You do realize how much you have to do to rebalance the game after nerfing armor?

Soda Popkillski·Aug 3, 2015·29 votes·36,438 views

Nerfing armor is a DRASTIC nerf and is going to HUGELY impact SOOOOO many champions in this game. Zed's winrate will increase by maybe 2841904209374230847087230957828075q3497852349+769407561389561904876123gjkl cvaseuify gspfiseuø fpideuwpdæ hiorveuå8920c760% , rammus is going to become a trollpick, and taric is going to pretty much be removed (as he ain't in the meta in the first place)

By doing this you take the game from the rather enjoyable tank meta to the Instakilling meta, the worst form of possible meta next to poking.

133 Comments

ProfDrDeathAug 3, 201510 votes

You don't know the actual impact of the Armor changes yet.

It could very well be that they increase FH's and Thornmail's cost by 100-200, respectively, and get Randuin's back at 3k pricing, and then call it a day. Which is actually what I hope they do - it is not the amount of Armor you can get that is off, but the inexpensiveness with which you get said amounts.

RiotMeddlerAug 4, 201521 votes

{quoted}

You don't know the actual impact of the Armor changes yet.

It could very well be that they increase FH's and Thornmail's cost by 100-200, respectively, and get Randuin's back at 3k pricing, and then call it a day. Which is actually what I hope they do - it is not the amount of Armor you can get that is off, but the inexpensiveness with which you get said amounts.

We're talking changes a little bit bigger than that, but not by too much. Few examples:

Frozen Heart: 2600g (was 2450g), 90 Armor (was 100 Armor).
Banshee's: 2700g (was 2750g), 60 MR (was 55 MR), now builds from Crystalline Bracer instead of Ruby Crystal (total cost still the same, so combine cost's cheaper).
Thornmail: 2300g (was 2100g), now reflects 15% damage + 25% of your bonus Armor (was 30% damage). Rewards using Thornmail with other armor effects, allows the damage reflect to still be significant against enemies dealing much of their damage through on hit effects instead of raw auto attack damage (e.g. Vayne). Significantly weaker as a sole Armor item however. This is about as big as this set of changes gets by the way, most of the others are just stat adjustments, not functionality changes.

HellioningAug 4, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Thornmail: 2300g (was 2100g), now reflects 15% damage + 25% of your bonus Armor (was 30% damage). Rewards using Thornmail with other armor effects, allows the damage reflect to still be significant against enemies dealing much of their damage through on hit effects instead of raw auto attack damage (e.g. Vayne). Significantly weaker as a sole Armor item however. This is about as big as this set of changes gets by the way, most of the others are just stat adjustments, not functionality changes.

...What's the point of this change? Has anyone ever bought Thornmail, the one armor item with no health, as their sole armor item? Like, is there something in pro play I'm missing?

And Vayne doesn't do her damage through on hit effects, she does her damage through the shit ton of raw AD she gets from her ult!

sp441Aug 4, 20155 votes

Maybe it also returns the true damage that she deals?

Because THAT would hit like a truck.

AuryielAug 4, 20153 votes

No...

It returns the damage she deals from her AAs and then also returns a portion of your own bonus armor, which a way to scale against the % max HP true damage of Vayne's Silver Bolts, which is something everyone is crying about right now on this shit hole of a forum and is the reason why Meddler talked about Vayne in the first place.

sp441Aug 4, 20153 votes

Wouldn't really harm her much more than current Thornmail, though, she'd still have the uncounterable max HP true damage that makes her fucking unstoppable if she gets ahead...

AuryielAug 4, 20153 votes

I believe it's just meant as a way to feel like you can actually itemize against her more than you already can.

sp441Aug 4, 20155 votes

Itemization goes before she skyrockets already, once she starts melting tanks, that's it, you're fucked, buy a Frozen Heart and hope to God your assassin can outplay her.

Yosuke ApperuAug 5, 20151 votes

With all of the ways she has to proc silver bolts.. frozen heart doesn't really hinder her that much

7ha7guy777Aug 4, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Thornmail: 2300g (was 2100g), now reflects 15% damage + 25% of your bonus Armor (was 30% damage). Rewards using Thornmail with other armor effects, allows the damage reflect to still be significant against enemies dealing much of their damage through on hit effects instead of raw auto attack damage (e.g. Vayne). Significantly weaker as a sole Armor item however. This is about as big as this set of changes gets by the way, most of the others are just stat adjustments, not functionality changes.

I get the feeling Malphite will be seeing a lot of play

sp441Aug 4, 201526 votes

[Rammus Intensifies]

LittleBlastAug 4, 20152 votes

Jeddy017Aug 4, 20153 votes

And people made it sound like you guys were nerfing armor items into the ground.People just seem to focus on the word "nerf" & automatically assume the worse without thinking about every other word in the sentence like "SLIGHT" for example.

DecritAug 4, 20154 votes

{quoted}

We're talking changes a little bit bigger than that, but not by too much. Few examples:

Frozen Heart: 2600g (was 2450g), 90 Armor (was 100 Armor).

Banshee's: 2700g (was 2750g), 60 MR (was 55 MR), now builds from Crystalline Bracer instead of Ruby Crystal (total cost still the same, so combine cost's cheaper).

Thornmail: 2300g (was 2100g), now reflects 15% damage + 25% of your bonus Armor (was 30% damage). Rewards using Thornmail with other armor effects, allows the damage reflect to still be significant against enemies dealing much of their damage through on hit effects instead of raw auto attack damage (e.g. Vayne). Significantly weaker as a sole Armor item however. This is about as big as this set of changes gets by the way, most of the others are just stat adjustments, not functionality changes.

Thanks for dropping in, even for just a little preview. I got tired of all this people QQing for "armor nerfs" without knowing them.

Ser GarlandAug 4, 20157 votes

{quoted}

We're talking changes a little bit bigger than that, but not by too much. Few examples:

Frozen Heart: 2600g (was 2450g), 90 Armor (was 100 Armor).

Banshee's: 2700g (was 2750g), 60 MR (was 55 MR), now builds from Crystalline Bracer instead of Ruby Crystal (total cost still the same, so combine cost's cheaper).

Thornmail: 2300g (was 2100g), now reflects 15% damage + 25% of your bonus Armor (was 30% damage). Rewards using Thornmail with other armor effects, allows the damage reflect to still be significant against enemies dealing much of their damage through on hit effects instead of raw auto attack damage (e.g. Vayne). Significantly weaker as a sole Armor item however. This is about as big as this set of changes gets by the way, most of the others are just stat adjustments, not functionality changes.

So what you're doing is buffing Vayne -more- through these changes. Vayne doesn't care about Sunfire or the like, she cares about things like Thornmail and Frozen heart. And you're nerfing them.

TheDuelist999Aug 4, 20151 votes

except now thorn plus 5 warmogs now one shots vayne her silver bolts will proc on herself for like 500 dmg.... really only like 150 but her aa's and botrk also get reflected at her.

kayakninjaAug 4, 20154 votes

That's not how that works. New Thornmail does 15% of Vayne's AD plus 25% of the wearer's bonus armor. The on-hit damage isn't reflected. Thornmail's just going to be better against on-hit builds since they are usually light on AD. This way, you can boost Thornmail's damage by building more armor items.

Rabid HuskyAug 4, 20152 votes

Rammus ok

KüramaAug 4, 20155 votes

I'd just buff MR items then.

Increasing the cost and nerfing the stats at the same time, that's a double nerf. Make it a single nerf at least.

Jeddy017Aug 4, 20152 votes

They are buffing MR items as well.

RiotMeddlerAug 4, 20159 votes

One update since there seems to be a bit of confusion: Thornmail's not being changed to reflect on hit damage. It's damage calculation is being changed to be less based off the enemies AD, with damage instead also coming from the target's Armor, reducing the different in damage reflected for full AD builds versus on hit builds.

sp441Aug 4, 20156 votes

Ooooooh ...Nope, didn't get a word of that.

Mind simplifying for the dumbasses in the class like myself?

EDIT: Oh, and unrelated question, but since we're here, could you shed some light on the possibility of the Black Market items making it into the core game in some way or another?

ModAcademy KaynAug 4, 20157 votes

Instead of an adc dealing 100 damage and taking 30 from thornmail it would now be...

An adc dealing 100 damage would take 15 from their own attacks, and 20 from the Bonus Armor damage, resulting in a net of 35 total.

Did I explain right?

sp441Aug 4, 20158 votes

Ah. Ok.

Still, take 600 damage (Common for critical strikes later in the game), that'd be 180 damage live compared to 110 with new Thornmail, you'd need to build about 280 more armor to catch up. That's a SHITLOAD of Bonus Armor, most of which is getting wasted. And they're nerfing Armor Items in general so... this seems like a fairly major nerf to Thornmail.

Not going to lie, this has me worried, unless they sneak in some buffs to other armor items in terms of anti-aa power, champions that rely on AAs like Yi are going to be out of control if it remains this way.

PaladinNephAug 4, 20154 votes

Thornmail was never supposed to be anti-auto attacker; randuin's does a way better job of that. Thornmail is supposed to be anti-lifesteal.

...and in that regard it's super OP. a tank can buy one item (and a cheap item at that) and nullify 30% lifesteal. BT gives 10%, and doesn't stack. you'd have to buy BT, BOTRK, AND essence reaver JUST to not be damaged by this one cheap item.

with the proposed change, thornmail counters BT, but may or may not counter BT and BOTRK, depending on how much armor you have. to use the numbers you posted:

a champ with BT and BOTRK dealing 600AD damage to a thornmail would heal for 120, but be damaged for 90 by the 15% alone, leaving a scant 30 damage to be made up by the bonus armor passive. thornmail gives 100 bonus armor and deals 25% of bonus armor, lowering that total to 5. you would only need a 20 extra armor to completely nullify that champ's lifesteal.

Dar RaksadaAug 4, 20153 votes

Looking at thornmail, how could it possibly not be an anti-autoattacker item? Considering lifesteal is an autoattacker stat.

CosnirakAug 8, 20151 votes

"BT gives 10%, and doesn't stack." A typo maybe? It gives 20%. BT is REALLY good at what it does. It also only doesn't stack with other BTs, because it's so powerful people would do that if it did.

Also one of the key weaknesses of an item like Thornmail is that the enemy can often attack someone else. Randuin's will still be able to slow you and gives hp. Frozen Heart will still slow your autos and gives its owner cdr and mana. Thornmail does nothing if an enemy doesn't hit you or only hits you with magic damage. Thornmail also already has a really high combine cost and a build path that's very commitment oriented. Tanks generally never buy GA and rarely are sitting on a chain vest unsure of if they want a Sunfire Cape or a Thornmail. This Thornmail nerf should really come with another cloth armor in the recipe at the very least.

JustMyBassCannonAug 4, 20154 votes

Basically, Thornmail's damage reflection is based on the attacker's AD. If you have 200 AD, the damage reflection is 200 * 0.3 = 60 damage. It also multiplies on crits, and I think it adds in the damage bonus from Sheen-based items and a few champion abilities, but for some reason (last I knew), BotRK bypasses it. Don't ask me why, you'd have to ask someone from Riot.

Some people were thinking that Meddler said Thornmail would reflect the total damage of the attack--including any on-hit effects, as some people really want Vayne's Silver Bolts to be reflected by Thornmail.

What he actually said was that it would pose more of a threat to on-hit stackers, because the damage is now partially scaled on the wearer's Armor. The damage of Thornmail is no longer completely dependent on the attacker's stats.

sp441Aug 4, 20155 votes

I did the math, and I have to say, it doesn't sound good, since it deals considerably less damage on everything that you'd build Thornmail against.

JustMyBassCannonAug 4, 20155 votes

Target has 100 AD. Old Thornmail would deal 30 damage return. New Thornmail would deal 15 + 25 = 40 damage return (Thornmail is +100 bonus Armor).

Target has 200 AD. Old Thornmail would deal 60 damage. New Thornmail would deal 55 damage; you need 20 more bonus Armor to match the old Thornmail.

Target has 400 AD. Old Thornmail would deal 120 damage. New Thornmail would deal 85 damage; you need 140 more bonus Armor to match the old Thornmail.

Target crits for 700 damage. Old Thornmail would deal 210 damage. New Thornmail would deal 130; you need 320 bonus Armor to match the old Thornmail.

In conclusion, it's going to be stronger against on-hit effect users than it used to be, but at the cost of less effect against normal AD stacking or crits.

Though, the irony of that is the fact that there is only one physical on-hit effect that isn't (or wasn't, if it was changed) reflected by Thornmail. All the rest are damage types against which Armor is worthless. In exchange for having built defense that does nothing against that damage type, we get to deal slightly more damage than it did in the past!

I mean, it's not the worst change they could have made, but dropping the damage reflection by half for that Armor scaling is losing the niche the item currently has for a trap gimmick.

Jesus is SaviorAug 4, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Target has 100 AD. Old Thornmail would deal 30 damage return. New Thornmail would deal 15 + 25 = 40 damage return (Thornmail is +100 bonus Armor).

Target has 200 AD. Old Thornmail would deal 60 damage. New Thornmail would deal 55 damage; you need 20 more bonus Armor to match the old Thornmail.

Target has 400 AD. Old Thornmail would deal 120 damage. New Thornmail would deal 85 damage; you need 140 more bonus Armor to match the old Thornmail.

Target crits for 700 damage. Old Thornmail would deal 210 damage. New Thornmail would deal 130; you need 320 bonus Armor to match the old Thornmail.

In conclusion, it's going to be stronger against on-hit effect users than it used to be, but at the cost of less effect against normal AD stacking or crits.

Though, the irony of that is the fact that there is only one physical on-hit effect that isn't (or wasn't, if it was changed) reflected by Thornmail. All the rest are damage types against which Armor is worthless. In exchange for having built defense that does nothing against that damage type, we get to deal slightly more damage than it did in the past!

I mean, it's not the worst change they could have made, but dropping the damage reflection by half for that Armor scaling is losing the niche the item currently has for a trap gimmick.

And then the enemy builds Black Cleaver and completely invalidates your armor AND your damage.

JustMyBassCannonAug 4, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=That Evelynn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=fyaLHF0Y,comment-id=00010000000900000001000000000001,timestamp=2015-08-04T07:41:04.671+0000)

And then the enemy builds Black Cleaver and completely invalidates your armor AND your damage.

30% of it, which means Thornmail will lose 7.5 damage per 100 total Armor you have. Somewhat significant, but that's still far less worrying than the loss of half of the damage reflection portion.

Jesus is SaviorAug 5, 20151 votes

{quoted}

30% of it, which means Thornmail will lose 7.5 damage per 100 total Armor you have. Somewhat significant, but that's still far less worrying than the loss of half of the damage reflection portion.

Black cleaver reduces TOTAL armor. Thornmail does damage based on BONUS armor.

So it's more than 30%.

JustMyBassCannonAug 5, 20151 votes

That's...exactly what I said. Thornmail will lose 7.5 damage per 100 total Armor you have. It's even in the quote.

Level 18 Armor if you aren't Thresh is 65.5-96.7, so Thornmail is going to lose 4.9-7.25 damage due to base Armor, and then however much is lost from bonus Armor.

Zair UmbrasAug 4, 20152 votes

False on the crit one. Normal crits are about 700, yes, BUT Thornmail does it based on the damage the attack WOULD HAVE done prior to armor. If they have 300 AD, you have 200 armor. About 100 from normal stuff plus 100 from the thornmail, usual. Old Thornmail would do 90 or it would do 225 on crit (2.5x from IE), but you'd only take 33% of the 750 crit unless they had LW. New Thornmail, you'd do 45+50=95. On crit, it'd do 112.5+50, which is 162.5. On crits, it's noticeable lower, but that's only on crits. This makes normal ADC builds more potent while Vayne, Yi, and other On-Hit based builds considerably weaker to Thornmail since they won't be critting enough.

Theoretically, you only have 55% crit with PD and IE. Say you have 300 AD. In 4 attacks, 2 of those will likely crit, 2 of them won't. That means it'll do 190 on the two non-crits and 325 in total on the crits, totaling 515. Old would've done 180+450, totaling 530. A difference of 15 damage in total. If you have more armor items, you can easily make up the difference since to make up for 15 damage, you only need 60 armor extra to total the 15 (Using the basic math formula for .25 times X equals 15, so you'd divide 15 by .25, totaling 60). Even high crit builds will be taking significantly more damage from the scary armor tanks like Rammus, Malphite, and Taric.

I like numbers. :3

BigBearBoíAug 4, 20152 votes

Simply:

Thornmail is better the more armor you have
Thornmail is better against on hit stakcing champs (Vayne, Varus, etc.)
Thornmail might be a bit worse against simple AD champs (Ashe, etc.)
Rammus loves Thornmail more than ever

Dextix LTAug 4, 20154 votes

Simply, thornmail is even less usefull against armor shred items which are a big problem already.

BigBearBoíAug 4, 20152 votes

Dunno, I'm too lazy to do the proper math.

Let's see, Thornmail + Randuin = 180 armor / 4 = 45 so that's 15 +45 = 60 damage on hit (-MR).

With a Last Whisper + IE let's say an ADC hits you for ~ 200 on avarage. 200 / 100 * 30 = 60 damage (-MR).

ADC with more items can go over 200 easily however, but stacking more armor doesn't really makes sense. I guess new Thornmail is weaker.

Edit: Miscalculated. It's 15% in the first one, not flat 15 damage. So with the same stuff the first (new) Thornmail is going to be 75 damage which means you get equal damage if the ADC is hitting you for ~ 250 average with old Thonrmail.

TotalJerkAug 4, 20152 votes

Armor shred items aren't problematic because of what they do to tanks, they are problematic because of what they do to Squishies. item 3035 (and by extension item 3135 ) is meant to be a tank shredder, but it's so efficient that it's still core against a team that has none.

Jesus is SaviorAug 4, 20154 votes

{quoted}

One update since there seems to be a bit of confusion: Thornmail's not being changed to reflect on hit damage. It's damage calculation is being changed to be less based off the enemies AD, with damage instead also coming from the target's Armor, reducing the different in damage reflected for full AD builds versus on hit builds.

Can you guys make it so it's calculated based on bonus armor BEFORE reductions, so things like Black Cleaver and multiple champions with similar passives don't completely invalidate a thornmail tank?

I mean, on paper it sounds great. But if you have 400 bonus armor and multiple champions have reduced it to 100... Not only are you going to instantly die, but you're going to do no thornmail damage in the process.

sortitusAug 4, 20154 votes

I may be reading this incorrectly, but will this allow Thornmail to affect Azir? There's obviously something in the game that recognizes soldier attacks as autos since he draws minion aggro with them, so does that mean he might get hit with the % bonus armor component but not the reflected damage?

Woook3rAug 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

One update since there seems to be a bit of confusion: Thornmail's not being changed to reflect on hit damage. It's damage calculation is being changed to be less based off the enemies AD, with damage instead also coming from the target's Armor, reducing the different in damage reflected for full AD builds versus on hit builds.

Id like to personally thank you for this, bc renekton with tiamat and thornmail lvl 10 is basically a win condition in my elo...so stronk

ProfDrDeathAug 4, 20153 votes

Interesting, to say the very least.

will still be quite strong an item - it retains the second-highest amount of Armor for a single slot, and unlike Thorn's, it features some decent additional benefits, too. Although I must admit, there's quite some jo-jo-ing in that item's Armor value (99 -> 90 -> 95 -> 100 -> 90 again).
Is Banshee's the only buffed MR item? :(
loses quite some of its effectiveness in countering Lifesteal, ESPECIALLY against high-crit builds. Unsure...

CrettAug 4, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Interesting, to say the very least.

will still be quite strong an item - it retains the second-highest amount of Armor for a single slot, and unlike Thorn's, it features some decent additional benefits, too. Although I must admit, there's quite some jo-jo-ing in that item's Armor value (99 -> 90 -> 95 -> 100 -> 90 again).

Is Banshee's the only buffed MR item? :(

loses quite some of its effectiveness in countering Lifesteal, ESPECIALLY against high-crit builds. Unsure...

Taric Malphite Rammus love this change

ScreamPasteAug 4, 20152 votes

The only change here that makes any sense is the one to banshee's veil; buffing it.

Why do we need to make armour worse when most of the damage in the game is physical? :/

ParessAug 4, 20152 votes

{quoted}

We're talking changes a little bit bigger than that, but not by too much. Few examples:

Banshee's: 2700g (was 2750g), 60 MR (was 55 MR), now builds from Crystalline Bracer instead of Ruby Crystal (total cost still the same, so combine cost's cheaper).

~~Now builds from Crystalline Bracer instead of Ruby Crystal and Rejunevation Bead~~

NOBODY CARES. LOL

plantersAug 4, 20152 votes

Not sure if you'll check this out but Im wondering how you're going to adjust sunfire cape? compared to getting a randuin's it's not really on par. once upon a time it used to deal more magic damage until you reworked the passive to scale with level. This brought down its mid-game power a lot, as well as pushing and I must say its no longer that great a buy when you can just get randuins. Will it get more armor health or do you think its at an appropriate place?

AMYS GRAVEAug 5, 20152 votes

AP champions are strong against enemy champions

AD champions are strong against structures

Therefore armor options were more diverse while MR items were a bit more sparse.

With buffs to MR items and nerfs to armor items what would an AP champ do better than an AD champ? I really want to know.

CosnirakAug 8, 20151 votes

Can we get at least another cloth armor in the recipe for Thornmail? The current combine cost is already really high and this will increasing that by 200g. Maybe make the recipe two chain vests instead so it doesn't end up taking up 3 inventory slots along the way as it's not generally an early buy.