The usefulness of Armor Pen in a build path, and why marksmen are considered to be "in a bad spot."

A lot of commentary has been given recently that marksmen are not in a useful position in the greater system. This issue is mostly about the overall relevance of reliable use of the attack damage statistic versus the magic damage statistic all in regards to the overall tank value. What we have seen overall from the season five patch rotation is that resistances are hugely undervalued currently. This is evident in the relative cost to negate 100% of damage that is taken versus the cost to penetrate this tank stat.

The main issue arose with current marksmen that there is not a good place to compete during the middle of a game against a team which has both a high utility value and a high overall tank statistic. While I do not predict a 5 tank team at worlds, it for sure, has worked out this season at one point or another with some entertaining content being released for viewers on many outlets.

This could potentially be alleviated with the addition of an armor penetration item to the core itemset for most ranged marksmen. The most readily accepted means of adding armor penetration would probably be combining a B.F. Sword and a brutalizer, as well as lowering the cost of the brutalizer significantly. This would alleviate the need for most marksmen to try to stay for the 1550 item, but instead take a slightly earlier back possibly for bonus longswords and boots, following up with a more significant power spike for their early mid game. This build path would give a much more stable damage curve to the marksmen. The difficulty in implementing this strategy is keeping the damage side of the build lower, and instead implementing a very strong armor penetration statistic. This also gives summoners the chance to build away from RNG, but still leaves the option on the table as a solid choice.