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Pyro's Item Overhaul - The Tank Project

Pyro··69 votes·4,820 views

TL;DR: Tanks as a class don't seem to be in the right place - Mitigating damage should be a bit more diverse - We could use some items with soft taunts - Tanks should be significantly more durable than bruisers - We need a counter to knockups/knockbacks

http://i.imgur.com/pFspRde.jpg

This item overhaul is a fanmade set of suggested changes to improve the gameplay diversity in League of Legends. The ultimate purpose is expanding the realm of possibilities, both in the spectrum of "viable champions" and the in-game actions. The overhaul covers all item systems, from AD and Critical Strike rework through AP and Support expansion to differentiating Fighter and Tank classes.

Why? Well, more or less to have more than top 3-5 champion picks for every role in LCS with cookie-cutter builds. Item builds should be more flexible and reactive, not predefined for a whole class of champions.

#Premise of the Tank Project

Tanking doesn't feel rewarding.

Sure, initiators like Rammus, Amumu and Sejuani are actually quite high in the % winrate department. Their ability to coordinate teamfights in solo queue is nothing to be laughed at. Nevertheless, compared to champions with AD scalings like Jarvan IV and Vi they don't really feel impactful. They don't deal damage, they can't push towers, and overall they don't even feel more durable than bruisers. Nothing stops Renekton from going "full tank" and still dealing damage - meanwhile champions like Nautilus or Sejuani don't even have that much innate durability in their abilities.

One significant thing you need to keep in mind is that in this project item 3135 Void Staff and item 3035 Last Whisper penetrate 50% of bonus MR/armor, not 35% of total. This means they're more effective against heavy resistance stacking, but not as good against umarmored targets - so if the carry decides to shred through your durability, they have to give up some damage to your teammates. In a similar manner, Blade of the Ruined King and Liandry's Torment lose a bit of their absolute power and become more situational (from 3k items to 2k+ items, much like VS and LW), and to make up for the changes to Last Whisper, fighters get their items changed as well. More on all of those in the next episodes of this overhaul. Right now we just assume that these changes or "something like that" happens.

The Tank Project can be summed up as follows:

  • Tank items being generally less slot efficient by themselves
  • Lowering their effectiveness as one-item wonders for bruisers
  • Synergy items increasing your tankiness, % health and resistance amplifiers (much like Spirit of the Ancient Golem)
  • Suiting the item passives to match the threat
  • Items against carries
  • Items against hybrid damage
  • Counterplay to crowd control
  • Anti-knockback item suited for tanks
  • Alternative slow resistance item to Boots of Swiftness
  • Tank scalings
  • Damage scaling with current HP (Sunfire)
  • AA block calculated after armor (reworked Omen)
  • Other scalings (armor scaling on Iceborn Gauntlet procs, MR scaling on Locket of the Iron Solari shield)
  • Synergising with CC (like the Oppression mastery)
  • Clear tiering of items
  • Health in three tiers: 400 (general durability), 600 (heavy stuff) and 800 (Warmog's)
  • Armor and MR two tiers: 50 (utility) and 100 (anti-DPS); 30 (lesser MR), 50 (heavy MR)
  • Soft taunts
  • Sunfire Cape damage scaling with current health, which means the lower they get you, the less damage you deal
  • Item with a shield that grants a buff until it's broken (Sion's W and Maokai's R combined)
  • CDR revamp
  • No 20% CDR items building out of one 10% CDR component
  • All 20% CDR items are like Morellonomicon - cheap, build out of two 10% CDR ones, mundane utility
  • The idea here is "Tanks and Supports get their CDR early"
  • This is to avoid situations where you'd have to pay for that extra 10% CDR while upgrading an item purchased for something else than high CDR (sometimes purchasing FH late in the game isn't outright effficient on tanks)
  • The secondary goal is balancing out mage itemization, as the constant dominance of Grail and Morellonomicon homogenizes mage builds (20% CDR into Deathcap into Void Staff on everyone)

So much about ideas, let's get down to business. If you disagree with the concept above then you can ignore my implementation and argue against the whole idea.

#Health items

Items with less than 400 health are covered in other parts of the itemization overhaul. Overall, most items that are oriented around their health threshold are rather unchanged, since health is more a powerup stat than a response stat.

400 health

item 3800 Righteous Glory

  • Combine cost reduced to 300g from 700g (total cost recuded to 2100g from 2500g)
  • Health reduced to 400 from 500

A change dedicated to supports - they would very much like to purchase this item from time to time, but the cost seems a bit high and the item is currently a snowballing tool more than a strategized response.

http://i.imgur.com/wca6mpV.png Leviathan (new item)

  • Recipe: item 1011 Giant's Belt + 1000g (total cost: 2000g)
  • +400 health
  • Unique Passive: Increase your maximum health by 15%.
  • Unique Active: For the next 5 seconds, displacements move you for 50% of the distance (time reduction on knockups, distance reduction on knockbacks). 60 second cooldown.

Knockups, knockbacks... Seems like the latest few dozen releases are overloaded with those. Since Tenacity does nothing to mitigate them, there is no way to work around heavy displacements. This solves the problem while requiring skillfull utilization (you have to anticipate the displacement) and not shutting down the caster (you're still under CC, you just stay in place). Raw stats are so-so, but situationally this could become really worthwhile. Bonus % health is just like the one on Spirit of the Ancient Golem, but scaling off total HP. This is calculated into the cost - the item breaks even at 3000 health from other sources. Overall it's designed to be rather a finishing item than a starting one.

Other items with 400 health: Sunfire Cape, Randuin's Omen (see: Armor items, below); Banshee's Veil, Locket of the Iron Solari, Spirit Visage (see: Magic resistance items, below); Rod of Ages (see: The Mage Project)

600 health These items are meant for tanks and durability is their primary attribute.

item 3725 Juggernaut

  • Recipe: item 3067 Kindlegem + item 3801 Crystalline Bracer + 50g (total cost unchanged)
  • +600 health (+100), +100% health regeneration (new), +10% CDR, Tenacity

A much deserved buff to bring this item's gold efficiency in line with Magus and Warrior.

Other items with 600 health: Face of the Mountain (see: The Support Project); Frozen Mallet (see: The Fighter Project); The Breathstealer (new item, see: The Mage Project)

800 health Big chunk of health. No resistances on the items past that line.

item 3083 Warmog's Armor

  • Unchanged

With changes to BotRK in the Carry/Fighter Project, the item lost one of its main drawbacks, so I'd be careful about buffing it.

#Armor items Two tiers of armor: 50 for general armor items and 100 for the heavy anti-DPS ones.

50 armor The item's main strength is not the armor, but its utility.

Blackfrost Helmet

  • Recipe: item 3024 Glacial Shroud + item 3067 Kindlegem + 700g (total cost: 2500g)
  • +50 armor, +400 health, +300 mana, +20% CDR
  • Unique Passive: Reduce damage taken from critical strikes by 20%.

Just like with Morellonomicon, it's good enough for its stats, but the passive provides occasional extra value.

item 3025 Iceborn Gauntlet

  • +40 ability power (+10), +500 mana, +50 armor (-10), +10% cooldown reduction
  • Unique Passive – Icy/Spellblade: After using an ability, your next basic attack critically strikes and deals bonus magical damage equal to your crit modifier to surrounding enemies, creating a field for 2 seconds that slows enemies inside by 30% (1.5 second cooldown).
  • Unique Passive – Critical Strike Modifier: Your critical strikes deal magical damage equal to 100% of your armor. Only highest critical strike modifier applies.
  • Details will be talked over in the Carry/Fighter Project - basically crit is no longer 200% AD damage, but 100% AD + crit damage modifier. The default CDM is 100% base AD (like the in current Sheen proc), but it can be replaced by a higher scaling modifier.

Parallel to Sunfire Cape, it provides some tankiness-scaling AoE damage. The crit rework is fully explained in the Carry Project, for Iceborn Gauntlet all that matters is that instead of 125% base AD it will deal damage equal to 100% armor.

item 3056 Ohmwrecker

  • Combine cost increased to 950g (total cost increased to 2800g)
  • +400 health (+100), +100% health regeneration, +10% CDR
  • Passive and active effects unchanged

For a mid-lategame item this is painfully slot inefficient. Fixed that, hopefully.

item 3143 Randuin's Omen

  • +50 armor (-20), +400 health
  • Unique Passive – Cold Steel: When hit by basic attacks, reduces the attacker's attack speed by 15%.
  • Unique Passive – Shield Block: Blocks 5 - 45 damage from ranged basic attacks from champions depending on distance from the attacker (5 at 300 range, 45 at 700 range). This reduction applies after armor.

This item takes a huge hit to its raw stats, but now provides more protection against basic attacks when you have high armor rating from other items. Anyways, the armor+health+slow bundle made it a one-item wonder for bruisers that became a little bit too overused. Now it's better against ranged champions, but significantly worse against melee ones - and much like the current Thornmail, works best when you're already tanky from other items.

item 3068 Sunfire Cape

  • +400 health (-50), +50 armor (+5)
  • Unique Passive: Deals 20 + (1% of your current health) magic damage per second to nearby enemies (400 range).

Sunfire gains some tank identity as well and should be noticeably worse on bruisers. You can build it for towerdiving or surviving agaionst AD casters, but it needs other tanky items to scale its damage. The most important thing here is the soft taunt - hit its wielder and the item will deal less damage.

Other items with 50 armor: Guardian Angel and Zhonya's Hourglass (both unchanged); Force of Nature (new), Moonflair Spellblade, The Vanguard (new) and Zz'Rot Portal (see: Hybrid resistance items, below)

100 armor No other resistances, just pure armor.

item 3110 Frozen Heart

  • +100 armor, +400 mana, +10% cooldown reduction (-10)
  • Unique Passive - Cold Steel: Reduces the attack speed of nearby enemies by 20%. (500 range: reduction up from 15%, range down from 700)
  • Unique Active - Icy: Slows the movement speed of nearby enemy units by 40% for 2 (+1 second per 500 bonus mana) seconds. 60 second cooldown (500 Range).

Less CDR (part of the CDR revamp), but gets the Randuin's active. The identity here is: FH is better vs melee, Omen is better vs ranged. The mana scaling is there to make use of things like Righteous Glory and Iceborn Gauntlet if you were to feel like you're wasting gold on too much flat mana.

item 3075 Thornmail

  • Recipe: item 1031 Chain Vest + item 1031 Chain Vest + 700g (total cost increased to 2200g from 2100g)

Just a smoother buildpath, with price back from before patch 4.20.

#Magic Resistance items

item 3105 Aegis of the Legion

  • New recipe: item 1033 Null-Magic Mantle + item 3801 Crystalline Bracer + 800g (total cost unchanged)

Small changes to Hexdrinker and Quicksilver Sash (see: The Fighter Project)

30 magic resistance MR items with high amount of offensive stats (AD/AP): item 3174 Athene's Unholy Grail (see: The Mage Project), item 3139 Mercurial Scimitar, item 3156 Maw of Malmortius and item 3091 Wit's End (see: The Carry/Fighter Project)

50 magic resistance Heavy MR, but with other stats (such as health) bundled in.

item 3001 Abyssal Scepter

  • +60 ability power (-10), +50 magic resistance
  • Unique Passive: Reduces the magic resistance of nearby enemies by 25%. (700 range)

Redefined as a mage bruiser item, with less AP and more anti-MR approach (instead of squishy-stomping one). The debuff is weaker than the old one until about 90 MR (keep in mind flat reduction comes before % penetration, so the Abyssal on Live doesn't work well with % penetration from masteries or Void Staff).

item 3102 Banshee's Veil

  • Recipe: item 3211 Spectre's Cowl + item 3801 Crystalline Bracer + 800g (total cost lowered to 2600g from 2750g)
  • +400 health (-50), +50 magic resistance (-5), +100% base health regeneration
  • Unique Passive: Grants a spell shield that blocks the next enemy ability. This shield refreshes after no damage is taken from enemy champions for 30 seconds. (-10 second CD)
  • Unique Passive - Spectre's Regeneration: Grants 100% base health regeneration for 10 seconds after taking damage from an enemy champion. (new)

-5 MR, -50 health, +100% regen in combat, -160 cost and CD on spellshield is down from 40 to 30. Overall part of the tank identity revamp, emphasizing the anti-poke element while slighlty worsening its one-item wonder status for carries. Keep in mind this item granted 45 flat regen on passive procs before the regen changes happened. Even at +200% it cannot exceed that number.

item 3065 Spirit Visage

  • Combine cost lowered to 550g from 700g (total cost lowered from 2750g to 2600g)
  • +400 health, +50 magic resistance (-5), +100% base health regeneration, +10% cooldown reduction
  • Unique Passive: Increases your self-healing, health regen, life steal and spell vamp by 20%.

MR down by 5, cost down by 150. Part of the tank itemization revamp, as FoN will increase the MR granted by this item.

Other items that grant 50 MR: Banner of Command, Locket of the Iron Solari and Mikael's Crucible (see: The Support Project); Force of Nature (new), Guardian Angel, Moonflair Spellblade, The Vanguard and Zz'Rot Portal (see: Hybrid resistance items, below)

#Hybrid resistance items New component

Early season 4 was dominated by tanky bruisers with built-in %health magic damage. The likes of Shyvana and Mundo (also: BotRK Jax/Trundle) thrived on lack of hybrid resistance items to counter their kits. With this item in existence, it should be easier to balance out hybrid damage dealers and make them more satisfying while leaving options to play against them.

Dragonscale (new item)

  • Recipe: item 1029 Cloth Armor + item 1033 Null-Magic Mantle + 350g (total cost: 1150g)
  • +20 armor, +25 magic resistance
  • Passive – Reinforce: Whenever hit by a basic attack, your bonus armor and magic resistance increase by 5% for 5 seconds (effect stacks up to 3 times).
  • Builds into: Force of Nature (below)

This item is very much not cost efficient by itself unless the passive is triggered, and even then it depends on your bonus resistances (runes, other items, built-in steroids) - but should be a very clear response to hybrid damage. Having two Dragonscales gives you two stacks per one incoming attack.

Finished items Placed at 50 armor and 50 MR, these items belong to both groups at once.

http://i.imgur.com/hiEG97a.png Force of Nature (new item)

  • Recipe: item 2053 Raptor Cloak + Dragonscale (new) + item 3028 Chalice of Harmony + 150g (total cost: 3300g)
  • +50 armor, +50 magic resistance, +100% base health regeneration, +50% base mana regeneration
  • Unique Passive - Point Runner: Grants +30% bonus movement speed that builds up over 2 seconds while near turrets or Void Gates.
  • Unique Passive - Reinforce: Your bonus armor and magic resistance increase by 15%. This bonus is increased to 25% while Point Runner is active.
  • Unique Passive - Mana Font: Restore 2% of your missing mana per 5 seconds.
  • Unique Passive - Slow Resistance: Movement slowing effects are reduced by 25%. (Doesn't stack with Boots of Swiftness or Zephyr.)

Pretty much a "tank Deathcap" or "tank Triforce" suited for a lategame build, a soft response to % armor penetration items. It isn't particularly gold efficient on its own - combining the components gives absolutely zero bonus stats - but the slow resistance could be a godsend against permakiting champions.

item 3026 Guardian Angel

  • Unchanged.

item 3170 Moonflair Spellblade

  • Recipe: Seeker's Armguard + Negatron Cloak + 450g (total cost lowered to 2500g from 2600g)
  • +40 ability power (-10), +50 armor, +50 magic resistance
  • Unique Passive - Tenacity: Reduces crowd control duration by 35%

Introduced to Summoner's Rift with 10 less AP, better build path and price lowered by 100. Followup to changes to Abyssal Scepter - those two should make for a neat anti-mage mage bruiser build.

http://i.imgur.com/UNRnh50.png The Vanguard (new item)

  • Recipe: item 3024 Glacial Shroud + item 3211 Spectre's Cowl + 650g (total cost: 2800g)
  • +50 armor, +50 magic resistance, +200 health, +300 mana, +100% health regeneration, +10% cooldown reduction
  • Unique Active: Grants a shield equal to 10% of your maximum health for 5 seconds. While the shield persists, other nearby allies take 25% reduced damage from champion abilities. 90 second cooldown.

Soft taunt. "Hit me or you'll deal less damage to my team". The spell damage reduction does not affect yourself (you already have the shield, should be enough).

http://i.imgur.com/NC42ade.png Zz'Rot Portal (upcoming item in patch 5.1)

  • +50 armor, +50 magic resistance, +100% health regeneration
  • Unique Passive - Point Runner: Grants +30% bonus movement speed that builds up over 2 seconds when near turrets or Void Gates.
  • Unique Active: Spawns a Void Gate at target location for 150 seconds. Every 4 seconds the gate creates a volatile Voidspawn that travels down the nearest lane, attacking enemy minions and exploding when attacking structures, but ignoring champions and void targets. 150 second cooldown. Every additional Voidspawn after the third one gains damage equal to 50% of your armor + 50% of your magic resistance.

This item, already shipping in patch 5.1, allows tanks to push towers even though they lack basic attack damage.

#Changelog

Several parts of this project have changed since it was posted after your feedback. Rough notes on what has changed:

  • Colossus Chestplate and Force of Nature merged into one item - A 70 MR item wasn't a good idea after all.
  • Leviathan recipe changed, active changed from displacement immunity to displacement reduction - CDR made it a somewhat good rushable item, so I got rid of that. Displacement reduction does exactly what was needed without being too strong against knockbacks or rendering Yasuo useless.
  • The Vanguard (changed from Runic Vanguard) recipe changed to Glacial Shroud + Spectre's Cowl - Negatron Cloak is more fit for endgame items, and this one should be fairly rushable
  • Sunfire Cape recipe change rolled back (FoN gets the Raptor Cloak) as it's not really a good rush item anymore
  • Ohmwrecker buffed to 400 health, price increased
  • Order of items in the whole post reorganized

#The Other Parts of the Overhaul

Full list of all items

Thanks for getting through this wall of text, by the way. If you've just scrolled down here, TL;DR was at the very top.

102 Comments

ProfDrDeath11 votes

More things:

  • There is no need for knockback/knockup resistance. The very point of those CCs is their uncounterability. Plus, Tenacity is actually more useful against knock-ups, as those are mostly short airborne times with an underlying stun.
  • Heavy MR items don't exist, because magic damage is mostly burst-centric which CDs afterwards, which is better countered by a combination of HP and MR to enable you to survive and retaliate afterwards.
  • Righteous Glory is not supposed for supports - those have ready access to Talisman for the same purpose. Rather, it is an item for toplaners and junglers, and hence appropriately priced.
  • Banshee's had its cooldown raised recently, as it needs to have a higher CD than the interval between waves to make poking the Banshee's down actually meaningful for defenders. Plus, it is not a pure tank item.
  • Damage based on your own current health is not desirable. It punishes tanks for actually doing their jobs of eating damage for the team and then staying in the fray.
Pyro6 votes

There is no need for knockback/knockup resistance. The very point of those CCs is their uncounterability.

Displacements are ubiquitous in the latest few champion releases. Out of the last 16 champions released (17 if you count Sion), only 3 of them don't have displacement in their kits: Jinx, Lucian and Lissandra.

Plus, Tenacity is actually more useful against knock-ups, as those are mostly short airborne times with an underlying stun.

That is simply not true. The only knockups with a stun are Alistar's Q, Nautilus's R and Sion's R. That's 3 out of 23 knockups in the game.

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Types_of_Crowd_Control#Knockup

Heavy MR items don't exist, because magic damage is mostly burst-centric which CDs afterwards, which is better countered by a combination of HP and MR to enable you to survive and retaliate afterwards.

Old FoN was an unfortunate mixture of %MS (which made it frustrating to land skillshots), and high regen (which invalidated magical DPS). This was the era where Liandry's Torment did not exist and Void Staff was countereffective with Sorcerer's Shoes. You have to take the whole system into consideration.

Righteous Glory is not supposed for supports - those have ready access to Talisman for the same purpose.

Top 5 users of RG are Thresh, Blitzcrank, Leona, Braum and Alistar. Talisman is a litle bit too weak in lane to risk getting it on Leona or Braum. That's maybe a problem with Talisman. My point stands, though.

Banshee's had its cooldown raised recently, as it needs to have a higher CD than the interval between waves to make poking the Banshee's down actually meaningful for defenders. Plus, it is not a pure tank item.

20 was indeed too low, and 30 is possibly low as well, but the change to its components is very much justified - its curent combine cost (1150) is the highest cost for a tank item in the game aside from GA.

It builds out of Spectre's Cowl. It is a defensive item, if not a purely tank one.

Damage based on your own current health is not desirable. It punishes tanks for actually doing their jobs of eating damage for the team and then staying in the fray.

The idea is called "Soft Taunt" for a reason. A champion reaching for this version of Sunfire Cape is tanky enough to survive the fight already, now they want to provoke the enemy team to attack them instead of their teammates.

LankPants2 votes

The idea is called "Soft Taunt" for a reason. A champion reaching for this version of Sunfire Cape is tanky enough to survive the fight already, now they want to provoke the enemy team to attack them instead of their teammates.

It would need a base on the damage of something like 20, I'm paying into the passive it should always have some effect. Honestly though you don't really need the soft taunt on sunfire IMO, just base it off of max HP and it would be a lot more attractive on tanks and worse on a lot of bruisers.

MidEvilKnight3k1 votes

Having a soft taunt will be better for tanks. In general bruisers do not want to be attacked, they want to be able to kill the carries. Buying an item that encourages the other team to attack them does not make sense. For a tank, it makes a lot more sense. Better they attack you than your carries, and if they don't attack you, you can still do significant damage from the passive.

LankPants1 votes

Tanks bring their own soft (or is some cases literal) taunts in their kits via a combination of AOE CC, auras and damage, They don't need a specific soft taunt mechanic built into it. Look at it this way, if I play a bruiser and build a Tiamat I have increased my threat to their team making me a better target, it's soft taunting them without becoming crap at low HP. The thing is your sunfire is only 85.05% gold efficient, or 72.42% in actual combat stats, therefore the passive should always be useful, otherwise it just feels bad for the user.

MidEvilKnight3k1 votes

I was speaking more to the idea of having soft taunts on defensive items rather than the specific stats of the one suggested by the OP. The purpose of doing soft taunts on defensive items is so that the item is more effective on tanks than on bruisers. The problem is that if defensive items are buffed to try and buff tanks, then bruisers will be even more dominant.

Building an offensive item will obviously act as a soft taunt on its own, but the goal was to put a soft taunt on a defensive item, so that hopefully the defenses will be useful.

LankPants1 votes

If putting damage on an offensive item acts as a soft taunt then putting damage on a defensive item also acts as a soft taunt, it's just more noticeable on the offensive item because it has larger numbers. In order to get sunfire strong enough to actively act as a soft taunt it would need insane damage and open a few abuse cases, mundo comes to mind.

I also don't think you can justify a 72.5% combat efficient item with a passive that may or may not deal damage, even if it acts as a soft taunt it would just feel bad.

MidEvilKnight3k1 votes

I did not make the item, I would have probably made it closer to 100% gold efficient and given the passive a minimum damage and then scaled additional damage on current health.

The damage does not necessarily have to be high enough for people to feel threatened by it, having it scale off of current health is just a little consolation if you are playing someone like malphite and after you use your burst initiation the other team doesn't focus you at all.

Scaling the damage on max health instead isn't going to change the damage out put in the average fight, it just changes when the damage is done.

Lord Dusteon8 votes

A lot of this stuff is based on other changes you're covering in other overhauls; without the knowledge of what you're actually trying to do with those there's no way to tell how this would affect anything except the current game.

Pyro5 votes

Posting this all at once would be an absurdly huge wall of text.

Here's a link to the Wikia version of the Support Project, here is the Carry Project (contains most of the fighter items as well).

ProfDrDeath7 votes

Hybrid resistances are not a thing for a reason, outside of one (soon to be two) item(s):

Health is for universal defense. Resistances are for counterbuilding a specific type of damage.

Meaning, if you want to get tankier in the general sense, you buy health.

Pyro5 votes

That would be the case if Mundo's Infected Cleaver and Shyvana's Flame Breath did not exist, and Jax didn't combine % health physical damage from BotRK with his W/R magic damage procs (similarly with Trundle).

Hybrid resistance items aren't really the core part of this project, but I feel like there's a need for them to exist.

Cindikle5 votes

Armor+MR items shouldn't be made. GA is fine overall because of what it's there for. But tank items in general shouldn't really have it. As people have said, Hp is the general defensive stat. No point to double up on this.

What needs to happen with tank itemization is it needs more options to actually defend vs the right effects.

Ninja Tabi and Thornmail are the only two that really do this right now. Everything else is a general defensive item. And the two we have that do specialize are only for fighting ADC's.

On that note, flat damage reduction from AA's will never happen. Yes this helps vs ADC's. But when that mage is also weaving their AA's to max their damage, you could cut off all of that damage with the item you suggested. Assuming 200 armor. A mage that has a base AD of 106 will deal 35 damage to the tank. Your item can reduce this to zero damage. Riot will never add an item that nullifies basic attacks, Even if it's from a mage.

Tanks are not truly in THAT bad of a spot that this many changes are needed either. The problem is their builds are overall one sided and easily countered. And the builds don't really change based on the tank. Their damage items can change, but the rest stays the same.

I'd like to see for Armor

  • Item that reduces damage from abilities to counter AD casters
  • Add to sunfire cape bonus damage based on MR. This overall would benefit full tanks more than bruisers. Base numbers would likely see changes
  • Thornmail changed to an active. IMO it's currently a toxic item that does a lot of work on it's down. Would also label it as invisible power. Even more-so if the ADC has no lifesteal this item will kill them faster than they can kill the tank. Not saying ADC's need any more power, but that's very one sided. Making it an active could allow it to provide other stats. But mainly this would give it some counterplay.
  • An item that gives bonus damage to abilities based on your armor. I stole this one from Dawngate and it is such a great item. This would be a good spot to bring back Atma's Impaler. An item like this would make a difference between AA(Trundle) bruisers and abilities bruisers(Darius). Right now they all for the most part build items to enhance their AA's and any AD ratios they get.

I'd like to see for MR

  • A new item building out of QSS that has a Cleanse active. The spell can be removed and maybe even Scimitar. Remove the Suppression dispel. There should be better counterplay to those abilities than a 3800g item. But at the same time the spell shouldn't become worthless from a single time.
  • Something that aims at reducing damage of on-hit effects. While they're not strong in this game, there is still no real defense to these effects. And making an item that counters could give a reason to give them more power.

Rest of the problem is penetration and how it works. Riot has said that they can't change LW/VS to bonus armor/MR penetration because it would have to become a too large amount for it to work.

I propose Last Whisper and Void staff be merged into one item. This item grants no AD or AP. But instead grants 10 armor pen and 10 magic pen. To me the biggest problem with these two items is that while providing the ultimate break in defense they also provide good damage stats on top of it. This is the first change that needs to happen.

This could even go further into the enchantment system. Where you become able to pick your penetration type. Void staff

  • Option 1: 70 AP, 35% MR pen
  • Option 2: 50 AP, 50% bonus MR pen
  • Option 3: 30 AP, 35% MR pen, 10 MR pen

Something along those lines. Where you specialize it. Although this still leaves flaws in the system.

Pyro1 votes

I'd like to see for Armor

  • Item that reduces damage from abilities to counter AD casters
  • Add to sunfire cape bonus damage based on MR. This overall would benefit full tanks more than bruisers. Base numbers would likely see changes
  • Thornmail changed to an active. IMO it's currently a toxic item that does a lot of work on it's down. Would also label it as invisible power. Even more-so if the ADC has no lifesteal this item will kill them faster than they can kill the tank. Not saying ADC's need any more power, but that's very one sided. Making it an active could allow it to provide other stats. But mainly this would give it some counterplay.
  • An item that gives bonus damage to abilities based on your armor. I stole this one from Dawngate and it is such a great item. This would be a good spot to bring back Atma's Impaler. An item like this would make a difference between AA(Trundle) bruisers and abilities bruisers(Darius). Right now they all for the most part build items to enhance their AA's and any AD ratios they get.
  1. New item in this project, Runic Vanguard, already does that.
  2. Sunfire should be effective against AD-heavy te ams. Requiring MR to scale up its damage doesn't seem right to me.
  3. All you currently need to counter Thornmail is Last Whisper and Bloodthirstrer/BotRK. Your magic resistance will reduce 30% reflection to 15-20%.

I'd like to see for MR

  • A new item building out of QSS that has a Cleanse active. The spell can be removed and maybe even Scimitar. Remove the Suppression dispel. There should be better counterplay to those abilities than a 3800g item. But at the same time the spell shouldn't become worthless from a single time.
  • Something that aims at reducing damage of on-hit effects. While they're not strong in this game, there is still no real defense to these effects. And making an item that counters could give a reason to give them more power.
  1. Yeah, I'm touching up QSS and introducing two possible upgrades (currently it's reworked Mikael's and Wit's End).
  2. Warden's Mail already reduces damage from on-hit effects. Perhaps a Warden's Mail upgrade with MR could work, but currently it's BotRK that's the biggest culprit here.

Flexible penetration

The whole point here is to get rid of LW that's already good against targets with no armor and even better when they try to buy armor. I'll be discussing alternative options there. Wait for the Carry Project.

Cindikle2 votes

Runic Vanguard is a dual resist item. That lone will prevent it from ever being made. It also will be made by supports more than tanks. A support with a 25% AoE ability DR and a self shield just asks to be made by supports. Yes a tank with Hp gets the most of the shield, but the rest of the item is support. In the end i don't see it helping tanks fight ad burst. It would be better to build an item with HP+proper resistance vs that burst. I would also argue that the active is too good or too weak. If the team can manage to bust the shield down(probably an AA or two from the ADC) it becomes a useless active. But if the tank can avoid losing it 25% DR from abilities is huge. There is a lot of risk for it. But I think that reason as well would make it built on supports more than tanks.

The Sunfire change is solely for tanks. Who will likely have 2x MR items if they are facing a balanced team. It wont be a lot of extra damage. Just a bonus for being a tank.

Your telling me Thronmail, which counters a whole class of champion, requires two items to overcome(and surpass). Closest item I can think of that comes to his is BV countering burst mages, but it's not up 100% of the time. Change it to an active(10s duration, 60s cd). Lower the armor by 20. Give it 10% DR from basic attack damage that doesn't stack with Tabi. Or make it weaker, but with an active that turns it into true damage.

Didn't think about Warden's Mail reducing on-hit damage. Something that specializes in it would create room to make on-hit items/abilities stronger. They're not in a strong place outside the gimmicky champions. The fact only one champion in the game builds Hurricane should show how weak it is.

The LW/VS change is suggested is mostly to find other options than having AD/AP with that stat. That's why the item is so powerful. My examples of enchantments didn't really change much, just throwing it out there. Maybe change it to 35% armor pen, increased to 50% vs armor over 100. Then remove the AD or lower it. Don't know what you have planned. But as long as it's not the 50% bonus armor change it could work. Changing it to bonus armor % would hurt tanks even more. While it makes it weaker vs squishes. It doesn't solve the problem of what it does to tanks. And I would still say this is because they can't specialize in their defense. Everything they build is overall generic and standard to other tank builds. It changes very little on team comp.

LordOfTheLeague4 votes

I read it fast but it seems you try to turn every defensive items into tank item, even items meant for bruisers..

Pyro4 votes

The overhaul isn't even halfway done. Wait until the Fighter Project. Bruiser items will make an appearence.

And I don't really think that this verion of Sunfire is by any means weak on bruisers. Darius should love it.

doubleguac4 votes

Unique Active: For the next 5 seconds, displacement effects stun you instead for 75% of the duration. This stun can be further reduced by Tenacity.

This is a bad idea. I feel like the point was to offer counterplay to knock-ups. But preventing a target from being knocked back is pretty dangerous. It would remove a huge amount of counterplay from champions like Mundo and Singed (who have, with merc treads and the defensive mastery, can be almost immune to stuns). Might even get picked up on champions like Fiddlesticks and Kennen.

It would also screw over certain champions like Vayne, Gnar, Blitz, and Yasuo in ways that don't seem warranted.

Converting a displacement into a stun effects a lot more than whether or not the CC duration is reduced by tenacity.

Pyro2 votes

Countering knockbacks is intended here.

It might be a little bit too much, but I'm open to the discussion. If I'm playing Mundo and the enemy team consists of Gnar, Lee Sin, Ziggs, Vayne and Alistar, I'd like to have a way to not feel like I'm running into Azir ult.

Might even get picked up on champions like Fiddlesticks and Kennen.

Helluva inefficient on them. Zhonya's already does that for those two.

The item's numbers are tuned to the point where it shouldn't be a good idea to buy it unless the displacements are a really huge problem.

doubleguac2 votes

if it's intended, then it's poorly thought it, in my opinion. Most true displacements (i.e., not stuns with knock-up visual effects, like Vi's ult) have much lower durations than stuns. A singed/mundo shouldn't be able to turn Alistar's headbutt into a .1 second stun. A bruiser/tank shouldn't be able to buy one relatively inexpensive item to basically completely ignore Janna's ult.

This item would make a champion pretty much immune to janna/alistar's kit. The active effect is way too strong against a small number of champions, while being pretty much useless against most of the cast, which means its impossible to price fairly. If you price it to be fair against Alistar (in which case the active effect should be absurdly expensive) it's not worth buying against anyone else. If you price it to be usable in an average game, it's totally broken against ali/janna/etc. This would be like releasing an active with the effect "reduces damage from ninja champions by 50% for 5 seconds."

Knock ups are effectively stuns that aren't effected by tenacity. Their duration is tuned lower as a result, and they are intended to be a counter to champions with natural tenacity. Turning them into stuns allows tenacity to hard counter what is intended to be a counter to tenacity... this would be like releasing an item that converts enemy armor penetration into extra armor for yourself.

As for knock-backs... they generally have completely negligible durations. This item makes a champion, for all intents and purposes, completely immune to knock back abilities. You shouldn't be able to buy a single item with universally useful stats in order to make yourself immune to knock backs for a whopping 5 seconds.

Speaking of its stats, you keep saying this is a "tank" item, but it's relatively inexpensive, and offers two stats (health and CDR) that are useful on almost anyone. There's absolutely nothing stopping any bruiser picking this item up, and making themselves practically immune to the kits of champs like Janna and Alistar.

There isn't any need for this kind of effect in the game. There isn't a problem right now with champions being perma-stunned by knock-ups. Nor do I think knock-backs are, in particular, overpowered. It's an unnecessary and overpowered active.

GeoPeter1 votes

I agree that the ability as written is over powered, but I think the idea is good. In particular, the idea of reducing horizontal displacement. knock-ups (as a stun effect) are not particularly bad to the tank (as their purpose is to eat damage and CC), but a forced displacement can almost completely negate a tank in a team fight. Tank goes goes in first to initiate a fight, and suddenly is pushed to their back line, leaving the team exposed. Given that most tanks are not particularly fast, and team fights (not always but) can be decided in two seconds (especially against burst-oriented teams), there are times where a single ability has negated a champion's main effect to the team fight. I think a more appropriate writing of the effect would be:

"for the next five seconds, forced displacement effects (not including knock ups) are reduced by half"

Activating it prior to initiating a fight doesn't completely negate the enemy's effect, but does keep the tank in the fight. It also makes the item much more situational (Since only a few champs have forced displacement). Given that tanks are meant to be big, beefy characters, shouldn't they be able to resist displacement more anyway?

doubleguac1 votes

"for the next five seconds, forced displacement effects (not including knock ups) are reduced by half"

I definitely think this is a much more reasonable active effect. I still would be a bit nervous about it though. Five seconds is a long time. Again, when facing someone like singed, or even rammus, teams really need to be able to quickly react and get them away before they reach the carry. For five seconds, this would make it twice as hard to do that with displacement effects. Given that singed/mundo can easily reach 65+% tenacity, displacements and walls are the only real options for effectively peeling them. I would be pretty worried about going up against a singed or a mundo if this effect were added to the game.

It would also lead to some weird interactions with skills like Blitz's pull, Naut's anchor, and Thresh's hook.

If an effect like this needs to be in the game at all (again, I'm not totally convinced it does), I think the best way to do it would be to add a "spellshield" like effect. "For the next three seconds, you gain a shield that cancels the first displacement effect cast on you." Maybe you could add an effect where the champion gains a small amount of MS for a few seconds if the shield successfully eats a displacement effect.

This would be a very situational active. But that's not necessarily a huge problem. The item, as described above, gives universally useful stats. Morellonomicon also has a very situational extra effect, but it's a popular item anyways because it's a useful item regardless of its passive.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

I'd like to offer a suggestion in light of the critiques of this item: keep the current resistance to displacements (in one form or another -- personally I prefer the duration/distance reduction), but make the item receive -10% MS, and maybe give a size boost as well.

This should be an item for, well, leviathans. Their objective isn't to close with the enemy carry and kill them, but rather to wade into the midst of the enemy team, ccing those around them, perhaps dealing aoe damage with sunfire, etc, and forcing the enemy carries to back off and focus them.

-10% MS (obviously, needs tuning) would make the item an unattractive buy on Bruisers, for whom being kited is death. On the other hand, this vein of tank cares about disruption/damage soaking. Being kited, while not the best case scenario, is acceptable, if you're providing disruption and time for your carries to do their thing.

Pyro1 votes

Leviathan as an anti-knockback item is a concept I've been thinking about for months. One of the first drafts was an item with % MS bonus that could be turneed off for the displacement immunity.

Raptamei2 votes

{quoted}

Leviathan as an anti-knockback item is a concept I've been thinking about for months. One of the first drafts was an item with % MS bonus that could be turneed off for the displacement immunity.

An anti-knockback item could easily be turned against you if they have Janna. She ults after you use the item, and now you're stranded in the middle of the enemy team with the rest of your team a screen away. Hell, depending on the circumstances it could actually help Lee Sin and Tristana because they no longer knock you out of range.

Also, turning displacements into stuns screws with Yasuo in an unpredictable way. Tornado someone, OOPS you can't ult... GG your team dies because you can't join the fight. Deserved?

In general I think you've taken your hate for knockups and turned it into a highly specific hoser that mostly serves to make Alistar and Blitzcrank useless and make Urgot suck even harder. Items that shit on specific champions are not good design.

http://static.tappedout.net/mtg-cards/fourth-edition/blue-elemental-blast.jpg

lojician3 votes

"even though unlike bruisers they can't really kill the carries by themselves."

Did something drastically change in the past couple months or are you forgetting there are fighters not named irelia and that the half of the class without a dash is literally worse than having an extra 0 gold support?

Is the idea that the LW nerf will compensate enough that fighters will be viable despite getting half their build nerfed on them? Because last time I played two item fighters (not named irelia) weren't exactly styling on two item adc and casters.

"Wait until the Fighter Project."

It's been literal years. And over 6 months since you repromised this and said something about a 'renekton bar'. In the intermediary time you decided it was a higher priority to buff the already mandatory adcs and completely trash fighters. You can understand why people might suspect the tank rework will come first along with empty promises of dealing with the fallout if fighters happen to get screwed over.

Pyro12 votes

"Wait until the Fighter Project."

It's been literal years. And over 6 months since you repromised this and said something about a 'renekton bar'.

Wait, wait, wait. Am I Riot? This is a fanmade project.

And srsly, wait until I get to the fighter items in this overhaul. Long story short, items like Black Cleaver are going to be stronger.

LankPants2 votes

While I like the direction in general i'm not convinced by hard tiering in the stats on items. If one item proves to be to strong or too weak you cant make minor alterations to it without breaking the tiers, Ie. if the Rand's you suggested just wasn't giving enough armour to justify it you have to increase it by 50 to get it up to the next tier, which is far too much of a buff.

YOU BEEN WARNED2 votes

I have no idea what you're doing, but if you're aiming to help something other than the OP carries/assassins please by all means have +1.

Knight SoIaire 2 votes

Mitigating damage should be a bit more diverse

after i read those words i stopped and came here

tanks job is not to mitigate damage and be unkillable but to soak the damage meant for their teammates

if we take that statement even further we can assume that we have only one tank in game which is braum

riot has to make more guys like braum to ballance tanks as a class the champions who are listed as tanks in champion list usualy work like anny other fighter (who builds no dmg) or any other cc heavy support

even jarwan is listed as a tank when everybody plays him as a bruiser with hsucces

MattAkhavan2 votes

Always a pleasure reading your posts, not exactly sure how i feel about the changes because i feel like tanks are going to be too strong and you might eliminate bruisers from the game.

cant wait for the rest of this.

Knight Devout1 votes

Really liked what I read, although I skipped some parts. I think one of the hidden benefit of this changes is that will increase versatility in builds and promote diversity even in champion picks. For example, a carry could finally pick something else than BV or GA for his defensive item. It would certainly make tanks at least more fun to play. Another thing that Riot has to do is letting go of his fear of defenses being strong. it looks like , with the dragon change in preseason, they only want offense to be viable and dfense item to be something you pick on champions who have such poor scalings that they can't afford AD or AP. It's not a problem if a tank dies to sustained damage (i.e. you stand for 5 seconds in the adc range without cc-ing him), but it is a problem if an assassin reaches such an amount of %health damage and armor pen that it ignores resistance.

Anyway, a warning I need to make. #Making VS and LS working on Bonus resistances isn't gonna work Simply put, physical and magic damage ain't equal, and last whisper and void staff aren't picked by the same champions. I'm fine with mages having high damaging spell, I'm not fine with AD assassins having high damage spells on top of high damage attacks. Make void staff and last whisper different: Void staff should be stronger for casters, and Last whisper for autoattackers. I wouldn't even mind if you made a third item just for AD casters, but , simply, you can't keep that VS and LW simmetry if you want a balanced game.

Last, I also opened quite a lenghty topic about a possible item overhaul for support(inspired by your post). I also quoted you inside, I think there could be something interesting to read. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/e0es139R-increasing-mastery-and-strategy-for-the-support-role-more-options-for-items-and-sightstone

Pyro2 votes

Making VS and LS working on Bonus resistances isn't gonna work

Simply put, physical and magic damage ain't equal, and last whisper and void staff aren't picked by the same champions. I'm fine with mages having high damaging spell, I'm not fine with AD assassins having high damage spells on top of high damage attacks. Make void staff and last whisper different: Void staff should be stronger for casters, and Last whisper for autoattackers. I wouldn't even mind if you made a third item just for AD casters, but , simply, you can't keep that VS and LW simmetry if you want a balanced game.

This is exactly what I'm planning to do, actually. LW in my project builds out of Recurve Bow, Black Cleaver gets a significantly easier build path and overall the whole armor penetration system gets an overhaul.

Messaiga1 votes

Slightly confused about the whole Crit-Damage Modifier thing (though I know it will be covered in the post for Carries and Fighters). So, with Iceborn Gauntlet the total damage on your next basic attack with it's Spellblade passive would be 100% Total AD (normally dealt on a basic attack) + 100% Armor (added from Gauntlet)? That sounds like it could be really, really strong on some champions (Skarner and Hecarim come to mind, since they're both mana hungry and constantly spam their Q). Though they would really have to opt into building as a tank to make decent use of the passive.

Also, I got a suggestion for when you post on the jungle followup: Rather than something similar to the version of Juggernaut you posted on wikia, I feel like it should be an armor + HP item , rather than HP and Health Regen. I think this because all of the other upgrades actually help you jungle (the other 3 clear faster, Juggernaut should make you take less damage which it doesn't do right now).

Pyro2 votes

The current Spellblade proc on Gauntlet is 125% Base AD.

100% Armor should be stronger on champions like Skarner and weaker on champions like Kassadin or Ezreal.

I'm still considering the Juggernaut changes, but there are things that speak for health over armor:

  • Some junglers like Sejuani, Nautilus, Shen and Volibear have % HP scalings. Armor scalings are less prevalent (only Rammus and Malphite).
  • Health is universal - you can purchase the desired resistance right after Juggernaut and health will be fully effective.
  • Some tank junglers are characterized by their built-in armor buffs, and generally you'll want to get armor marks or quints on some of them. This makes a good use of purchased health.

Keep in mind that at some numbers more armor is just as effective in surviving the jungle as more health.

Messaiga1 votes

Alright, I can see your reasoning behind it. And I just realized, since Sheen (and it's upgrades) cause you to crit rather than just deal bonus damage we get to see the (usually) unused bad-ass Crit animations on many champions. Something tells me you've basically made this a culmination of 10+ posts over the past couple of weeks (since almost all of these topics have been brought up, except for a few).

Pyro1 votes

That's just a bonus :D I've came up with a way to tune down Critical Strike in the early game (higher chance, less damage on crits) and then had the idea for Spellblade. Didn't think of the animation.

Similarly, Triforce grants a CDM equal to 200% base AD, Lichbane has 50% AP CDM and IE has a 100% total AD CDM (nerfed from 150%). And there are other items with crit effects.

More on that here. I will be posting this on Boards in a week or two.

Alorasence1 votes

I adore your diagnosis of the problem with tanks. Making tank items more powrful when bought together is a great idea. I don't like how bruisers can build one or two tank items and be nearly as useful and durable as a full tank.

I loathe most of your items though. I think they would, in combination, make a full tank almost unkillable. Which would make me not want to interact with them at all, and search for strategies that simply avoid them. Which isn't all that fun in my opinion.

Pyro1 votes

I loathe most of your items though. I think they would, in combination, make a full tank almost unkillable. Which would make me not want to interact with them at all, and search for strategies that simply avoid them. Which isn't all that fun in my opinion.

That's a very serious problem if that was true. Let's examine a full tank build.

ADC's Nightmare Let's get all the anti-ADC items we can: Blackfrost Helmet + Ninja Tabi + Randuin's Omen + Colossus Chestplate + Thornmail + Frozen Heart

This sums up to 375 armor and 800 health. The % bonus from Colossus makes it 450 armor. Now, any damage from ADC will be lowered by 10% by Tabi, 15% by FH, and furthermore by 25% against critical strikes. Let's assume the target is level 18 and has 2000 base health and 80 base armor.

  • No armor penetration: Target will take 18% * 90% * 85% * 75% damage = 10% damage. Part of this reduction is the AS slow, so the Omen block will apply to a hit equal to about 12% of ADC's damage (since it's a crit - 24% of their AD).
  • Last Whisper: Target will take 27% * 90% * 85% * 75% damage = 16% damage.

And this goes on, inclusing but not limited to other methods of armor penetration and a new item dealing onhit magic damage equal to 50% of target's armor.

Mage Bane Galio having a field day: Force of Nature + Colossus Chestplate + Merc Treads + Spirit Visage + Banshee's Veil + Abyssal Scepter.

So, 295 MR from items, going up to 360 with Colossus, and 410 with Galio's base MR at level 18. With no hidden % reductions again, all it takes to fight on an even ground is a Void Staff, now reducing bonus MR by half - and poof, down to 230 MR. That's before considering any other forms of countering MR.

Alorasence1 votes

{quoted}

That's a very serious problem if that was true. Let's examine a full tank build.

ADC's Nightmare Let's get all the anti-ADC items we can: Blackfrost Helmet + Ninja Tabi + Randuin's Omen + Colossus Chestplate + Thornmail + Frozen Heart

This sums up to 375 armor and 800 health. The % bonus from Colossus makes it 450 armor. Now, any damage from ADC will be lowered by 10% by Tabi, 15% by FH, and furthermore by 25% against critical strikes. Let's assume the target is level 18 and has 2000 base health and 80 base armor.

  • No armor penetration: Target will take 18% * 90% * 85% * 75% damage = 10% damage. Part of this reduction is the AS slow, so the Omen block will apply to a hit equal to about 12% of ADC's damage (since it's a crit - 24% of their AD).
  • Last Whisper: Target will take 27% * 90% * 85% * 75% damage = 16% damage.

And this goes on, inclusing but not limited to other methods of armor penetration and a new item dealing onhit magic damage equal to 50% of target's armor.

Mage Bane Galio having a field day: Force of Nature + Colossus Chestplate + Merc Treads + Spirit Visage + Banshee's Veil + Abyssal Scepter.

So, 295 MR from items, going up to 360 with Colossus, and 410 with Galio's base MR at level 18. With no hidden % reductions again, all it takes to fight on an even ground is a Void Staff, now reducing bonus MR by half - and poof, down to 230 MR. That's before considering any other forms of countering MR.

That is an enormous amount of defense. Assuming your calculations are correct. That might not even be a balance problem though...on a full tank. But I'd like to add another wrench...

I've thought of a question just recently.

Are pure tanks ignored now?

I think the answer is mostly yes. I think Tanks can be effectivley circumvented by split pushing, assassinating other targets, mass mobility, or cc chaining. I think that is why tanks are weak right now....other kinds of champions can function very well in spite of tanks. I'm not sure its an item issue so much as a champion design issue.

What do you think?

Pyro1 votes

Are pure tanks ignored now?

I think the answer is mostly yes. I think Tanks can be effectivley circumvented by split pushing, assassinating other targets, mass mobility, or cc chaining. I think that is why tanks are weak right now....other kinds of champions can function very well in spite of tanks. I'm not sure its an item issue so much as a champion design issue.

Pure tanks aren't ignored in the roster. They have high winrates. However, more often that not their durability doesn't outmatch any bruiser - and if it does, there is no reason for them to be that tanky when the rest of their team dies left and right.

SnackieCakes2 votes

230 MR is an enormous amount! And totally problematic! Your tank in this situation, with nearly 3000 HP and 230 MR, would be completely unkillable by most mages.

MR/AP just isn't the same as Armor/AD because mages operate on ability rotations. If you, as a target, survive a whole rotation from a Mage, you're also most likely going to survive the next 5-10 seconds (from that same champion).

I agree with the idea you've got here about distancing fighters from easily accessible defenses, but I don't agree that tanks are generally in a bad spot. Tanks are tough to kill! I think a lot of the problem here is that we're all basically always talking about solo Q (and who knows how many people here are commenting from Bronze/Silver), where there just isn't enough team coordination to capitalize on the time a tank can buy their team. But that's a teamwork problem, not a stats problem; if you can survive for 3-5 seconds in the thick of battle, absorbing damage, CC, and dishing out everything you've got... that's more than enough for your team to focus the right targets and win the battle. But again, in solo Q and particularly in the lower tiers, people don't react very quickly, and are almost always late to team fights, late to transition targets, etc.

Pyro1 votes

And this is why he Mage Project would go further than just buffing Void Staff against heavy MR stacking.

I don't intend to be a good player, I'm just a plat scrub, I'm just a wannabe analyst.

MidEvilKnight3k1 votes

I agree with the idea behind most of your changes, but I don't like having LW and VS do % bonus resistance. It would have the desired effect of being more effective versus tanks, but it would also discourage carries from getting a defensive item if the other carry bought LW or VS. Penetration should be based on total resistance so that some sources of resistance are not valued higher than other sources of resistance. My suggestion would be to use an exponential equation like the following one.

effective resistance = resistance X (1+resistance/100)^-(pen X 1.52/100)

Where pen is your own penetration and armor is the targets armor. The 1.52 is just a scaler so that if you have a pen value of 10 and the target has an armor value of 100, you will reduce their armor by 10.

The results if you have 10 armor pen follow

Target resistance 30 100 200 Resistance reduction 1.2 10 30.8 Percent reduction 4% 10% 15%

I would suggest getting rid of flat penetration because it actually punishes low resistance targets more than high resistance targets, and damage or ap should fill that role. Percent maximum resistance can replace all flat penetrations, while the new pen could replace LW and VS.

Champion Skin2 votes

I do not understand how flat penetration punishes low resistance targets more then high resistance targets As resistance is a health multiplier and targets with low resistance usually have low health so the resistances wouldn't be as effective anyways

Not to mention you lose just as much effective health going from 250 to 240 armor/mr as you do when you go from 10 to 0 armor/mr (if you look at flat numbers)

MidEvilKnight3k1 votes

You need to look at the way the calculation works to see why flat pen is more effective against low armor targets. Resistances are designed to be less effective the more of it you have. This also means that flat armor pen is less effective on higher armor targets. Here is an example of a couple of scenarios.

actual damage = damage * (100/ (100+resistance))

For an auto attack that does 100 damage against a target with 100 armor with no penetration.

actual damage = 100 * (100/(100+100)) = 50 damage

The same scenario except with 10 flat pen.

actual damage = 100 * (100/(100+90)) = 52.63 damage

The 10 armor pen gave 2.63 more damage or a damage increase of 5.26%.

Lets do the same thing except for a target with 300 armor.

actual damage = 100 * (100/(100+300)) = 25 damage actual damage = 100 * (100/(100+290)) = 25.641 damage

The 10 armor pen gave 0.641 damage, or a damage increase of 2.56%.

As the calculation shows, the 10 armor pen is over twice as effective against the 100 armor target as the 300 armor target.

Champion Skin2 votes

But if you look at it from the other side If you have 100 armor and 1000 hp you have 2000 effective hp (physical damage it would take to kill you) 90 armor and 1000 hp and you have 1900 effective hp

so 10 armor pen makes it so that you need 100 less damage against a target (for each 1000 hp they have)

300 armor and 1000 hp and you have 4000 effective hp 290 armor and 1000 hp and you have 3900 effective hp

You can take 100 less damage (for each 1000 hp) with 10 armor pen regardless of how much armor you have

MidEvilKnight3k2 votes

Lets look at how long it takes to kill them.

If we have a sample champion with 200 dps (no abilities to make it simple).

100 armor, 1000 HP (2000 effective health) = 10 s 90 effective armor, 1000 HP (1900 eff. HP) = 9.5 s

0.5 s, or 5% faster with 10 armor pen.

300 armor, 1000 HP (4000 eff. HP) = 20 s 290 armor, 1000 HP (3900 eff. HP) = 19.5 s

0.5 s, or 2.5% faster.

Lets also look at just increasing dps. So instead of buying 10 armor pen, you got some damage or attack speed.

210.5 dps (chosen to be equal benefit to armor pen on low armor target)

100 armor, 1000 HP (2000 eff. HP) = 9.5 s (5% increase over 200 dps)

300 armor, 1000 HP (4000 eff. HP) = 19 s (5% increase over 200 dps)

As you see, there is a greater benefit against the tanks by just building straight dps than by building armor pen. Flat armor pen loses its effectiveness on high armor targets.

Champion Skin2 votes

Yeah I guess you are right though Thanks for the discussion

Dingding1231 votes

Overall very creative, very worth reading. I've got Pros and Cons about these ideas:

Pros

  • I like the LW/Void Staff penetration change. That is well deserved.
  • There are so many tank items right now that only build into one thing that most champions want; having alternate buildpaths for items is a great idea and gives more champions comfortable builds.
  • Creative actives on the tank items.

Cons

  • It seems like anyone can do well with these tank items. With this change, it seems as if you could slap three or four certain tank items on Caitlyn and it would be just as good as if it were on a Rammus so long as they fit the right scenario.
  • Bonuses based on your armor/MR is a good idea, but simply giving more armor/MR is bland for a tank item, especially the 'ultimate' tank item. Things like movespeed and extremely high regen would be more fun to have as well over more damage reduction. Or a strong but short-ranged team aura would be neat - it would be a cool way to keep teams from spreading out less often. Regardless of my opinions though, the BEST overall unique item effect should be on this item. Without a doubt.

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