New Thornmail will be a godsend against Devourer!

junglerboy16·Aug 4, 2015·2 votes·1,922 views

Thornmail: 2300g (was 2100g), now reflects 15% damage + 25% of your bonus Armor (was 30% damage). Rewards using Thornmail with other armor effects, allows the damage reflect to still be significant against enemies dealing much of their damage through on hit effects instead of raw auto attack damage (e.g. Vayne). Significantly weaker as a sole Armor item however. This is about as big as this set of changes gets by the way, most of the others are just stat adjustments, not functionality changes."

This is actually a big help to tanks because it means that for all those games where they need a lot of armor but couldn't kill the devourer user because of their on-hits not proccing thornmail, now they actually stand a chance!

This change is also Rammus approved! "Ok."

23 Comments

Hasztalan2Aug 4, 20157 votes

This is actually a lot worse. A critting 900 dmg return on 300 dmg is no baffle but with this new mechanism u'll need to stack ONLY armor to make worth. After 400 armor u get 100 bonus dmg which is not much. 225 thats like 1/3 dps lose.

Against simple autohitter enemies like u mentioned devourer carriers sure it'll be better however thornmail now will stop bing the only thing which makes a melee champ have any chance against a lateagame ranged physical dps dealer particularly watching the adcs now. I dislike this change.

junglerboy16Aug 4, 20151 votes

Wow, I should have mathed before rejoicing.

Riot, why?!?

Rito StaffAug 4, 20151 votes

rito plz we want fighter items

MathbalnaseAug 4, 20151 votes

Rejoice all ye haters, for this shall be the bane of Teemo!

OxBakerAug 4, 20151 votes

I think you're misinterpreting that. I don't think that thornmail will proc twice because devourer is. I think it will just proc once for the auto attack.

All RIOT means is that since the damage you do is partially dependent on your armor, it's not being reduced as much when the opponent builds on hit effects instead of AD.

MathbalnaseAug 4, 20151 votes

Depends how Sated's 'phantom attack' is coded.

junglerboy16Aug 4, 20151 votes

that's not exactly what I was meaning actually, but that's something worth thinking about. I just like how now it deals damage based on bonus armor instead of just physical damage received. Even if it doesn't proc twice for phantom hit, it'll still be more effective against most Devourer users.

Penguin EclipseAug 4, 20151 votes

Is this still only reflecting physical AA damage? If so, then this sounds a lot weaker.

MathbalnaseAug 4, 20151 votes

Reflects 15% of their physical AA damage. Adds 25% of your armor.

Earl EulrichAug 4, 20151 votes

25% of bonusarmor, just to be precise.

Earl EulrichAug 4, 20151 votes

yea, get armor and zero health to "counter" magic-on-hit dmg...that will be super-effective. Not to mention that Thornmail is pretty much the only thing stopping Tryn, with those changes Tryn will come back huge, and most likly Yi aswell....

MathbalnaseAug 4, 20151 votes

Most tanks, in most actual games, have to build to survive more than one type of damage. The tank will almost certainly be building health and MR (in addition to armor) anyway. In the rare circumstance where the tank only needs be concerned with physical damage dealers, I don't expect this change to be too concerning. In the rare circumstance where the tank only needs be concerned with magic damage...how often would the tank be building Thornmail before this change?

Earl EulrichAug 4, 20152 votes

and exactly that is the problem with the Thornmail-changes...it´s only somwwhat effective if you reach ~400armor (and even than the old Thornmail did a better job dealing with adcs lategame), but to do so you have to give up on a lot of health/mr, meaning their apc will just destroy you. And it doesn´t do its main job of stopping snowballing melee-carries anymore, as yousimply canßt get it early and have it do anything of use. So it actually will most likly go from a niche-item to a never-built item.

MLDzXnRRRAug 4, 20151 votes

Will it reflect true dmg - Irelia, Yi, Vayne?

junglerboy16Aug 4, 20152 votes

the damage reflect is still for physical only, but it deals additional damage based on your bonus armor. if the majority of someone's DPS was magic on-hit, this will deal a fair amount more return damage than before. If you are getting this vs an ADC, it will suck now.

Shroom JunkieAug 4, 20151 votes

This might actually be good. It would allow tanks to actually counter champs like Vayne, Jax, etc. with on-hit effects rather than AD, and it would stop people from building shit like Thornmail on Draven. Lol.

This loses that whole "Diversity" thing Riot is striving for though, no more Thornmail Rumble for me. :c

SasogwaAug 4, 20151 votes

If it reflects sated autoattacks (with only the bonus armor part), this will destroy high attack-speed on-hit champions, while actually buffing classic crit itemization because it's less reflected. I'm not sure how it will turn out.

YumaS2AstralAug 4, 20151 votes

Can someone send a link to where those armor nerfs are coming from?

junglerboy16Aug 4, 20151 votes

they aren't on PBE yet, Meddler was just giving a preview and you can find it and a few other upcoming changes on this page: http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/08/red-post-collection-game-over-skin.html#more

Penguin EclipseAug 4, 20151 votes

So it looks like this will be less effective against high crits but more effective against regular AA's. Assuming you stack a shit ton of armor. So it will be less effective against ADCs and high damage melee's and more effective against everyone else. I thought the whole point of thornmail was to counter high damage physical AA's?

I'm failing to see why anyone would buy this item after the rework.

junglerboy16Aug 4, 20151 votes

I think they are changing it like this so that it is more effective against attack speed users since the physical damage reflect is only a portion of the return damage.

In my opinion, the physical damage reflect should be increased back to 20% at least and the % bonus armor portion increased to around 35% so that it isn't totally useless.

Imo, the idea behind the change is fantastic and much needed, but the actual numbers are really undermined and a major nerf that exceeds what Riot is probably expecting from it.

Critmaster GarenAug 4, 20151 votes

cant decide if this is nice or absolutely sucks.

getting 132 armor out of a thornmail on garen was pretty nice. considering that thornmails damage return is calculated before resistances, this seems like shit.

and you cant buy thornmail as your only armor item anymore.

the change seems mostly to affect tanks actually who stack a lot of armor anyways and get that thornmail passive up. while its a nerf for fighters who dont build much armor to synergize with the item, since they also need some offensive items.

here is what i see coming. people will just pick quinn, vayne and cait top against low mobility fighters and absolutely destroy them as they dont even have a thornmail rush available anymore to defend themselves. thornmail is the only thing right now, that keeps ranged auto attackers out of bruiser lanes. since the item is a lot cheaper than their damage items and it hurts like hell early on.