.6 base armor and 9 flat armor = 793.584 effective health

Level 3 with scaling hp

[594 hp + (1.33 per level x 9 seals x 3 level)] x 24.6 base armor = 784.868 effective health (629.91 actual hp so you have 35 extra hp for ignite survivability)

As you can see if ignite accounts for 9 hp of damage the scaling hp is already better for all in defense at level 3.

dakota saturnDec 7, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Maybe if base armor didn't exist you would be right, however as I already explained (and will now do again) the difference is negligable pre6 especially vs ignite where the hp is actually better.

Lux at level 3 effective hp with flat armor

594 hp x 24.6 base armor and 9 flat armor = 793.584 effective health

Level 3 with scaling hp

[594 hp + (1.33 per level x 9 seals x 3 level)] x 24.6 base armor = 784.868 effective health (629.91 actual hp so you have 35 extra hp for ignite survivability)

As you can see if ignite accounts for 9 hp of damage the scaling hp is already better for all in defense at level 3.

Why would the base armor have any impact on the calculation? It's a flat, linear increase. The enemy is going to all-in after poking you down, they're not going to 100-0 you without jungler help.

You take the armor to mitigate the poking they will potentially do with combos - they will only use the ignite once you've been brought low enough for it to kill you. With the flat armor, it will make the difference between 1 combo putting you in kill range, or 2 combos. If you have that extra breathing room, you can potentially back between waves when you're lvl 4-5 and buy an extra doran ring and potions, even further extending the value of the armor seals. If you had the scaling HP runes, you would be dead instead, or forced to turret hug until you farmed enough gold for a 2nd dorans and potions.

I will say that 70% of the time, I use flat HP, not armor when I am mid. But vs a AD-reliant champion (Talon, Yas, Zed), flat armor seals are the way to go.

nm1010Dec 7, 20161 votes

You don't quite understand how effective hp works do you? It is the amount of damage they have to do to kill you with that damage type. Base armor matters because of the multiplicative scaling with hp it has, if the starting ratio was 0 it would be more worth it to start your multiplicative scaling immediately.

Poking doesn't matter, effective hp is still the required amount of damage to kill someone regardless of how quickly that damage is done. If the ignite covers more than 9 damage than the hp has given you more effective damage you can take than armor did.

It sounds like you honestly just get your ass kicked mid whenever you go vs ad assassins and are trying to justify your rune choices. Flat health at level 3 is 829.836 effective health so if you are losing so badly so early you should be going flat hp so that you have more effective hp.

If large amounts of armor pen at level 1 were still possible flat armor would be worth, but it isn't and they aren't as is mathematically proven above.

NineTailedMysticDec 7, 20161 votes

Seeker's is 1200 gold, and is a pretty big commitment. You are giving up potential CDR, mana regen, flat mana, and a good deal of AP to get it.

You say to take these flat Armor seals against these big scary AD mid laners, yet you imply you're going to pick anything other than Seeker's up against them. With an early back you can easily pick up Cloth Armor and a second Doran's which is 15 Armor and 120 HP + the scaling HP runes. It gives a safer levels 4-6 at the cost of 1-3.

dakota saturnDec 7, 20161 votes

{quoted}

You say to take these flat Armor seals against these big scary AD mid laners, yet you imply you're going to pick anything other than Seeker's up against them. With an early back you can easily pick up Cloth Armor and a second Doran's which is 15 Armor and 120 HP + the scaling HP runes. It gives a safer levels 4-6 at the cost of 1-3.

Because not taking a 2nd dorans ring is a big hit on your hp, mana regen, and ap. If you go 1x dorans straight into seeker's, you'll likely run into mana issues - and AD-reliant mid laners are in general manaless (Talon excluded), and can always rely on auto atks anyway to still damage you quite a lot.

Of course I'm going to get a seeker's vs these champions, and usually as a 3rd item, but having the armor seals is what allows you to get the 2nd dorans, instead of having to get cloth first and running OOM much faster than you would otherwise.

Dasdi96Dec 7, 20161 votes

{quoted}

You say to take these flat Armor seals against these big scary AD mid laners, yet you imply you're going to pick anything other than Seeker's up against them. With an early back you can easily pick up Cloth Armor and a second Doran's which is 15 Armor and 120 HP + the scaling HP runes. It gives a safer levels 4-6 at the cost of 1-3.

Buying a 2nd dorans ring is actually a waste because it clogs up your inventory and you will have to sell it later in the game. Remember, games last longer than 20 minutes, so if you have 2 dorans rings, you end up losing 480 gold when you inevitable sell them mid to late game.

nm1010Dec 7, 20161 votes

You make it up by going more cost efficient items throughout the game such as dark seal + dorans with refillable is a very strong buy that gets you extra mana, ~30 extra hp from each charge of the refillable, and any stacks you get from dark seal. Abyssal, protobelt, zhonyas, void staff, ionian boots, and rylais now are all very cheap items that can give you strong mid game power spikes to win games off of.

NineTailedMysticDec 7, 20162 votes

Doran's items are Gold Efficient not Slot Efficient. Yes, you're going to need the slot later on, but early game Doran's give you the best bang for your buck. There's a reason why old Rengar found success top with like 5 Doran's Blades

nm1010Dec 7, 20161 votes

After the armor pen nerf hp/level is almost always better. All you have to do is build a cloth if you know your lane opponent will get a lethality item first and you have more effective health than armor seals past level 5. I actually thought no one would notice this so you get a +1.

WeatheredDec 7, 20161 votes

Its ok, it might not be the most optimal choice but if it works better for your playstyle go HP per lvl

OglafDec 7, 20161 votes

Only one I would definitely say no to is a Jungler because the early Armour is invaluable.

RisenDarkKnightDec 7, 20161 votes

Depends a bit. HP/LVL seals are better lategame, but there are some places you want to take flat runes not per lvl:

Jungle: Most junglers need flat armor seals to help in their first clear, but you can take hp/lvl seals on jungler with good sustain.
Support/ADC: support and adcs are generally lower level than mid/top/jg, so it takes longer for per lvl runes to even out/pass flat runes. So most people rune armor seals on adcs, and flat health seals on supports (because supports often take armor marks).
If you are laning mid/top vs an AD champion that has kill pressure pre 6: armor seals can make a big difference in survivability in the first few levels, so if you have a scary lane matchup where you need to be careful to survive, hp/lvl seals are not the best choice.

Also, high sustain champions: champions with a lot of self heals/lifesteal beneift more from resistances than health, so you'd generally be better off running armor/lvl seals (which are very efficient too), since the effective health they are regening scales with resists, but may not scale with max HP.

agbudarDec 7, 20161 votes

they are one of the strongest scaling runes out there so yea why not abuse it

MunchCrunchLunchDec 7, 20161 votes

no. I've taken hp per level instead of armor seals against ekko diana before. looks at death recap. their autos did more damage than their abilities.

first off. they are a no no in the jungle. never. at all

in lane however only against match ups that won't auto you. against ad its a no no.

IcyPepperDec 7, 20161 votes

Midlaners going against AP midlaners occasionally take those.

You're fine if you want to take them. The point of midlaning is to level up faster than everyone else anyway.

EnlegacyDec 7, 20161 votes

As long as you are not up against a bad AD matchup as a mid mage or if you are in jungle. For junglers, flat armor is a must-have.

Dasdi96Dec 7, 20161 votes

{quoted}

As long as you are not up against a bad AD matchup as a mid mage or if you are in jungle. For junglers, flat armor is a must-have.

I dont actually have trouble clearing the jungle because I play tank junglers and run armor quints.

ZerenzaDec 7, 20161 votes

I take it on mid laner's a lot cause the extra health is really REALLY nice.

LegenDariusGarenDec 7, 20161 votes

I have done the math on several champions and HP/Level is stronger until level 15ish. At level 18, armor per level grants like 100 additional effective physical damage HP. However, HP is good against magic damage. So you will have a much higher effective magic damage HP. So I recommend it.

Here is a link showing the numbers on Garen. http://imgur.com/44iiRBL?Noredirect

nm1010Dec 7, 20161 votes

Should be noted that due to multiplicative scaling any champ ~3k hp will benefit much more from resistances than hp until they have ~ 2k armor/mr. I am about 6 years out of calculus or I would find the exact ratio of health to resistance for you.

LegenDariusGarenDec 7, 20161 votes

I only used cloth armor. You should ideally have both. However, OP was asking about everyone, and not everyone builds defensive items. I personally buy a defensive item on my main after 3 offensive items.

nm1010Dec 7, 20161 votes

I got what you were doing in the picture, I was just trying to say on a non-bruiser the level scaling resists overtake hp will be different. Sorry the post was pretty rough (in wording and math) due to me being on mobile now.

LegenDariusGarenDec 7, 20161 votes

It is actually about the same. Happens right around level 15.