Should the new Thornmail deal true damage?

darkdill·Jul 22, 2017·4 votes·428 views

The new Thornmail is definitely more usable than its previous iteration thanks to the GW effect, but it still does pitiful damage. Part of that problem is that Magic Resistance and various item passives such as and utterly ruin said damage, allowing the carries to ignore the thorns damage.

Well, what if Thornmail's damage was true damage? It never reaches a high amount even on armor tanks like Rammus or Malphite, so having it reducible feels overly punitive to me. Changing from magic to true damage could help fix that problem.

Vote below.

6 Comments

darkdillJul 22, 20172 votes

If changing it straight-up to true damage is too strong, I have an alternative idea: provide Thornmail with an active effect that changes the damage to true damage for a limited time. This way, your enemy can play around it - they just have to stop attacking you until the active effect expires. Of course, if they're in the middle of using a steroid, that introduces decision-making for them: do they cease fire and waste their steroid, or continue attacking and take true damage?

MBausKJul 22, 20171 votes

Did you ever play an ad toplaner against a shen building bramble vest first? super tanks would be totally broken if that dmg would be true dmg

darkdillJul 22, 20172 votes

Bramble Vest should still deal magic damage. Thornmail, as in the final product, would be okay on true damage because your opponent has had enough time to get a finished item as well.

RalanrJul 22, 20171 votes

No. God no.

Asayake 5150glowJul 22, 20171 votes

You seem to misunderstand the point of Thornmail.

It's the Grevious Wounds option that tanks have been asking for so long.

Old Thornmail may have been a damage focused item, but old Thornmail barely got any use.

If you want Thornmail to be a damage item, the armor value needs to go down to 50. That might sound really bad, but Thornmail scales incredibly well with armor (with 300 armor, you would do 55 true damage each hit... that's really, really strong for a tank). Otherwise, you have Sunfire and Iceborn Gauntlet if you want damage. The Grevious Wounds and current damage means you're already negating all sustain your target has, which in toplane means a lot. You're own damage is not bad either, and you're also tanky.

vidghostJul 27, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Cant Hold Me Now,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oAewffPT,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-07-22T22:04:56.475+0000)

You seem to misunderstand the point of Thornmail.

It's the Grevious Wounds option that tanks have been asking for so long.

Old Thornmail may have been a damage focused item, but old Thornmail barely got any use.

If you want Thornmail to be a damage item, the armor value needs to go down to 50. That might sound really bad, but Thornmail scales incredibly well with armor (with 300 armor, you would do 55 true damage each hit... that's really, really strong for a tank). Otherwise, you have Sunfire and Iceborn Gauntlet if you want damage. The Grevious Wounds and current damage means you're already negating all sustain your target has, which in toplane means a lot. You're own damage is not bad either, and you're also tanky.

bramble vest ALONE does this