So I just tested this new thornmail on malphite. I had over 600 armor with thornmail, frozen heart etc. Nothing but pure armor, and yet ad auto atkers were killing me and they didn't even have a life steal item. WTF!!!
Blade of Justic21 votesBut if Thornmail returned the damage in True Damage, then we might be onto something.
Swain Hextech4 votesyea lol
YumaS2Astral2 votes[{quoted}](name=Blade of Justic,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Wa282gTB,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-09-13T02:22:20.108+0000)
But if Thornmail returned the damage in True Damage, then we might be onto something.
I would just increase the percentage of damage from auto-attacks returned from 15% to 20% or even 25%. This on itself would already be a big buff.
WiegrafOfValor12 votesIt was 30% before and still wasn't enough.. The amount of HP adc gains back with lifesteal always outscale your defenses.
Besides, Thornmail deals Magical Damage, that means it never deals the damage you're assuming. Every champion have min Magic Damage Reduction around 20% without items, runes or masteries.
While adc have 
that reduce the cost efficiency of all your items, thornmail for example has it's cost efficiency cut by 35% cause it only gives you AR.
Thornmail was underpowered before, now is garbage.
Joe Dredd5 votesdo people actually believe this bullshit
Dextix LT7 votesYes, they do, because its not bullshit.
Aych Pii1 votesI'm guessing you don't play tanks.
Joe Dredd1 votesI have over a hundred renekton games this season and i've built thornmail nearly every game because it was stupidly strong and is still strong.
Aych Pii1 votesAlright, fair. That's an interesting perspective, then, I've rarely seen a tank player who liked building thornmail. I suppose I can see how it would work on Renekton, though, he has less to gain from a Frozen Heart than others like him and he gains health from his ultimate.
AzureInTheDark2 votes
mains would like a word with you.
Aych Pii1 votesWhat mains?
Just kidding, but yeah Rammus and Malphite are exceptions. Maybe Taric or Leona too, but they usually need to be buying support items.
AzureInTheDark1 votesI dunno man, I've seen how lethal Taric and Leona top can be. And that was mainly before Sterak's Gauge and Titanic Hydra. I wouldn't be surprised if they built Thornmail for a main build item.
Aych Pii1 votesOh yeah, for sure. They're not quite as commonly played top, though.
Joe Dredd1 votesI used to buy frozen heart sometimes too because that item is also stupidly strong.
OnanThaMan2 votesI'd prefer it to return damage on all physical damage instead of putting more sustained true damage in the game.
PiVoRx1 votesYea lets make everything in this game deal true damage now. lol
Captain Aishi14 votesfor new thornmail to return the same damage as the old one versus a 3 item draven, you need around 860 armor... legit :P
Irelia Bot12 votesStill think they need to make thronmail like Dota 2's blade mail.
Active that makes attacking the target a really bad idea.
Swain Hextech6 votesI think thornmail should have multiple effects /stats like the new omen.
WiegrafOfValor10 votesThe truth is, it only need to apply Grievous Wounds on the attacker, because lifesteal negate the effect you paid 3k gold for.. that's bs
Anidan3 votesThornmail only costs 2300... I dunno where you're getting an additional 700 from.
Not that I don't agree, but at the same time we have to be careful if we're going to do anything with its passive damage. I'd really prefer the idea of making it more similar to Blade Mail from DotA2, that way it's stronger when you need it to be. It does pure damage equal to the unmitigated damage of the attacker (yes, it is possible to have Phantom Assassin one-shot herself for you). It doesn't have to be quite that strong here, but I think part of the problem is the item's effect being passive.
YumaS2Astral6 votesIt doesn't matter that you have 600 armor if you don't have any bonus HP. You need HP to make all this armor worth. Also, 600 armor means nothing to a mage.
WiegrafOfValor4 votesMost of AR items have huge HP increase... gtfo
Swain Hextech9 votesI don't care about mages, im talking about ad auto attackers.
YumaS2Astral5 votes[{quoted}](name=Inferno Punisher,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Wa282gTB,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2015-09-13T02:41:37.224+0000)
I don't care about mages, im talking about ad auto attackers.
You still need HP against them. Yes, even if they build 
you need to build HP to make all this armor worth and also because they may build armor penetration.
Photos of Ghosts1 votesArpen is countered by armor.
Tails Doll5 votesArpen COUNTERS* armor.
Onegarion3 votesYou must not know that there is a break point where buying more armor is actually counter productive and does very little to actually make you tankier. You need to balance armor/health out. Having too much of either is really bad. Especially with resistances having diminishing returns the more you get. This is a bit dated, but here is the side of the issue in this link.
Daedalus8712 votes1 armor always equals 1% (of your max health) more effective physical health.
Onegarion3 votesYes it does, but it still loses its overall effectiveness as you build just one or the other. When someone can get a LW or VS and cut your big 600 armor down it hurts a lot more than losing at lower levels of armor and because its a 1% effectiveness you still have to do the math on when its better to get 1 or the other. Say you have 2k HP and you are trying to decide whether to build health or more armor. 
gives you 150 effective HP against AD and a 
will give you 150 HP. Meaning if your opponent has any OP threat you want the otherwise its personal preference.
Take the same case with 
(40 armor) and 
(380 HP). In most cases you are going to get more out of the armor here with giving you 800 effective health against AD to the 380 hp from giants belt. This means you have 2800 HP against AD and 2380 against everything.
SO with this in mind lets take a look at what its like to go against someone with a LW. You have your 40 Armor and a t. will reduce the effectiveness of the by 14 (35% reduction) giving you only 520 HP on your 2k health. Giving you 2520 total health to a 2380 HP on a champ with giants belt. The gap is closing rather quickly with the armor shred items. There is only 140 HP difference or about a worth of HP. If there are any additional Armor shred in their kit (from things like 
, 
) it gets even worse. While this may not be completely normal to have all of them its still a big hit.
Now lets assume someone who has is probably going 21/X/X in their masteries. This gives them 6% extra armor pen. So we have to add that into the equation. This brings the difference to <100 with a giants belt. Making only a very small difference overall.
So when you take the OP's example into account it sounds like he built very little armor making him very vulnerable to armor shred of any kind. Since you'll have nothing to fall back on you get destroyed by AD. 
and 
don't give any HP stats at all. So a little extra HP would have helped out a lot. This is why its rather common to get high HP items coupled with the all armor items because they self boost giving you massive amounts of Effective HP.
I want to do 1 last quick calculation between and taking the same 2k HP champ into account. gives you 100% effective HP against armor meaning you have 4k HP at the end. gives you 1000 from just the armor component, 600 HP from just the 300 HP, and from the combo for a total of 1900. This gives you 3900 effective HP total.
Now take the armor shred into account and only gives you a total of 3300 effective HP and gives you 650 from armor, still the 600 HP, and then 195 from the item stats. Leaving you with an effective total of 1395 or 3395 effective HP. Now i know thats not a lot, but when you couple that with a lot of other armor items and no extra HP you start to see how the difference will grow.
Saianna4 votesIf you make some maths, then you need at least (somewhere around) 400 armor and enemy ADC somewhere 300 AD for "new" thornmail to deal similar return damage to old one.
If that is balanced to you, then you are stupid.
yukonl4 votesNo malphite games since 6/15 of last year.
You sure you aren't making this up?
Jupıter1 votes^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Silents4293 votesUm. Did you bother stacking Health? You aren't going to tank anything without a hefty amount of health to go along with high armor/MR
I don't like this misconception that the is suppose to be killing any AA champions on it's own, when it's just an item to increase a tanks DPS
TurquoiseYoshi3 votesSunfire Cape, Dead Man's Plate, Randuin's Omen... Are you sensing a theme here?
Silents4291 votesMore questioning how 600 armor was obtained.
Old wasn't going to help this either, and if he even had half that much armor the new one would have given off more damage then the old one.
TurquoiseYoshi1 votesI'm not really sure either, unless literally all the rune/mastery slots were for armor. It might have been an exaggeration.
Crowe Stalker1 votesit's possible with armor seals/marks (yes, Armor Marks are slot efficient on a Malphite, Rammus or Taric) and 4-5 armor items. It sounds impossible, but Malphite's Crushing Blows passive passively gives him a percent increase to his armor (when I play Jungle Malphite, I take flat armor seals/marks along with flat CDR Blues/Quints, start with around 67 armor or around there. Gromp barely leaves a dent with a half-decent leash)
RisenDarkKnight1 votesIt's pretty easy if he was playing malphite (his w passive gives him 30% extra armor)
Fiveofswords2 votesthornmail works but 600 armor is just silly. if you have 250 armor u are fine. really if u have 200 you are fine. get more health and stuff. the damage from thornmail depends on your opponent mr/your magic pen. For example ive gotten thornmail on elise(who i already give mpen runes, mpen boots and llandrys tears) and the fed enemy yasua was visibly killign himself by autoattacking me. Thornmail works bro, but if you want to be able to itemize in a way that makes the oppoennts useless no amtter what then u just want to ruin the fun of the game. fortunately that isnt quite possible.
WiegrafOfValor7 votesThe problem is, even with m.pen items isn't enough to beat their lifesteal..
+ base mr = more than enough to nufill thornmail and negate it's damage.
Edit: Even if.. If your M. pen is becoming a problem they can always build 
, still boost their AA and the shield + MR from Maw destroy the item you spend +3k gold
CppL3 votesthornmail works but 600 armor is just silly. if you have 250 armor u are fine. really if u have 200 you are fine. get more health and stuff. the damage from thornmail depends on your opponent mr/your magic pen. For example ive gotten thornmail on elise(who i already give mpen runes, mpen boots and llandrys tears) and the fed enemy yasua was visibly killign himself by autoattacking me. Thornmail works bro, but if you want to be able to itemize in a way that makes the oppoennts useless no amtter what then u just want to ruin the fun of the game. fortunately that isnt quite possible.
It"s a fucking malphite.he"s an armor machine ,there is nothing you can do about.Even some of his spells scales with armor.
Renascent2 votesFunny, I had a 1v3 as Malphite top with thornmail.
(If you know how to use replay.gg, look for the 1v3 at top lane near the end of the game.)
http://www.replay.gg/?r=NA1&id=1939393558&key=0qHcNwTg6mcFss5%2FSwovTFPIGTkwQmM4
If I had to say anything, the addition of the new bonus armor scaling for Thornmail's return damage allows armor-stacking tanks snowballing potential. Old Thornmail's return damage was only as strong as your opponent's auto attack damage, which made it the bane of most ranged ad's, some ad melees, but lent nothing against mages, tanks, etc.
With this NEW thornmail, armor-stacking tanks can get more tank AND damage at the same time without having to depend on how fed the enemy adc is? Hey, it even lets you proxy as hard as Singed by standing still as a rock, because minions will now actually take damage from Thornmail.
Point is, I don't see what's up with all the QQ threads about the new Thornmail when its "target" audience has been opened up to more than just one category (AD auto-attackers) of the damage spectrum.
Crowe Stalker1 votesProblem is on anyone that's not 
It's not efficient unless you are against a Pure AD Team. It's not weaker than it was before if you don't stack pure armor and that's the problem. It used to be a utility purchase whenever you saw 
: In some cases you could negate their entirely and still deal some return damage.
Now though, it's only efficient if you are any of those champions or you are against a full AD team and can stack pure armor with impunity.
Renascent2 votesFor those cases, there's still Frozen Heart and Randuins. They provide more utility than Thornmail, as it negates some of the enemy's damage output toward not only yourself, but for the rest of your team. If you still want damage as a tank, there's always Sunfire.
Lugg2 votesAgreed, it is completely worthless right now. They could double the damage return and it still wouldn't be worth the cost.
A Miss Fortune1 votesAt least It's not the old Thornmail that did 900+ damage to you and forced you to invest at least 2 major items to counter it, simply because you played well prior to the tank buying Thornmail.
I don't think Thornmail will ever be in a balanced state or at least a healthy one. Before, you could just build a Thornmail and if the ADC touched you without blowing you up in 2 - 3 hits, they would die. It punished people for doing well with such a cheap item and it even punished people for not doing well since you didn't have to be fed for it to do a ton of damage to you and the ADC would have to buy 2 - 3 large items, which can cost well over 6,000 gold, to counter a 2,100 gold item. Now Thornmail is pretty useless, except on Rammus I think.
Saianna4 votesAt least It's not the old Thornmail that did 900+ damage to you and forced you to invest at least 2 major items to counter it,
What?
No, No.. Seriously.. What?
)
Now, did you know that: Thornmails damage wasn't affected by crits? Which means enemy ADC would hit him for 400-500 and healing from that amount, while damage they'd recieve was like 30-40 per hit?
Now super small maths.
= 8% life steal
8% from 400 = 32. With just the most basic lifesteal item. But hey, ADCs usually have around 25% lifesteal which means they heal for 100+/- while thornmail still deals only measly 30 damage to them in return.
Oh but that ain't all! Cause thornmail deals magic damage. And evey ADC can easily get 30% magic damage reduction further reducing damage taken from thornmail..
Sorry dude, but what you've said is pile of bullshit.
A Miss Fortune1 votesThornmail's common counters (as I believe was a 2.1k item) were
All of which cost significantly more up to a 1,6k gold difference, Not many ADCs even build Bloodthirster or Mercurial until their 4th or 5th item, since they need something like IE > PD > LW to begin to even do damage to the tanks, and now they have to build a huge lifesteal item too or the tanks will start punishing them for doing damage. On top of that the Magic Resist from Mercurial Scimitar is very minimal and Maw isn't really built on ADCs anymore.
It wasn't impossible for Thornmail to do 900 damage, and actually I remember specifically a week where nearly every game I played ADC has a Thornmail, I would get fed and do really well, and then get shutdown wondering how I died to their 1-7 Jax. Did I play the duel out wrong? Did he hit a big powerspike? No, Thornmail just did anywhere from 500 - 900 damage and I had to immediately rush Bloodthirster and BoRK or just not even auto attack their Jax. I should of checked his items to be fair, but it wouldn't of changed the outcome of the duel. While Jax isn't the best example as he's a Fighter and clearly should be able to outduel a lot of ADCs, I've had a lot of cases like this with Sion. How is this huge meat shield doing damage, I thought this was post-rework Sion? Oh, Thornmail. It's not even in 20 so auto attacks, the item returned 30% of the damage you dealt to them which is insane against a squsishy little ADC who can't even risk to buy defensive items or they may not even do damage.
The item may not seem like It was that strong, but on a Bruiser it was stupid. Either you rushed Lifesteal or you just didn't fight them. It punished you for doing well and only got worse as you did well. Now on specific Tanks like Sion who rush full Tank items, It's a slightly different story but even if Thornmail only did 400 - 500 damage, that's around 1/4 of the enemy carry's health when they're at they're max base health. not including your own damage on top of that.
Since ADCs typically only have around 1.9k - 2.2k base health, and Thornmail could easily be bought as a second or third item, while ADCs can only afford to buy Lifesteal or Magic Resist as their 4th - 6th item (none of this including Boots), It's no surprise that Thornmail did more damage than what you think. It was either you built a significantly more expensive item and risk doing no damage at all to begin with, or you get blown up by an item.
Aych Pii2 votesYou don't buy thornmail as a second or third item unless the enemy team is practically all auto-attackers or the ADC is monstrously fed. It's an inefficient item that no self-respecting tank wants to have to buy because it delays items that give them health, mana, CDR, utility, MR, and all the other stats they need that aren't armor, which there's already plenty of. However, it's all a tank has to deal with a fed ADC and we need that tool to exist so they don't just steamroll us without a care in the world.