Armor Penetration has become one of the core 'damage amp' stats in the game. It should be effective against people that stack armor (And it is!) but it is way to effective against targets that have little-to-no armor.
Restless Slumber7 votesUmmmmmmmmmm Flat armor pen=build against squishies Percent armor pen=build against tanks
EndlessSorcerer6 votes
is rather effective against pretty much everything.
k wìx4 votesYES. Thank you. Someone gets it. +1
Tychusfindlay9191 votes
If rito would grow a sack and change the formula to flat before calculating percent pen that would mostly kill off the issue of adcs having these two items.
1374345 votesYes.
The main issue is that there is frankly just too much flat armor pen right now, tied to items overloaded with other stats/passives/actives great for most AD users (so little penalty in rushing for arpen).
UberAffe5 votesAgreed.
Right now an ADC that rushes for 3200
will out trade an adc that has 
for 3200
lets put a jinx against a jinx for 5 auto attacks at level 6 with these builds(no runes or masteries) (assuming 3 points in q and fully stacked with item active)
|Stat---------------------------------|BF Jinx----|Youmuu(active) Jinx---|Youmuu(inactive) Jinx---| |- |Attack Damage|108|128|128| |Attack Speed|1.13|1.21|.962| |Damage reduction|.227|.268|.268| |Move Speed|367.5|390|325|
|Champion--------|1st--|2nd--|3rd--|4th--|5th--|Total| |- |BF Jinx|79|158|79|79|79|474| |Youmuu Jinx|99|99|99|99|99|495|
|Champion------------------------|Time needed for 5 AA's------|Max # of attacks in 6 seconds |- |BF Jinx|4.4|6| |Youmuu(active) Jinx|4.1|7| |Youmuu(inactive) Jinx|5.2|5|
k wìx2 votesYep, your completely right, and all the busted ADCS right now are abusing the $#(! out of this.
TeemoXNidalee1 votesAgreed. Right now an ADC that rushes
- 60 AD
- 40% AS
- 20 Arm Pen
- 20% Move speed
will out trade an adc that has
- 40 AD
- 27% AS
- 20% crit chance
- 25 and 12% Move speed
lets put a jinx against a jinx for 5 auto attacks at level 6 with these builds(no runes or masteries) (assuming 3 points in q and fully stacked with item active)
|Stat---------------------------------|BF Jinx----|Youmuu(active) Jinx---|Youmuu(inactive) Jinx---| |- |Attack Damage|108|128|128| |Attack Speed|1.13|1.21|.962| |Damage reduction|.227|.268|.268| |Move Speed|367.5|390|325|
|Champion--------|1st--|2nd--|3rd--|4th--|5th--|Total| |- |BF Jinx|79|158|79|79|79|474| |Youmuu Jinx|99|99|99|99|99|495|
|Champion------------------------|Time needed for 5 AA's------|Max # of attacks in 6 seconds |- |BF Jinx|4.4|6| |Youmuu(active) Jinx|4.1|7| |Youmuu(inactive) Jinx|5.2|5|
If you put each other to stand still and AA for one round you're not making use of the extra move/atk speed the other jinx has at all times, it's an unfair comparison...
Now, if the bf jinx disengages, the youmuu jinx will be at a disadvantage until the active comes back.
UberAffe2 votesI treated it as a standstill because it is easier to do the math on but even outside of that youmuu jinx will do more damage in most single auto trades outside of engages and her zap/rockets will do more damage than bf jinx even while the active is down.
Even in an extended trade with the active down bf jinx is only going to get 1 extra auto over 6 seconds. If their minigun's aren't fully stacked then youmuu's jinx has an even better trade.
Very Hard Engage3 votesits literally turning into WoW, where every pvp encounter turns into maximum armor pen > stacking your primary scaling stat.
do you know why that is? because people get more damage from debilitating their enemy than they do scaling up.
do you know why THAT is? because they take away a large portion of what the enemy has built. creating artificial gold gaps.
k wìx1 votesThis sums up the problem perfectly. But what do you think the best solution is? My vote is in making it deal less damage to squishy targets, or somehow lowering the value of 'flat' armor pen.
Very Hard Engage1 votesnerf black cleaver and maw or at least pick one aspect, survivability coupled with pen offering less ad, or offense with lesser survivability(less health + mr).
change youmuu active.
donzo.
the real offending issue here is thunderlords giving people the necessary and superfluous damage to be just over the top to kill a squishy regardless of build path.
AMYS GRAVE3 votes... and it amplifies their damage against turrets, so they don't even trade off for damage to structures.
k wìx1 votesAnother point I didn't even really consider. Yet another reason why these bruiser/adc builds are so common.
AMYS GRAVE1 votesYeah, that change brought them into popularity imo moreso than dueling power. The dueling power was always there, but the build used to lack turret damage, but no longer.
Mira Arya Enthe2 votesThey will be nerfing armor pen in the preseason anyway. No need to discuss it.
k wìx1 votesThat's awesome! Where did you see this? Very excited!
Mira Arya Enthe1 votes[{quoted}](name=k wìx,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=HdG9sHtP,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-09-27T17:26:57.652+0000)
That's awesome! Where did you see this? Very excited!
They mentioned it in their stream when talking about Jhin and Graves. that they will be making Youmou's and duskblade melee only and looking into armor pen. They also will be nerfing mallet and rylai's slow effects.
Vistha Kai2 votesMore like: Armor penetration items needs to have lower raw stats to compensate for armor penetration.
As in, it should be a conscious choice, not a bonus for buying items you'd get even, if they had no ar.pen whatsoever.
Doctor Jarvis1 votes
But yeah, keep talking about the stat most people at least build one item for.
k wìx1 votesI completely agree, but isn't this another subject entirely?
69469238DEL11 votesThat spicy true damage
Spoofghoul1 votesGod i've been saying this for aloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time
I wholeheartedly agree
But its because armorpen itself isn't treated as a special stat at all.
It's tacked onto otherwise already potent items which give a lot of ad or other indirect ways of damage amplification as well like grievous wounds or bonus phys damage, these last-whisper passives are extremely potent, whether its making sure your opponent can't use sustain as a tank-stat or just flat out amplify your already excessive dps and abilities strength.
The other options give some very potent shit as well like combining cleaver and youmous gives excellent kite power is effective vs everything still gives a ton of ad and youmous active substitutes as an attack-speed item. Meanwhile max cdr to boot.
I feel like armor penetration and AD or other ways of flat out boosting your damage should not go hand in hand, it should be a decision of whether you want to be more effective vs tanks/lightly armored targets or squishies. And not a way of let me just grab this and be effective vs all.
The best way to fix the issue might be to trade some of the flat ad and or other forms of damage amplification for utilities/personal utilities. This way it becomes awkward to stack since you would tank your damage pretty hard by doing so, yet the items themselves would still be good options but more of a way of picking what targets you will perform better against.
MunchCrunchLunch1 votestanks don't have that much armor early game. hell even late game. bc. and the damage amp from lord dominks is too damn much
RJayW141 voteswait, armor pen works against things that have no armor? That does not make sense, it penetrates armor, but if there's no armor to penetrate, it should just be the standard dmg of the item, right?
