Can we talk about thornmail

Vision Monkey·6/20/2016, 11:52:16 AM·3 votes·565 views

This item is just god awful right now. It is designed to counter lifesteal but with ADC able to stack 20-30% lifesteal and with 50% bonus armor penetration being so cheap the damage feels trivial at best. Why should I build Thormail over something like Randuins or Frozen heart when I have 300+ armor and the ADC with one lifesteal item and Last Whisper which only cost 1300 gold that has been autoattacking me for the past 10 seconds is still at 100% HP? ADC's should very least feel threatened by this item but with the ability to counterbuild it being so cheap it really feels like a joke.

8 Comments

ZT Xperimentor6/20/2016, 12:15:12 PM2 votes

Considering the bias favoring marksmen; thornmail wouldn't be effective unless it applied grievous wounds & did true damage. But riot wouldn't do that, they've taken drastic balance changes whenever marksmen get close to being replaceable in team compositions. Just look at pre-season 6.

Zarkkast6/20/2016, 12:29:14 PM2 votes

What are you even talking about?

Life steal is designed to counter thornmail, not the other way around. It has always been like that, even when the item was really good.

Elite4Runner6/20/2016, 12:16:10 PM1 votes

What do you think about adding grievous wounds to it?

I think it actually even had it at one time, but was removed. If it were to be added/re-added, what do you think would need to be changed to keep this item balanced?

Nahui6/20/2016, 12:40:45 PM1 votes

It's not designed to counter the ADC by itself. It's a heavy supplement. Say you're a tank engaging on an ADC. Instead of life stealing your attacks and spells, it's now life stealing thornmail, allowing your attacks to land and do meaningful damage. Now of course the math isn't perfect like that, but you understand the point. But you can't expect to build thornmail and be a ticking time bomb for ADCs

CoolKnightST6/20/2016, 2:30:57 PM1 votes

It needs to block a percentage of the damage auto attacks deals similar to how item 3047 work. Maybe a new componement build out of item 1029 or a rework for item 3082 . I would thematicly fit way better.

KayleeT6/21/2016, 10:24:57 PM1 votes

20% lifesteal is not gonna save you from the damage of a 300 armor thornmail tank lmao