Isn't Liandry's Torment in the same spot as old Black Cleaver?

v good pupper··1 votes·945 views

Before its rework, The Black Cleaver had the issue of being good for any target. The flat armor penetration was good for squishies, and the stacking percent armor reduction was good against tanks. The Black Cleaver was just a good buy regardless of the situation. When The Black Cleaver was reworked, it became refined as a fighter/juggernaut item for stripping armor off of tanks over long fights.

Currently, Liandry's Torment has the same issue as The Black Cleaver used to, it's good against anything. Liandry's Torment has flat magic penetration which is good against squishies, and percent health shred which is good against tanks. Theoretically, this works especially well against tanks that stack armor and health, but outside of the Cinderhulk meta it's been rare to see tanks without at least one MR item, negating the flat magic penetration from Liandry's Torment. Liandry's Torment is good against any target and lacks a clear identity outside of working with immobile mages' damage over time, Rylai's, or magic damage abilities with CC.

Liandry's Torment could use a rework to give it an identity as an item and reasons to pick the item outside of its synergy with a champion's kit as a core item.

4 Comments

Chaotic Reks2 votes

Not really, Liandry's is more of an AP item 3153

Abyssphere2 votes

Actually, Liandry's is an excellent example of how to do Black Cleaver's old flat pen aspect right. The old Black Cleaver was unhealthy primarily because it had this really unhealthy paradigm of just "I do more damage to you no matter what you build" - it punished you if you didn't build armour but if you bought armour to negate the flat pen you screwed yourself over anyway because the more you bought, the more it melted through. Riot didn't want BC giving enemies a no-win situation.

Liandry's is better designed because it gives opponents a clear way to get around it - build MR. It is designed to force the enemy to itemise magic resist because if you build full squish the flat pen will destroy you, and if you stack HP but get no MR the passive will destroy you. Liandry's does have value against both people with 2k HP and 4k HP as long as both of them have very low MR values, but high MR values make the item ignorable on all fronts and that means it's not a "good against everyone" item. You're not punished for trying to counter it, like you were with Cleaver.

The biggests issue Liandry's has are satisfaction issues and the fact that the DOT nature of its passive makes it basically impossible to balance between DPS and burst mages. In terms of being healthy against its targets, it's perfectly fine.

v good pupper1 votes

Thank you for so thoroughly explaining your case. You're definitely right that it forces counter itemization, rather than simply having no good response.

SeargentAnus1 votes

The burn ismagic damage. Since liandries is flat pen instead of percent pen it's not that big of an issue.

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