Hidden tankiness: Why Squishies are so hard to kill

DragonShea·Aug 26, 2017·49 votes·2,703 views

As you might have noticed. A lot of frail champions have a lot more durability/tankiness that they should normally have. and as you know it's because of the way the popular Damage items have damage mitigating effects that ain't straight up resistances. are the main offenders here as they offer protection against damage to an insane degree. this alongside the high among of lifesteal there is in the game has made so that they are so much sustain and hidden defensive power to the point they can rival fighter, a class meant for mid-high damage and durability.

Having this much protection against damage for glass cannons hurts the game and really makes it favor them. Just wanted to let those not aware it know it.

54 Comments

JbelsAug 26, 201750 votes

Every time I point out that damage dealing champions have way too much defensive power on their offensive purchases, I get called a circlejerker. And people wonder why balance issues stay balance issues for so long.

DragonSheaAug 26, 20176 votes

{quoted}

Every time I point out that damage dealing champions have way too much defensive power on their offensive purchases, I get called a circlejerker. And people wonder why balance issues stay balance issues for so long.

Get what you mean, even I do get to blow up a Melee carry or an ADC, it still takes too long. That is how bad it is. Because the few times when the enemy team do intervene, it gives them a change to lifesteal their HP back and then pentakill my own team. The window for rescue is too big.

MartyrofsandAug 27, 201711 votes

item 3026 item 3139 are the bigger offenders imo. Both give resistance stats, both give AD, one gives a CC break with life steal, and the other gives you a freaking revive.

Yeah not near as concerned about DD and PD being good defensive options that provide AD as I am the above two, namely because Marksmen actually build the two I mentioned.

SnowFallAug 27, 20172 votes

{quoted}

are the bigger offenders imo. Both give resistance stats, both give AD, one gives a CC break with life steal, and the other gives you a freaking revive.

Yeah not near as concerned about DD and PD being good defensive options that provide AD as I am the above two, namely because Marksmen actually build the two I mentioned.

item 3046 item 3812 are lower elo version of those

MartyrofsandAug 27, 20173 votes

Translation, bad versions.

PrinceOfStormsAug 27, 20173 votes

I'd rather see GA and Mercurial Scimitar become tank items tbh.

MartyrofsandAug 27, 20171 votes

I would to but if we are being honest ADCs are not the only types of champs who get defense and damage on their items. Tanks get Sunfire and Thornmail, AP carries get Abyssal Mask, Banshees Veil, Zhonyas and several items that give AP and health like Liandries/Rylias. Even supports get damage on Redemption actives.

The biggest difference is that ADCs by leeps and bounds have the better combination via the revive passive and free cleanse in their build paths.

LordGeovanniAug 27, 20171 votes

Biggest diffrence is that only marksmen and mages claim to trade defense for damage but they dont really.

ganggoinkAug 27, 20172 votes

And who the fuck builds merc scimitar?

MartyrofsandAug 27, 20175 votes

Good ADCs who don't like to die to CC.

LordGeovanniAug 27, 20171 votes

CC doesnt kill CC always needs damage to back it up

LordGeovanniAug 27, 20171 votes

Pure Damage Midigation is stronger than resistances. those other 2 you mentioned have resistances and other defensive mechanics.

MartyrofsandAug 28, 20171 votes

This isn't as true as you think. Resistances actually lead to pure damage mitigation because of how armor/magic resist works in this game. The more you have, the higher your % resistance is against damage. A perfect example of this is the building of Abyssal Mask we see so much on Cassio. Between ruins/masteries and Sorc+Liandires most get around 43 magic resist, but by building Abyssal Mask you would effectively have 32% damage reduction against that degree of magic penetration, far greater than the 12% damage reduction of a PD.

So if we bring this back to GA and Mercurial a Twitch with both at level 18 would have 95 armor and 74 magic resist, not including runes/masteries so potentially 104 armor with armor yellows and 86 with magic resist blues. If you ignore 35% of the armor, IE 33 armor, that would leave the twitch with 62 armor would leave twitch taking 61% damage from the enemy attack, so yeah that's a huge amount of damage reduction compared to the 12% you get from PD.

LordGeovanniAug 28, 20171 votes

Not counting runes and masteries would be mistaken because those are present before you even load into the game and adcs scale magic resist now so you gonna end up with more than 74 magic resist.

AFilthyCaitMainAug 26, 20176 votes

PD is fine tbh, paired with DD and DD and general is really hard to balance. On like illaoi, its balanced, but on like draven, its broken. It might need nerfs and buffing champs like illaoi to compensate.

DragonSheaAug 26, 20179 votes

{quoted}

PD is fine tbh, paired with DD and DD and general is really hard to balance. On like illaoi, its balanced, but on like draven, its broken. It might need nerfs and buffing champs like illaoi to compensate.

Juggs are in a bad spot anyways, the issue is that they have too many barriers to overcome to get to their target. on a high damage ADC like Draven it's too powerful.

GrReaper96Aug 27, 20171 votes

PD is ok right now because most ADCs opt to just simply burst item 3087 item 3094 rather than orbwalk. After all death is the best CC

YumaS2AstralAug 27, 20173 votes

I honestly rarely see item 3046 being purchased outside of Draven Vayne and sometimes Lucian . For most ADCs, it is not worth to give up damage/waveclear from item 3087 , waveclear/AoE damage from item 3085 , and/or damage/extra range from item 3094 . Usually, Warlords Bloodlust, item 3504 , and shield spam from supports is enough to keep them alive.

NyarlathοtepAug 27, 20171 votes

How the fk pd is fine? Pd gives you dmg ( throught crit, unreliable early one but still potential dmg ), gives you conditional movement speed, the ability to move through units ( yes i count this shit too), atk speed more atk speed=more dps and a stupid amount of reduction of enemy dmg if the conditions are met, which arent exactly difficult. Unless there is a teamfight, but even then its not very difficult.

AFilthyCaitMainAug 27, 20174 votes

You build it against anticarries so that they cant just completely annihilate your anus in .01 seconds and you can at least try to kite them. Think Udyr Darius etc

its working as intended.

NyarlathοtepAug 27, 20172 votes

Wait darius and udyr can kill you in .01 sec? What? The only ones that i know that have this capacity or are, or rather were, old talon and rengar. It is made to deter assasins. But if assasins cant assasinate the adc, what will they do? Go after apc that has zhyonias?

LordGeovanniAug 27, 20171 votes

to be fair every assassin has a delay in their burst and a way to wait out zhonyas.

kargishAug 27, 20173 votes

PD is balanced

Hope you're taking into account that the damage reduction only applies to whoever you attack.

SolarisCorvusAug 27, 20171 votes

{quoted}

PD is fine tbh, paired with DD and DD and general is really hard to balance. On like illaoi, its balanced, but on like draven, its broken. It might need nerfs and buffing champs like illaoi to compensate.

Just half the amount of damage converted to bleed out damage for ranged champs. Alot of items should half their passives for ranged champs.

LordGeovanniAug 27, 20171 votes

or we could nerf the problem champion?

Teridax68Aug 27, 20175 votes

Phantom Dancer I feel should give you lots of bonus movement speed when strafing a target, rather than damage reduction. If the idea is to "dance" around your target, then gaining bonus movement speed when moving around them, and not necessarily moving towards or away from them, would allow the wielder to dodge incoming projectiles better, instead of making them better at facetanking them, as is currently the case. Making the bonus movespeed exclusive to strafing could allow for mobility that isn't directly linked to closing or widening the gap between the wielder and their target.

DD I think is pretty much designed to be healthy when used by melee champions: when you're melee and just survived a burst of damage that would've killed you thanks to DD, it's a race against time to find a target to heal off of before you die, and so the effect has both interesting gameplay and counterplay (you can kite the melee DD wielder at a crucial time so that they bleed out). On a ranged champion, however, it simply becomes a question of hitting whichever target is in range, so the bleed gets countered without too much trouble, and the item ends up basically providing 30% damage reduction. Because of this, I think the damage conversion effect needs to be either made melee-exclusive, or should be different depending on the target's range, e.g. 30% on melee champions and 15% on ranged champions.

The fundamental issue with life steal, imo, is that it's a stat whose sole purpose is to allow drain tanking, but which scales off of damage. It's currently excessive right now, but even as a baseline it gives durability to classes whose weakness should be a distinct lack of durability. The only class who I think would be justified in picking it would be fighters, but otherwise marksmen should not have access to this stat, at least not in an environment where damage is reasonable enough to not completely cream them the moment they get exposed (which happens especially when they get focused by the entire enemy team).

ThilmerAug 27, 20174 votes

It's called "lifesteal" and is a blatant balance issue that should have been adressed a few seasons ago. Is not hidden at all.

DragonSheaAug 27, 20171 votes

{quoted}

It's called "lifesteal" and is a blatant balance issue that should have been adressed a few seasons ago. Is not hidden at all.

I was talking about damage mitigating, not sustain. And the reason i didn't mention it was because that issue is already well known among players right now.

XPtokenAug 27, 20174 votes

Let me tell you the real balance issue here.

Riot listening to every QQ thread ADC mains make on reddit and nerfing champions and classes according to that

notice me Sin piAug 26, 20173 votes

item 3812 protects against BURST but not DAMAGE. But then i do see that if squishies cant be bursted, then they might as well as be considered tanky to some degree. Take my upvote, but fix ur post to avoid the downvotes.

DragonSheaAug 26, 20175 votes

[{quoted}](name=notice me Sin pi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=TQ7dAhBi,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-08-26T22:53:57.138+0000)

protects against BURST but not DAMAGE. But then i do see that if squishies cant be bursted, then they might as well as be considered tanky to some degree. Take my upvote, but fix ur post to avoid the downvotes.

Half and Half. It offers protection when you are proactive aka dealing damage. And technically it protects against burst which _is _ a form of damage.

General Esdeath Aug 27, 20173 votes

"haha what's wrong with mixing it up? Damage reduction on damage items is fine. But I swear to Phreak if you dare buff tank items to give damage I'll send death threats and call your balance team shit"

-ADC mains

SpelingMistakeeAug 26, 20172 votes

SalronAug 27, 20172 votes

DD is only built by Draven If ADCs are too tanky, it's not because of that

Il VirtuósoAug 27, 20172 votes

The problem is when a Kha'Zix (or w/e AD assassin) buys a Black Cleaver and Tabis and becomes absolutely unfightable for you poor-ass 3-items ADC if you don't have at least a Last Whisper. 400 bonus health + 30 armor + attacks deal reduced damage = you can't even try to talk to him. There's an insane span between your damage without Lord Dominik's Regards and with it.

XPtokenAug 27, 20171 votes

That's maybe because he's a fucking assassin and his fucking role is to assassinate priority targets(clues in the name dumbass).

The counterplay to a class that counters you is not to fucking fight them, your job is to dps while your team tanks and peels for you, not 1v1 the champion that fucking counters you.

When adc start understanding that there should be counterplay against the role and stop sucking Riot's dick to nerf whatever class that counters them the game will be balanced. I'm sick of ADC expecting the game to be balanced around their moaning and complaining

DuskDaUmbreonAug 27, 20172 votes

Yet it seems that tanks and juggernauts are whining about ADCs beating them...Hmm...strange...

XPtokenAug 27, 20171 votes

Where in my comment did I justify the tank/juggernaut whining???? Where the fuck did I even mention any of those two classes?

My problem is that assassins have been shit on because of the whining of adc players, don't try to shift subject or act like I'm a hypocrite for something I wasn't even talking about, trash.

Sire HippingtonAug 27, 20172 votes

The real hidden tankiness for (good)adc: MS and reliable rightclick damage. For some reason ADC get MS from teheir core item( item 3086 ) , and their damage comes all easymode by rightclicking with 'attack/move' and 'champions only', so they can focus nearly entierly on aoivding stuff while dishing out their dps.

Given that riot put alot effort into takeing reliabillity from all other classes by turning their point n click into skillshots, adding delayed mechanics or gateing stuff with minigames that demand their focus, it feels pretty unfair that ADC are 100% reliable in their dps while also haveing absurd numbers. Either keep them reliable and tune them down, or give them counterplay aswell.

Also, Warlords Bloodlust. Most ADC in high elo skip lifesteal all together exept for maybe scimitar as 5th or 6th item and instead rush 3 crit items because warlords alone is all the sustain they need. And even more ms for kiteing/dodgeing...

Elkington VIAug 27, 20172 votes

Another issue is that lifesteal is nowhere near as accessible to most bruisers/immobile melees as it is for the mobile damage dealers. These days, they pretty much have to rely on sustain via Spirit Visage and their own kits in order to survive. Even Jax rarely builds lifesteal anymore and he can fit it in his build easier than most bruisers can.

The best option most bruisers have is item 3153 , which I personally don't think is very good, even on the champions it synergizes the best with. However, there are no alternatives. I really wish Riot would remove the attack speed on it, yet keep the AD on it very low so that it could truly be a bruiser item (and marksmen could stop getting it nerfed).

DragonSheaAug 28, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Elkington VI,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=TQ7dAhBi,comment-id=0013,timestamp=2017-08-27T23:22:54.078+0000)

Another issue is that lifesteal is nowhere near as accessible to most bruisers/immobile melees as it is for the mobile damage dealers. These days, they pretty much have to rely on sustain via Spirit Visage and their own kits in order to survive. Even Jax rarely builds lifesteal anymore and he can fit it in his build easier than most bruisers can.

The best option most bruisers have is , which I personally don't think is very good, even on the champions it synergizes the best with. However, there are no alternatives. I really wish Riot would remove the attack speed on it, yet keep the AD on it very low so that it could truly be a bruiser item (and marksmen could stop getting it nerfed).

Yeah. Either that or DD are the only decent LS items for juggs although DD is better unless you are fighting a super tank.

But in fairness Juggs are meant to have in-build Sustain to help them survive in fights while ADC's should have to buy it. hence the reason item 3065 is a good item for juggs and other tanky sustain champs if they need sustain and/or need to protect themselves against Magic damage.

DracosKasuAug 27, 20171 votes

I dont think the problem came from those item but the amount of regen that adc currently get from lifesteal and warlord and the crit bonus doesnt help.

KarfussAug 27, 20171 votes

I believe that their damage is relatively fine, I'd even go ahead and give ADCs MORE armour penetration to deal with the ever present tank meta (it is custom to see three tanks in high ELO and LCS games now Alistar Trundle Chogath Gragas Sejuani Maokai are the main offenders, most teams will have AT LEAST two of these).

The issue is that they are not sacrificing damage for protection, and this protection cannot be dealt with by itemisation because it is flat % reduction. This should simply not exist, least of all for squishy carries. I also believe that because there is so much extra resistance and damage in the game, Lifesteal is having unhealthy interactions by healing on overall damage, not base damage.

The be all and end all is that the assassin class cannot assassinate because of the broken type of damage reduction on ADC itemisation, even when played perfectly. High ELO and LCS echo this by the sheer lack of assassins and divers.

Something has to be done, or we're all going to have to become ADCs, Lucian/Corki and Syndra mid laners, or tanks in every other role.

TL:DR - For a more balanced game, you're going to need to up ADC penetration and nuke their survivability. A buff to MPen too. It would reduce the number of tanks, and increase the number of assassins and traditional AP mages.

Synnx7Aug 27, 20171 votes

Riot : " ohh. dmg creep? here have DD , cuz we wont lower the dmg any further !. pressing right click from 600range+ , one shooting u , its so skilled and muh LC$ play$ !"

deadlychuckAug 27, 20171 votes

This isn't even hidden tankiness, imo. This is blatant upfront tankiness that riot just doesn't seem willing to address.

I think a real source of hidden tankiness in league comes from mobility and burst. The reason turrets can't kill shit isn't just because they don't do any damage, it's also because players don't spend nearly as long under the towers.

Hell, build item 3812 item 3046 on Aatrox , it's insane how fucking powerful drain tank squishy items are on a "drain tank" fighter.

LordGeovanniAug 27, 20171 votes

also they are smaller ans so is their hit box and they are more mobile in movement speed and skills

RankOneUgandaAug 28, 20171 votes

supports and support items are the offenders

not those items. these items have existed in some form all over the years. we never had supports like taric or janna or any healing support + ardent censor ever

LordGeovanniAug 28, 20171 votes

Support items are the new guys and their introduction did Unbalance the game but they arent the offenders its because the class that is getting supporting is being balanced so that they didnt even need supporting. Supports need influence and adcs could stand to lose some of their influence.

Gentleman JeyAug 28, 20171 votes

The problem is that those items give the player resistances, without taking the player's skill into mind. That means there is no outplay.

If instead the player had to perform some difficult task to receive the same resistances, you would most likely play against someone who would fail to correctly perform them. Thus, you would indeed need to GIT GUD KID, if the resistances were actually able to be proc'ed.

But, than you would hate it even more, and it would be the Dark Souls community all over again. There will always be an enemy.

GIT GUD KID

AetherKingdomAug 28, 20171 votes

summoner 3 item 3157 item 3102 item 3190 item 3107