I can't believe laser turrets reducing true damage is intended

IsIsGankedParis·Mar 15, 2015·94 votes·7,920 views

I just went in a game with a friend, custom to test this out, we both took smite.

At level 1 smite does 390 damage.

Was under the laser turret taking aggro and dealt 331 damage to the minion with smite.

Riot please fix this bug, it can cost champs like Darius, Cho'Gath, Olaf, and many more a TON of games.

Edit: Just tested with Olaf and Irelia, Olaf did 101 before laser agro, did 86 true damage with agro.

Irelia did 15 true damage with her W before agro, 12 with agro.

58 Comments

NarasimhaMar 15, 201514 votes

I... kind of feel like this makes sense. Not sure, but it just feels right. True Damage just means that 100% of the damage you do will be done to the enemy. But if the damage is reduced before that calculation, then thats a separate thing. I could be dead wrong, just seems logical to me.

SolaxoMar 15, 201544 votes

{quoted}

I... kind of feel like this makes sense. Not sure, but it just feels right. True Damage just means that 100% of the damage you do will be done to the enemy. But if the damage is reduced before that calculation, then thats a separate thing. I could be dead wrong, just seems logical to me.

True dmg should NEVER be reduced in any circumstances ever

BorfinMar 16, 20153 votes

{quoted}

True dmg should NEVER be reduced in any circumstances ever

alis ult and gragas w disagree

so does urgot passive but who cares about that

ULTRAF0RCEMar 16, 201524 votes

alistar ulti does not affect true damage ACTIVE: Alistar removes all crowd control effects from himself, then gains additional attack damage and takes 70% reduced physical and magic damage for 7 seconds. Unbreakable Will is a self-targeted ability that removes all crowd control effects on Alistar, and grants him an offensive and defensive buff. Additional Information:

Unbreakable Will does not remove or prevent any new crowd control from being applied on him after the activation. The damage reduction occurs after armor and magic resistance. True damage will not be reduced by any form of damage reduction.

VelasanMar 16, 20157 votes

{quoted}

True dmg should NEVER be reduced in any circumstances ever

Actually, it doesn't work through invulnerable shields.. but in this case it's because the damage is not being reduced, the champion is debuffed. Seperate thing.

The turrets debuff your champion to do x % less total damage the longer it stays on them, no matter what kind of damage. This is intended.

Now I suppose it could be argued it hurts true damage champions too much, but I'm not sure how they would adjust it to make an exception for only that one type of damage.

CoaltarMar 16, 20154 votes

It's against the very concept and theme of true damage and it's inconsistent with Riot's past stance on the the mechanic's interaction. True damage, unless totally mitigated or avoided through the use of a spell shield, or a state of invulnerability (such as Trynd, Poppy, and Kayle ults) should always deal the exact amount of damage listed by the ability. True damage abilities have been balanced around this factor for years, and I see no reason to change it now.

IS1a442cd69a169ed293a39Mar 16, 20153 votes

{quoted}

It's against the very concept and theme of true damage and it's inconsistent with Riot's past stance on the the mechanic's interaction. True damage, unless totally mitigated or avoided through the use of a spell shield, or a state of invulnerability (such as Trynd, Poppy, and Kayle ults) should always deal the exact amount of damage listed by the ability. True damage abilities have been balanced around this factor for years, and I see no reason to change it now.

Pure damage is superior to true damage.

RogueWillMar 16, 20151 votes

If I'm not mistaken a red smite also reduce true damage. item 3715

Or at least it reduced it on Cho'Gath

PæanMar 16, 20151 votes

I remember when item 3715 was bugged and doing "pure damage" such as what the fountain laser did. So many tryndameres, Zilean's, and people with a item 3026 were dying while having the resurrect/undying effect on them

I Main SwainMar 16, 20151 votes

doesn't exhaust reduce it? I feel like it's balanced honestly, because when you think about it, the only other way to counter true damage is to build a TON of health.

RiotFeralPonyMar 17, 20153 votes

I'll check this when I get in today. It is possible we'd want to use a mechanic at some point to break the "True Damage cannot be mitigated" rule but I don't think this specific tower interaction is intended.

EyrgosMar 17, 201510 votes

{quoted}

I'll check this when I get in today. It is possible we'd want to use a mechanic at some point to break the "True Damage cannot be mitigated" rule but I don't think this specific tower interaction is intended.

You should never overwrite that rule.

rinsujoMar 17, 20151 votes

Thank you for looking into it!

5 Stacks GGMar 15, 201511 votes

true damage isn't reducible try it out with poppy passive exhaust sona e empowered it NEVER is reduced

RozzetaMar 16, 20158 votes

Why is this guy being downvoted? Sona's Diminuendo did reduce true damage at one point, and Riot fixed that calling it a bug. True Damage should not be reduced by anything.

TerchioMar 16, 20153 votes

True damage can be reduced by a few effects, just as some can be gained by a few effects (Ahri AP, Olaf AD, Cho AP). The real difference is that no matter how much armor or magic resist is accumulated, those won't reduce the damage... and yet many other defensive effects claim True Damage as an exception. True Damage hardly needs this buff. It should be reducible by debuffing the enemy champion, as often they have the option of buffing it.

In other words:

Armor / MR is countered by Armor Pen / Magic Pen Physical / Magical damage is countered by Armor / MR True Damage buffing (Ahri/Olaf/Cho scaling) is countered by debuffing damage

It hardly needs spelled out, as the gimmick should never have been introduced in the first place, but True Damage needs no such buff, especially in a game where HP is getting harder and harder to come by.

The5lackerMar 16, 20153 votes

Scaling =/= increasing damage.

Scaling = FUCKING SCALING.

Increasing or decreasing damage, by this definition, is anything that alters the printed damage of the ability. If the printed damage of an ability is 100 (+10% AP), and a champion's AP is 200, then the damage isn't "increased" to 120, that's just the printed damage of the ability.

TerchioMar 18, 20151 votes

... What? It scales, and the damage increases. 100 damage becomes 120. Tell Irelia about how scaling makes no difference. She couldn't if she tried. And, this is much more than you can say for armor/MR on the other side. Printed damage is still damage, and more damage than without the scaling. Damage with absolutely no method of mitigation, other than of course very few damage decreasing abilities. Few champs get True Damage, and few champs get to decrease it. And towers.

With HP being hard to stack much in the game anymore, it's even more abusive. Whether or not True Damage is consistent, it does not need such a buff anyway. Champs like Vayne would have basically no threat from lategame destruction, and Cho can combo chomp anything with ease, which wouldn't be hard to survive on Cho, anyways, as his ultimate is one of the few remaining HP bastions. Even Olaf can wear down an enemy while taking damage, and sneak in a quick execution strike with full power, unlike the rest of his kit, or anyone's kit that doesn't contain true damage. Towers are meant to be a pain to everyone equally, and leaving True Damage out of it would only reinforce the joke that tower defense is.

The5lackerMar 18, 20151 votes

No: Nobody gets to decrease it. Name one champion that decreases true damage. Oh wait, you can't, because that champion doesn't exist. Sona did once: It was a bug. It was fixed in a bugfix. It was not a balance change.

And again, Increasing/Decreasing damage is unrelated to scaling. For example, lets say we've got an ability that says "You deal 20% bonus damage to the target." Your physical damage would be increased by 20%. Your magic damage would be increased by 20%. Your true damage WOULD NOT be increased by 20%. Because True damage always deals the printed damage. If you have an ability that deals 10 true damage, it deals 10 true damage. If you have an ability that deals true damage based on 10% of your AP, you will deal true damage equal to 10% of your AP. If your AP increases, that isn't a "Damage increase" by the rules of the game. Yes, the damage is increased, but learn to separate game terms and common vernacular. Tanks don't have 200mm cannons in League either. Don't see you railing about that, do I?

SteelflameMar 16, 201516 votes

Wrong. Riot a while back made a statement that True damage will always, without fail, do the damage listed on the tooltip assuming the target is able to take damage from that source. No more, no less. This was a statement they made when they fixed many champs amping or reducing true damage (Usually their ignites being what was amped) with broad %damage modifiers (Like swain's E, or Poppy's ult's damage amp, or other champs with damage redux effects). This statement was applied to things like Darius's ult being reduced by Exhaust back when it reduced damage by 70%, vs it's current 35% damage redux + 35% AS slow, which is the closest comparison case to this.

The5lackerMar 16, 20152 votes

Nothing else in the game reduces true damage. Exhaust reduces all the damage you do. Not true damage.

AetherKingdomMar 15, 201513 votes

I'm alright with this because anything putting irelia down is ok in my book.

Teridax68Mar 16, 201510 votes

This shouldn't happen. True damage has been specifically stated to not be affected by any increases or reductions, and so it should be constant even when under a turret's damage reduction. Hopefully we'll get a fix for this soon.

RikariMar 16, 20157 votes

So the damage reductions were true.

RIP Tahm KenchMar 16, 20153 votes

+1 for puns.

windwolf777Mar 16, 20152 votes

Puns of damage (reduction?)

5 Stacks GGMar 15, 20156 votes

it's a bug 100%

SouL1essMar 16, 20153 votes

Ya its a bug. How can my dunk efficiency be decreased? What blasphemy! - Darius 2015

Sailor MintMar 15, 20153 votes

~~It doesn't reduce Orb of Deception damage.~~

Edit: It does.

IsIsGankedParisMar 15, 20152 votes

did you test it while taking agro under the turret when you launched it or did you launch before using the spell then take agro?

Sailor MintMar 15, 20153 votes

Nevermind, tested properly.

It does reduce True Damage by 15%.

Auz the RipperMar 16, 20153 votes

It also slows champions through any form of CC immunity like olaf's and yi's ults

The Chain WarderMar 16, 20153 votes

What an outrage! Well, as a Vel'Koz main, at least now I know to always buy an Ohmwrecker.

JunkοMar 16, 20151 votes

Why are you taking turret aggro as Vel'koz? lol

The Chain WarderMar 16, 20156 votes

Great question! That's because enemy turrets seem to love aiming at the team's squishies whereas allied turrets seem to love aiming at enemy minions or tanks when they finally do decide to target champions. It may as well be a hidden passive -- everyone knows the enemy turrets always seem to come off as better.

58304318_DELMar 16, 20152 votes

Yes, removing it would make sense but for the sake of the game, make it's damage higher!

KazaashiMar 17, 20152 votes

From the LoL wiki post on Laser Turrets:

LIGHTNING ROD

75% armor penetration

Unique Passive - Lightning Rod: Deals damage in a continuous beam and cannot be dodged. Deals up to 125% additional damage the longer it targets the same target. With every hit, the beam gains 6 heat until 120 heat is reached. When the beam switches targets, heat is reset.

Gains +1.05% damage per point of heat, up to a maximum of +125% extra damage. Unique Passive - Agony: Targets hit will have their movement speed reduced by 10% and damage reduced by 15%. -- This does affect true damage.

I think the logic is that it reduces the OVERALL dmg of a champion. So before the dmg calculation is made, the champs dmg is reduced by 15% across the board, therefore the True Dmg ablility does 15% less True Dmg.

FearTheDanknessMar 16, 20151 votes

You should email rito telling them

QuephaMar 16, 20151 votes

i could believe it but i still disagree with it.

bzhen0915Mar 16, 20151 votes

[deleted]

DigitalityMar 16, 20152 votes

True damage is not affected by exhaust.

TheRainInSpainMar 16, 20151 votes

It makes sense. It would make even more sense if the Base Turrets had a shield too for itself and its champions, like that of the Inner Turrets. I know that'd make turtle comps hard to break, but turtle comps have two major weaknesses, in that it's hard for them to defend two points at once, and that drawing them out into the open field usually has some very bad consequences for them. Though, that would imply that your team is made up of five humans with at least semi-decent intelligence.

Hard PenetratorMar 16, 20151 votes

Turret gods of false dmg.

llamasxMar 16, 20151 votes

I think it's working as intended, because the goal is to prevent a single snowballed champion from single handedly tower diving and taking inhibs easily. This doesn't affect a team tower dive much because of all the other damage sources.

That said, they could work on clarity and include that damage reduction includes true damage.

AMYS GRAVEMar 16, 20151 votes

You should put this in report a bug, it will probably be seen by the right people and get fixed if you put it there.

SanKakUMar 16, 20151 votes

I think you can also reduce true damage through a mastery(if the champion has impaired movement, reduce damage from it by 3 percent). Also, did you know you can absorb it with barrier or other shields? I think the point behind true damage is that armor and magic resist are both completely ineffective against it.

Zenba CatMar 16, 20151 votes

I'm just curious but does Maokai ult affect true damage? The tooltip just says it reduces all non turret sources by 20%. If it doesn't effect true damage, then it's tool tip should be updated.