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Stacking penetration items is a problem? Here's an answer.

WoonStruck··72 votes·4,569 views

Relevant damage taken currently:

( resist / percent pen ) - flat pen = final

Proposed relevant damage taken:

( resist - flat pen ) / percent pen = final

Those of you that have been around long enough realize that this is how the formula was back in season 1 and 2. It was changed to stop assassins from falling off so hard. However, itemization available now, in addition to keystones, makes it impossible for them to fall off anyway. Especially if you're AD.

**Reverting the penetration formula to its original creates trade-offs for stacking flat pen in addition to percent pen. **

It won't just allow you to deal significantly increased damage to everything with this formula:

Flat pen would allow you to kill squishies, while giving squishies the option of building a relevant defensive itemization to mitigate it, rather than often having to buy 2+ for it to have an impact at all.

Percent pen items won't allow you to completely destroy squishies just because you have a single flat pen item item 3142.

Finally, make all item-specific instances of % penetration share the same unique passive name, or simply make Black Cleaver melee only. With how Black Cleaver functions, it should honestly be Melee only anyway.

Boom, the obnoxious ADC build dies, AD casters become a little more balanced (still need work; most will be addressed with assassin update), and the bruisers that Black Cleaver was intended for don't get nerfed significantly.

You might not even have to nerf Ghostblade, since we all know you're trying desperately hard not to, Riot. You'll still probably have to nerf it though. The active is far too over-loaded.

**I honestly challenge you to tell me why this would be a bad idea. **

93 Comments

Eclipse13376 votes

I like this idea, but the problem is that adcs are one shotting tanks with flat penetration alone.

Squishies aren't supposed to be building resistances besides the odd banshee's veil.

The core of the problem is that pure tank items (that give you next to no damage) aren't appealing enough. Tanks are taking these low-resistant damage items instead.

Boom, everyone does less damage (most champs should still be tuned of course)

I think what you've proposed is a decent band-aid fix.

WoonStruck12 votes

Everyone has scaling armor, so against someone building black cleaver, everyone scales better with the changed formula.

Provided someone is stacking flat penetration, a single armor item (zhonya's, or the old randuins/GA [was common in diamond even vs snowballed AD assassins back then]) would be enough to at least get you to your base resistances again.

Against someone with both, they get severely diminished effect out of the flat+percent combo, which is honestly what's needed.

It makes the game less snowbally without getting rid of it entirely, moving the game a little closer to the pacing it should have in order for it to be an enjoyable experience for both sides as well, if that helps.

Eclipse13373 votes

You win lol.

I can't think of any reason of why this wouldn't work especially considering assassins will be fine after the update.

XIII Vanitas6 votes

No one has scaling armor. Everyone either goes flat armor for the early game or scaling hp for the mid/late game.

Princess Emma18 votes

Since people are down voting without correcting you;

He isn't speaking about scaling armor runes, he is speaking about the natural increase in armor every champion gets upon leveling.

XIII Vanitas4 votes

Yeah, I didn't understand he was talking about champions base stats, my bad.

Tilthankaldar3 votes

{quoted}

I like this idea, but the problem is that adcs are one shotting tanks with flat penetration alone.

Squishies aren't supposed to be building resistances besides the odd banshee's veil.

The core of the problem is that pure tank items (that give you next to no damage) aren't appealing enough. Tanks are taking these low-resistant damage items instead.

Boom, everyone does less damage (most champs should still be tuned of course)

I think what you've proposed is a decent band-aid fix.

''Aadcs are one shotting tanks with flat penetration alone''

I didnt know adcs could do that. My last game i was hitting 70 autos on a zac.

How do i 1 shot zac tell me?

WoonStruck7 votes

You don't feed early so he has a massive level/gold lead over you.

Threads like these are about dissolving intrinsic advantages via champion stats/kits or itemization that are significant enough to have a negative gameplay impact.

Advantages gained through general gameplay are an entirely separate aspect of the game.

There's no way you were only dealing 70 per auto unless he had only armor, significantly more gold, or a significant level lead and at the same time you were very underleveled, bought only attack speed, or had much less gold.

Either that or you're talking about him level 3 ganking, in which case your autos will deal 70 damage to most people.

Jimmyyy1 votes

{quoted}

Squishies aren't supposed to be building resistances besides the odd banshee's veil.

Are you playing on a server that has season 3 patch on it? Can I get a tutorial on how to connect? The game's changed since this was true.^ A lot.

Eclipse13372 votes

Yeah, my bad. I meant more along the lines of adc, and even then nobody buys banshee over lifeline items.

RoodToob5 votes

A problem is this : item 3071 This item is not penetration. This item is shred, which applies for all champions hitting the shredded target. Therefore, this new formula does not change a thing for adcs like Lucian or MissFortune (some of the current flat pen abusers)

Azeranth5 votes

It does though, because shred and flat pen would be applied BEFORE percent pen and thus make the flat numbers go on big stays, and percent numbers go on small stats. Reducing the effectiveness of the "wrong" type of penetration against the "wrong" target and reducing the gold efficiency of hybridizing.

Champion Skin4 votes

Shred is always applied before pen.. after all armor shred is a debuff applied to the champion reducing their armor (this has the added bonus of reducing effectiveness of armor scaling like item 3075 )

DunkinNoobs3 votes

Only 1 problem: it doesn't matter if you change it to the previous formula because people rarely stack both flat pen and % pen anymore. Instead, they do this: item 3071 item 3142 item 3147 item 3156 and then pass on % pen entirely. Against a build like that, your proposed change does absolutely nothing. The only champion that would really be hurt from your idea is Jhin, who generally opts for item 3036 overitem 3071 in armor pen centered builds.

Srlqulongtard3 votes

My problem with this is that it doesnt change the problem with adc's stacking flat pen, it just makes %pen weaker. Last whisper is fine the issues is with dirk items. They should have their cost increased or soemthing because of big part of the problem is that you can start armor pen so much faster than you can stack crit and it makes adcs stronger mid game while still keeping their late game power. they should honestly just make all the passives and actives on dirk items melee only so that they cant abuse those.

WoonStruck3 votes

Ahh, but ADCs stacking flat pen is not an issue, as it means they cannot shred through tanks if that's all it was. They can blow up Squishies whether they have crit or pen. If pen was a more early-game focused build, then it would be fine. However, Black cleaver's interaction with flat pen (or LDR/mortal reminder if BC becomes melee only) makes it an extremely strong mid-game combo as well, especially once crit/DR/AS starts being introduced into the build.

Black Cleaver and its current interaction with flat pen enables ADCs to both 2 shot squishies and kill tanks in a similar period relative to crit builds unless they have the luxury of being able to go full armor for some reason in that game.

VoraciousX2 votes

{quoted}

Ahh, but ADCs stacking flat pen is not an issue, as it means they cannot shred through tanks if that's all it was. They can blow up Squishies whether they have crit or pen. If pen was a more early-game focused build, then it would be fine. However, Black cleaver's interaction with flat pen (or LDR/mortal reminder if BC becomes melee only) makes it an extremely strong mid-game combo as well, especially once crit/DR/AS starts being introduced into the build.

Black Cleaver and its current interaction with flat pen enables ADCs to both 2 shot squishies and kill tanks in a similar period relative to crit builds unless they have the luxury of being able to go full armor for some reason in that game.

I don't play Jhin, but Miss Fortune is MADE with Black Cleaver in mind. It's even on her recommended items list. I don't see near as many Lucians abusing the Black Cleaver build anymore since the minor nerfs(In fact I rarely see Lucians anymore). I can't imagine Jhin abusing Cleaver because it takes 6 attacks/abilities to stack it. Jhin has very limited amounts of attacks(not to mention attack speed) and abilities compared to someone like Miss fortune or Lucian, so how exactly is Jhin abusing black Cleaver? I think it's more of the fact that the champions abusing Duskblade are high damage output champions already, and decide to combine other armor pen items(usually flat, cleaver if it's MF since it's pretty much core on her) in order to make use of the duskblade active.

It seems to me that you just want to nerf Black Cleaver, which I rarely see on ADCs, unless it's Lucian or Miss Fortune, who have a history of using those items. Miss Fortune is basically MADE for the item though.

If there's any one ADC besides those that I could imagine abusing Black Cleaver(I don't pay a whole lot of attention to bot lane), it'd be Ashe. And it's not the items that need nerfing for her, it's her. Her Q is pretty powerful and with Black Cleaver she could probably stack it with one auto. I could see them turning her Q to count into one ability/auto attack at the VERY LEAST. But I don't see Ashe using Cleaver, I see her using crit items since it works with her kit more.

WoonStruck2 votes

The thing is that Jhin is a problem balance-wise, not his itemization.

Most people are getting item 3142 item 3147 on him, and they are both extremely inefficient on him compared to ER builds.

Look at the DPS. Ghostblade+dusk loses to crit.

Look at DPS vs armor. Crit wins again.

Itemization is not the issue with Jhin. Jhin is the issue with Jhin.

On the adcs making efficient use of black cleaver, black cleaver is an issue.

The only reason MF doesn't need buffs right now is because of black cleaver, which she honestly shouldn't make use of anyway. Take it away and buff her to actually be a viable ADC instead of a gimmick.

The power curve that black cleaver+ghostblade gives to the caster ADCs making use of it is not healthy for the game. Its not about me just wanting to nerf black cleaver. Its about balance consistency.

Azeranth2 votes

Not to mention, that reductions plus AD on Black cleaver when combined with Ghostblade which provides AS and percent pen, means she isn't actually sacrificing item slots to gain these stats, she is simply changing where the stats are. Changing armor pen, would make black cleaver OR Ghostblade viable, not together or else they become gold inefficient

VoraciousX1 votes

{quoted}

The thing is that Jhin is a problem balance-wise, not his itemization.

Most people are getting item 3142 item 3147 on him, and they are both extremely inefficient on him compared to ER builds.

Look at the DPS. Ghostblade+dusk loses to crit.

Look at DPS vs armor. Crit wins again.

Itemization is not the issue with Jhin. Jhin is the issue with Jhin.

On the adcs making efficient use of black cleaver, black cleaver is an issue.

The only reason MF doesn't need buffs right now is because of black cleaver, which she honestly shouldn't make use of anyway. Take it away and buff her to actually be a viable ADC instead of a gimmick.

The power curve that black cleaver+ghostblade gives to the caster ADCs making use of it is not healthy for the game. Its not about me just wanting to nerf black cleaver. Its about balance consistency.

You're missing the fact that Riot WANTS her to use black cleaver. It's been in her suggested items list for a LONG time. She is NOT MISUSING black cleaver, it's MEANT to be used by her.

WoonStruck1 votes

Something being strong doesn't necessarily mean its healthy. Something being in suggested items doesn't mean it must be for the greater good of the game either.

Of course I won't deny that its good on her, but how healthy is near-automatic 30% armor reduction against an entire team, really, especially when what's applying it was made so insanely strong after it was included in her recommended builds? If MF is ever truly FotM, she'll get gutted for the exact same reasons as you're stating.

Srlqulongtard1 votes

A few things:

  1. Black Cleaver reduces stats, and does not provide actual penetration
  2. Armor pen actually has higher dps for the first 25-30 minutes of the game and always has more dps vs squishies(there's a reason assasins dont build crit)
  3. Yomus is the main issue providing not only an amazing active that essentially makes it 1 1/2 items worth of stats during a fight but also just as much ad as crit items but far more damage. Early on champs might have 40 armor so 20 armor pen is the equivalent to an extra 12% damage [(100/(100+20))-(100/(100+40))=.1933]
  4. %Pen is only effective vs tanks. Squishies don't build armor so last whisper is literally useless vs them.
arc953 votes

You're definitely not wrong with what you say(it would help but not a lot) I think the bigger issue is Armor never actually recovering from the huge armor/tank nerf a while ago (when they changed randuins to a crit damage reduction item)... then massive amounts of armor pen being available

armor has been weak ever since then and armor pen has only gotten stronger... so if a tank is forced to split buying resistances(mr and armor) they simply cant get enough armor to be relevant vs ad... look at what is available you have 3 core armor items dead man and sunfire then a situational randuins...then frozen heat and iceborn which are more champ specific and offer no hp...

but sticking with those core 3 sunfire which is the strongest of them 500 hp 50 armor... which isnt bad but isnt amazing but the passive with it is very powerful and makes the item strong

then Deadmans with the same stats as sunfire but a far weaker passive... build both you have 100 armor(plus base/runes/masteries) but an armor pen adc with cleaver will make that pretty irrelevant

then randuins which again has a weak passive better tank stats but still not good enough... the 10% crit reduction is useless vs lucian/jhin style armor pen builds.... and when your taking 700-1000 damage crits(1500 on cait headhots) 10% isnt doing much it's reducing 70-100 damage that really is nothing compared to taking 630-900 damage that is still coming through ... so the loss of 10 armor in that item for the crit reduction was a weak trade off... becasue again armor pen builds ignore the crit reduction and then the nerf to the armor makes the item even weaker vs armor pen(because the negate its buff and exploit it's nerf)

then assuming they have a mixed damage comp you're buying probably 2 armor, 2 mr, boots, then either a utility item, a juggernaut item, streaks etc your 2 armor items are pretty puny to cleaver, ghostblade, maw( or duskbalde), then not to mention a ldr...and even if you flip how penetration is calculated those builds will still punch straight through the armor and deal near true damage...

but from there you can go for a frozen heart(assuming you are a highly mana dependent tank) or thornmail then sacrifice the hp you really(or neglect mr or damage)

that's why juggernauts like trundle are so strong the have tons of sustain to make up for the lack of armor based tankyness... where pure tanks like maokai fell out of favor because he simply cant get enough armor to survive

Tl;DR / wrap up: armor tank stats are too low and there is too much pen... you get a ton from masteries then shit like ldr that jsut blows through tanks... and then all the serrated dirk items that are strong on adc's then finally cleaver that when on a good champion can totally just wreck tanks (lucian Illaoi)... and flipping the calculation of armor pen wont stop adc's from being able to deal near true damage to tanks

52% armor pen then 25 flat pen

or

25 flat pen then 52% armor pen

will both equals monstrous damage that a mixed resistance tank will never be able to absorb

Edit: 52% armor pen then 25 flat pen = ldr + 7% pen mastery, ghostblade, Maw or dusk, and 5 flat pen from runes (3 items and runes/masteries and you can get a disgusting amount of pen...then lifesteal/crit on top of that)...hence too much available pen and weak armor items

Also I might make a more concise/organized post about this with more math to it :P

ZT Xperimentor2 votes

Glad to see I'm not the only one that remembers this game-changing patch years ago.

Tychusfindlay9192 votes

I like this idea.

Golden Tager X2 votes

Penetration items huh?

Rammus ok

DemoGuide1 votes

I'm fine with this as long as Magic Penetration formula stays the same. I abuse magic penetration, you know.

WoonStruck9 votes

I'd honestly like magic pen to follow the same guidelines as armor pen, both for simplicity and general balance.

If AP champs cannot be successful due to the penetration changes, it goes to show that they need more prolific itemization in that area or that MR values are too high among certain classes, which I honestly think IS a problem among ADCs/assassins specifically.

Besides, AP tanks that rely on their damage more than disruption, such as Zac, could do with a little more itemization like Sunfire, Abyssal, etc. Even for AP champs, these changes would push the game in a better direction, I believe.

shppy6 votes

Agreed, magic pen should get swapped back to the old formula too.

To be fair, a big part of the problem with the mage vs MR balance is the proliferation of 'magic dps' and the influence it's had on MR itemization. This sorta thing used to not exist, but Riot's just made more and more champs capable of delivering high-scaling sustained magic damage. If implemented properly, that could be fine, except they've done such a lousy job balancing said champs. For whatever reason, they've decided that those champs still get to have strong, squishy-killing upfront burst and cc that a pure burst mage gets, while still having plenty of sustained damage after that.

As a result, we're in a state where MR just can't be balanced against everyone. If they make it strong enough to survive said magic dps champs, pure burst champs can't do anything against that level of MR. If they only make it good enough to survive burst, then magic dps gets to walk all over everything. Right now, we're kinda in an in-between state, leaning towards the latter. Magic defenses can build up to be tough for pure burst mages to deal with, but definitely not insurmountably so, while magic defenses still fall well short of properly mitigating champs with sustained magic damage. This is the kinda thing that needs to be dealt with, and it needs to happen both on a champ by champ basis and in itemization.

On the physical side of things, Riot's dealt with it a fair bit better. There's itemization specifically catering to helping physical burst/caster deal with higher armor values in ways sustained champs can't use as well, there's itemization outside of raw armor that helps defend against and/or punish sustained physical damage (auto-attacks) so that armor values don't need to be so high to deal with it, and pretty much all physical casters can be balanced around the expectation that they can have some sustained damage from their attacks. But that isn't mirrored on the magic side at all.

WoonStruck2 votes

AD casters are also much, much easier to make function vs high armor investments due to lifesteal and auto attacks scaling with each other, and scaling by concept as they scale their kits.

FallenSeruvim1 votes

I agree with everything here except I'd like to point out Thornmail is rather useless except on Malphite and Rammus. No other build for tank is really able to get the item to feel like it has any sort of significance outside of a PURE ONLY armor build. I feel like it provides little to no change, and with how high and out of control life steal % is getting coupled with the warlord's bloodlust, its pointless to grab.

shppy3 votes

Oh yeah, lifesteal has been in a horrible state for a very very long time. It's so unjustifiable that ranged dps get even close to the same % returns from lifesteal that melees do, and in reality they use it far better because they can push their dps even higher without having to worry about building enough defense just to survive.

Lifesteal deserves to be gutted for ranged attacks, at the very least against minions and monsters. Against champions you can make a shaky argument that they should get close to the same, but there's no excuse for ranged champs to effortlessly heal all their life back so easily by attacking minions and monsters from a far enough distance that they risk nothing in doing so. It's the very picture of 'non-interactive'.

Imo, lifesteal (and other healing from attacks on things like Gunblade and Death's Dance and red elixir) in general should be cut to some 65% against minions and monsters (and if that makes jungling harder, you deal with that in rebalancing the jungle), and ranged lifesteal should be cut down by 50%. So melee vs champion gets 100% of their lifesteal stat applied, melee vs non-champ gets 65%, ranged vs champion gets 50%, and ranged vs non-champion gets 32.5%.

DemoGuide1 votes

I m just too lazy to replace my full MPEN rune page to more standart page. But i believe changing penetration formula will require a work on Tank/Support mres items. I think Locket will be too strong then, considering the fact now it's like the best support item to rush because of statline and active.

Azeranth2 votes

Yes, it would be a MAJOR game changing rework that would seriously break the current META perhaps even require while new meta to be discovered

TurquoiseYoshi1 votes

item 3070 Gnar item 3071 item 3070

Seriously though, he would need some sort of buff if Black Cleaver was taken from him. I'd recommend buffing his ult passive, the bonus CDR on boomerang catch and increased move speed on Hyper proc. That's some of what Cleaver would have given him anyway, so it's a fair enough buff.

WoonStruck1 votes

Or you can change gnar specifically because he faces a very exclusive issue that only him, Nidalee, Jayce, Elise, and Kayle see.

Among those, only Kayle, and Gnar have had relevant itemization negatively affected by their unique transformations. You could argue Jayce as well, but BC really isn't the greatest for him.

Due to the limited scope of these issue, there's no reason the sepecific champions in question can't be modified on a case-by-case basis.

On a side note, There's a chance that Its not wanted on Gnar anyway from a balance perspective.

Mini focuses all on split pushing, while mega gnar lets him all-in/teamfight successfully. At some point a champion's gotta have a weakness, and the common FM+BC builds don't often show that on Gnar.

Not saying he shouldn't be able to utilize BC, just that maybe its not such a bad thing for him to be moved away from it.

An alternative is significantly weakening Black Cleaver for ranged champions. Less MS, CDR, % armor reduction, etc while ranged. This way it is mitigated on mini, which isn't a HUGE issue, and still gains full effect during mega, which is the primary reason its purchased on Gnar anyway.

bill843 votes

Stop forgetting about Urgot he would be destroyed if he couldn't build BC.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

WoonStruck1 votes

Considering reductions/shreds are applied before penetration, yes it would apply, and it does now.

But it would help in any case with mortal reminder and LDR, which is something I've seen cropping up, as mentioned. I'm sure that depends on the tank, however. Lifesteal tends to be too much or far too little depending on your target's armor/burst.

Notice how I tied in black cleaver/last whisper sharing unique passive names so they cannot be stacked?

You give up LDR/mortal reminder in this case. It would mean things like buying Black Cleaver as the ADC when a Vlad is on the enemy team is a potentially horrible idea.

This game needs more trade-offs. Only certain champions have to make them. Bruisers, juggernauts, tanks, certain mages, junglers. ADCs/assassins don't really have many for their itemization choices at the moment.

bill842 votes

Everyone keeps saying to make these items melee only, but ADC's are not the only ranged champs. You keep forgetting about Jayce who buys both ghostblade and duskblade sometimes as well as Urgot who buys ghostblade a lot and has been doing that forever.

Azeranth4 votes

Well, I shall elaborate rather than argue the semantics of an Urgot.

Cleaver shred would still be effective but applied before Penetration, thus Cleaver continues to be effective against scaling armor, however, combining cleaver with percent pen doesn't do ridiculous things like reduce a scaled amount by a flat amount. Thus, attempting to combine shred and percentage pen, would actually cause the the percentage penetration to REDUCE the effectiveness of the Shred rather than synergize with it.

The same is true of flat penetration. The more flat penetration you have, the more it will reduce the effectiveness of you percent penetration. This is because by applying flat penetration before hand, the percentage is of a smaller number and thus, not as effective.

This is an important balancing point because flat armor pen is useful against things with low armor that can reasonably be attained through effective itemization, in order to be able to kill them. However, percentage penetration is more effective against a target who's armor exceeds consistant or reasonable flat penetration.

Now for proper itemization, ADCs must be aware of how the tank members of the enemy team are building, either as Damage reduction tanks, or Health tanks, and then choose the proper items for either flat OR percent penetration, rather than previously building both and remaing effective against high armor targets while having what was needed to harm squishy targets as well. If this was implemented taking flat armor pen against squishy targets or health tanks would make you significantly less effective against high armor targets.

Below is some important math with numbers I pulled from thin air.

Current System: Target Armor is 400, the attacker has 20% armor pen and 50 armor pen and also can reduce their armor by 20. This means the armor is reduced first to 320 by percent pen. Then armor shred is applied, reducing it to 300 for the attacker (still 380 for everyone else) then an additional 50 is removed for flat pen cutting it to 250 armor. This meams that it is 62.5% effective against that target.

Same attacker, squishy target with only 150 armor. It is reduced to 120. Shred takes it to 100. Flat pen takes it to 50. That's 66% effective against this target.

As you can see, two vastly different targets with vastly different builds are similarly affected by this paticular pen/shred schema

Now, using the proposed system, let's look at it again. 400 armor, reduce to 380 by shred, reduced to 330 by flat pen. Reduced to 264 by percentage pen. Which is 44 percent effective.

This is because, the flat penetration is applied before the percent and thus the flat penetration is being removed from a large number, not a small one. Therefore the effectiveness is minor against the high armor target. This should encourage the attacker to invest more heavily into percent armor pen.

150 reduced to 80 by flat pen and shred then to 64 by percent. An effectiveness of only 42% Now, the attacker is wasting gold in what could be flat armor pen which would be far more effective against this target because this change would apply the percentage to the smaller number, which, as anyone who understands math knows makes the percentage penetration less gold effecient, and that the ADC is wasting what could be crit, AS, or AD.

Long story short, it would increase the effectiveness of armor, make armor pen easier to balance discourage hybridizing penetration because it would be less gold effecient and on a side note would make Yasuo SOOO much less cancerous in lower ELO.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

WoonStruck1 votes

If you nerf Black Cleaver, LW will be bought to nearly the same effect.

Watch it happen.

manbearswine1 votes

{quoted}

Finally, make all item-specific instances of % penetration share the same unique passive name, or simply make Black Cleaver melee only. With how Black Cleaver functions, it should honestly be Melee only anyway.

Didn't you start this post by talking about assassins, aren't assassins mostly melee? Maybe just give it more hp and less ad, so it'll be more of a utility/bruiser item?

You might not even have to nerf Ghostblade, since we all know you're trying desperately hard not to, Riot. You'll still probably have to nerf it though. The active is far too over-loaded.

That item is an overloaded sack of shit, it deserves nerfs either way, preferably making it more focused on one aspect or another.

WoonStruck2 votes

No, I didn't talk about assassins. I only mentioned that the formula was changed in order to help out assassins, who no longer have the issues that they used to, thus reverting would not hurt them as much as it would help the rest of the game balance-wise.

That said, making BC more of a utility/bruiser item by making it weaker on assassins and non-viable on most ADCs is a great place to start as far as making armor worth something again.

manbearswine1 votes

{quoted}

No, I didn't talk about assassins. I only mentioned that the formula was changed in order to help out assassins, who no longer have the issues that they used to, thus reverting would not hurt them as much as it would help the rest of the game balance-wise.

So BC being used by assassins to melt tanks makes sense to you? People here really should stop whining about ranged specifically when the problem isn't specifically for ranged champions, the exact same interaction is exactly as stupid when used by melees.

That said, making BC more of a utility/bruiser item by making it weaker on assassins and non-viable on most ADCs is a great place to start as far as making armor worth something again.

Then again there's a concern they might get it as a defensive/offensive item later in builds...which is also when you generally want %pen, maybe it's just better to make BC grant %pen on the target instead of just shredding armor.

BloodyTompon1 votes

I honestly challenge you to tell me why this would be a bad idea.

Because it targets the wrong problem and doesn't solve what you set out to do. All in all, it throws balance out for little gain (has very low cost/benefit).

WoonStruck3 votes

It targets the wrong problem? Really?

Because the problem I see is the ineffectiveness of armor, anywhere from 6 armor items to just one armor item, with the issue only being worse the less you have. This is primarily due to the formula and the over-abundant penetration in the game right now.

Pretty sure it targets exactly the right problem.

If you're talking about pen/reduction differences, it separates BC/LW, and also separates ADCs from bruiser itemization a bit more. The step after would be assassins, which will likely be addressed in their update.

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