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Why Lethality is Bad Game Design

LifeCyclesTWA·2/23/2017, 10:21:17 AM·6 votes·2,184 views

EDIT: This is from the perspective of a player that loves all the champions that have experienced massive changes due to the lethality changes. Pantheon, Wu Kong, Talon, Renekton, J4, etc... always been a fan of them.

First off, lets talk about the purpose of lethality. It is meant to allow AD Caster champions like Zed, Talon, Pantheon, etc... an opportunity to scale into late game. Prior to the changes, these champions would build armor pen, hopefully snowball and win the game before the enemy team got tanky.

By design, it is much more cost efficient to build defensive as opposed to offensive. This would result in a sweetspot of around 15-20~ minutes where champions that scaled off of straight AD and armor pen would have the opportunity to control the game. However, also by design, defensive items stack multiplicatively whereas offensive items can scale exponentially. This allows carries that build attack speed, attack damage, crit chance, crit damage, on hit effects, armor pen, etc... to melt even the tankiest of tanks. So, your AD/AP Caster would essentially carry the early game by playing mid lane and successfully making roaming opportunities. Sure, they could carry a game if they snowball, but late game you need your true carries... the guys that are scaling exponentially, to win the game for you.

Why should a champion that builds only AP/AD + Penetration capable of scaling into late game and cutting through tanks like butter? Shouldn't that be something that someone who builds attack speed, attack damage, crit, etc..... all that be left to? If AP/AD casters are capable of those numbers, that lowers the importance of having a true late game carry. Maybe this will change in the tank rework? However, if this is fixed in the tank rework, what was the point of the lethality changes in the first place if assassins/casters are going to be back to where they were prior to the rework? Why are ADCs building full lethality even a thing?

Lets now talk about the difference in design between an AP Champion and an AD Champion. Its simple really, both of their abilities scale off of 2 stats: AP or AD, and penetration (lethality) The key difference? AD improves auto attack damage, which is a massive % of early game damage. This is why champions such as Talon/Pantheon/Renekton are such a threat early game: Late game they are burst champions, early game they have the burst and huge auto attack damage. That is why you see Talon/Renekton/Pantheon so damn dominant right now, you literally buy your cookie cutter build... stack a ton of AD/Lethality, and hardly anyone is capable of trading with you early... and they don't fall off nearly as hard as they used to prior to the lethality changes.

Guys, AD Casters SHOULD fall off once the enemy team buys defensive items, otherwise you get what we have now: A fucked up mess where Lethality rules supreme. Flip side of the same token, they SHOULD be dominant early, like they were prior to the changes.

6 Comments

Elite4Runner2/23/2017, 10:25:58 AM3 votes

I appreciate the fact that you started the post off by admitting that you are bias

MaeDoSan2/23/2017, 1:20:43 PM2 votes

Flat pen before % pen might fix ?

SlashStriker2/23/2017, 9:00:16 PM1 votes

Lethality is not a bad design is not the problem. The possibility is that Champions or Item Stats are too strong

Its made so it reduces the Armor Pen early game while bringing it back to its Normal State late game

Armor Pen = 0.4 x Lethality + 0.6 x Lethality x Target Champion Level / 18

[ 10 Target Level ] with [ 15 Your Lethality ] = [ 11 Your armor pen ] [ 10 Target Level ] with [ 30 Your Lethality ] = [ 22 Your armor pen ] [ 10 Target Level ] with [ 60 Your Lethality ] = [ 44 Your armor pen ] [ 10 Target Level ] with [ 80 Your Lethality ] = [ 58.6 Your armor pen ]

[ 18 Target Level ] with [ 15 Your Lethality ] = [ 15 Your armor pen ] [ 18 Target Level ] with [ 30 Your Lethality ] = [ 30 Your armor pen ] [ 18 Target Level ] with [ 60 Your Lethality ] = [ 60 Your armor pen ] [ 18 Target Level ] with [ 80 Your Lethality ] = [ 80 Your armor pen ]

Risen292/24/2017, 6:09:05 AM1 votes

{quoted}

First off, lets talk about the purpose of lethality. It is meant to allow AD Caster champions like Zed, Talon, Pantheon, etc... an opportunity to scale into late game. Prior to the changes, these champions would build armor pen, hopefully snowball and win the game before the enemy team got tanky.

Wrong. Lethality is designed to let assassins burst down unarmored targets at all points in the game.

This allows carries that build attack speed, attack damage, crit chance, crit damage, on hit effects, armor pen, etc... to melt even the tankiest of tanks.

Wrong again.

You cannot be both a flat lethality build and an attackspeed/crit build. Both of them are the kind of thing that you either need to go all out, because it's not really worth just having a little lethality or a little crit.

You can have % armor pen with attack speed/crit, but that only works against bonus armor. It has no impact on letting you burst down unarmored targets.

Why should a champion that builds only AP/AD + Penetration capable of scaling into late game and cutting through tanks like butter?

They don't.

No assassins is going to 1vs1 a tanky brusier at full health.

Flat arpen works in such a way that it has diminishing returns the more armor and health a target has.

It gets to the point where you may as well not even have it, because it's not helping you against that tank. This relegates you to a squishy killer.

A dominiks helps you stay relevant, but it doesn't enable you to take down a tank because they still need AS/crit to deal with. You'll never burst them down as a lethality AD caster, even with dominks.

However, if this is fixed in the tank rework, what was the point of the lethality changes in the first place if assassins/casters are going to be back to where they were prior to the rework?

That is a misnomer. Flat arpen builds were just as powerful before the lethality changes. If anything it was more powerful because it snowballed harder early game. Mathematically that's a fact. You just didn't see as many people doing it for whatever reason.

Why are ADCs building full lethality even a thing?

There is not such thing. Any AD ranged champion that goes full lethality ceases to be a true ADC by the very definition of the word, because they have no capability to burn down tanks without attack speed.

They are the AD equivalent of a ranged caster mage. Good at poke and killing squishies, but not that useful against tanky targets because they lack sustained damage.

Lets now talk about the difference in design between an AP Champion and an AD Champion. Its simple really, both of their abilities scale off of 2 stats: AP or AD, and penetration (lethality) The key difference? AD improves auto attack damage, which is a massive % of early game damage.

Wrong, AP scales off Mpen as well. And it's a heck of a lot easier to deal true damage as a mage, when every squishy has flat 30 magic resist. One item and some runes/mastery will get you there very early. AD has to stack max runes, mastery, and three items and they still won't be able to deal true damage at level 18 to 88% of the champions in the game even if they have no armor items. Prior to the lethality nerfs, they could at least deal true damage with maxed lethality to most squishies, making it easier to be competitive with AP assassins.

Your view of itemization is also incomplete. There's more involved than just extra auto attack damage (which factors in little for a lethality build champion because most of their damage comes from their abilities, like a mage). You also fail to realize that mages also get a lot more utility and defensive options in their itemization. It is very easy for a mage, with a Zhonyas and some HP/AP items, to survive the burst of an assassin while still having enough AP to kill them in one burst (because it's impossible for an AD assassin to itemize defense without compromise squishy killing offense). On top of that, they have slows, dash, or stasis to keep away from the assassin or interrupt their attempted kill.

Mages also bring a lot more to team fights in general, in terms of CC and utility, than AD casters tend to.

otherwise you get what we have now: A fucked up mess where Lethality rules supreme.

Lethality doesn't reign supreme. The top 10 ADCs are about evenly distributed between lethality users and attack speed users.

Guys, AD Casters SHOULD fall off once the enemy team buys defensive items,

That already happens.

Flip side of the same token, they SHOULD be dominant early, like they were prior to the changes.

That was never their stated intention in designing flat arpen or lethality. You're making up a standard of what you want it to be, that isn't Riot's standard.

Lethality is suppose to allow an assassin to be relevant at all points in the game by being able to easily assassinate targets that have not gotten defensive items.

Any marksman that builds lethality will fall off like a brick late game if no one on their team has attack speed and the enemy has one or two tanky champions.

It's the kiss of death for a team with 2-3 lethality stackers and no attack speed/crit users, against a team with component bruisers.