A quick guide for why people have a problem with last whisper.

MrSc0tty·Feb 4, 2015·69 votes·7,045 views

Last whisper is supposed to be gold efficient vs tanks, correct? If you use it against, say, a target who has built no armor, it would be assumed to be a highly inefficient item.

lol wiki Values each point of AD at 36g and each point of armor at 20g. One can assume then that each point of armor you ignore will be worth 20g.

Via her base stats, Caitlyn has 85.8 armor. Hands up anyone who uses flat armor yellows on their ADC rune page? That puts Caitlyn at 94.8 armor.

Ignoring 35% of that gives you an effective 663.8 gold. Plus 40 AD, that's 91.4% gold efficiency against a target building ZERO armor items.

Why does our niche armor penetration item give us 91% efficiency against the squishiest, least armored class in the game, Riot?

166 Comments

Cale017Feb 4, 201521 votes

This right here is the problem.

The issue with Last Whisper isn't how efficient it is against just tanks. It's how efficient it is against everyone and that just makes it worse than it should be for tanks.

thunderingiceFeb 4, 20155 votes

91%? I avoid such purchases.

Cale017Feb 4, 201520 votes

You're clearly missing the issue here. Someone who's buying a LW is getting almost full efficiency out of an item mean to bust tanks wide open, but on literally anyone on the map.

It's not about if there are better options. It's that this is a good option no matter what the situation is.

Sozan5Feb 4, 201515 votes

Yes, I've pointed it out many times in the past - tanks would get significantly buffed if LW and VS were niche items and not good against anyone.

How about it penetrating only bonus Armor (Maybe 40% to compensate) - would make it terrible pick against squishies, while remaining a good item against tanks. The same should be applied to the mastery (Devastating Strikes) as well and to Void Staff.

Also, the way you did the calculation is somewhat incorrect. You should instead look on how much damage it gives you, rather than how much armor it shreds - simply because it can be cost efficient based also on your AD - not only on enemy armor. For example, against Caitlyn with 86 armor it will give you roughly +19,3% physical damage. So, taking it into account let's look at different AD values:

1: 100 AD = LW passive will give 19 AD, worth 684 gold, making LW 92,3% cost efficient. 2: 150 AD = LW passive will give 29 AD, worth 1044 gold, making LW 108% cost efficient. 3: 200 AD = LW passive will give 39 AD, worth 1404 gold, making LW 123,6% cost efficient. 4: 300 AD = LW passive will give 58 AD, worth 2088 gold, making LW 153,4% cost efficient.

Okay, and now let's look at something tankier... Maybe 250 armor, just to show you how well it counters tanks (against 250 armor LW increases your physical damage output by 33,3%):

1: 100 AD = LW passive will give 33 AD, worth 1188 gold, making LW 114,3% cost efficient. 2: 150 AD = LW passive will give 50 AD, worth 1800 gold, making LW 140,9% cost efficient. 3: 200 AD = LW passive will give 67 AD, worth 2412 gold, making LW 167,5% cost efficient. 4: 300 AD = LW passive will give 100 AD, worth 3600 gold, making LW 219,1% cost efficient.

Mind you that there is a bit of difference between actually giving AD and what LW gives - for autoattack purposes it have absolutely no difference, no matter if you crit or not, or your attack speed - buying LW will act just like buying that much AD. However for abilities and items there are some differences:

As a general rule (some exceptions include Darius' W and Blitzcrank's E - since they have no base damage) physical damage abilities benefit more from Last Whisper than from AD.
LW will also make some items more effective unlike AD (Botrk, Trinity Force, Bilgewater Cutlass, Muramana, Iceborn Gauntlet, Sheen).
Abilities that scale with AD but deal physical or true damage don't benefit from Last Whisper's passive, making it less effective than buying AD (Darius' R, Kog'Maw R (I think, not sure)).

So basically - what I wrote up there is the minimal cost efficiency UNLESS you use a lot of magic damage or True Damage that scales with AD - which you probably aren't, unless you play Miss Fortune (Mind you that things like Varus W, Vayne W or Kog'Maw W aren't included here, since they don't scale with AD either).

qetzelFeb 4, 20152 votes

I remember a Rioter (sorry no source) saying that 58% bonus armour penetration would be required to maintain the same efficiency against tanks - an efficiency that is required. This Rioter said that Riot wouldn't do that as it would disincentivise buying armour (despite the fact that it has the same value) just because 58% sounds high. I also (cynically) think that Riot don't want to deal with peope saying "WHY DOES THE ADC IGNORE 58% OF MY INVESTMENT?!?!?!?!?!?!", which is fair.

Sozan5Feb 4, 20156 votes

I'd rather have that 58% bonus armor pen (which would basically mean you need 155% of base armor as bonus to reach the same penetration from LW) than have this completely brainless item that is good no matter who are you up against.

Or better yet... 2 different items, the first one would give something like: 60 AD UNIQUE - Penetrating: 15% armor penetration

And the second one: 40 AD UNIQUE - Penetrating: 55% bonus armor penetration

The first one would be your standard item, that is pretty effective no matter who are you up against, while the second one would be typically against tanks (to counter excessive armor stacking) with very little effect on other targets. The passives would be unique, so they wouldn't stack (if you would have both items the one with greater penetration would apply - depending on your target).

But that would add choice to itemization and I don't think Riot wants that.

qetzelFeb 4, 20153 votes

Arguably, any item is good no matter who you are up against. It isn't about gold efficiency, it is about relative gold efficiency. Last Whisper still helps you beat squishies, but no where near as much as another crit item, for example (excluding AD casters here, who love penetration).

And it would be a false choice. You would have to buy the 58% item for your % penetration because 15% is effectively nothing agaist squishies. The choice would be between flat (for squishies) and 58% for tanks, I would have thought.

I can see the argument for 58% bonus rather than the current LW, but I believe that Riot is right in this case.

PsyturkeyFeb 4, 201513 votes

Err... 91% efficiency is pretty bad...

Most of the good items in the game range from 115%-130% and a lot of them have unique effects that can't be accounted for in cost efficiency.

GundayMondayFeb 4, 201532 votes

Right, but how much armor do you need to be building for it to be efficient? You gotta read between the lines a little :-)

The OP is saying that lastwhisper should be MORE terrible against enemies building no armor. It's one of the reasons we're seeing all these QQ threads from the tank players lately. If I go 5-0-10 on a tanky jungle champ and buy items like: item 3143 - 2850g - 70 armor item 3068 - 2600g - 45 armor item 3075 - 2100g - 100 armor

That's 7550g to get 215 armor.

An adc player can spend 2300g on a item 3035 which removes 215*35% = 75.25 of my armor. By the OP's reasoning (20g per point of armor), it essentially negates 1505g out of my purchases.

Oh, and if I have more armor like what I get from base stats, runes, and masteries, then it's hitting me EVEN harder as a tank.

Should one item be able to negate that much?

Probably not and that's why the OP is pointing it out.

By the way, if you're not buying broken items like item 3035 and item 3135 to counter resistance building tanks, then you need to seriously re-evaluate how you play this game. Unless you're on the other team, then carry on! :-)

qetzelFeb 4, 20153 votes

Well, arguably the Thornmail negates 50% of the adcs purchases too (at least, without armour penetration). Should one item be able to negate that much?

Probably not, and that is why % penetration of this magnitude is necessary.

GundayMondayFeb 4, 20157 votes

That's honestly a good point. But I don't think thornmail negates 50% of adc purchases. If it does, the adc is building a little funky. If you said 10-20% I'm more likely to agree with you :-) (By the way, if you have math showing that 50% number somewhere, could you please link me to it? Would love to read up on it!)

Most adc players will just build a item 3153 when they see a item 3075 . Reason being, thornmail doesn't take into account on hit damage with its passive. So you're still doing the extra %health damage each auto, and healing to negate the passive thornmail damage. Learned this a couple nights ago when my stream viewers were making fun of me for building a thornmail on mundo to counter a 2x adc team since they both rushed botrk first item. The more you know!

Kuroi86Feb 5, 20151 votes

Quick math. Not counting base stats, runes or masteries. item 3153 item 3031 item 3006 item 3046 item 3035 item 3026 Would give the ADC 140 AD on top of their own as well as 8% current health damage.

item 3075 item 3143 item 3111 item 3102 item 3083 item 3022 Gives the tank 170 AR, 110 after calculating LW. Lets say with items and everything the tank has around 4K health.

This give the ADC a crit of 350 and on hit damage of 320. 30% magic damage returned from the critical strike, but not the on hit, comes out to 105. The combined damage the ADC deals is 670 before resistances. After resistances it's cut in half and closer to 335.

10% life steal from 335 comes out to 33.5 health returned on one single auto attack... But the on hit damage is 105...

Can someone point out to me what I missed? I thought Bork countered Thornmail?

aaronconlinFeb 5, 20152 votes

Don't forget to factor in the Magic Resist from item 3026 , since it reduces the damage received from item 3075

GundayMondayFeb 5, 20152 votes

You should read what the botrk passives and actives actually do: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Blade_of_the_Ruined_King

LeeDarkFeb 6, 20152 votes

You forgot to account for the MR from Guardian Angel reducing the Thornmail damage, and the active effect of BorK. In the end, that 70 damage difference is more like 50... and the Bork steals 300 health or so with the active, giving the ADC both extra speed and 6 free attacks that are essentially "paid for already" as far as Thornmail is concerned.

Kuroi86Feb 4, 20153 votes

While armor isn't cost effecient, it is still effecient.

100 armor means 50% physical damage reduction. Even against last whisper, you will still have 100 effective armor once you reach 155 armor, easily achievable by any tank or bruiser with a couple of items. That means you take half damage from the ADC, that means your effective health is doubled. At 310 armor, you still have 200 effective armor. I believe that calculates to around 66% physical damage reduction, it effectively gives you 300% effective health.

Even if your enemy buys last whisper, with the build you posted, you are able to take double the damage you would have if you had built no armor. And considering it's possible for a tank to have 3-4000 health, that means your enemy has to deal in excess of 6-8000 damage to bring you down.

GundayMondayFeb 4, 201513 votes

Right, but if I'm 5-0-10 and have those 3 items, an adc building one item shouldn't be able to make as big of a dent in me. It's ridiculous how powerful those items ( item 3035 item 3135 )are and the OP has some pretty solid reasons for why Riot should nerf their numbers a little.

Let's put it this way: If an adc goes 5-0-10, do tanks have one item that take away ~2kg worth of their stats? I would love to know if you find one!

SlaaneshineFeb 5, 20152 votes

Let's put it this way: If an adc goes 5-0-10, do tanks have one item that take away ~2kg worth of their stats? I would love to know if you find one!

The only thing that can come remotely close to this is item 3075 , and all it really does in most cases is just cancel the adc's lifesteal against you. It hardly damages enough, as the damage of Thornmail comes out through elongate periods of fighting. But the ADC has a last whisper and Infinity Edge and rips you apart like butter. The sad case being that in the end most armor items, especially Thornmail, shine on bruisers, making tanks even less of a likely choice.

aaronconlinFeb 5, 20153 votes

That, and item 3075 is easily countered by a little bit of Magic Resistance and Life Steal makes it almost obsolete. Plus, tanks can't even rely on building Health to counter heavy Armor Penetration because the ADC will just build item 3153 AND item 3035 and eliminate your Health AND Armor. These situational defensive items are countered by an ADC's standard build.

Knight SoIaire Feb 7, 20151 votes

Life Steal makes it almost obsolet

unfortunately no archievable by iitems amount of lifesteal can mitigate a thornmail

the only thing that thornmail acrchieves is making the adc die along with the tank which shouldnt be how it works

aaronconlinFeb 7, 20152 votes

The ADC with item 3035 and item 3153 is going to out damage the tank with item 3075 by quite a bit. The only thing is going to accomplish is reduce the effectiveness of their life steal, and do a little bit of damage during a prolonged team fight (which is rare considering even tanks get shredded in a couple seconds)

Lunar SilkwormFeb 5, 20155 votes

Erm, yes?

Randuins and Frozen Heart.

We'll use Caitlyn because she doesn't have an attack speed steroid and is largely dependent on auto attacks come mid-late game.

Randuin's and Frozen Heart's attack speed reduction aura applies to all of the ADCs attack speed -- it's not like a reverse dagger (-15% of base), it affects the entirety of the stat (-15% of the entire thing).

Assuming a Caitlyn at level 18 without any attack speed items, she has an attack speed of 1.05. Attack speed, as derived from dagger, has a value of 30g per %. This means that you are negating -- if the opponent doesn't have any form of attack speed increase -- 450gold worth of stats. This doesn't actually happen : in Caitlyn's example, reducing 1.05 attackspeed by 15% leaves it at .8925, a difference of .1575. .1575 is approximately 25% of Caitlyn's base attack speed, meaning you are negating 750 gold worth of stats simply by bearing in their vicinity or by being attacked.

Frozen Heart is 140% gold efficient without the aura, and ~116% gold efficient if you don't value the mana. Randuins is ~96% gold-efficient without considering the passive or active.

That's pretty close to Last Whisper's amount of "just AD" cost efficiency it gives.

Now, then, let us assume that Caitlyn is actually buying attack speed.

Let's assume a Shiv (40%), Greaves (25%), and masteries (5%) for a total of +70% attack speed.

Caitlyn's base attack speed is .625, which means that these items will increase her attack speed by .4375, leaving her with 1.4875

15% reduction leaves it at ~1.2643, a reduction of .2232.

.2232 / .625 (Caitlyn's base attack speed) shows us how much "negative" attack speed it is effectively giving her : around 36%.

36 x 30 = 1080.

You are nullifying several hundred gold from base stats alone with the purchase of Warden's Mail and any of its upgrades, and this increases even more as they put gold into increasing the stat you are reducing, the same as Last Whisper and Void Staff.

Also, Randuin's and Frozen Heart's effects stack (albeit diminishingly), meaning you could get even more bang for your buck and buy both to leave them even further in the red.

Not trying to say that I'm happy with any item, but I felt that it's important not to overlook that there are options on the physical defensive side that operates in much the same manner of nullifying purchases while being gold efficient regardless.

VesarixxFeb 6, 20152 votes

Let's put it this way: If an adc goes 5-0-10, do tanks have one item that take away ~2kg worth of their stats? I would love to know if you find one!

That's essentially what resistance items do to begin with, take away the effectiveness of what the carries are building, without last whisper, thorn mail and frozen heart would both reduce the effectiveness of the ADC items by 50% on a target with no starting armor, if the ADC has built 2 items this is easily equal to 2000 gold. We don't need a last whisper nerf, that would make bruisers ridiculous again, we need a late game answer to penetration, but it would need to scale with tank stats, to keep from being abused by assassins and bruisers.

Here is an example I came up with a while back. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/p0bnA43G-all-hail-leviathan-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-botrk

LeeDarkFeb 5, 20152 votes

You neglect to account for farm. At an equal skill level, that ADC's power is outstripping your ability to withstand it. When you are building 300% more effective health (as compared to your effective health at the beginning of the game), that ADC is building, with the same amount of money a 400% increase in their damage. If you have to itemize, as a tank, against both the mage AND the ADC, then you have to split that money, and while the ADC builds their 400% increase in damage, you have to settle for only double the effective health. Taken altogether, this means you actually have LESS effective health than when you started. You'd be expected to live twice as long against an ADC who built NOTHING. You die twice as fast against an ADC with double your gold efficiency in items.

Kuroi86Feb 5, 20151 votes

Very true but you neglect one thing, purchasing health. item 3068 item 3143 item 3102 item 3065 item 3190 If at any point you surpass 155 Ar/Mr, then it would require the damage carry to be heavily fed to be able to take you down before you can get off your CC or damage as a tank.

Personally one problem for tanks isn't that items are horribly inefficient, they are inefficient, but not in a terrible spot. The problem is farming for tanks. Making sure you've got the ability to farm up decently stay about on par with the damage carries in terms of level and build.

Outside of that, most of the issues with tanks can be taken care of with small number tweaks. Buff the defensive masteries higher up in the defensive tree. Introduce an item that grants % bonus health or % bonus Ar/Mr. Or just introduce an item that can grant you like 5% damage reduction with an active that can bump it up to like 8-10% damage reduction for a couple of seconds. It's just a matter of making the tank last another second or two to be a little more effective for his team.

LeeDarkFeb 6, 20152 votes

Except I didn't neglect that at all. All effective health calculations START with health. Effective health is simply expected time to live, if all other things remain equal. That last part is what theorycrafters too often leave out. The fact remains that tank items are less efficient BECAUSE of penetration. (Also, because of crit, but that's a different can of worms.) Tanks cannot itemize specifically against those two stats, and worse, they MUST often itemize against two different types of damage, forcing them to split the gold they have into two defensive stats, both of which are made less efficient by the penetration items.

Without Last Whisper and Void Staff, tank items are as efficient as most other items. Only when you remove the Armor or MR that gets shredded by penetration do they lose their effectiveness. And there is nothing the tank can really do about it. There is no anti-penetration item. All they can do is throw their hands up, buy a Warmogs, and hope that there is no percentage health damage coming their way. The moment the carries buy penetration, EVERY Armor and MR item becomes a worse purchase than something that has just health.

Kuroi86Feb 6, 20151 votes

That is why I think the idea of a % bonus health or a % damage reduction item. The idea is to help tanks survive an additional second or two to bring them up to maximum efficiency in team fights.

Simply put, if you can exceed 155 Ar or Mr, even after the carry purchases LW or VS you are still taking half damage from them. From here picking up straight health is a viable option. But that's all opinion there.

If % penetration items were not available, you would see tanks and bruisers become unstoppable with little recourse against them.

The moment the carries buy penetration, EVERY Armor and MR item becomes a worse purchase than something that has just health.

Not quite. item 3143 850 effective physical health. item 3068 652.5 effective physical health. item 3102 697.5 effective magic health. item 3065 620 effective magic health. item 3190 560 effective magic health. This is just what they grant themselves, not counting any AR/MR from base stats, runes or masteries. These purchases are better than flat health early on, later in the game, building flat health later in the game is great, but early on you want to build resistances as well.

LeeDarkFeb 7, 20152 votes

Sorry, but the math is still a bit off. You failed to reduce the armor/mr from the items listed. For Randuin's, for example, you calculated it's effective health at the full 70 armor it offers, or at least I am assuming so, since doing that leads to the conclusion of 850 health. In reality, after Last Whisper slices that armor like a price tag at Wal-mart, it offers closer to 725 effective health. Compare this, then, to Warmog's, which offers 800 effective health straight up (but only because we used the nice and round starting point after Last Whisper of 100 armor). Not only does it beat Randuin's in raw effective health offered... it does so for 300 gold less than Randuin's.

And argument might still be able to be made for the passive of a Randuin's or Frozen Heart, since those directly affect an ADC's dps, but the truth is that you probably already have ONE of those items if you are near 155 armor to be reduced to 100. Nonetheless, the math is conclusive in all of those comparisons. Warmog's is better in effective health and even better in effective health per gold spent, if the enemy buys one of the major penetration items. (And you can bet pretty much any carry WILL purchase it.)

Kuroi86Feb 7, 20151 votes

I also didn't count passives, which gives the items I listed a lot more gold efficiency. Warmogs is VERY efficient among defensive items, the point remains though that flat health without resistances is simply going to be shredded. The point is, you need both resistance and health to be effective. The good thing about many tank items is that they offer not only resistance, but also health, which means even buying a spirit visage is useful even if you're against an enemy laner who deals mostly physical damage. After exceeding 155 AR/MR it is perfectly viable to finish with pure health items as by this point the effective health you're granted is INSANE. With 30 AR, the 800 from Warmogs becomes only 1040 effective health. With 155, even after the enemy buys LW/VS you've got 1600 effective health from Warmogs.

I do agree, tanks need some minor buffs, either directly or through masteries or through items, but I think minor tweaks would make big differences.

LeeDarkFeb 7, 20152 votes

Yes, I mentioned the passives, but remember, to have 155 armor, you probably already have Randuin's, maybe Frozen Heart instead, depending on the tank you are playing. I really don't feel like mathing out the effect of the attack speed reduction as it would relate to effective health given a certain base attack speed.

I feel, ultimately, that a major rebalance needs to be done, on par with the jungle changes this season or the complete overhaul of masteries, to change the way damage and damage mitigation work together. Tanks absolutely lack viability overall unless they have alternative scaling defense that is unaffected by penetration (I.E. Maokai's Ult or Braum's E) or 2 or 3 forms of CC. Even then, they are viable ONLY for their ability to live just long enough to use all their CC on someone or multiple people (I.E. Leona, Thresh). I think, as a simple band-aid fix, they could reverse the order penetration is applied back to the way it used to be, so that flat and scaling are not simultaneously attractive purchases, or buffing tanks to all have some kind of percentage damage reduction that is unaffected by penetration.

EDIT: Honestly, in an ideal world, I feel like if one tank and one adc were to build the items they are supposed to, (full tank and full damage) and just autoattack each other to death, then they should both die close to the same time. If that were true, then it becomes a question of how they use their abilities and core mechanics to kite, chase, and otherwise outplay their opponent. If the tank is fighting an uphill battle that whole time, and outplaying his opponent heavily STILL results in his death, then there is no point in playing a tank.

Kuroi86Feb 7, 20151 votes

I feel, ultimately, that a major rebalance needs to be done, on par with the jungle changes this season or the complete overhaul of masteries, to change the way damage and damage mitigation work together. Tanks absolutely lack viability overall unless they have alternative scaling defense that is unaffected by penetration (I.E. Maokai's Ult or Braum's E) or 2 or 3 forms of CC.

Honestly, in an ideal world, I feel like if one tank and one adc were to build the items they are supposed to, (full tank and full damage) and just autoattack each other to death, then they should both die close to the same time. If that were true, then it becomes a question of how they use their abilities and core mechanics to kite, chase, and otherwise outplay their opponent. If the tank is fighting an uphill battle that whole time, and outplaying his opponent heavily STILL results in his death, then there is no point in playing a tank.

You're talking about massive damage buffs for tanks. Right now most tanks have decent damage, but in the form of their abilities. People complain about Nautilus' damage, but if you are able to properly dive an enemy team, get your ult on their back line, get your debuff on two or three of them and drop your E in the middle of them, you'd see he can reduce most of the squishy targets to below half health just on his own. Same for champs like Malphite and Cho'Gath.
Tanks HAVE damage. The problem is a tank is better in a team fight setting with a good team to follow up on his engage. Nautilus is a beast in team fights with his CC and AoE, but without a team to jump in and capitalize on his initiation, he's going to fall quickly once his CC wears off. Compare this to Renekton who has better 1v1 potential, not quite as much team fight potential, but still enough to be a considerable threat and force the enemy to focus him.

Tanks are actually strong, the problem they are strong in ways people don't care about. Why take Nautilus and finish a game 1/4/35 when you could play Pantheon and go 15/5/14? Naut has better CC, more innate tankiness, even better team fight potential, but he alone can't carry a game due to him only scaling excellently as a pure tank. I wish there was an easy answer. Upping tank damage simply turns the whole tank class into bruisers. Adding means for tanks to survive longer risks bruisers finding a way to benefit from that same buff and still taking the place of a tank.

LeeDarkFeb 7, 20152 votes

That's not true at all. You can bake in scaling percentage damage reduction to every true tank, preventing bruisers from being able to access ANY of that added defense. This would make it so that bruisers suffer far more than true tanks when the enemy purchases penetration. Buffing the autoattack of tanks, or nerfing ADC damage, would not result in tanks becoming bruisers. It would result in ADC's actually having to outplay their opponent instead of just laughing because the enemy tank support can't match their farm and they can just sit there and auto them to death. I did not say that tanks should be able to solo carry. I said that, if they have full defensive items against full offensive items, the relative time they both live simply autoattacking would be about the same. If you think that ADCs shoudn't have to outplay someone to kill them, then I think you and I simply want this game to be very different things.

I value player skill and the ability to outplay your opponent. You obviously value freelo.

Kuroi86Feb 7, 20151 votes

Better damage reduction on tanks, I can get behind.

Buffing the autoattack of tanks, or nerfing ADC damage, would not result in tanks becoming bruisers. It would result in ADC's actually having to outplay their opponent instead of just laughing because the enemy tank support can't match their farm and they can just sit there and auto them to death.

... have you ever played Thresh, Braum or Leona? I suddenly think you haven't. Leona was a terror in bot lane for quite a while, I know, she was my first main support and I still go back to her the most when supporting.

I did not say that tanks should be able to solo carry. I said that, if they have full defensive items against full offensive items, the relative time they both live simply autoattacking would be about the same. If you think that ADCs shoudn't have to outplay someone to kill them, then I think you and I simply want this game to be very different things.

No. You said "Honestly, in an ideal world, I feel like if one tank and one adc were to build the items they are supposed to, (full tank and full damage) and just autoattack each other to death, then they should both die close to the same time." ADC's don't build to maximize their auto attacks just so tanks can finish them just as fast with only auto attacks, that would be dumb. A tank deals the bulk of their damage via their abilities, often able to half health or more the carry. And if the tank is fed or has a good damage steroid like Malphite or Nautilus then they have a good shot of killing the carry if the carry is dumb enough to try to solo them. Meanwhile it is up to the carry to use their abilities and orb walking to try to kite and kill the tank.

NO champion is as simple as "stand here and auto attack". ADC's are glass cannons, meaning positioning is EVERYTHING. This is why mobility has become so popular for them, mobility means more forgiving positioning even if it means giving up incredible team fight oriented utility.

I value player skill and the ability to outplay your opponent. You obviously value freelo.

No, you've made it clear you want tanks to be the stronger class. I figured this conversation could yield ideas to help bring a class that's falling a bit behind back up with the rest of the pack. You just want to jump them up above everyone else. Well, I'm done, have fun because I'm not interested in another meta golem.

LeeDarkFeb 7, 20152 votes

And tanks don't build defense just so an ADC can sit there and autoattack them to death faster than they could have even at level 1.

Their effective health against one another should be relatively the same. The tank should be able to deal 1000 damage in the same amount of time the ADC is dealing 3500. How is that wishing for tanks to be the stronger class?

I figured this conversation would be with someone who actually understood math. I suppose when I realized you couldn't even manage to accurately calculate effective health of items after the purchase of penetration, I should have known better to think you were a worthy theorycrafter. Well, I'm done, have fun, because I'm not interested in someone who sucks at math.

MrSc0ttyFeb 4, 201513 votes

Itemization as a whole needs an overhaul honestly. There shouldn't be any "default items"-you should build final tier items accprding either to extreme synergies with the champ you're playing (ala Lich Bane currently) or who you're playing against (Morello's vs Swain frexample).

Early game, the "generalist path" should be to pick up tier two items which are the stats you want. Then later you should combine to tier 3s for the Passives and actives you need for your specific situation.

Old Man TeetoFeb 4, 20156 votes

This isn't DotA. League itemization is as dumbed down as any MobA can be.

There's 1 core path, with 2~3 possible alterations.

On every single champion.

At least there's no BKB in League.

RebonackFeb 4, 201510 votes

It's worth pointing out that Whisper/Void are more or less required.

Yeah, they aren't bad at all against soft targets. Resist penetration is really strong. But have you ever tried going toe to toe with a tanky opponent without Void/Whisper? They're basically immortal.

Resist values are heavily inflated to account for the existence of %Pen. A healthier alternative would be to just straight up axe whisper/void and then nerf defense values across the board by 15-20% or so. Then make Black Cleaver a flat armor shred item or something. The game would be far healthier for it.

UltîmaFeb 4, 20156 votes

I believe people are obsessing over the gold-efficiency value of LW against a target that has no armor item.

The fact is, the item will begin having over 100% value when a target reaches around 60 armor (roughly the same as Void Staff for MR), which is laughably easy to attain. In fact, literally every character in the game has over 70 at level 18, and it only gets more efficient if the enemy decides to invest in anything so much as a cloth armor. It is core on every ADC and AD-casters because it is so good, and will almost imperatively be the third core item in any ADC's build, which is around the time armor becomes a concern in a match.

Unless the match miraculously ends before anyone even reaches level 13, there isn't a realistic scenario where LW isn't incredibly efficient.

Only Play DariusFeb 4, 20153 votes

People underestimate item 3075 . Yes it needs some buffs, but against an AA heavy team it can ruin their day.

DisasterSolaFeb 4, 201511 votes

[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YEEEwM7X,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2015-02-04T16:30:23.541+0000)

People underestimate . Yes it needs some buffs, but against an AA heavy team it can ruin their day.

And then they have a BT and heal all of the damage back...

Only Play DariusFeb 4, 20151 votes

That's what I meant when i said it needs some buffs, however if you are a tank and you build +400 armor they won't be healing for sh*t. Rammus

agbudarFeb 5, 20155 votes

[{quoted}](name=Jelly Mac,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=YEEEwM7X,comment-id=000600000000,timestamp=2015-02-04T16:43:47.539+0000)

That's what I meant when i said it needs some buffs, however if you are a tank and you build +400 armor they won't be healing for sh*t.

they also ignore about 140 of your armor with LW alone ... so yea good luck

RisurinFeb 5, 20151 votes

{quoted}

And then they have a BT and heal all of the damage back...

thornmail reflects damage before any damage reduction, including armor. so they need like 80% lifesteal to counter the damage from thornmail, if they dont have any resist. bt only gives 20%.

Michael C137Feb 4, 20153 votes

This whole discussion is stupid. You don't buy last whisper to ignore Caitlin's armor. You buy it to ignore Sion's armor. When he has 350 armor, you get to ignore about 123 of that, worth 2460 gold by your calculations. This obviously vastly increases it's value! It is an item that you should build based on the situation, you don't buy it so you can out duel the enemy adc, you can use IE, PD, BT, or BORK for the raw power those items give you. If you still don't think it is a good item, then don't buy it. You have hundreds of items and build paths to choose from.

GundayMondayFeb 4, 201516 votes

He's saying that it's already pretty strong against enemies building no armor... Which mean's it's probably overtuned against enemies building armor... Which is why you don't see a lot of tanks...

Picking up what he's laying down?

Julius EvolaFeb 4, 20153 votes

Thank you for sticking to logic.

Ryan123339Feb 4, 20152 votes

Yet armour pen isn't that important vs another squishy, which leads to your other items smashing the ADC/assassin like infinity edge and/or blood thirstier for their high AD with a chance of a critical. The +40 AD from LW is a kick in the teeth.

Another point, you could say that at 3/5 of the enemy champions will build armour at some point in the game which ends up making the item more gold efficient overall. Therefore their armour items ends up being very inefficient due to 39% (with armour pen mastery, no Idea why it goes to 39% and not 41%) being completely nulled out. meaning high ad items will still end up dealing their damage against a much lower resistance. This isn't including any additional flat armour pen that is subtracted AFTER the percentage.

Late game, tanks end up worthless after being bursted by void staff and last whisper. Health is useless vs the percentage health damage, yes it is physical damage and armour is taken into consideration but again the LW will boost the passive.

Even though LW is an insane item itself vs tanks. It allows other items to be boosted to their full potential.

Cale017Feb 4, 20157 votes

It might not be that important, but just for ease assume that the squishy in question has 100 armor at 18 with armor seals and yaddayadda whatever.

You're passively ignoring 35% of that armor, so you're only effectively dealing with 65 armor.

Each point in armor gives a champion, regardless of their role or how much armor they've built, 1% bonus effective health. So assuming an ADC has say, again for ease, 2000 health at 18 with 100 armor they've actually got 4000 effective health, as the 100 armor is giving them 100% more durability.

Now if they're only being treated as having 65 armor, that number drops. At 65 armor they've only got 65% bonus effective health, dropping it from 4000 to 3300 effective health. You've made it to where the average ADC would only need to hit that person maybe 3 times instead of 4, and that can easily be the deciding factor in a standoff where one person has a LW and another has another item, say a Zephyr or something, that's allowing them to hit a bit harder and a bit faster but each hit isn't doing quite as much. But even then, you're getting 40 AD off the LW which means that even though it's not giving the lifesteal or the pure damage of a Bloodthirster, it's still allowing for a ton of extra damage.

Ryan123339Feb 4, 20156 votes

Exactly, people are forgetting that LW doesn't effect itself alone but everything you currently have therefore, every item you have (Damage wise) is becoming slightly more effective against targets. So every item is more cost effective after.

Cale017Feb 4, 20154 votes

Pretty much. Either they need to make it so that LW only affects bonus armor, give it less penetration, or give tanks a way of countering it since as it stands right now building more armor against someone is the worst thing you can do as a tank because the more armor you buy, the more armor they get to ignore.