Looks like we've been arguing about the same thing for atleast two years.

I found this gem looking through past boards threads.

{quoted}

I think this contradiction actually has to do with the team comps.

Too many champions are given far too powerful built in armor pen. I could see it being the gimmick of maybe 1 or 2 champions, however it (as well as mixed/true damage) is often just thrown into a kit for mechanical power. There is no reason that GP barrel needs to pen 40% of armor. There is no reason for darius to have 25% built in armor pen on his E. There is no reason for Wu, J4, Garen, to have built in armor pen. They already get insane value out of black cleaver and it's just an under the table power boost, completely non-interactive, with the only partial exception being garen's because it's after 4 hits.

What results is that you have a situation where you create two hard teirs of champions.

1. Those with armor pen which punch through tanks no matter how much armor they have (got crit by a GP for 1k earlier when i had 370 armor).
2. Those who will take 20 seconds of constant attacking to kill the same tank.

Riot wants to give more identity to the champions and better define the roles, but that isn't always a good thing when you start creating a very unstable environment. I'm waiting for the day people notice you can take BC and LW on marksmen and armor becomes so cost ineffective for the enemy team, that it forced the game into a burst war (because that's exciting >.>).

Holy shit its almost a prediction come true.

We are having that burst war right now. I wonder how far back these predictions were.

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