The old passive of 30% damage return is stronger in all cases than the current scaling. 15% damage return + the equivalent of maybe 2% is matched by Bork if they have the lifesteal mastery. So all they need do is buy an armor-piercing item or a vamp scepter, and they beat the intended use of Thornmail.
Edit: I might also suggest that it should apply Grievous wounds to attackers instead.
The JigSAW4 votesThey just need to revert it to the old passive of 30% of incoming damage is reflected back as magic damage. This 15% plus 25% of bonus armor isn't as much as people think it is.
Say somebody hits you with 300 damage. Old system? 90 of it hits them. New system? 45 plus 25% of your bonus armor, let's say 25 - that's 70. 90 > 70 so you lose out. Now let's say somebody hits with 500 damage like Jhin - he'd have taken 150 damage, but with 100 bonus armor he takes 75 + 25 = 100 damage. 200 bonus armor? 125 damage. You'd need to buy 200 bonus armor just to get 25 less damage than you had before on the original thornmail.
With how hard marksmen hit there's no reason not to change thornmail back to 30% of damage, but they won't.
The Ecdysiast1 votesI was considering suggesting that you make a new thread, but I changed this one instead.
The JigSAW1 votesAh, thanks! Yes, thornmail does need to be reverted back ever since the lethality and new marksmen items were added. I get shredded half the time with Thornmail and it shouldn't be possible on a tank with 4,000 health, 400 armor and 200 MR.
The Ecdysiast1 votesYeah, it's pretty ridiculous. Especially when taking into account the diminishing returns on higher amounts of armor. Thornmail should have its price increased and get additional health as well. It's just plain bad in exchange for its low cost.
Zielmann1 votesThere is a good reason. The old version was too much of a one-item wonder. It was a large enough chunk of armor by itself to pretty much force an ADC into Last Whisper (granted, LW was a normal part of builds then, anyhow). And since the damage was entirely dependent on incoming damage, you could just pick one up as your defensive item if they had a strong ADC.
While it's not the benchmark for balance, I do feel like in many cases ARAM provides a good place to see use and abuse cases for various things. I've played many of these where the main damage from the other team is physical. If your whole team were to just build thornmails, you would most likely turn the game around and win, because the other team would at best have enough lifesteal to nullify the damage return, or else they would just kill themselves on the return damage over the course of the teamfight. And I'm not talking only the tanks buying it. I would pause my build on any mages just to pick up a thornmail, too. It was extremely effective.
The new passive lets the buyer determine how much they want to scale thornmail, rather than leaving it entirely up to the incoming damage. It also means that thornmail can't just be your one-stop-shop for armor and countering lifesteal. Conceptually, this is better design.
But it definitely feels weak right now. Rather than reverting it back entirely, It's possible that it just needs a numbers tweak to 30 or 35% bonus armor. Or, I could see playing some more with how the damage return scales. Maybe instead of having the flat value, the scaling could be a % of incoming damage plus a % of your bonus armor - > 15% of incoming damage plus 25% of bonus armor, tune numbers as needed. Or a slightly more complicated option could be that it returns a % of the incoming damage, and that % value scales with your bonus armor - > 15% (plus 5% per 100 bonus armor) of incoming damage returned.
Spoofghoul2 voteshalf of this wasn't even the reason they got rid of the 30% return damage
while you are right about 1 item wonder
that was pretty much the sole reason they changed it to partly scale with armor to make it less attractive as a 1 item wonder
because on it's own it isn't remotely effective at all
and it really needs a buff, we have armorshred now, we have easy access to magic resist for ad, we have %reduction, we have support itemization countering ti with heals and shields and we got about tripple the lifesteal
reverting it back might actually be the smart thing to do as it worked before and is a slight buff and really doesn't increase its power too much even with a revert it might still be too weak of an item
The JigSAW1 votesI was always taught from early on to hit TAB and see what people build when they go back into lane, so if they had a thornmail I could avoid auto-attacks as much as possible if I was an ADC or AA reliant champion, so if you kill yourself attacking somebody (and its happened even with new thornmail a few times) that's really the fault of the person who doesn't bother looking up the builds after the enemy goes into lane.
I'd be fine with 15-20% of incoming plus, let's add the FEELING of thornmail. If I punch a thorn I bleed don't I? Why not add an effect where auto attacks cause grievous wounds or extra bonus "bleed' damage for 2-3 seconds, but a low amount. Enough like sunfire cape that it adds up the more you attack but if you back off, it's not so much. So if I hit somebody with thornmail I take 15 or 20% of my own damage and then a bleed effect for.. say 100 over 3 seconds that applies Grievous Wounds. That would be more than enough to discourage me to keep trying to hit that person until I buy MR or more lifesteal/attack speed.
Good post though. I just hope they do fix up the scaling!
MunchCrunchLunch1 votes[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=X8ITgjaY,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-04-23T14:57:10.157+0000)
They just need to revert it to the old passive of 30% of incoming damage is reflected back as magic damage. This 15% plus 25% of bonus armor isn't as much as people think it is.
Say somebody hits you with 300 damage. Old system? 90 of it hits them. New system? 45 plus 25% of your bonus armor, let's say 25 - that's 70. 90 > 70 so you lose out. Now let's say somebody hits with 500 damage like Jhin - he'd have taken 150 damage, but with 100 bonus armor he takes 75 + 25 = 100 damage. 200 bonus armor? 125 damage. You'd need to buy 200 bonus armor just to get 25 less damage than you had before on the original thornmail.
With how hard marksmen hit there's no reason not to change thornmail back to 30% of damage, but they won't.
the problem is armor is low at low levels. so thornmail is useless early game. also its usless late game because Riot added many ways to shield and heal. also everyone can just buy magic resist. and soon everyone will have scaling MR.
The JigSAW1 votesYeah, everybody brings heal and ignite these days so they can spam them on those super low cooldowns too.
I won't have to worry about that though, Legacy client going means I am too!: )
ChaddyFantome1 votesThing is, you shouldn't be able to legit just kill people just be being attacked by them. It leaves little counterplay. Ideally, Thornmail should reduce/counteract vamp, not outright make it useless.
The Ecdysiast1 votesWithout a taunt, that isn't an issue.
ChaddyFantome1 votesWithout a taunt, that isn't an issue.
Marksman are SUPPOSED to be at the back shredding through the front line first. you are essentially asking every auto attack based champ be hard countered by 1 item purchase.... against the target they are supposed to be helping take down.
The Ecdysiast1 votesAgreed. It should be able to counter one full lifesteal item, nothing more. Unfortunately, it doesn't do that currently. And it didn't even do it before.
Lugg1 votesThornmail should completely counteract one lifesteal item on the enemy champion in all cases. That way they have to build more than one lifesteal item if they want actual lifesteal against you. I think this is fair considering that lifesteal items usually have less offensive stats than pure damage items.
The Ecdysiast1 votesThornmail would do that, if BT and Hydra didn't both have more healing than Bork.
franchise76761 votesgive it gw that would fix it