PSA: A 2350g Thornmail is not designed to hard counter a 16000g+ ADC build

Eedat·Dec 9, 2016·15 votes·867 views

Just figured I would let you know that a single for 2350g does not and should not hard counter 16,000 gold worth of items.

Its kind of ridiculous that people think building a thornmail should outright hard counter a 16000 gold build like

It funny that people want to build a for 2350g to counter ADCs, but then get mad when the ADC spends 3700g on a to deal with it or that it doesnt insta-kill the ADC as soon as they attack them.

29 Comments

ParoeDec 10, 201612 votes

item 3143 (2900g) item 3742 (2900g) item 3748 (3500g) item 3065 (2800g) item 3075 (2350) item 3111 (1100g) Total: 15550g

item 3031 (3600g) item 3085 (2600g) item 3072 (3700g) item 3036 (2700g) item 3139 (3600g) item 3006 (1100g) Total: 17300g

Armor: 210. Just figured I would let you know that a single item 3036 for 2700g does but should not hard counter 10,000 gold worth of items.

Thornmail helps, thats for sure but its not the be all end all. You sacrifice a LOT more tank than if you just pick up another armor/HP item or a GA by getting one. Further, thornmail is actually useless against burst damage. It was meant for ADCs who attack a lot but weakly, like non-crit marksman not named draven.

dunder killDec 10, 20163 votes

item 3036 only counters 40% of 210 Arm which is 94 Arm. 94 arm is valued at ~1.8k.

Including item 3065 item 3748 item 3111 is literally pointless because Lord Dom's does absolutely nothing to them.

Lifesteal, on the other hand, scales off the totality of the ADC build.

LankPantsDec 10, 20165 votes

It also gives a 15% damage amp and 50 AD, so on the single item you're ignoring 1.8k worth of gold, probably more since that's a low end armour build, a true tank has to dedicate 3-4 items to armour to even have a shot, runes are also a thing too. You also get 1750 gold worth of AD and the 15% amp. LDR is way too strong right now, it easily gets up to 4k gold worth of value if you assume -1 stat on the enemy is the same value as +1 stat on you.

PennsDec 10, 20161 votes

Tank mains in 2k16 xd

EedatDec 10, 20165 votes

Can I ask why you are factoring item 3748 item 3065 item 3111 into a discussion about Armor Pen?

LankPantsDec 10, 20163 votes

Because it's a fairly standard tanky build, if you want to replace them with item 3068 item 3110 and item 3047 go ahead, that sometimes a good build and it just makes LDR look even more insane.

Leaf of the lakeDec 10, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Because it's a fairly standard tanky build, if you want to replace them with and go ahead, that sometimes a good build and it just makes LDR look even more insane.

Yes, it's "insane" that an item specifically made to counter armor stacking negates 45% of the armor you buy. Working as intended.

LankPantsDec 10, 20165 votes

It's OK for LDR to make armour borderline worthless but not OK for Thornmail to actually be noticeable for AA based champs? That's an interesting double standard.

10TicklerDec 10, 20161 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMbIDe_6GYM

Leaf of the lakeDec 10, 20163 votes

{quoted}

It's OK for LDR to make armour borderline worthless but not OK for Thornmail to actually be noticeable for AA based champs? That's an interesting double standard.

Thornmail is noticeable; it effectively negates lifesteal - even copious amounts of lifesteal - and if the enemy doesn't have lifesteal, they'll end up killing themselves before they kill you, possibly even if you don't attack at all. It reflects 15% of premitigation damage, plus a portion of your bonus armor. At 100 armor, you halve damage received, so even if the 100 armor from thornmail was the only armor you had, that's already 30% of the enemy ADC's auto attack damage being sent back at them as magic damage; if you have 200 final armor, it reflects 45% of the damage dealt; if you have 300 final armor, it reflects 60% of the damage dealt. These numbers are further increased by 25% of your own bonus armor, tacking on an extra 50 damage with just 200 bonus armor.

Now for LDR: Suppose you have no bonus armor whatsoever, but have 80 base armor. You take 55% damage from auto attacks. Suppose you have 200 bonus armor, plus 80 base armor. Before arpen, you take 26% damage from auto attacks. Let's say an ADC has LDR and you have 200 bonus armor, effectively reducing it to 110 bonus armor. You take 34% damage from auto attacks.

This means the LDR only increases an ADC's damage against you by 30% (34/26 = 1.3).

The 200 bonus armor champ (with no enemy LDR) takes 47% as much damage as someone who has no bonus armor whatsoever. If the enemy has an LDR, you still only take 61% as much damage as someone with no bonus armor. Your armor purchase still has value, and it still offers significant protection from enemy auto attacks.

And let's combine the two: Taking a tank with a bit over 200 bonus armor, against an ADC with LDR, we'll suppose the tank has a final armor of about 200. That means that 45% of the actual damage the tank receives will be redirected to the ADC attacking them, plus an extra 50 (25% of their bonus armor). This value is then reduced by the ADC's MR (43 if running flat MR blues), which results in about a 30% damage reduction. The net result is 31.5% of the ADC's damage plus 35 per attack is dealt to the ADC.

A full build ADC tends to have somewhere around 350 AD. With an IE and two zeal items, an ADC does about 2.2x their AD per attack, for 770 premitigation damage per attack, which is about 257 damage to the 200 armor tank. The reflected portion of that damage is about 81, so they're taking 81 + 35 = 116 damage every time they auto attack the tank. In the end, the numbers work out such that this ADC will take about 45% of the damage they inflict, which not even a BT + elixir of wrath can fully negate. This is with an 80% crit build, too; if they had less crit, they would take an even greater percentage of their damage.

Thornmail is an incredibly strong counter to lifesteal. Considering that it's not uncommon to see a tank 100-0 an ADC that lacks lifesteal, I think it's more than strong enough as it is.

LankPantsDec 10, 20163 votes

This means the LDR only increases an ADC's damage against you by 30% (34/26 = 1.3).

Firstly this number is wrong, LDR gives an extra 15% bonus damage on top of that, so it's actually a 1.495x increase to damage, basically 50%. There is no other item in the game which straight up increases your damage by 50%. That's not 'only' a small increase, it's fucking giant.

Thornmail is an incredibly strong counter to lifesteal. Considering that it's not uncommon to see a tank 100-0 an ADC that lacks lifesteal, I think it's more than strong enough as it is.

If it was strong people would buy it. The fact that no one has bought a Thornmail in a year means it isn't strong. Part of the reason why you think it's strong is because you're completely ignoring MR and you're undervaluing LDR heavily.

Of course I'd expect nothing less from an ADC main. You guys would argue your broken class was weak and every other class was OP if there were 10 ADCs a game.

Leaf of the lakeDec 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Firstly this number is wrong, LDR gives an extra 15% bonus damage on top of that, so it's actually a 1.495% increase to damage, basically 50%. There is no other item in the game which straight up increases your damage by 50%. That's not 'only' a small increase, it's fucking giant.

True, LDR does have the +15% damage passive. That has nothing to do with armor, though.

If it was strong people would buy it. The fact that no one has bought a Thornmail in a year means it isn't strong. Part of the reason why you think it's strong is because you're completely ignoring MR and you're undervaluing LDR heavily.

Of course I'd expect nothing less from an ADC main. You guys would argue your broken class was weak and every other class was OP if there were 10 ADCs a game.

Actually, if you read my post, you'd notice I did factor MR into the calculation.

No one bought thornmail even when it was ridiculously OP, such that they had to nerf it from 30% of the premitigation damage down to 15% + a portion of your bonus armor. It's just not an item that people tend to buy, regardless of how good or bad it is.

ParoeDec 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Can I ask why you are factoring into a discussion about Armor Pen?

Because its a standard build. Maybe not the titanic, but i simply prefer waveclear in solo queue... As is the marksman build, which is also a standard build.

750 damage crits at 1.5 attacks per second is a TON. at 50% crit you can assume 1/3 attacks will be crits at the very minimum. with that in mind you will be nuking someone for 450 damage per second. Sustained burst. Items like thornmail are NOT meant to soak up sustained burst, theyre meant for the mid game in an era BEFORE IE was the first item and crit was actually a late game stat and not an early game stat.

ShaolinToiletDec 10, 20161 votes

So biased

ParoeDec 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

So biased

Id say marksman mains are the biased ones. Since they literally complained crit into existence...

MunchCrunchLunchDec 10, 20166 votes

item 3036 counters all the tank items a tank buys. even ezreal. the shitty tank buster in league. buys this. and kills a tank pretty quickly. any adc that buys LDR renders a full armor tank a mere bruiser at most.

AhristocatsDec 10, 20166 votes

item 3153

PennsDec 10, 20162 votes

Implying anyone builds that item lul

LankPantsDec 10, 20163 votes

BotRK's really strong on this patch, it's back at 8%, if you'd cast your mind back that's the same number as incredibly broken BotRK.

OglafDec 10, 20165 votes

Totally fair for a single item 3035 (and it's upgrades) to counter all Armour items in the game though.

[slayer-jinx-catface]

PennsDec 10, 20161 votes

Didnt seem like it when I got a Lord Dominiks third item against https://embed.gyazo.com/592489ee47272b1a374946e5d745212c.gif xd

Big LincolnDec 10, 20161 votes

not having 4 lifesteal items to counter thornmail xd

ACENOXDec 10, 20161 votes

3 items against 6 items malphite?

without lifesteal without magic resistance against thornmail?

lul

Commander JavikDec 10, 20165 votes

item 3123 875g counters sustain based comps and champs .

Zane ZephyrDec 10, 20164 votes

Thornmail is also relatively useless by itself.

Asayake 5150glowDec 10, 20164 votes

It does if the tank also has 16000g+ worth of armor and health.

ZT XperimentorDec 10, 20161 votes

Meanwhile a 2700g item counters the majority of tank items. Double standards.

AnomanderDec 10, 20161 votes

item 3047 item 3143

The armor is a really good start but in reality these items should be bought for their passives as a counter to adc's. Thornmail is more of a niche item to counter full ad teams(IMO at least)