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Are Armor Penetration runes really THAT bad?

Captain Aishi·9/21/2015, 5:36:20 PM·1 votes·1,103 views

I just made some math comparing AD runes to Armor pen ones

I used Renekton and Riven for the statistical calculations and here is what i found

at level 1, a renekton using AD runes against a riven without armor seals would deal 6% more damage than if he used Armor penetration runes, and if the riven went 9 armor seals and cloth armor as a starting item, the Renekton with 15AD runes would deal 9% more damage than the one using the 19 armor pen runes (for autoattacks, whereas cull the meek would deal 1 and 4% more damage in the same no armor/armor scenario)

considering armor pen does not give you the benefit of easier last hitting (and more sustain if you have lifesteal because minions don't have armor) it strikes me as odd that they would also be significantly worse when fighting champions

so since i'm not a genius at math, does anyone see if I could have made a mistake in my calculations somewhere or if it is really that armor pen runes are just in a terrible state?

7 Comments

Smefanye9/21/2015, 6:08:51 PM2 votes

On people like Talon or Zed they're pretty good as they both have a lot of their damage on their abilities, abilities benefit from armor pen more than auto's usually, and since they both build a lot of armor pen either the opponent builds armor just to survive or they don't and you basically start dealing true damage with your abilities

luckmallory9/21/2015, 5:38:06 PM1 votes

Do the math at level 11. Armor pen > late game AD> early game

Ionian9/21/2015, 5:42:13 PM1 votes

yeah armor pen runes are so bad that every decent zed or talon starts with 11 or 19 armor pen.

BlackEyesBlue9/21/2015, 6:43:29 PM1 votes

Hybrid pen on Sona is strong as heck! :D