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Make Thornmail Great Again!

Cherysse··9 votes·813 views

Hi, I think it is time to address the problems of an item that has run into such a situational and niche state that it is no longer useful except for certain champs like: Rammus Malphite Taric whom excel by using this item.

#Problems:

Problem 1) Only a few champs excel with it now (already stated) because it scales with armor, and armor scalings have a deep ingame problem because Armor Shred abilities (Black Cleaver, Wukong's Q, ETC) diminish greatly both it's damage output and the stat it grants (armor), something Riot should fix.

Problem 2) Before it allowed you to kill off enemy AA champs without touching them, reason why this was super nerfed in the first place (instead of attacking the root of the problem).

Problem 3) Is a tank item, yet it deals magic damage = the damage reduction from magic resist greatly affects it.

Problem 4) On regular champs it doesn't even counter 10% life steal (due to magic resist, poor damage, armor pen and armor shred allowing full damage to pass).

#Solutions:

Fixing problem 1: this item should scale with LEVEL, not with armor. In live it deals 25% of bonus armor +15% damage received. It should deal something like 15 - 45 damage plus 15% of the damage received. This fixes up the abuse of certain champs on it and fixes the armor dependecy it has and caps the insane damage it could sometimes get to deal.

Fixing problem 2: this item used to kill of ADC's by just standing still, oh mah gad, I did this so many times and it happened to me so many times #NotFunnyJKThisIsStillFunnyAF .... but seriusly, fixing this is just easy: Thornmail no longer deals damage to enemy CHAMPIONS below 20% of their max life.

Fixing problem 3: are you a tank? yes you are! what do you build? resistances + health, do you use magic penetration? NO. With the change in the damage potential of this item I think it will be safe to say that making it deal true damage is a fair trade, specially if in the late game you are at least hoping this item does something to that obnoxious ADC's life steal. By setting the damage type to true we fix any problem a tank could have regarding this item.

Fixing problem 4: in it's current state (when used on a regular champ) this item will do almost nothing against the enemy life steal, lets say it deals 55 + 15% of the damage received, the math sounds good until you add the magic resist reducing 45% of the damage, now we have 30 + 8.25% of the damage received, add the regular item 3072 and the armor pen items and the damage + life steal is enough to make you regret buying this item instead of item 3110. The solution is simple: add an active to this item, so that whenever it deals damage it applies Grieveous Wounds. This active lasts for 10 seconds. 45 seconds cooldown.

##With all of this the problems should be fixed, so that we have a viable item that is not op, that does not render a whole class useless and that does not break the game.

Tell me what you think, if I can get a Rioter to answer this post it would be awesome (Meddler I SUMMON you!)

I will place a item 3340 here and I will wait till Meddler uses summoner 12

12 Comments

Blumpkin Nation2 votes

All they really need to do is create two items.

Thornmail is now a smaller purchasable item that provides its current effect at a smaller value. Then it can be upgraded into something, idk, let's call it Executioner's Mail.

Executioner's Mail:

70 Armor 30 Magic Resist

Unique Passive: 10% of the damage dealt to this champion is returned to the attack before mitigations as magic damage.

Unique Active: Thorns emerge from the user's body. For 3 seconds 40% of all damage dealt to this champion is returned to the attacker as true damage. The damage returned to the attacker CANNOT be lethal. (active cooldown 120+ seconds)

Cherysse1 votes

OP, please go play DOTA, hahahaha, seriusly it would easily break the game.

windwolf7771 votes

Blademail, I like it ^_^

hsumis1ove1 votes

I would say yes to this if they nerf most tank's damage. Rammus can melt most adcs in less than a second with his ult while going full tank.

Cherysse1 votes

He is meant to do so, he is super weak againsy magic comps, and well, whenerver I see a Rammus I build item 3139 item 3156 , it makes his life hell.

Friendly Ram1 votes

I like all of those ideas but the health lockout. Maybe reducing some other area instead. Just my 2 cents though.

Cherysse2 votes

Yeah I don't like it either that much, it is super funny for me at least when the enemy ADC dies just by attacking me. "Can't touch this"

But meh, without it Riot would never make Thornmail into a viable item, so I had to add it, sadly.

Friendly Ram1 votes

I just hope we actually get a riot response for this one.

Cherysse1 votes

Yeah, I doubt it, Rioters rarely appear on this type of posts.

Spoofghoul1 votes

no think the health threshold isnt even needed tbh

but if it is then maybe this items return damage could be capped to not damage below 5%

so when you have 1000hp and you are at 51 it would simply deal 1 damage

20% can still be too high sometimes for a tank to finish someone off at 5% threshold the item will never kill but you still wont be able to stay between 5-30% using lifestealdont want to be hitting a wall of draining as a tank it wouldn't be right

Silly Neeko1 votes

sigh here we go......

Solution 1 problem: You used in another solution that the damage along those lines would be easily negated with magic resist. Even when the damage was about 30% of damage recieved it was killing some champions while doing nothing to others for MR, damage, or non auto attack reasons. It was still easily out sustained because of BT and BORK..... with GA MR making them easily gain so much health even when attacking it.

Solution 2 problem: The point of Thornmail is to make it counter productive to attack that champion by yourself. If you attack a tank with Thornmail by yourself...... you deserve to die in agonizingly slow pain brought upon by your own doing unless you have a way to keep it from damaging you so much. Notably, NON AUTO ATTACK DAMAGE. Leave Thornmail's ability to kill alone and wise up in game. Its a team game. Dont try to solo tanks unless you are super fed and can restore 25%+ of your hp in 1 hit against non tanks.

Solution 3 problem: Adding true damage would help with solution 1's problem..... but the fact of the matter is this. Blood Thirster gives you 20% lifesteal. You are doing true damage that is probably going to be the 15% of damage dealt, and the level scaling with flat numbers like that will make 1% if that of the damage being dealt by the 15% damage dealt reflection..... so lets just call it 16% of their damage reflection at best. Blood Thister will still heal 4% of that with no problems at all. God forbid BORK is put into play there as well..... or Hydra. That is why it is armor scaling with magic damage. It is a pure armor item, meaning (and this is what Riot was saying when they reworked Thornmail in the first place....) if you pick it, the enemy team is likely AD auto attack heavy of a team. What do you build against those kind of teams? MORE ARMOR. Rammus is normally picked against AD auto attack heavy teams. Malphite is literally a mountain against AD heavy teams. Taric is more like giant rock against an AD heavy team that karate people break their hands on if they try breaking it with their hands before they were ready. That is why Thornmail works so well with them. That and they all scale off of ARMOR and let me repeat what thornmail is..... PURE ARMOR. No health, no magic resist, no attack damage, no ability power, no movement speed, no tenacity, no cooldown reduction........ just pure armor.

Solution 4 problem: Grevious wounds would be interesting, but there really is no point. If someone who is auto attack based is trying to attack you, and you are solo..... unless you are rammus and caught them out, you better run for your life because the enemy team is coming. Either that or the auto attack based champion is just silly beyond belief, or knows they can kill you because they have enough life steal. If they have enough life steal, you shouldnt be trying to 1v1 them anyways. Your a tank, get with your team and stop thinking you can solo carry the game. Who do you think you are? MORDEKAISER The living Thornmail suit of armor himself?

Edit: pretty sure my arguements against the solutions explained why the problems are not actually problems..... but if not..... sorry, i just didnt want to make this post about twice as long.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

at 300 armor the current damage return, which is unnoticable mind you, is 75.

right now it becomes noticable at 400 armor and upwards and is effective at around 500 to 600 armor.

this is also because of the double scaling of thornmail. champions deal less damage and get less lifesteal at 600 armor, and it returns the full magic damage pre mitigation.

a level scaling is a good idea imo, but 45 +15% at lvl 18 would make it more garbage than it is right now.

it has to be far upwards of 100 + 25% magic damage, or it has to return true damage. which id actually prefer, since the item would return a reliable amount of damage without being useless in one game against an ad carry with a item 3139 and strong in another game against an attack speed carry without mr and lifesteal.

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