A Close, Math-Powered Look at Tahm Kench's Kit

This post is about the numbers in Kench's kit. In this post I will try to show that a lot of these numbers are pretty absurd.

Let's start with E: In passive form, his grey skin heals back 20/26/32/38/44% of damage taken. That's means, barring grevious wounds, Kench essentially reduces damage by the same percentages. That's already what Armor and MR do:

[1] Physical Dmg Taken= Physical Dmg Dealt x (100/(100+Armor)) This works the same for magic damage. But with Kench's rank 1 E factored in, you get this:

[2] Physical Dmg Taken = 0.8*Physical Dmg Dealt x (100/(100+Armor)) If you rewrite 0.8 as 1/1.25 and move it inside the fraction, you get:

[3] Physical Dmg Taken = Physical Dmg Dealt x (100/(1.25 x (100+Armor))) If we distribute the 1.25 and separate some numbers, we get:

[4] Physical Dmg Taken = Physical Dmg Dealt x (100/(100 + Armor + 25 + 0.25 x Armor))

If you compare equation [4] to equation [1], you can see that, by taking one rank in E, Kench has 125% total armor/mr and an additional 25 flat armor/mr on top of that. What the living fuck. It scales with rank too: Rank 2: 135% + 35 flat Rank 3: 147% + 47 Rank 4: 161% + 61 Rank 5: 178% + 78 Yep. Rank 5 E gives Kench 178% total armor/mr and an additional 78 armor/mr on top of that. "But Goose," you say. "Goose that's only if he gets to heal! It's not that overbearing, really." You have a decent point. It's only this bad in skirmishes instead of all-ins. And it's more favorable to champions with lifesteal to be able to do the damage instead of having it reduced by actual armor. But in an all-in, no matter what rank of E Kench has, he can just activate the ability, and get all of his hp back instantly as Grey Health. Guess what that means: Active, all ranks: 200% armor/mr with an additional 100 flat armor/mr. Awesome. Granted at this point you can back up and wait 6 seconds for his health to decay, but if you back off it isn't really an all-in, now, is it?

Let's continue on to W: This one is pretty simple. W does 20/23/26/29/32% MAX HP damage against enemy champions. This means that building health doesn't reduce the damage of Kench's W at all. You can go ahead and build MR, but items like and its derivatives aren't as helpful as they are against other sources of magic damage. I don't really need to go off about % Max HP scaling damage here, many other people have done that in other threads. It's also worth pointing out that, should Kench decide to eat minions and spit them out, the damage schedule is: 100/150/200/250/300 + 60%AP. That's quite high for a magic-damage projectile. In fact, it's the highest rank 1 base damage on a non-ult, single-hit, non-charging magic damage projectile in the game. (The only things higher have multiple damage sources or amplifications: Q both hits, Q both hits, landing every one of rockets, sapling impact and explosion, and a fully charged whirlwind.) It has the same base damage at level 1 as a max-range nidalee spear. Oh and it's the only non-ultimate suppression in the game. Only way out early is but you'll still take damage.

Let's talk about Q: At early ranks, Q has decent base damage, but isn't nearly as much of an outlier as his other abilities. A 1.5 second stun on targets with full stacks, however, is pretty good for a rank 1 ability. The only other non-ultimate stuns that can get you a better duration with one ability are by .1 seconds and this guy at long range . The stun is equaled by rank 1 stuns from old (honorable mention for combo with a whole 2 second duration). At high ranks the stun is outclassed by other stuns whose duration scale with ability rank, but here's where Q starts to shine as a slow. At rank 5, Q slows for a whopping 70% for two seconds. There is exactly one are two non-ultimate slows in the game with equal or greater duration, no decay, and a higher slow %. Can you guess what it is they are? and (thanks to RougeWill for pointing out Zil).

And his R: Map mobility isn't relevant to numbers. What is relevant is that ranks in ult give all auto attacks and all abilities an additional 20 + 4/6/8% bonus HP magic damage. Let's break this down. At rank 6, assuming Kench hasn't bought ANY bonus HP, he gets +20 magic damage on autos. That's like two free , but magic damage instead of physical damage. For every 100HP, he gets an additional 4 damage on his autos. That means every 250 HP he builds feels like he has an additional (magic damage) so for every he buys, he gets more than a . So when he comes back to lane with a on first back, once he hits 6 he's got a + worth of extra damage on his autos. At rank 3 of his ultimate, it's about a free , instead. Keep in mind this extra damage applies to his abilities, as well.

Odds n Ends, Summary Don't forget this guy has 175 attack range (used to be 200 but praise the sun it's less now). To summarize: Q: One of the better stuns for a low rank and better slows for a high rank W: Very high %Max HP scaling (highest in game for any ability) and only non-ultimate suppression in the game OR strong early game ranged harass OR hourglass/zhonya/speedboost all-in-one for an ally E: Essentially tons of free armor and mr. R: Allows your auto attacks and already high-base-damage Q and W to scale with health. (ok it's not QUITE as good as a zhonya because it doesn't stop DOTs and stuff... but it DOES stop delayed AOE.)

This combination of innate tankiness, damage scaling with both Kench's and the enemy's defensive stats, and impressive utility make Tahm Kench an outrageously overloaded pick in toplane or as a support. I hope that, by illustrating just how inflated his numbers actually are, I can draw the attention both of Riot and of the community and facilitate a constructive discussion.

Happy banning.

P.S. I love when people pay as much attention to detail as I do and fact/math check me. If you find an error, I'll happily correct it with an edit and throw your name in there for credit.