Is thornmail ever going to actually have any fuckign affect against ranged adc?
It literally only counters melee champions.. Ranged adc's build bork and it's useless. Like can we fucking having this actually affect ranged adc?
80 Comments
Yets424042 votesUntil it is finally reverted to the only useful state its ever been in (hint, 2k price tag, 30% incoming damage return before mitigation) its going to remain a noob trap item that is only ever worth upgrading from Bramble Vest as a sixth item. Seriously, it gets nothing from the upgrade. Cold Steel has anti synergy with thorns, and if you want CS, literally every other anti AA armor item is better. Frozen Heart applies it constantly in AoE and works even if they're targeting a teammate instead. Randuin's gives more pEHP, has an amazing anti AA/crit unique, and has huge utility in a massive AoE slow. Thornmail as it is is a fucking joke, and is easily out sustained from the free healing obtained by runes, let alone a fucking Doran's Blade or any actual sustain item.
Düff McWhalen3 votesUntil it is finally reverted to the only useful state its ever been in (hint, 2k price tag, 30% incoming damage return before mitigation) its going to remain a noob trap item that is only ever worth upgrading from Bramble Vest as a sixth item. Seriously, it gets nothing from the upgrade. Cold Steel has anti synergy with thorns, and if you want CS, literally every other anti AA armor item is better. Frozen Heart applies it constantly in AoE and works even if they're targeting a teammate instead. Randuin's gives more pEHP, has an amazing anti AA/crit unique, and has huge utility in a massive AoE slow. Thornmail as it is is a fucking joke, and is easily out sustained from the free healing obtained by runes, let alone a fucking Doran's Blade or any actual sustain item.
Completely agree. If someone with 300+ AD auto attacks me with Thornmail on me I expect to see their hp drop, especially with fucking Grievous Wounds applied. Complete joke.
Vlada Cut2 votesUntil it is finally reverted to the only useful state its ever been in (hint, 2k price tag, 30% incoming damage return before mitigation) its going to remain a noob trap item that is only ever worth upgrading from Bramble Vest as a sixth item. Seriously, it gets nothing from the upgrade. Cold Steel has anti synergy with thorns, and if you want CS, literally every other anti AA armor item is better. Frozen Heart applies it constantly in AoE and works even if they're targeting a teammate instead. Randuin's gives more pEHP, has an amazing anti AA/crit unique, and has huge utility in a massive AoE slow. Thornmail as it is is a fucking joke, and is easily out sustained from the free healing obtained by runes, let alone a fucking Doran's Blade or any actual sustain item.
becomes a beast when you combine it with 
, because you'll be blocking 32% of AA damage if they are crits from ADC's.
I always go for early Randutabi cheese when I'm against 
in lane, once you get those two items you can just watch him cry as he is rendered useless against you from that point of the game till it finishes.
It's still useless against Yi tho, he's immune to coldsteel passive effect and it the item overall becomes even more useless if he goes on-hit instead of crit(same goes if kai'sa goes on-hit/AP build instead of crit).
Yets42402 votesThey are not additive, but multiplicative. If you're taking a critical strike and have both items, it becomes 100%(.8)(.88) = 80%(.88) = 70.4% or a 29.6% reduction instead of 32%. There is then a 10% AS slow from CS. IF the auto in question is not a crit, you only get 12% reduction. If they bypass the AS slow, or its too little for them to be affected (as most AS reliant champions exceed the cap due to runes) then it may as well be ignored. You're investing 4k gold for no offense, less than 100 armor, and 400 HP with an AoE slow active. an investment of barely over 2.5k turns that armor into 55, negating 17.5% of the value of both purchases while giving them 45 more AD, and any ADC or auto attacker worth their salt will get a 
if they see you armor stacking. Additionally, this has nothing or very little to do with the utterly abysmal state of thornmail, except that both of these are far better options against auto attackers than thornmail is, and both, even stacked, are easily and cost efficiently countered and both items are rather subpar individually.
GonahtanuGepardi4 votesCold Steel has anti synergy with thorns
Now i'm not gonna claim thornmail is a strong item or anything but that's not anti-synergy. If you think that it's anti synergy, then you are most likely thinking that thornmail is supposed to be a semi-damage item with the damage return. however, that's a wrong way to look at it. The thorns passive is there to prevent the enemy from using lifesteal against you. Preventing life steal and reducing their attack speed is not anti-synergy. Even if it were supposed to deal lethal damage (which it's not, it's a stupidly overpowered concept), you would still prefer to have that attack speed reduction on it because you would still be taking damage from the enemy, even if they deal damage to themselves. The only champion that did suffer from the attack speed reduction is rammus and his taunt+thornmail combo was extremely overpowered and should never become a thing again. They need to make thornmail more viable but they do not need to change the thorns part at all. It's already doing its job.
Yets42403 votesNo, its not doing its job at all.
As someone was kind enough to detail below a single Blade of the Ruined King, in a worse situation than is even possible in game more than completely invalidates ALL of the return damage from TM, THROUGH the Grievous Wounds, AND makes the champion in question, a Nautilus, die over 34% faster:
Want some maths? Let's take a level 11 Jinx (highest winrate and second highest pickrate ADC, also has one of, if not the highest ratio of attack speed to attack damage, so thornmail will "counter" her harder than any other ADC) and give her just a BotRK, and ignore all of her runes, other items, etc.
She'll have 86.8 base AD + 40 = 126.8, she'll also be almost exactly to 1.0 AS before factoring in her Q or her passive. With her Q passive up, she reaches 1.7425 attacks per second which I will round to 1.75/s just for ease of math.
BotRK gives her 12% increased lifesteal.
She will be targeting a level 11 Nautilus (highest winrate and highest pickrate tank atm, primarily played support, so no level advantage given to either champs) who has simple a thronmail, neglecting all runes and other items once again.
Nautilus has 72 armor (71.9) at level 11, and Thornmail provides an additional 80 armor, bringing him to 152 armor, which I will slightly truncate to 150 for ease of math.
Naut has 1331 base hp at 11, and gets 250 from TM bringing him to 1581 HP since I truncated armor, I will round this to 1600 HP for ease of math and to make up for the lost pEHP.
A champion with 1600 hp with 150 armor takes (1+150/100)x1600 physical damage to kill, or 4,000 points of physical damage. Jinx deals 222 points of damage per second (so would kill in 18 seconds before BotRK's passive) plus she gets an additional 8% current HP per hit, or 1.75 times a second. She will also heal for 12% of this damage but since TM has GW, this is reduced to 7.2%.
Thornmail will return 25 + 80(.1) damage a hit, or a measly 33 damage, or 57 damage a second [before MR, with just her base this becomes 23.1, and 39.9 respectively] Jinx will heal 16 health per attack + 7.2% (8%)Nautiluss' current HP.
For the first hit, she will deal an additional 128 damage, and she will heal an additional 9 health from this damage.
After the first auto, Naut has taken 350 points of physical damage, leaving him with 3650 pEHP remaining, and Jinx has taken a whole 5.6* damage, even through the GW and with the full return damage, omitting any extra healing she would certainly have from runes, Doran's blade, or other items. In fact, the inclusion of a Doran's Blade lowers the damage she's taken to a single point of damage. She will also 100-0 the Nautilus in less than a dozen seconds without any other source of damage.
In essence, what has happened is that the BotRK deletes a third of Naut + TM's pEHP taking his surviability from a little over 18 seconds to less than 12. [...] I totally forgot to factor in Jinx's base MR. She would actually only take a fraction of that damage, about 70% of it, and so she takes 23.1 damage per hit instead of 33, meaning that even with just the BotRK alone, she actually takes -2 damage a hit, or heals for 2 health through the GW and the thorns with literally no other sustain or life steal. She will 100-0 him in 12 seconds, and heal for 42 health (over the 21 attacks made in 12 seconds) for doing so with just the BotRK.
So yeah, BotRK completely invalidates Thornmail even in the best case scenarios for thorns vs physical attacks.
GonahtanuGepardi3 votesGood thing is that i can do math too and i actually understand how things are calculated. As an example, his life steal calculations are completely wrong because life steal is calculated from post-mitigation damage, not pre-mitigation. To clarify, with his calculations, a person who deals 100 damage to a target with 100 armor and GW would heal 6 hp per hit with 10% life steal. But how it actually goes, is we reduce the damage reduction value (armor) from the damage which means the actual damage dealt is now 50, 10% of that is 5 and then we apply GW and the amount he actually heals is 3 HP.
I went to practice tool and also saw that nautilus in this setting reduces 60% of incoming damage with his armor and jinx reduces 25% of magic damage with her mr (not 30% like the guy in your quote said).
So let's assess his maths regarding life steal. Naut will deal around 25 damage per hit from jinx to jinx after her resistances. With the ad numbers he gave, jinx would heal 15 hp on-hit pre-mitigation, not 16 like he said (keeps rounding numbers to his favor). So we apply armor and GW now and she will actually heal for 3,657 damage per hit. Note that this is all before botrk passive.
Now lets also apply these to botrk passive.
For the first hit, she will deal an additional 128 damage, and she will heal an additional 9 health from this damage.
No, she will not heal for that amount. She would if armor didn't exist but since it does exist, she actually heals for 3,68. So now we can calculate the damage she ACTUALLY takes per hits. She takes 25 damage and heals about 7. That's 18 damage on-hit, not -2. A simple doran would never be enough to push her over the threshold. Also when nautilus gets lower on health, jinx also heals less and deals less damage.
Let's not forget that this whole debate is done in a vacuum and a champion like nautilus still has a shield and cc and aftershock etc. Surviving 12 seconds without using ANY of those tools or even trying to fight back or run away is an EXTREMELY long time to survive. Now add those tools to that time and play against that in a real match and you would say he is unkillable. Btw a support nautilus having a thornmail when the adc has just botrk is not a realistic scenario. And while nautilus has those tools, jinx really doesn't. She is entirely reliant on basic attacks. Sure she has runes but that's not as much as what nautilus has.
So yeah, BotRK completely invalidates Thornmail even in the best case scenarios for thorns vs physical attacks.
In conclusion, we can deem this statement untrue simply due to mathematical errors made by the first guy. Not to mention thornmail doesn't even need to mitigate ALL healing. It's enough if it makes it irrelevant. So who cares if a person would heal 5 damage on-hit? it's honestly not going to change the tide of the fight.
GinoSoldier27 votesADCs, and most other champions shouldn't have access to half as much self healing as they currently do.
It's completely abnormal that most enchanter supports, the HEALERS of League, won't heal half as much across a game as the average ADC with a Botrk or BT.
It's also why botlanes can afford to have full AP Lux and other ridiculous friggin stupidities instead of traditional supports.
If they didn't, Thornmail would be better at curbstomping what little they get and making them pay for it.
Hemulen Magi8 votesUpvoted you back to neutral 1. Lifesteal shouldn't be amplified by crit and marksmen should have lower base AD (makes balancing distinct itemization for marksmen and fighters easier). In exchange, 
, 
(but not hexdrinker), and 
could be slightly cheaper (-50g to -100g each) to compensate for reduced marksman sustain and strength.
Marksmen should also get some new utility items, like 
.
Pika Fox3 votes[{quoted}](name=Hemulen Magi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZhB1wXjf,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2019-09-04T13:40:30.551+0000)
Upvoted you back to neutral 1. Lifesteal shouldn't be amplified by crit and marksmen should have lower base AD (makes balancing distinct itemization for marksmen and fighters easier). In exchange,
Marksmen should also get some new utility items, like
Reducing ADCs AD/AS wouldnt do anything. If trist has lower AD and AS than ahri, youll just see AD ahri. And you need to be able to last hit minions as well, so you cant lower AD too much.
Varkul5 votesI mean Cait got a +2 AD buff and her power in lane, albiet not drastically, but noticably got better, as if her auto winning lane wasn't enough.
Daddy Ants2 votesI mean Cait got a +2 AD buff and her power in lane, albiet not drastically, but noticably got better, as if her auto winning lane wasn't enough.
2x 2 AD buffs within a month...
Vlada Cut4 votes[{quoted}](name=Pika Fox,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZhB1wXjf,comment-id=000600000000,timestamp=2019-09-04T14:11:08.467+0000)
Reducing ADCs AD/AS wouldnt do anything. If trist has lower AD and AS than ahri, youll just see AD ahri. And you need to be able to last hit minions as well, so you cant lower AD too much.
Reduce AD too much? Ugh hello Coup De Grace? THE MASTERY IN PRECISION'S LAST TREELINE? Cough
C O U G H
Pika Fox3 votes[{quoted}](name=Vlada Cut,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZhB1wXjf,comment-id=0006000000000001,timestamp=2019-09-04T19:43:51.876+0000)
Reduce AD too much? Ugh hello Coup De Grace? THE MASTERY IN PRECISION'S LAST TREELINE? Cough
C O U G H
What does any of that have to do with my comment?
Vlada Cut5 votes[{quoted}](name=Pika Fox,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZhB1wXjf,comment-id=00060000000000010000,timestamp=2019-09-04T19:44:41.600+0000)
What does any of that have to do with my comment?
You are complaining that reducing AD would be too much for adc's to last hit, as if Doran Shield's passive's bonus on-hit damage against minions isn't reducable, so no, you are wrong.
Besides, reducing AD by tiny bit won't be noticable if you got 3 BF sword items built in 
Thilmer13 votesADCs, and most other champions shouldn't have access to half as much self healing as they currently do.
It's completely abnormal that most enchanter supports, the HEALERS of League, won't heal half as much across a game as the average ADC with a Botrk or BT.
It's also why botlanes can afford to have full AP Lux and other ridiculous friggin stupidities instead of traditional supports.
If they didn't, Thornmail would be better at curbstomping what little they get and making them pay for it.
I agree with this statement so much.
Why the fuck any ADC can build 50% lifesteal, AD, and attack speed? No wonder healing supports are suboptimal now; the average ADC can heal itself more than any healing support as son as he/she/it buys two ítems.
I have been playing Jinx, Missfortune and Draven lately, and it's stupid how you have infinite sustain with a full damage ítem and 
.
They are literaly inmune to poke because they heal faster than the enemy can poke them.
5050BS19 votesIt needs to be a revers of 
It starts out reflecting 2% of attacks and builds 2% for each 1s in combat to a max of 10% reflected back (as an undispellable debuff on the attacker)
starts out at 4% and ends at 20% reflected after 5s
Trist mid opop1 votesIt needs to be a revers of
It starts out reflecting 2% of attacks and builds 2% for each 1s in combat to a max of 10% reflected back (as an undispellable debuff on the attacker)
Sounds disgusting on some champions. Have an upvote![slayer-jinx-catface]
Tahminatrix 6 votesThat's the indirect 
/
buff we need.
FantasySniper4 votesI like it.
Unfortunately, the meta right now would make such an effect pretty weak, since it's all about upfront damage, and eating poke to "charge up" would be counter-productive.
RadeticDraws18 votesBut...But... Vayne would have some counterplay then...
Daddy Ants3 votesBut...But... Vayne would have some counterplay then...
Vayne can be beaten.
If you can't beat her, that's an issue with you directly.
Tahminatrix 4 votesYes, let me dodge her point and click knock back or land my skillshot slow onto her while she tumbles away to basically mitigate / ignore the affect of my SKILLSHOT rather than her using her tumble to dodge it in the first place...
No wait, since I cant catch her as an immobile melee, ill just build tank and get her to focus me....she shreds me anyway.
FSRER11 votesIf a adc attacks with 2.50 attack speed dealing 500 mixed damage, there isn't a single item that can counter them
DuskDaUmbreon1 votesOf course not. You shouldn't have let a hypercarry with Gathering Storm last until 80 minutes into the game.
Aatrox Airlines9 votesThornmail is a glorified bramble. Bramble only exists to ruin a bruiser's day.
The Kombinator7 votesNope. It's primar job right now is to apply the heal reduction to those who attack you with basic attack. Though you don't need to build out for that. Just leave it on first part until last item built.
Ralanr6 votesThornmail is meant to apply GW more than hurt ADCs.
PB4UAME3 votesSadly, this is why its literally a waste of gold to go beyond a bramble in all but the latest of game conditions.
GripaAviara1 votesIt's not a waste of gold, it's situational. Like vs Aatrox, it helps you a lot.
The problem is the champions that I should counter are either bypassing armor or death to be viable, like YI, Yasuo or Trynda and it also shares a passive for some reason with Randuin, far superior item imho
PB4UAME2 votesRead what I actually typed, "its literally a waste of gold to go beyond a bramble in all but the latest of game conditions."
If you want Cold Steel, you're infinitely better off going Randuin's or Frozen Heart. The upgrade gives you 70hp, and 5 armor for 900g, and increase your return damage by like 15 damage before MR. Armor is worth 20g a point, so its 100g of armor. Hp is worth 2.666g per point, so its 187g worth of health. You're spending 613g for ~15 extra return damage before MR. It is, quite literally, a waste of gold to complete thornmail in every single situation. The ONLY time you should even CONSIDER finishing thornmail from bramble is as a sixth item with nothing else to upgrade.
BobaFlautist5 votesIt does! It makes them laugh.
3TWarrior5 votesmelee champions build Bork as well?
The thigh guy6 votesmelee champions build Bork as well?
Shhhhhhhhh. Melee isn’t allowed to be criticized on these boards. The hashinshins will cry.
Kovorix4 votesI mean it is even useless against melees the only good thing from it is the grevious wound.
Somebody Love Me4 votesThornmail doesn't even feel useful vs melees not named Fiora
SiG DxD3 voteswell at about 200-300 armor it returns 20 deflect magic a lifesteal item and its ignored unless rammus/malph
BackdoorPrincess3 votesBetter question is why doesn't grievous effect ranged champs more than melee? Almost everything else is designed to have melee use it, whereas ranged champs have an even easier time dps'ing someone with thorns
Bârd3 votesIt sucks against ranged champions, but that's not an "ADC OP" thing.
It sucks against everybody.
The item is complete and utter trash on anybody other than Rammus.
boricCentaur12 votesIt's only supposed to counter melee champions and heavily ad teams. There are already items that help vs adcs.
T2K Baka2 votesi mean when i build it on rammus, i saw an adc kill themself my autoing me
PB4UAME4 votesThat's more Rammus' W, than thorns tbph.
Vlada Cut1 votesIt's useful for me when I built it on 
when 1v1ing Adc's and Auto Attackers inside Death Realm.
It helps me out because I can invest in 
cause I am most likely going to get CC chained the moment I murder enemy's adc(tearing them limb from limb).
Because buying would just...reduce damage because the more damage ninja tabi blocks the less dmg will reflect...and buying 
isn't going to help me with enemy adc built 75% crit at all, I'd just get clapped before my Q animation would finish inside my ulti(aka get the Aatrox Q treatment).
Doesn't seem effective on champions like 
, I wouldn't buy , you can say she's the only melee exception.
PB4UAME4 votesThornmail does not "reflect" any damage at all and hasn't for literally 4-5 years. It does flat damage with a scaling portion based off 10% of your bonus armor. e.g. getting a Ninja Tabi would actually increase damage dealt by. . . a whole 2.5 damage.
Vlada Cut2 votesThornmail does not "reflect" any damage at all and hasn't for literally 4-5 years. It does flat damage with a scaling portion based off 10% of your bonus armor. e.g. getting a Ninja Tabi would actually increase damage dealt by. . . a whole 2.5 damage.
My bad, I expressed myself incorrectly, When i said ''reflect'' I meant to say it as if the damage it deals back to the person who auto attacked you.
Pandemic Punch1 votesIt is hard to make thornmail stronger as long as it has armor scaling damage + Rammus and Malphite
PB4UAME2 votesAre you kidding me? Its scaling is 1 damage for every 10 bonus armor. 1,000 fucking bonus armor = 100 extra damage BEFORE magic resist, so even the squishiest of base MRs take that down to less than 70 damage. Also, even for those champions its literally impossible to even come close to 1k bonus armor.
You buy a Deadman's Plate? congrats, you return 6 whole additional damage. Get a Sunfire? whoopie, 6 damage. Get a Gargoyle's Stone Plate with Metalicized active for the most armor on any item in the entire game? Guess what, you get a whole 10 fucking damage.
Hazardus ducees1 votesWell... lets look at it with this perspective. ADC's no longer crit in the thousands for every auto anymore and when they build 4 crit items its still under the thousands. Excluding Caitlyn getting that extra free "headshot bonus", and jinx's Hurricane AOE Q combo, the damage crit users can output while you can get thornmail, is quite abysmal. Look, we all know you shouldn't be rushing Thornmail as your first item, unless you're Rammus and if you are then there is the problem. Thornmail isn't meant to be an offensive item. That's why the armor stats increased awhile ago. While you are able to farm when pushed under tower, most- if not all Crit marksmen aren't able to. Their start out damage is lower than everyone's damage and they rely on 2 items (excluding starting item and boots) to get any kind of hold in lane or team fights. While they crit on every 4th's+ auto, yes 1 crit every 3.5-5 seconds, a fighter has a better kit to have sustain which allows them to get out more damage. Quite frankly, it is all about timing. If you go head to head against an adc with sloppy placement, then you better be able to kill them or else the fault is yours for thinking that you can win something you're outmatched against. The point being, your resistances are meant to fail later on in the game and you are supposed to outperform them by taking advantage of your spike while they're still working very hard for it.
On a side note, thornmail is actually very good against Marksmen that don't deal true/%HP damage. Champions like Varus, Quinn, Ashe, Jayce, Lucian, and Xayah can't compete against it because they rely on specialized playstyles. And if you're taking thornmail as a fighter.... well don't. There are better offensive items that cause grievous wounds.
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