Actual Question: Does resistances really matter that much?

vinnythetaco·3/12/2016, 6:29:02 AM·5 votes·1,070 views

I haven't played in a while and am trying to get back but i've been in a number of situations where i'll get killed by and ad or ap champ so i logically think "alright gonna get me some armor or magic resist" i go back in there after a while and BAM i die again maybe 1/2 a second later at best. And this is me playing a tank like sion or malphite, i feel no difference if a play any other type of champ else Yet i'll see Poppy or Garen or Jax (not saying they're OP) running through 5 ults at once (exaggeration) and maybe lose half hp at best. Should i just ignore resistance since it doesn't matter and just go health? i've done it a few times and it seems to actually work better with a few exceptions like vayne where it doesn't matter what i build.

14 Comments

dangopee3/12/2016, 7:25:02 AM3 votes

Well having about 150-200 resist against someone that doesn't have % pen is optimal. That is one of the reasons why tanks spike so hard during the earlyish mid game and feel hard to take down. If enemy isn't building % pen like LW or cleaver or void staff, you really shouldn't go much beyond 200 resist even as a tank, and should just stack health. Exceptions are obviously champions that scale hard with resists like rammus and malphite. If you are a bruiser with 180 armor mid game you will feel powerful against an ADC who only has crit but no LW, but then come later game when they get LW ADC really start chunking bruisers and the only way to feel somewhat tanky against them is to have well over 300 armor and even then you still don't feel as tanky as you did mid game. That's just how it is.

Miku Lv993/12/2016, 11:18:30 AM2 votes

You need to make health and resistances if you want to be hard to kill. If you just build some armor or mr, and no health, you'll only be a little harder to kill since you'll just gain a somewhat meh percentage extra of an unimpressive amount.

Chaos Milk Tea3/12/2016, 8:24:24 AM2 votes

Every 1 resistance increase the ammount of damage required from that source to kill you by 1%. If you have 1000 hp and 50 armor, it will take 1500 damage to kill you from pure ad sources. If you have 200 armor, it will take 3000 damage to kill you from pure ad sources.

It takes a balance of increasing HP and resistances to maximize damage sponging.

For example, let's say you have 2000 hp and the choice between randuin's omen and thornmail. item 3075 The 100 armor means it will take 4000 damage (100% more hp) to kill you from ad sources item 3143 The 60 armor means you will take only 60% more damage from ad sources, but since you gain 500HP it is 60% of 2500 which is 4000. The difference? HP works against both AP and AD, and when it comes to true damage only massive HP will extend your life. In addition, items that ignore resistances can't ignore your hp. You will eventually reach a point where more of one or the other will be better. I believe buying HP first though is generally better during the build path. Giant's belt before cloth armor, and Deadman's Plate before Thornmail.

Alex Sloan3/12/2016, 8:30:14 AM1 votes

At this point you need to be asking "do magic/armor penetration really matter?"

Shonjl3/12/2016, 8:49:13 AM1 votes

It does but very little. Armor Pen is very common so early armor doesn't help much, its not uncommon at all for a lot of assassins to build item 3142 item 3156 item 3071 so even wasting your time with armor is dumb, build raw hp will make you live better against them.

Magic pen is less prevalent since AP isn't too insanely big currently. But you have item 3020 item 3151 item 3135 . Again most people build MR moreso for the added health attached to the items moreso than the MR itself.

This season has so much Pen items that raw damage and hp is the way to go. Perfect example is this gem item 3053 Just about everyone can make use of it and its a monster of an item, even ADCs get insane use out of it due to the raw hp shield it adds.

Frius3/12/2016, 12:38:16 PM1 votes

yes, go 6k hp against %dmg like vayne and u will see 4k true dmg in death recap.

CatboyAsbel3/12/2016, 12:49:12 PM1 votes

I make people fuck up their expected damage all the time when Ezreal is slightly tankier than usual. A qss of mr or even the null mantle can give you a lot of survivability by giving up a longsword after your first item or sometimes before you even get your first item. Knowing how to read the game and see that certain damage is getting fed so you need more mr/armor is part of the strategy.

XIII Vanitas3/12/2016, 1:30:47 PM1 votes

Jax builds only damage and resistances, so I don't understand why you picked him as an example. Also, both Poppy and Garen have abilities (W) that buff their resistances.

Sire Hippington3/12/2016, 2:07:22 PM1 votes

yes, building resistances feels pretty bad right now, especially later on once your opponent have %pen. Going for maxhealth makes you more tanky, though not by that much. Tankiness just gets heavily outscaled by damage. Early to mid with 1-3 items, tankyness is great and some tanks seem unkillable, but as soon as the carries get 4+ items, you start to melt away no matter what you built, unless you have some sick defensive mechanisms like an alistar ult, or you simply cc and kill the damage source.

As for the 3 champs you mentioned: They have high basevalues, and the LW items are based on bonus armor, Poppy has a small hitbox and moves rather fast with W and E, makeing it hard to really focus her, especially with skillshots, while sion eats all the skillshots no matter if they were aimed at him or not, and her W prevents anyone with a gapcloser from getting on her, no gragas E+W fpr peel, no Xin dashing on her and following up with Q, no LB W and so on, so few but her primary target will actuallyhit her, and the prime target usually is stunned for 2 sec aswelll... The main damage still comes from ADC-AAs, and Jax can didge them for 2 sec and usually stun them for another sec afterwards, so he effectivly takes next to no damage for the first 3 sec, and just as oppy his Q mobillity and small hit box make is unlikely that he gets hit by stray skillshots and it's harder to focus him. And often enough he kills the adc rather fast, so the main damage source uis taken out befor it can do alot. Garen has the 30% damage reduction from W, which unlike resistances isn't affected by pen and thus actually makes him tanky. W + base armor reduce physical damage by +60% for him already, and non of that is affected by LW, so he actually gets rather tanky and mostly needs hp tp back up the damage-reduction.

Dreadlocks3/12/2016, 6:30:53 AM1 votes

Resistances are good vs consistent damage such as AA from say Cait, and Health is good vs burst, like a Talon.. either way you will need both but this is just the general rule of thumb.

Sneakyy XD3/12/2016, 2:13:20 PM1 votes

Building just health is bad. Building just resistances is bad. You need a mixture of both.

I used to have an Excel sheet that showed which is best to buy at any given point, but I guess it deleted it when the stat values changed. I might remake it in a little bit.

Jefftiffy3/12/2016, 6:32:43 AM1 votes

Resists and hp are the best combination against damage. If someone is doing heavy AD you want HP and armor because he armor only really helps so much and the HP stretches that much further. And if you are a tank (or anyone for that matter) you really shouldn't try to 1v1 someone who is destroying you. If you are a bruiser, you are either behind or in a bad match up and the best course of action is to stop building offense and build defense and try to play safer. You can pick up your damage when you aren't stuck trying to survive. ADC, assassins, and mages are about the only exceptions to this and is a case by case scenario.

Urgonnalearn2day3/12/2016, 6:41:53 AM1 votes

You don't want to build just resistances.