Should Thornmail get another rework? It rarely actually hurts your attackers even with high armor

darkdill·Jun 2, 2016·7 votes·700 views

Had 500+ armor as a Leona, and the Thornmail wasn't even dealing any damage against enemies with low MR. What the hell?

It tells me that Riot thinks that Thornmail can't deal good damage under any circumstances, which in turns means they think the very idea of Thorns damage is a flawed mechanic. It's probably that they think "attacking Thorns makes you hurt yourself" is toxic.

Is there ANY way to make Thornmail feel GOOD without making it toxic? Or is the very thought an oxymoron?

23 Comments

RebonackJun 2, 20163 votes

It could use a remake.

At this point it mostly just exists to totally fuck Kog sideways when worn by a champ with an armor steroid.

For every other situation you would be better off building something else.

Dominick DestineJun 2, 20162 votes

Have thornmail make the character "unlifestealable" so that it will be impossible to counter thornmail with more damage/lifesteal.

ABlueQuakerJun 2, 20161 votes

People don't realize that Thornmail was always a gimmicky item. It was never meant to be a Primary Damage source - it's a Supplementary Damage source just like Sunfire, just like Gromp Buff. IF you stack the three then you can expect to deal some decent damage. But it's meant to be a last item after you have your 40% CDR, your 4k HP and your 200 Armor and 150 MR. And you can just as easily grab item 3001 or item 3156 .

DefendedJun 2, 20161 votes

As an ADC main. Thornmail will force your adc to buy lifesteal.

QuephaJun 2, 20161 votes

Thornmail does a crazy amount of damage, way more than people realize.

I honestly think the item should be heavily reworked or outright deleted. It's an item for tanks meant to counter marksmen, when marksmen are SUPPOSED to counter tanks (given enough time). If the item is ever good that means marksmen can't perform their job effectively and there is a problem with the meta, and if it's not good then it's a worthless item, there's no in-between. Frozen Heart should be the "counter the marksman" item because it hurts the adc in a way that draws aggro to the tank instead of pushing the adc to attack someone other than the tank (the adc will have their damage reduced whether they are attacking the tank or someone else until they get away from or kill the tank)

It's true that tanks should be good against AD heavy teams by stacking the proper resistances, but there are already a lot of strong armor items for tanks, and tanks should punish physical damage stacking by instead hurting the AD casters and assassins in mid/top/jungle for not balancing damage types instead of the adc who really had no control over the situation.

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20163 votes

marksmen can easily itemize against thornmail with double lifesteal items ( bork and BT, or BT and mercurial, or bork and death's dance) along with a last whisper. Thornmail isn't the bees knees at all if the enemy marksman knows how to properly itemize. that's what this game is.... it's a rock paper scisors of itemization. enemy building crit and attack speed? build thornmail.... but it's gonna be worthless against a marksman that knows how to build when they see it.

darkdillJun 2, 20161 votes

So why should Thornmail continue to exist if proper itemization (which is expected in pro play) negates it?

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20161 votes

same reason to build health items exist even tho bork is good against them. Not every item is meant to be a be all end all item that works every time. Most items are designed to be situational. Maybe you're vs a Cait or jinx.... they don't really have access to early lifesteal because their ideal build is very specific. So thornmail works great against them. It's also very under rated against champs like jhin, Draven, and surprisingly, Nasus, since it returns a portion of the damage they deal. It's also good against attack speed bruisers taht aren't going to build much, if any lifesteal, like xin, trundle, skarner, etc. It fits it's niche. It's in a healthy, balanced state. Personally, I think if any armor item needs looked at, it's IBG.

QuephaJun 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

marksmen can easily itemize against thornmail with double lifesteal items ( bork and BT, or BT and mercurial, or bork and death's dance) along with a last whisper.

That's 3 items to get around 1, that sets the adc back half of their entire maximum carrying capacity for the one job they're brought on the team for, If they built IE, a zeal item, and boots then they're completely full build by the time they can do what they're supposed to do AND they can't afford a defensive item of any kind.

That's well beyond broken.

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20162 votes

No. BT, mercurial, and LW are core items on ADC'S. This, coupled with the fact that you shouldn't really be wasting your damage on a tank anyways. But if it's so OP, switch to a tank and buy Thornmail.

QuephaJun 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

you shouldn't really be wasting your damage on a tank anyways.

That is LITERALLY the point of a marksman in a team fight. They output consistent, high-scaling dps from a medium range. That means their natural targets are the enemy front line.

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20161 votes

If the tank is all you can hit, sure. But if you can choose between the adc or mid laner, or the tank, you target a squishy.

QuephaJun 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

If the tank is all you can hit, sure. But if you can choose between the adc or mid laner, or the tank, you target a squishy.

If you can pick targets, that means you're in threat range of multiple targets, that means you need to work on your positioning because you are about to die.

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20161 votes

You can choose who you want to target, and position yourself in a way to attack them. We can disagree, but I have like a 65% win rate on adc, so I'll stick to what works for me.

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20161 votes

500 armor is way too much. You probably didnt have a large enough health pool. Armor gives deminishing returns after a while. I LOVE thornmail against teams with multiple auto attack champs. I think the item is in a great, healthy place.

darkdillJun 2, 20162 votes

Higher health would've worked against me. They had Vayne and Fiora.

Now, I know those two are uncounterable via resists, but I still hated how Vayne's Infinity Edge and BoRK (not her Silver Bolts) seemed to ignore the 500 armor.

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20162 votes

I can see what you're saying, but you were playing against the two true damage terrors of the game. If they get past 25 minutes, no type of itemization is going to work against them.

darkdillJun 2, 20161 votes

I already mentioned that. I was going on about how their PHYSICAL damage ignored my armor, not their TRUE damage.

FiddlesOnTheRoofJun 2, 20161 votes

Then I'll refer you back to my previous statement that you had too much about, and not a large enough health pool to deal with their non true damage physical attacks.

Critmaster GarenJun 2, 20161 votes

yea, thornmail needs changes. imo they should make the flat portion of the damage return scale with total hp, instead of armor.

problem with the armor scaling are nieche cases of champions being able to get 600 armor and upwards, while even most tanks and fighters get to about 300 to 400 armor with the thornmail. riot apparantly balanced the current thornmail around malphite, rammus, taric etc. basically if the item would be good on the average bruiser or tank, it would be broken on those 3.

the possible armor on them is just a gigantic difference to what everyone else reaches when he specializes in armor.

the difference in armor is much larger than the difference in health between specialized health tanks like sion or chogath, compared to other health stacking tanks and fighters.

for example, a sion or chogath will probably be able to reach 4500 health with a full build. while the average bruiser or tank who would buy thornmail would reach around 4000 health.

this difference is smaller than a leona with 300 armor compared to a rammus or malphite with 600 armor. thats why imo the scaling should be changed to health. it would still make thornmail better on certain champions than others, but the gap would by far not be as large. which means the item could be made better in general.

Toru ItaiJun 2, 20161 votes

make it reflect 35% (that was the old value right?) of all phisical damage you take. (before resistencrs of corse)

Critmaster GarenJun 2, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Toru Itai,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rLRtHFdu,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2016-06-02T15:29:17.196+0000)

make it reflect 35% (that was the old value right?) of all phisical damage you take. (before resistencrs of corse)

the change in itself wasnt a bad idea.

they basically wanted to make thornmail as effective against attack speed based champions like kallista, kog maw or vayne, as against crit builds.

the thing is, that 35% damage return on these champions was a lot less due to their initial auto attacks not dealing a lot of damage, but the tacked on on hit damage which wasnt taken into account, or in kallistas case the nuke from rend.

the problem is, that both portions of the damage return ended up way too low, and massively nerfed the item compared to before.

Critmaster GarenJun 2, 20161 votes

what anoys me most, is that a thornmail rush was the standart way to deal with top lane adc and their constant auto attack harass. you survived long enough to get the item, and the damage return plus the minion aggro they got would cause them to hurt themselves as much as you and it evened out the lane.

with the armor scaling of the damage return of course and thunderlords being a thing, that doesnt work anymore.