Relationship between champions and scaling.

LatetotheRace·Feb 29, 2016·2 votes·281 views

So I'm going to be frank, I feel like I know how champions are designed to work within the perimeters of the game, but as of late I'm not quite sure.

From what I understand, certain champions should either rely on base damage or scaling damage. Logically I think it would make sense that tanks would rely primarily on base damages, and have god aweful scalings. Assassins would have an inverse relationship relying almost completely on scaling damages. As for fighters though, they would lie somewhere in the middle.

If I recall correctly this was in fact the case once upon a time, but that no longer seems to be that way. (Insert tank Akali, Fiora, etc. and glass cannon Illaoi, Garen, Amumu, and Nautilus.)

This could be something I only think I see, and feel free to let me know.

2 Comments

TehNACHOFeb 29, 20161 votes

You got about half of the picture so far.

The other half is understanding how scalings interact with pre-existing stats. For example, you know how Flat Penetration is stronger against enemies with Low Armor and % Penetration is better against enemies with High Armor? The same logic applies to literally every other stat in the game. If your champion has low base/innate defense, they scale better on buying more defense. The exception is if they have a %Health or %Resistance somewhere in their kit, in which case it doesn't matter/it's better they have high bases.

Now let's compare this to some of the champions you noted. Akali has insanely little defense. Building some on her must round that off, right? Fiora is in the same boat, mostly. You could argue their heals and Ws are relevant, but the latter can be outplayed and the former is dependent on how well they fight; they need some bulkiness so that the damage you have to have taken for your heal to be relevant doesn't actually kill you before you get a chance.

Alternatively, Illaoi has really high base health and big damage scalings. Garen's W let's him get away with a lot of Burst negation. Amumu naturally resists Auto Attacks (not to mention he has a lot in common with Dive Fighters, who are flex picks when it comes to damage or Tankiness), and Naut has his shield while he already has a solid amount of base health.

It's just this odd quirk about how numbers interact with each other in this game.

Critmaster GarenFeb 29, 20161 votes

their scalings might be very high, but the way these champions are playing doesnt allow to abuse those scalings for full damage builds.

even if you build crit garen, building him glass cannon with 6 damage items is a terrible idea and doesnt play out well. the same goes for ialloi, and in most cases amumu and other fighters or tanks.

you cant just look at health and defense scalings alone. for example garens villain mechanic makes him massively scale better with defense and cdr than with damage. as long as you can manage to get to the villain and keep him in range, youll always deal a respectable amount of damage. so its usually more worthwile to focus a lot on defense than offense. a damage build gives you a bit more freedom to chose your target, but is also more difficult to pull off, as you blow up faster. you rely a lot on the momentum of catching your enemy by surprise. just building glass cannon and charging straight into a tamfight gets you killed before you get into range of someone, even with the % damage reduction from courage.

illaoi has a similar problem. you cant really build her glass cannon, as adc would just kill her from outside her effective range even faster. she is kinda like heimer, in that she needs to build a nest of tentacles, where she wants to fight you. leaving the area where tentacles are around means she has absolutely 0 duelling potential. thats even worse on a glass cannon build, than on a tanky build.

amumu wants to be in the middle of the enemy team as long as possible. he can deal 5% of multiple peoples max health per second in damage over 20 seconds, or 8%/s over 3 seconds before he dies on a glass cannon build.

in those cases it comes down to. can you get your rotation off more than 2 times with more risk involved before you die with a glass cannon build to be more effective than on a tanky build? or can you get your rotation off 4 times with a tanky build while dealing slightly less damage, but still enough to kill someone? overall the defensive build will be more efficient.

also, additionally specifically in case of nautilus and illaoi they also have health scalings in their kits (and technically garen with his passive and his w), that further increases their synergy with defensive items.