What if Thornmail countered lifesteal like Last Whipser counters armor stacking.

yeah I have to build because adcs would just life steal more than my W and thornmail on rammus

it used to counter it... then it got nerfed.

Thornmail already counters a whole class... Why would you buff it

the problem with thornmail is it only costs 2200 gold so when it's strong not only does it counter lifesteal but it forces the adc to build lifesteal/attackspeed/crit and armor pene before they can do anything in a teamfight and even then when thornmail is strong the ad would still avoid hitting the tank if possible and this is all for 2200 G

So if you want thornmail to specifically counter lifesteal it would either need to have an increase in price or it would have to remove the passive damage in exchange for something like grievous wounds. the only way I could forsee riot making grievious wounds and keep the passive damage would be if when someone hits you it would apply a debuff on them that is similiar to ignite where you get reduced healing and get damage dealt on you for a few seconds.

Ironically, it counters lifesteal BETTER than LW counters armor stacking. Thornmail negates about 15-30% lifesteal stat depending on your bonus armor. That's a full bloodthirster or more. LW counters armor at 45%. At 20% lifesteal, it is essentially completely countered by thornmail.

I'll pop in here and say what I usually do about Thorn.

It shouldn't even be a Tank item. Tank gear should be about helping your team directly or indirectly. That can be with auras, with slows, with slow burn damage in an AoE, or even just a bunch of CDR to help you spam your CC more often.

Thorn shouldn't be a Tank item. It should be a Diver item. It should help give tanky champions an edge over that Marksmen they just jumped on. To that end, allow me to suggest something completely different.

Grants armor, attack speed, 40 magic damage OnHit, and- Unique passive: Your basic attacks apply stacks of Gored to enemy units, stacking up to eight times. Melee attacks apply two stacks per hit. Unique passive: For each stack of Gored on an enemy unit, you reflect (percentage) of the physical damage they deal (pre-mitigation) as magic damage.

Clean, simple, and most importantly interactive. The problem with Thorn is that you don't have to do anything for it to mess someone up. That's why it must be so weak. But by adding in the requirement to actually interact with champions attacking you, suddenly there's room for counter-play. Don't let Irelia jump on you and you won't have your damage reflected. By adding OnHit damage into the mix, this new Thorn also helps to make you more of a threat even when you aren't being attacked, unlike live Thorn.

With the addition of Knight's Vow and Deadman's Plate to the game I would argue that there are ample armor options in the game for Vanguards, Juggernauts, and Wardens alike. Divers could really use some itemization tailored to them.

I'm just going to leave these here.

It already does, at least until Last Whisper is bought

It takes like 25% Lifesteal at a minimum to overcome thornmail's percent reflect damage, and that number dramatically increases the more armor the person with thornmail has ( it also decreases based on the ADC's magic resist, but it's significantly harder for them to get large amounts of it). That doesn't even take into account the flat, armor scaling damage, which effectively makes it so that even after an ADC has a major lifesteal item and Warlord's Bloodlust, they will still take more damage from thornmail per attack than they would heal from Lifesteal.

This all devolves after the ADC gets Last Whisper, and while I don't think Last Whisper should turn thornmail from one of the best items in the game to one of the worst, thornmail doesn't really need buffs. Because before that magical point where the ADC gets both BT and LW, they might as well just not attack someone with thornmail.