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@Meddler: Thornmail - Is it even workable?

darkdill··5 votes·753 views

Thornmail rarely (if ever) works these days. One MR item and its thorns damage basically evaporates and doesn't even meaningfully reduce enemy lifesteal. You basically run into an inverse of the old Zeke's Herald problem: you get Thornmail, and it gets countered by MR and lifesteal with no way of beating those two.

I recently had a Leona game where I had 500+ armor (enemy had 4 physicals), but the enemy team was simply LAUGHING at me for getting it, as it didn't even slow them in the slightest. Yes, some people have said I should have gotten more health, but they had Vayne and Fiora, who hard-counter all tanks. But beyond them, even their ZED was taking literally nothing from Thornmail procs, and he didn't have MR.

I have to ask if there's any plans to make Thornmail a worthwhile purchase, or if its mechanic is toxic. I'm guessing it's the latter, as it's a case of "invisible punishment" in that you get punished for attacking someone, but said punishment can't be strong or it's broken. Since it runs into this conundrum, I won't be surprised if you remove it for being unbalanceable, but is there a chance you might instead rework it?

19 Comments

MotrColt1 votes

Works when I play rammus

darkdill1 votes

One of the very rare cases, but even then it gets hugely blunted if your opponent gets a Mercurial Scimitar or Maw of Malmortius.

Linna Excel1 votes

In aram the other day, the enemy ADC was complaining because 2 of us got a thornmail in addition to other tanky stuff. I think it's working okay enough. At worst it prevents the ADC from life stealing as much off of you and they rarely get much in the way of MR unless it is end of game and they got a GA or a Merc Scimatar.

I recently had a Leona game where I had 500+ armor (enemy had 4 physicals), but the enemy team was simply LAUGHING at me for getting it

Armor has diminishing returns, sort of. Yes vayne counters health (get frozen heart first against her) but not all champs do.

darkdill2 votes

Yes, it has diminishing returns, but that much bonus armor should've made the thorns hurt. It didn't.

I also did have Frozen Heart AND Randuin's. Didn't do a thing.

Linna Excel1 votes

If you where getting focused by 5 people and some of them were casters more than AA champs, then you won't be doing any return damage to them. I mean I'd never get a thornmail against an AD ezreal and probably not lucian either. Who was the rest of the team?

darkdill2 votes

Their team was Vayne Fiora Volibear Zed Soraka

Health wouldn't really have worked against Fiora and Vayne.

Mistress Shyvana1 votes

Honestly I in most of my cases when dealin with %true damage dealers or %health in general stacking Healh helps

Think of this they're doing %'s of your health in addition to base damage. Yes if you have more health it still gets shredded at the same rate but If you have less health then you get shredded by the additional damage as well killing you faster.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NvJGe1B4,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-06-02T18:09:28.137+0000)

Armor has diminishing returns, sort of. Yes vayne counters health (get frozen heart first against her) but not all champs do.

no, it doesnt. please stop spreading this misinformation.

one point of armor equals an increase of your health pool against physical damage by 1%. so if you have 1000 health and 100 armor, your effective health pool against physical damage is 2000 hp. the tooltip is just misleading.

point is, armor is worth more with health, and each point of armor after the first is worth the same.

resistances are health multipliers and they dont have diminishing returns. thats why malphite with 600 armor is significantly more tanky than leona with 300 armor.

if it had diminishing returns, the difference in tankyness at high armor values, even such a large difference of 300 armor would be small.

Quepha1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NvJGe1B4,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2016-06-02T18:31:11.223+0000)

armor is worth more with health, and each point of armor after the first is worth the same.

While that's true, armor also increases the value of health, which is its major competitor. So Armor does kindof have diminishing returns in the sense that it becomes less valuable relative to more health.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

While that's true, armor also increases the value of health, which is its major competitor. So Armor does kindof have diminishing returns in the sense that it becomes less valuable relative to more health.

thats... exactly what i said. there is an optimum of harmor/hp with the item slots available.

but the armor formula itself doesnt have built in dim returns.

Linna Excel1 votes

First of all, it is true armor's value becomes more important with health to back it up. Also the more armor you buy the less MR you can get, so if you weren't facing an all AD comp, you would face that trade off.

More importantly though, the more armor you buy, the more likely the ADC is to buy item 3036 item 3071. So yes, once you figure the other guy is probably going to take more effort into nullifying your 6 items with 2, buying more and more of the stuff becomes of lesser value assuming the other team is playing correctly and anticipating your build.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Linna Excel,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NvJGe1B4,comment-id=000100010001,timestamp=2016-06-02T22:05:43.381+0000)

First of all, it is true armor's value becomes more important with health to back it up. Also the more armor you buy the less MR you can get, so if you weren't facing an all AD comp, you would face that trade off.

More importantly though, the more armor you buy, the more likely the ADC is to buy item 3036 item 3071. So yes, once you figure the other guy is probably going to take more effort into nullifying your 6 items with 2, buying more and more of the stuff becomes of lesser value assuming the other team is playing correctly and anticipating your build.

the resistance formula still does not have diminishing returns. and armor penetration items are reducing all (bonus) armor values by a certain %, or your armor by a flat value.

even if we take last whisper items into account, 1 point of armor is worth as much as the next. with last whisper, all armor you buy, no matter how much you already have is just worth half the amount as without.

please just drop it dude. "diminishng returns" means, that the more armor you have the less worth will the next point of armor be. but this is not the case with resistances.

the tooltip in game, displaying % damage reduction through resistances is just terribly misleading. what it basically does is compare the effective health from your last resistance point you purchased to the effective health pool of all resistance points before.

so if you have a 1000 health, then your 100th armor point adds 10 effective health on a 1990 effective health pool, which is relatively less than your first armor point which adds 10 effective health on a 1000 effective health pool.

this is why the tooltip is stupid. the actual defense you get out of each resistance point is the same (in this example 10 health).

BloodyTompon1 votes

Critmaster is right. It's a linear function. The %penetration might change it from 1% to 0.6%, but it is a linear increase. (Im not sure if I've got the correct numbers ? I can;t remember how much pen they have)

Critmaster Garen1 votes

im too lazy to type it out again. so here is my comment on the item from another thread.

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rLRtHFdu,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2016-06-02T15:24:19.849+0000)

yea, thornmail needs changes. imo they should make the flat portion of the damage return scale with total hp, instead of armor.

problem with the armor scaling are nieche cases of champions being able to get 600 armor and upwards, while even most tanks and fighters get to about 300 to 400 armor with the thornmail when they really dedicate their items towards armor. riot apparantly balanced the current thornmail around malphite, rammus, taric etc. basically if the item would be good on the average bruiser or tank, it would be broken on those 3.

the possible armor on them is just a gigantic difference to what everyone else reaches when he specializes in armor.

the difference in armor is much larger than the difference in health between specialized health tanks like sion or chogath, compared to other health stacking tanks and fighters.

for example, a sion or chogath will probably be able to reach 4500 health with a full build. while the average bruiser or tank who would buy thornmail would reach around 4000 health.

this difference is smaller than a leona with 300 armor compared to a rammus or malphite with 600 armor. thats why imo the scaling should be changed to health. it would still make thornmail better on certain champions than others, but the gap would by far not be as large. which means the item could be made better in general.

Fondling Gems1 votes

Basically it just negates 1 lifesteal item, aka forcing them to build 2 ls items or 1 ls and 1 mr. Or just merc

Wolfram Oxford1 votes

It needs to be buffed. Too many AD items counter it. I used to be on the other side of the argument, but when you play Rammus and get melted by auto attackers who have lifesteal and MR in abundance you feel lackluster. They need to make Thornmail apply grievous wounds.

GigglesO1 votes

Except I build it almost every game... The only change I would want to see, is that it returns damage on all physical damage (spells included).

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

Except I build it almost every game... The only change I would want to see, is that it returns damage on all physical damage (spells included).

the only time i build it is when im really stacking armor on malphite because the enemy team picked 3 to 4 ad champs.

otherwise i find it utterly pointless. scimitar alone counters thornmail with its mr/lifesteal.

BloodyTompon1 votes

I disagree with your premise. It's not at all a worthless purchase. If you're expecting them to die auto attacking you, prepare to remain disappointed. That would be terrible game balance and terrible design if it were intended.

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