"Too much damage" (with math)

Lethality is absurd. The quantity of damage in the game is actually absurd, and it's got an unexpected source. Armor is too high.

So, this entire explanation will revolve around a concept called effective health. Effective health is a number which represent how much premitigated damage a champion can take. Every armor adds 1% of nominal to effective health, due to the way that the damage reduction stacks. This becomes important to squishies when you consider the disparity in their effective and nominal health pools.

So, I will now use a lot of math, the numbers of which I welcome you to investigate. Draven, a considerably lower ranged ADC, at level 18 has 96 armor and 1951.76 health. This is 3825.45 effective health at level 18.

Now, Miss Fortune, a surprisingly ranged ADC has a level 18 base AD of 71, with 165 Bonus AD from the three lethality items (costs 8900 gold total). MF’s Q deals 100+100% AD this is doubled by crit which is automatic on the second target. This is 672 damage. Followed by a single Auto attack dealing an additional 472 when factoring in lovetap. For a total of 1144 damage. Because Q does damage to the minion it kills first it resets lovetap, so if this combo is reversed it deals a total of 1380 damage from a Q and a right click. Please keep in mind, this is adding in no additional on hit effect, buffs from Ally champions, duskblade proc, or rune bonuses to AD as well as not even considering ult or E. Furthermore, Q is on a 3 second CD, with out CDR. Then, the three items alone give 20% CDR, essentially, this combo is always up and costs nothing.

Now, let's deal this damage to the level 18 draven, who theoretically could be in an immense lead, with an entire item and boots advantage. He still gains nearly no health or armor.

Because the 60 lethality makes Draven’s armor a mere 36, his effective health vs MF’s damage is only 2653.36 health. He takes the 1380 damage (which yes, using the adjusted effective health Draven does take relatively) which works out as 52% of the Draven's max health. Be reminded, that this is not accounting for any additional on hit effects, runes, vulnerabilities, or buffs.

Now, let's tweak this around, so the draven has only 20 armor. Yet has the same amount of effective health. This is 3187 nominal health. This is still only 3825 effective health. So in a 0 pen matchup, the Draven is equally strong. Now, draven is essentially taking true damage due to the MF’s pen and thus takes 1380 against his 3187 health. In this situation, the Draven only takes 37% of his health in this combo. This is a 15% change in the damage Draven takes, even though he is essentially taking true damage as well as his effective health remaining unchanged. Without receiving a buff, this tweak in the ratio of health and armor, lethality has been toned back.

For the purposes of convenience and avoiding further argument, I will acknowledge that this adjustment will have ripple effect out on other champions, such as max health damage. But I think this is an essential exercise in recognizing and understanding the math behind the game. Penetration is difficult to balance. Making it too expensive or too little just makes it not worth. Make too much of it available and they will essentially deal deal true damage. It is important that Riot expand the set of levers and dials they can turn to adjust damage of lethality. True damage and pen are hard to balance in this regard, utilizing these tools of “armor/health ratio for equal effective health” is important to expand balance technique.

For those curious as to how this kind of ridiculousness emerged, it's a concept called power creep. Gradually the numbers of base AD and Armor have slowly been slipping higher and higher. Specifically Armor, it's been growing too much, and as armor becomes more and more valuable as a base stat due to the extent to which it contributes to effective health. Please, everyone, bring this to Riot’s attention so they have a real and effective tool to tweak lethality without ruining everything else

IMPORTANT EDIT: I used the 20 armor as an extreme case and it is relevant to note that even when the Draven has 63 armor and the MF build 60 lethality leaving only 3 armor. (MF gets maximum use of her lethality) the Draven still takes 8% less of max health. While my example is intentionally extreme to highlight how significant the impact can be, it hold in significance even at higher armors and is even more extreme with lower lethality numbers. This balance technique discourages stacking lethality while still making it useful