Pretty much the title. With flask recovering both HP (120) and MP (60) 3 times over and having enough money for 3 additional pots of choice or a ward, why would anybody pick Doran's Shield over Flask? This is all assuming that you're choosing a champion that uses mana of course.
SNSD Tiffanyx3 votesyou can all in easier with that 80hp, whereas flask is more of a slowly whittle your opponent down cuz u got more sustain
Tusutaki1 votesUnless you're going to all in with when you guys are full health at the early levels, thats not going to happen. Even when taking poke damage, flask recovers more health on the fly and recovers your mana when you poke back or make trades.
Captain Aishi1 votesthat's the point, doran's shield excels for level2-3 all ins
on a more specific note, Nasus vs Ryze, doran's shield is "retarded" strong because of your passive lifesteal, blocking 8 damage from each ryze auto and Q make him waste his mana on you if he ever bothers to trade before he has tear, making it basically a free lane early on
Tusutaki1 votesWho all ins at level 2 - 3 at even health?
Flask regenerates health faster when needed and provides mana to constantly harass. Especially when you also have 3 more health pots. Its more immediate as well vs waiting for around a minute and a half to receive the regeneration value.
Captain Aishi2 votesdarius, pantheon, jarvan, xin zhao, fiora are champions that have early all-in timings in certain matchups (particularly against ranged champions)
Tusutaki1 votesAnd do you know what they do before they go all in? They harass/poke until their health is low enough to go all in. All of them which uses mana. Against ranged champions, they will poke back. Now would you rather let them have control of your lane for a good minute for your health to come back up with Shield or would you rather come back almost immediately in 12 seconds with the flask?
Dryditch1 votesOn Xin, if you're top lane and don't want to take teleport, ignite all-in is stronger with Doran's shield because of the aa reduction. You can 100-0 someone faster than they can kill you.
SNSD Tiffanyx1 voteslevel 2 all ins arent that uncommon, or even level 3 or 4
Talamare3 votesDoran heals 72 per minute
So if you stay 5 minutes in lane Doran out heals Flask
This is completely ignoring the fact that Doran blocks 8 damage per hit, which can be massive! Especially with Block Mastery which means you can ignore 12 damage per hit after armor.
Flask is for if you need the mana more than anything
Tusutaki3 votes5 minutes that it takes to outheal flask. 5 minutes vs 36 seconds to recover the same amount plus mana. If you get a bad trade, you have to patiently wait for your health to go back up with Shield and giving the enemy a higher chance to snowball. Where as with Flask, you almost immediately recover from the bad trade and be able to go back to your regular routine without running a higher risk of being killed off.
Also not even counting in the fact that you can buy 3 more health pots with the left over money you have from buying Flask. If they're a manabase champ, then they will most likely run out of mana before they come even close to killing you off if they're not running Flask themselves.
Talamare2 votes5 minutes that it takes to outheal flask. 5 minutes vs 36 seconds to recover the same amount plus mana. If you get a bad trade, you have to patiently wait for your health to go back up with Shield and giving the enemy a higher chance to snowball. Where as with Flask, you almost immediately recover from the bad trade and be able to go back to your regular routine without running a higher risk of being killed off.
Also not even counting in the fact that you can buy 3 more health pots with the left over money you have from buying Flask. If they're a manabase champ, then they will most likely run out of mana before they come even close to killing you off if they're not running Flask themselves.
Understandable but you would also trade better with Doran's Shield
End of the day, both are pretty solid options
Poptart Evelynn2 votesIt's kinda hard to explain to lower elos why D-Shield is better on a lot of champions. But I'll give it a shot.
If you have a champion with high base value resist or took a lot of resist runes and stuff. D-Shield reduces damage after the resist reduces. Take Kat for example. If you have 20% magic resist, then you have 15% damage reduce, and then you get the 8 damage reduce after all of that. It reduces a lot more damage then you realize. D-Shield doesn't block "effective" damage it blocks reduced damage.
This increases your effective health by a lot compared to Flask. You don't gain "80hp" you gain about 150-300(this number varies on a lot of things) effective health. Which also the passive damage blocks brings up your "total" effective health.
You also have to take into account that this also burns more mana of your opponent to get through this effective hp.
Tusutaki2 votesThis increases your effective health by a lot compared to Flask. You don't gain "80hp" you gain about 150-300(this number varies on a lot of things) effective health.
80hp from the item itself and 6 health regen per 5 seconds. Which equates to 1.2 health per second. Inorder to get the "150" effective health you would have to wait for over 2 minutes. Thats 2 minutes your opponent has control of the lane vs 12 seconds to recover the majority of your health with Flask. Flask which also recovers MP so you can trade back more consistently without the fear of running out of mana. This is not even counting in the fact that you have 3 additional pots left over from buying Flask at the start of the game which would bring up your effective health by 450. Combined with 360 from Flask thats 820 effective health altogether at the start of the game.
8 damage being blocked from single target spells and autos. Keep in mind that it says target. Majority of top laners dont have targeted abilities which negates Doran's blocking passive. Plus it doesnt block minion damage as well. So in order to even get the full benefit of Doran's Shield you would have to face someone who is extremely auto heavy.
Poptart Evelynn1 votes80hp from the item itself and 6 health regen per 5 seconds. Which equates to 1.2 health per second. Inorder to get the "150" effective health you would have to wait for over 2 minutes. Thats 2 minutes your opponent has control of the lane vs 12 seconds to recover the majority of your health with Flask. Flask which also recovers MP so you can trade back more consistently without the fear of running out of mana. This is not even counting in the fact that you have 3 additional pots left over from buying Flask at the start of the game which would bring up your effective health by 450. Combined with 360 from Flask thats 820 effective health altogether at the start of the game.
8 damage being blocked from single target spells and autos. Keep in mind that it says target. Majority of top laners dont have targeted abilities which negates Doran's blocking passive. Plus it doesnt block minion damage as well. So in order to even get the full benefit of Doran's Shield you would have to face someone who is extremely auto heavy.
Health regen has nothing to do with "Effective Health". Effective health is the amount of health you have including resist. If you have 2k health and 50% armor/magic resist. You have 3k "Effective Health".
Keep in mind the correct terms at hand. Flask does not increase "Effective Health" at all. So you gain 0 effective health at the start of the game. Let alone I'm not even talking about going 100% health at each other full force and comparing the win of the trade for having that higher effective health.
Tusutaki1 votesI know what effective health means, I just thought you were including the regen and passive from the Shield as Shield only gives 80 health and you somehow came up with 150-300. Even so, my point still stands. Lets use Pantheon for example with 15 bonus AD and his Q against Flask and Shield
His Q deals 86 He is able to spam Q 6 times before running out of mana at ~24 seconds
You typical top laner has around 32 armor from runes so that equals to 65 damage from Q
65 x 6 = 387 damage
387 damage in 24 seconds. Lets say your champion starts out at 600 hp initially without items.
600 - 387 = 213 remaining HP
W/Doran's Shield HP will be 680 Since Spear is targeted, it will block 8 damage so thats 58 damage 58 x 6 = 348 damage 680 - 348 = 332 remaining health Shield's health regen is 1.2 per second. 1.2 x 24 = 28 hp regenerated over 24 seconds 332 + 28 = 360 remaining health
So you would only be taking 320 damage with 360 HP (52%) left with Doran's Shield
Now lets look at Flask 600 - 387 = 213 remaining health 2 flasks = 240 health regenerated over 24 seconds 213 + 240 = 453 remaining health
So you would only be taking 147 damage with 453 HP (75%) left with Flask.
In order for Doran's regen to be of equal value to the champion HP with the Flask in this calculation, you would have to wait for over a minute. Now you still have 1 flask left over and 3 health pots. With Doran's Shield you have 1 health pot. Now note that its single targetd. If I were to use like Pantheons E then the gap would further widen.
Doran's Shield will only outvalue flask if you're against the likes of Fiora but thats only if you are going all in balls deep with no disengage.
Kuroi861 votesIf you've some built in sustain and don't need the mana of flask, then Doran's Shield is actually a better choice.
It also matters depending on how you play the champ, if you use up a lot of mana with abilities early or tend to use little mana in lane.
TTUPhoenix1 votesI second this. I tend to play top-lane champs with sustain (Cho'Gath, Nasus) so the steady healing, extra hp and damage reduction of Doran's is handy (though I take Doran's Ring on Cho'Gath for mana). I always thought of flask more for champs like Pantheon, who tend to run out of mana very quickly.
Done251 votesBecause Doran's shield shuts down DoT people like Darius or Fiddlesticks and it shuts them down HARD.
Drunk Rummate1 votesflask won't save you from Riven when she 100-0s you with ignite at level 3. always find it funny when i play against gangplanks who open flask under the impression that they can just spam parlay on me. joke's on them when they die with 2 flask charges left to use.