Am I the only one seeing 
>> 
/
being rushed every game by bruiser/assassins? And then 
rushed after that? What's the point of counterbuilding armor when they get huge +attack spikes AND tons of armor pen to make defensive counterbuilding always an inferior option.
Player of Games3 votesAs long as LW has % penetration, it will remain inherently broken. I feel as though penetration should be limited to "UNIQUE:" flat pen numbers, but then that may make defense too strong.
City of Toronto2 votesThe cost is the biggest power spike. For a bruiser top lane, brutalizer is the best among its options.
Brutalizer - 1337gold, 25 AD 10 arpen 10% cdr. Good enough item on its own without upgrading. If you do happen to want to upgrade, it costs 1363g or 1663g. BF sword - 1550gold, 45 AD. Useless on its own, has to be upgraded for it to be worth anything. Upgrades cost 1950g or 2250g (reaver is bad buy regardless). Tiamat - 1900gold, 40 AD + its passive and active. Good enough item on its own, but generally only for someone who wants sustain. Phage - 1325gold, 25AD 200 health + passive. It's a good item on its own but it forces you to upgrade into only trinity force.
Bruisers can then rush tank afterwards or get LW to deal near true-damage. Bruisers tend to have high base numbers, so penetration helps them a lot.
Done252 votes@Cyan - How about not fighting them and instead using their 300 AD and 1.5 attack speed to take out towers in 5 seconds? Tanks can't even make it to the stating line for a base race.
CoolKnightST2 votesThe solution is health. Get 
& problem solved.
ModKnightsKemplar1 votesWhat do you think is an option? Removing pen from the game?
And I don't say that in a mean tone, I actually am curious to hear if people think that is a good idea. I'm kinda torn, personally. But one thing is for sure, as long as penetration is in the game, some champions (especially assassins) are going to rush it. There's nothing to be done about it except build armor and health items.
Done251 votesWhat do you think is an option? Removing pen from the game?
And I don't say that in a mean tone, I actually am curious to hear if people think that is a good idea. I'm kinda torn, personally. But one thing is for sure, as long as penetration is in the game, some champions (especially assassins) are going to rush it. There's nothing to be done about it except build armor and health items.
Yes. Penetration was never a good idea in the first place. The only thing it accomplishes is increasing damage to champions/mobs, while not damaging towers. Which only further helps to cement marksmen into a team to make up for the Talon who went Ghostblade, Ionian, Black Cleaver, Last Whisper to counter and kill the Rammus with Sunfire and Thornmail.
Riot can just change the penetration to AD/AP and remove the cancer that is high base low/no scaling. (I'm sure everyone remembers Tank Soraka and ADC Sona...)
ModKnightsKemplar1 votesThis gets me thinking about what the purpose of penetration is in the game, and what I came up with is this: I think penetration exists to help keep tanks from being to tanky, and squishies from being too squishy. Let's say I am a marksman, Malphite is on my team and building tank, and we're facing a Syndra. Now, Syndra gets Athene's, DFG, Z's hourglass, boots, deathcap. She's thinking about her 6th item.
Now, in pretty much all games right now, she's gonna get that voidstaff. And that helps me as a marksman. Why? Because she's building a lower AP item to help her deal with Malphite (and any other tanky ppl on my team). Without it, she can't even threaten him by herself. That's a bad enough situation for her that she's going to build voidstaff. With less AP, she can't burst me quite as easily; maybe I can get an MR item and actually survive her burst. Or at least force her to use all her abilities to burst me.
Without voidstaff, she just goes more AP, making it harder for me to survive, and making Malph harder to kill. I'm not sure that's good for the game. It becomes this weird mess of cat and mouse with their backline trying to kill our backline (and vice-versa) while just avoiding the tanks, since we can't kill them. I like the current system better, where the tank can actually be threatened, at a cost.
If there's no penetration, it seems to me like tanks become pretty much untouchable. I know it's a popular opinion that tanks/melee are useless right now and can't do anything, but damage dealers need an answer for tanks, ultimately. I'm not sure I can think of anything, besides penetration. We may have gone a little too far in this direction, but nobody wants to see league of bruisers make a comeback. That's not balanced either, and I'm not sure taking penetration out entirely is the answer.
Earl Eulrich1 votesA proper Solution would be to cling to the BC-System, meaning you have to ramp up on the Pen before it really works out. This would make sure that you can never Burst down a Tank that built a lot of defense, as you first would have to melt that defense - but you still could explode someone that doesn´t run much armor + you would need to actually focus a tank to kill him, instead of just hurting enough with minor commitment/AoE to eventually get him down. So Tanking would become an Option again.
ModKnightsKemplar1 votesI like this idea, but I think inadvertently buffs attack speed, which I don't like. When you have a stacking mechanism like that, it's only really going to work for certain champions, which is why I think we don't see a lot of black cleaver lately (at least I don't). I see a LOT of last whisper and brutalizer, but no one bothers to upgrade it until very late.
On the other hand, perhaps that's because it's actually balanced, and it only reinforces your point that people don't upgrade...
Earl Eulrich1 votesWell, as BC is wroking right now it doesn´t really put too much emphasis on AS, as the stacks are applied by abilities aswell - so Champs like Talon get them to max-stacks in one rotation without even using AutoAttacks.
I think there are two main Reasons why Cleaver isn´t built too often currently:
ModKnightsKemplar2 votesYeah, I thought about the way I worded that as soon as I posted. It's still much more beneficial to some champs, who can apply the stacks quickly, than others. I have trouble thinking of examples where there's a huge difference because I don't play many bruisers, but... you get the idea. At least in theory, it introduces another layer of complexity to the item-buying considerations.
And yeah, ghostblade is pretty crazy. I think crit needs a serious look in this game more than penetration. It's really hard to build ad champs effectively without crit, which I find to be a curious decision.
Poorly Dressed1 votesSome champs get huge power spikes with just a few (cheap) items. For example Jayce reks face with tear, brutalizer and Last Whisper. All these items are really "cheap" and he destroys with his e+q poke.
Lord Macaroni1 votesI'm amazed other people are agreeing and having a civil discussion that there is a serious penetration stat problem. MR/Armor options aren't that good anymore considering their cost/gold value compared to low-cost rush items like brutalizer and LW.