Question about Lethality

Broken TimeIine·Feb 15, 2017·1 votes·784 views

Does lethality affect all armor or only bonus armor? and is there a way to counter it playing tanky champions?

9 Comments

RcGjWO640wFeb 15, 20171 votes

All armor. And the counter is to just build more armor, really.

If someone has 50 lethality and you have 50 armor (33% damage reduction) they cut you down to 0 armor (you're taking true damage). A 33% DR cut.

If you have 200 armor (66% damage reduction) then they cut you down to 150 armor (60% Damage reduction). Only a 6% DR cut.

Lethality is more useful versus low armor targets where % armor penetration is more effective against high armor targets.

The goal of building so much lethality is so you can basically be dealing near true damage to squishies.

Broken TimeIineFeb 15, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Run Down Mid,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=r5dNEJer,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-02-15T14:50:23.365+0000)

All armor. And the counter is to just build more armor, really.

If someone has 50 lethality and you have 50 armor (33% damage reduction) they cut you down to 0 armor (you're taking true damage). A 17% DR cut.

If you have 200 armor (66% damage reduction) then they cut you down to 150 armor (60% Damage reduction). Only a 6% DR cut.

Lethality is more useful versus low armor targets where % armor penetration is more effective against high armor targets.

The goal of building so much lethality is so you can basically be dealing near true damage to squishies.

Then isn't it more worth, for tanky champs, to build pure HP instead of armor?

MaeDoSanFeb 15, 20171 votes

Taking half the damage is the same as taking the full damage with twice the health

Broken TimeIineFeb 15, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Taking half the damage is the same as taking the full damage with twice the health

But for champions like Tahm, is it better to just build HP instead of a mix, cuz his passive?

MaeDoSanFeb 15, 20171 votes

if they get too much % shred then stacking hp is better

Broken TimeIineFeb 15, 20171 votes

{quoted}

if they get too much % shred then stacking hp is better

ahhh ok thx <3

RcGjWO640wFeb 15, 20171 votes

No. The mathematics is that HP is an additive scaling function and armor is multiplicative. You have to edge the balance between what is more effective when.

If you have 1500 HP and you buy 50 armor for 2400 gold and that gets you up to 100 armor, then you have 3000 effective hit points since you have 50% damage reduction. You went from ~2250 effective hit points at 50 armor to 3000, a 750 point increase. Not bad.

On the flip side, you might be able to buy 800 HP for 2400 gold instead. Doing the math with the 50 armor, you'll have 2300 base HP and ~3500 effective hit points. This is a situation where buying the HP is way better since you're getting almost 500 more EHP out of the same gold value.

Now let's look at your next item. You have 2300 HP with 50 armor (33% DR) so you have ~3500 EHP. IF you bought another 800 HP, you would have 3100 raw HP and ~4600 EHP, not bad, but we can do better.

Let's buy some armor. Say we buy the 50 armor. That gives us an even 50% DR, so we double our EHP. That comes out with 2300 HP to... 4600 EHP?

Okay, now we're at the point where it doesn't matter whether we buy 50 armor or 800 HP, we get the same thing, but now we reach our impasse. So from here on, let's assume that we just bought the armor (which at any point in the game if it's equal to buy resists or HP, buy the resists since there are far more % max health damage sources that get reduced by resistances, while there aren't as many true-damage sources, but you buy this on a situation basis. For example, if you're against Camille with true damage, just buy the HP).

Now if we buy another 800 HP, we get our 3100 HP and 6200 EHP. If we were to buy 50 more armor, that would give us 150, which only increases us to 60% DR up from 50%. At 2300 HP with 150 armor, we only have 5750 EHP.

Because of Armor's diminishing returns, after a certain point, you get more effectiveness out of raw HP than you do building more armor.

Similarly, if you have 4500 HP, but only 100 armor (9000 EHP), it would be in your better interest to buy the 50 more armor than the 800 HP. (10,600 EHP buying health versus 11,250 EHP buying armor)

It's extremely mathy, but I hope this post clarifies why balancing your HP versus armor is more important than just stacking one or the other.

Sett up 4my gankFeb 15, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Run Down Mid,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=r5dNEJer,comment-id=000000000001,timestamp=2017-02-15T15:13:07.377+0000)

No. The mathematics is that HP is an additive scaling function and armor is multiplicative. You have to edge the balance between what is more effective when.

If you have 1500 HP and you buy 50 armor for 2400 gold and that gets you up to 100 armor, then you have 3000 effective hit points since you have 50% damage reduction. You went from ~2250 effective hit points at 50 armor to 3000, a 750 point increase. Not bad.

On the flip side, you might be able to buy 800 HP for 2400 gold instead. Doing the math with the 50 armor, you'll have 2300 base HP and ~3500 effective hit points. This is a situation where buying the HP is way better since you're getting almost 500 more EHP out of the same gold value.

Now let's look at your next item. You have 2300 HP with 50 armor (33% DR) so you have ~3500 EHP. IF you bought another 800 HP, you would have 3100 raw HP and ~4600 EHP, not bad, but we can do better.

Let's buy some armor. Say we buy the 50 armor. That gives us an even 50% DR, so we double our EHP. That comes out with 2300 HP to... 4600 EHP?

Okay, now we're at the point where it doesn't matter whether we buy 50 armor or 800 HP, we get the same thing, but now we reach our impasse. So from here on, let's assume that we just bought the armor (which at any point in the game if it's equal to buy resists or HP, buy the resists since there are far more % max health damage sources that get reduced by resistances, while there aren't as many true-damage sources, but you buy this on a situation basis. For example, if you're against Camille with true damage, just buy the HP).

Now if we buy another 800 HP, we get our 3100 HP and 6200 EHP. If we were to buy 50 more armor, that would give us 150, which only increases us to 60% DR up from 50%. At 2300 HP with 150 armor, we only have 5750 EHP.

Because of Armor's diminishing returns, after a certain point, you get more effectiveness out of raw HP than you do building more armor.

Similarly, if you have 4500 HP, but only 100 armor (9000 EHP), it would be in your better interest to buy the 50 more armor than the 800 HP. (10,600 EHP buying health versus 11,250 EHP buying armor)

It's extremely mathy, but I hope this post clarifies why balancing your HP versus armor is more important than just stacking one or the other.

Your math is the correct formula but I do want to put out there that 800 health is not even remotely equal to 50 armor, 40 armor is 800g and 380 health is 1000g. so 50 armor, is more around the level of 380 health not 800

RcGjWO640wFeb 15, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Your math is the correct formula but I do want to put out there that 800 health is not even remotely equal to 50 armor, 40 armor is 800g and 380 health is 1000g. so 50 armor, is more around the level of 380 health not 800

I know that the costs are not accurate, mainly because I was too lazy to check the actual numbers, but my point wasn't on what gold values they were, just about the math of why certain itemization is better than others.