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Question On Penetration

Professor Ward··2 votes·275 views

If I have 50/42% magic pen and I cast an ability on an enemy with 30 mr, am I going to do true damage? Or is it possible to surpass true damage doing more than the ability states?

12 Comments

Darkdemon6533 votes

If a target's resistance goes below zero, that target will take increased damage accordingly. Only reduction can do it, though, and since reductions are applied before penetrations (and flat before percent), it's very rare.

nm10101 votes

Flat Magic Pen

The target's magic resist is treated as being reduced by an amount for purposes of damage calculation, but cannot be reduced below 0.

I legit have played this game for 5 years and never knew flat pen can't reduce below 0. Off the top of my head I can think of a few famous youtube personalities that were also incorrect about this interaction in videos.

Mysticman893 votes

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_resistance

Penetration won't reduce a target MR below 0, only things that reduce magic resistance (e.g. wits end) directly can bring someone below 0 MR for bonus damage. Flat reduction comes first in calculations though, so it's very hard to actually get someone to 0 MR or below for bonus damage.

In the case you describe, you'd be hitting as if they had 0 MR, and be doing 100% damage with no reduction due to MR. It's still subtly different from true damage though, because your damage can still be reduced by overall damage reduction (e.g. alistar ult), while true damage isn't reduced by those things.

AmetDeCrypt1 votes

I thought % was applied first in calculations.

Zane Zephyr3 votes

Magic resistance reduction, flat. Magic resistance reduction, percentage. Magic penetration, percentage. Magic penetration, flat.

Zane Zephyr1 votes

You don't do true damage. You do 100% of the ability's maximum damage value.

Zane Zephyr1 votes

But as dark said, it's only applicable through damage reduction like amumu/fiddle's old passive and old abyssal scepter

thats why they gave the blue buff and some of the jungle camps negative MR, so they're easier to clear for mages

AlienPrimate1 votes

I will use your values to do the calculation and show you how it works.

First figure out the enemy resists. % pen applies and then flat.

30*0.58 = 17.4 17.4 - 50 = -32.6

Normally the multiplier equation is 100/(100+x)

When the resistance is below 0, the equation is 2-(100/(100-x))

2-(100/(100+32.6)) = 1.25 damage multiplier

If an ability has a tooltip damage of 300, it will do 375 magic damage, no true damage.

Edit: I guess I was wrong about the order. It should just be -20 resistance from the penetration and the %pen doesn't apply because it is below 0.

2-(100/(100+20)) = 1.17 damage multiplier.

nm10101 votes

Apparently pen can't put the stat into the negative.

TimX24968B1 votes

I thought this question belonged in M&G at first glance.

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