Is it wrong to get Last Whisper before finishing Infinity Edge?

darkdill·Dec 12, 2016·1 votes·854 views

Say the enemy Camille rushes 150 armor in Nexus Siege. You're Tristana, you have , and decide to get before .

Is this wrong?

4 Comments

disregardableDec 12, 20161 votes

Yes. 100% of the time.

ParoeDec 12, 20161 votes

I mean... No? The same argument could be said of item 3123 . Last whisper delays your next large powerspike though.

RookPusherDec 12, 20161 votes

Last Whisper is best used when you can reliably get them below 40%.

What you're doing in that build order is equivalent to igniting as your engage.

DolasaurDec 12, 20161 votes

Is the Camille the only major threat? IE is pretty universally useful, but LW isn't.

If you're penetrating 30% of 150, that's 45. She'd have like 65 base armor at that point. So going from 215 -> 170 armor is approximately a 17% damage increase to Camille. Factoring in the 25 AD from LW and your base AD of about 120 from base, BF, and masteries, 120->145 ~= 20% increase. So 20% increase to everyone, and a multiplicative (1.2 * 1.17) ~= 40% increase to Camille.

Note that if you meant 150 total armor, then you'd be penetrating about 30% of 80, or 24 armor, for a 10% increase, or a multiplicative 29% increase.

For comparison, let's say you had the 1675 to buy Cloak + Pickaxe for IE (but not enough to combine), since that's the closest to the 1300 gold for LW. From before, we know the 25 AD gives a constant 20% increase. Non-cloak average damage is (.3 * 2 AD + .7 * 1 AD). Post-cloak average damage is (.5 * 2 AD + .5 * 1 AD). Dividing those two out gives us (1.5 AD / 1.3 AD) = 15% damage increase that's multiplicative with the 25 AD. So 1.2 * 1.15 = 1.38, or 38% damage increase to everyone.

TL;DR: In that situation, LW would increase your damage to Camille by either 29% or 40%, and your damage to everyone with no armor by 20%. For 375 gold more, the next two components of IE would increase your damage to everyone on the enemy team by about 38%.

P.S. All "damage" here is calculating pure auto attack damage in DPS relative to itself. LW is going to help more than Cloak + Pickaxe for Tristana's E, for example.