Official petition to restore Thornmail, Randuin's, and Frozen Heart

Eedat·Oct 24, 2015·336 votes·8,389 views

This is the official petition to undo the nerfs on and

Seriously Riot. Every single champ that gets reworked recently has some way of flat out ignoring defenses. Whether it be true damage or passive armor shreds.

get %max HP true damage

ignores 40% of armor on his barrels

gets a passive 25% armor shred and a massive true damage ult

You (Riot) gave these champs these mechanics and buffed them so that they would become popular. These defensive items are now horribly gold inefficient for the meta that you have created in top lane. These are the items that are traditionally built early on various top laners. You've created a top lane meta where defenses get ignored while nerfing defensive items. Add this to the fact that these are the best items for also dealing with Sated Devourer.

It's time to undo those item nerfs Riot.

164 Comments

Reaper ReviewOct 24, 201535 votes

{quoted} These defensive items are now horribly gold inefficient for the meta that you have created in top lane.

Frozen Heart is 124.35% gold efficient without its aura, making it still one of the most outright gold-efficient items in the game IIRC. It used to be THE most efficient item until they raised its price.

The other two could maybe stand for a small efficiency buff, but not in raw stats.

EedatOct 25, 201539 votes

Frozen Heart is 124.35% gold efficient without its aura,

Too bad it's combat stats get ignored by true damage and a large portion of its stats get ignored by passive armor shreds. You're not looking at actual combat stats. If you build frozen heart to deal with Darius and he gets 25% armor shred for free then that Frozen heart is only effectively giving you 67 armor no? And against true damage that 90 armor is worthless correct?

Reaper ReviewOct 25, 201530 votes

{quoted}

Too bad it's combat stats get ignored by true damage and a large portion of its stats get ignored by passive armor shreds. You're not looking at actual combat stats. If you build frozen heart to deal with Darius and he gets 25% armor shred for free then that Frozen heart is only effectively giving you 67 armor no? And against true damage that 90 armor is worthless correct?

Then the issue there lies with Armor-shred effects, not the items themselves. Frozen Heart grants the second-highest amount of flat Armor in the game behind Thornmail's 100.

So, possibly, what needs to be looked at is both Armor shreds and ways to mitigate physical ability damage, since Randuin's, FH, and Thornmail are all designed to help more against heavy AA users than casters.

EedatOct 25, 201519 votes

Then the issue there lies with Armor-shred effects, not the items themselves

Correct. Thats why the nerfs were fine was fine before the Juggernauts and other reworks. But Riot has created a top lane meta where defensive stats get ignored. These Items are traditionally top lane and jungle items. Especially early in the game. So now we're stuck with a top Meta crowded with true damage and free armor pen with the available counterbuild items in a nerfed state

helioseismologisOct 25, 20152 votes

[deleted]

EedatOct 25, 201512 votes

I really don't think Kindred is the same. She does % current HP as AD damage with no gimmicky free armor pen

Need Gold 4 TentOct 25, 20157 votes

The problem with % damage is not that it's a whole load of damage (well, in a way it is depending on your target) but rather, you do consistent damage without needing to itemize much for it since it scales off the opponent.

With that, instead of building more damage, you could go tank and still shred tanks and squishies alike, although you probably won't "nuke" a squishy with an IE crit like you would if you built damage. BoRK alone was fine, because it was limited at 1 item but when you have champs who stack it with their own kit (Vayne/Kindred) you get this monster that nobody can tank anymore.

TheGauntlerOct 25, 20152 votes

the problem with kindred is, all his damage is physical. enough armor shuts them down, so something like rammus is a nightmare for kindred

Hyrum GraffOct 25, 20158 votes

{quoted}

the problem with kindred is, all his damage is physical. enough armor shuts them down, so something like rammus is a nightmare for kindred

*their damage

JRobin31Oct 25, 20152 votes

item 3053

Earthlord JazzOct 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Too bad it's combat stats get ignored by true damage and a large portion of its stats get ignored by passive armor shreds. You're not looking at actual combat stats. If you build frozen heart to deal with Darius and he gets 25% armor shred for free then that Frozen heart is only effectively giving you 67 armor no? And against true damage that 90 armor is worthless correct?

He only gets that % of shred at level 18, he will spend the far majority of the game with only 5% penetration...but I uppose you can account for Black Cleaver getting 25% shred as it will get this amount on every auto no matter what due to his bleed

Auz the RipperOct 25, 20153 votes

And he will rush BC

uwu meowOct 25, 20154 votes

Uhhh you'd have to be bronze to max W second on Darius

xTarielOct 26, 20153 votes

http://www.probuilds.net/guide/KR/2125325887/11943292 http://www.probuilds.net/guide/KR/2123827600/1225219

or be korean i guess.

Earthlord JazzOct 26, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Code EIectra,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=GjmtLE0i,comment-id=0002000000020001,timestamp=2015-10-25T10:46:39.538+0000)

Uhhh you'd have to be bronze to max W second on Darius

If you'd care to look on Mobafire, you'll notice that of the first 7 most popular/highly voted builds for Darius, 5 out of those 7 have him maxing W second. Notice how the majority of those are at least Gold, more being Plat or higher, a far cry from "bronze". Of course, in certain match-ups you'd rather max E second, but it seems from this data that the majority of "high level Darius players" max W first.

But then again I don't play Darius much...If you want to compare rank to determine whether a decision is "bronze" or not (a thought that disgusts me), then I would have you take your own medicine and listen to your higher-ups.

Sorry for acting like such a prick, but it pushes my button when people label bronze players when a large majority of the playerbase do the same things as "bronzies"

Dunkrius2gOct 25, 20155 votes

That is why you don't build frozen heart against Darius. Frozen heart gives you the armor which is better than no armor and an attack speed reduction, which is pretty vital to the shit amount of attack speed Darius already has.

You or in this case, the player, should be building a combination of both armor and health. Armor because he deals purely physical damage outside of his ult and health to counter his true damage. Building a item 3143 or item 3742 is pretty effective against him because of the armor and health. Just to make sure, he doesn't "shred" armor, he penetrates anyone's armor for himself. It only becomes shredding when he has item 3071 which is all the time. The last statement isn't a big thing.

Lastly, armor is never useless. They changed his passive from magic damage to physical and nerfed the damage so that you can build defense against him. A prime example that does well against Darius is Renekton . He has heal and high damage. He also has "shredding" capabilities that is also tied to his escape. He can successfully harass safety and get out without having to worry about getting pulled in. His Ult gives him HP which is a big plus.

Frozen Hearts efficiency is not solely tied to just Darius. It is also tied to the whole enemy team. if everyone is on you, then you basically have a 75% attack speed reduction in total (15% for each champion). Thats pretty good just for 2600 and those pesky aa reliant champs. And Darius falls under this category as well. Outside of his Q and ult, he will be aa.

Valhala Warior31Oct 25, 201511 votes

you forgot to say that these champs build item 3071

TaarkiOct 25, 20154 votes

OK, so even if these items were restored to before the nerf, they still wouldn't do anything against the true damage, Correct?

ChangstyOct 25, 20152 votes

The problem is that "gold efficiency" itself is derived from the basic items. In light of all the armor penetration and %health true damage getting introduced whether a cloth armor is worth 300 is debatable.

RenailleOct 25, 201519 votes

{quoted} Seriously Riot. Every single champ that gets reworked recently has some way of flat out ignoring defenses. gets a passive 25% armor shred and a massive true damage ult

In all fairness, he already had both of those things. And it isn't shred, it is applied the same way as last whisper.

[{quoted}](name=Naut A Liss,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=GjmtLE0i,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-10-24T23:50:59.745+0000)

Frozen Heart is 124.35% gold efficient without its aura, making it still one of the most outright gold-efficient items in the game IIRC. It used to be THE most efficient item until they raised its price.

The other two could maybe stand for a small efficiency buff, but not in raw stats.

Frozen Heart is cost effective sure, but it's not very combat effective. Against most team comps, the ammount of tankiness you get from Frozenheart is quite low because the item is useless against magic damage and it doesn't have any health to back up its armour.

DengedenOct 25, 20154 votes

Frozen Heart is cost effective sure, but it's not very combat effective. Against most team comps, the amount of tankiness you get from Frozenheart is quite low because the item is useless against magic damage and it doesn't have any health to back up its armour.

The CDR and mana is still incredibly useful in all situations.

YumaS2AstralOct 24, 201512 votes

I think that the reason they nerfed the armor items is exactly because of the Juggernauts. Do you think they are already oppressive now? Imagine if they had the old Thormail, Frozen Heart, and Randuin's Omen. They would be absolutely oppressive.

I am not defending the armor nerfs or the Juggernauts. I just think that this maybe is the reason why they nerfed the armor items.

Dunkrius2gOct 24, 20154 votes

Hit their scaling and revert those items' nerfs. You dont necessarily need to do the opposite.

Mecha MaIphiteOct 25, 201510 votes

Out of all the three, Thornmail is the one I miss most. It was the reason I could fight back against those filthy ranged top players.

royalpasteOct 25, 20154 votes

also thornmail made playing against a Tryndamere a little more bearable

KalarepaOct 25, 20158 votes

Let's say, that I'm jungle Zac. The enemy AD juggernaut/caster is getting fed, so I want to counter him. What armor items can I buy? Dead's man plate? I'm not AD. Frozen Heart? I'm manaless and reducking attack speed won't do much to a Darius or Garen. Iceborn Gauntlet? Again, I'm manaless. Ninja Tabi? Ok, but once again countering base attacks won't do much vs Darius or Garen. Randuin? It counters crits and autoattacks. Sunfire? I already have Cinderhulk and burning aura won't do much to stacking MR bruisers anyway. Thornmail? Again, it counters autoattacks and Riot nerfed it hard.

Wtf can I even buy? Only situational items like Ohmwrecker, Zz'Rot Portal or Zhonya? Imo the biggest problem with juggernauts is that the true tanks can't buy any good and gold-efficient tank item to deal with them.

JingerbeardmanOct 25, 20153 votes

thornmail wasnt a nerf... wish people actually knew how it used to work then maybe they would shut up...

RetillinOct 25, 201523 votes

But it was a nerf until you get to a level of armour (can't remember the number) where it becomes stronger. So rushing it is REALLY bad now.

JingerbeardmanOct 25, 20152 votes

wrong... so horribly wrong. Old thornmail did jack squat in the earlygame because no ones auto attacks (except a rare few) ever did any real damage. I remember so many games playing rammus where I rushed thorn and the ADC barely got hurt hitting me outside of ball curl cause i mitigated them so much the return was pathetic.

Now when I rush thornmail no one can do jack squat to me without killing themselves. How is that in a weaker state than it was?

SasogwaOct 25, 201529 votes

{quoted}

wrong... so horribly wrong. Old thornmail did jack squat in the earlygame because no ones auto attacks (except a rare few) ever did any real damage. I remember so many games playing rammus where I rushed thorn and the ADC barely got hurt hitting me outside of ball curl cause i mitigated them so much the return was pathetic.

Now when I rush thornmail no one can do jack squat to me without killing themselves. How is that in a weaker state than it was?

Because Rammus is the only champion in the game where new Thornmail is slightly better than old one?

Remlap1223Oct 25, 201510 votes

Hey, quit making such a drastic hyperbole. It is better on Malphite too.

Obvious sarcasm.

RikariOct 25, 20157 votes

having 400 armor,78% resistance does 60 damage to the user + 15% of the incoming damage. Botrk gives max%hp damage and 10% lifesteal while bloodthirster gives 20% lifesteal,so its rather ineffective now. we haven't even mentioned how useless it is with armor penetration.

disregardableOct 25, 20152 votes

Keep in mind lifesteal is AFTER resistances while thornmail is BEFORE. LS (regardless of the item) always loses. Sometimes it will only lose by like 20 damage though, which in most cases may not be worth sinking 2300 gold into, especially considering it's a worthless item if the AD doesn't attack you.

Auz the RipperOct 25, 20152 votes

Actually no, with the new Thornmail only reflecting 15% it's quite easy to get positive returns from lifesteal

disregardableOct 26, 20152 votes

I've done the math in a few scenarios before. I've never seen it. Feel free to prove your point mathematically. Don't forget to add on the 25% bonus armor (which includes the 100 you get from thornmail).

JingerbeardmanOct 25, 20151 votes

nope. The 15% damage return is before mitigation, meaning if you get hit for 1000 damage it will return 150+25% of your current armor.

Lifesteal on the other hand is based on how much damage is dealt after mitigation and then calculates the healing return off of that amount.

What does that mean without crazy complex math? you are hit by an auto attack that crit to deal 1000 damage before mitigation but deals 400 damage after mitigation.

Thornmails effect activates and returns 15% of the damage of the attack before mitigation (aka 150) in addition to dealing an extra 25% of however much armor 60% physical reduction is (lets just round it to 50 even though it is probably more). total damage returned? 200

The attackers lifesteal kicks in and heals them for 20% of 400 damage, which is 80 health.

thornmail hits for 200 damage and they get healed for 80 health = they are still taking 120 damage without factoring in magic resistance (closer to 95 if you did)

lets take the same situation with old thornmail and its 30% return of damage taken. attacker still has 20% lifesteal and hits you for 1000 damage reduced to 400 after mitigation.

Old thornmail did not look at the damage before mitigation and instead calculated off damage after mitigation and so returns 120 damage

The attacker still returns 80 health from the 400 damage they deal.

old thornmail hits for 120 and they heal 80 from lifesteal = they only take 40 damage (closer to 30 after resistances)

so you tell me, would you rather have thornmail return 120/95 damage or 40/30 damage

######by the way 25% of 400 is 100, not 60. Also armor penetration like last whisper and yomuus does not effect your damage calculated from armor, Debuffs however do so BC would reduce that return. Bork does not deal %max hp damage either, you need to read the items more closely.

Lagrange25Oct 25, 20153 votes

Old thornmail worked before damage reduction o.O I'm pretty sure, because I used to stack Armor on Taric, and people would deal like 20 damage and still get like 200 from Thornmail.

disregardableOct 25, 20152 votes

That was a good nerf, though. It was really cheesy and low counterplay when you rushed it . The problem is that they also nerfed its late most of the time, when its late game really needed a buff to make up for the early game nerf. An ideal solution may have been to have it scale with level, like 15/25/45 % damage done and remove the bonus armor thing.

That'd be a pretty huge late game buff, but Thornmail was already pretty underplayed before its nerfs. It does need to be rewarding.

Hayaishi2Oct 25, 20153 votes

People actually think thornmail was healthy.

TurquoiseYoshiOct 25, 201510 votes

It used to be viable. Now it isn't, except on Malph, Rammus, and Taric, and against full AD comps.

BonipherusOct 25, 20151 votes

I've never thought it was healthy tbh. You shouldn't deal damage by getting hit. That's punishing a marksman who is doing their job and rewarding someone else for taking damage. I still build it late game now if I'm a tank but I still feel as though this item is poorly designed and perhaps even a little on the toxic side.

iamthegoatofwarOct 25, 20155 votes

no that's rewarding the tank for drawing their aggro. thornmail does nothing to mages and ad casters like zed (besides the armor boost anyway passive doesn't effect them.)

BonipherusOct 25, 20151 votes

A tank drawing the marksman's aggro is reward enough as far as team play is concerned. That damage dealt to a marksman isn't deserved because the tank has not earned that damage through their own skill. Also it doesn't matter in any way, shape, or form if it doesn't reflect damage from abilities because I am talking about the inherent unfair interaction where an auto attacking marksman can play perfectly and stay out of range of a tank's abilities and still take damage; damage that can actually end up killing them. That's being punished for playing correctly and it is bad design.

TTUPhoenixOct 25, 20155 votes

Perhaps the Marksman should have the bright idea to attack someone else.

Troll for TrumpOct 25, 20153 votes

Darius always had 25% armor pen prerework. He gets the 25% at max rank E, he ALWAYS maxes it last, so it's usually 5% for a while. Stop adding true damage it's pointless. And I'm fine with armor pen, heck, Talon gets armor pen runes, masteries, Youmuus, Last Whisper, and Blackcleaver, and your armor is basically nothing. Even with the older armor.

dangopeeOct 25, 20153 votes

You max E second now. No reason to max W second as the only thing leveling it does now is reduce its cool down by one second, nothing else, no damage increase or slow increase whatsoever. Leveling E reduces its cool down by 3 seconds and gives 5% more armor pen. It's just better all around.

BoswickOct 25, 20153 votes

Thornmail needs it at the very least. FH is still okay, and at least Randuins has the slow..... but Thornmail is completely fucking useless.

DealthOct 25, 20152 votes

New thorn mail is a lot more geared towards this meta since most attack speed champs are building on-hit now. Champions who build devourer and Bortk have very low AD so the old thornmail wouldn't do as much. Now thornmail can still be effective against these items.

Frozen heart and Randuins are perfectly fine. They are now more situational instead of a staple in every build which is they way that they should be. Now you actually have to think about which item to buy, especially with the new tank items thrown into the mix.

PS: Can people stop putting "Official" in front of things to make it sound like they know what they are talking about? It's not from Riot so obviously it's not official.

YumaS2AstralOct 25, 20156 votes

{quoted}

New thorn mail is a lot more geared towards this meta since most attack speed champs are building on-hit now. Champions who build devourer and Bortk have very low AD so the old thornmail wouldn't do as much. Now thornmail can still be effective against these items.

Frozen heart and Randuins are perfectly fine. They are now more situational instead of a staple in every build which is they way that they should be. Now you actually have to think about which item to buy, especially with the new tank items thrown into the mix.

PS: Can people stop putting "Official" in front of things to make it sound like they know what they are talking about? It's not from Riot so obviously it's not official.

Until you realize that most attack speed champs that are not ADC have on-hit magic and/or true damage effects. In addition, they tend to build tanky, and with a small amount of HP or magic resistance, they take little to no damage from Thornmail.

RetillinOct 25, 20151 votes

Won't happen. They can't until the Marksman Update is out. Then they can see how the two interact before changing anything.