Taking Mpen reds and purples simultaneously: Does it ever work?

darkdill·Sep 18, 2014·1 votes·533 views

I've tried this on Katarina and Leblanc to try and be more aggressive early game, but is it worth the loss of 15 AP at level 1?

3 Comments

Hullabaloo907Sep 20, 20142 votes

As far as i understand it, magic penetration has a multiplicative effect on magic damage. So the more magic damage your doing, the more the magic penetration has an effect. Level 1 base damages are not that high, but ratios are usually the same at all levels. At the same time, 15 ap is not noticed very much late game when you have your big ap items. These two factor mean that flat ap runes are better early, and penetration is better late game. I am terrible at mages though, so i might be way off

12talesSep 20, 20141 votes

This is pretty much true.

However, the bonuses you get from runes are so small that, unless they're scaling, they're pretty much irrelevant late game anyways. So, going for the early game option (AP) is usually the best choice.

VelasanSep 20, 20141 votes

I think the lack of replies here is because it depends on the champion. As a personal fan of mpen I can tell you that it heavily depends on two things.

First is the champions AP scaling. 60% seems to be about average (although others can correct me on this I haven't taken a tally). 70% and higher are good AP scalings. If you have skills that take less than that mpen is better because it's bringing the damage into what it would be for "true damage" with no defenses on your opponent (who usually start out at 30 MR base).

Second, is if you're fighting a melee champ. They gain MR per level whereas ranged champions do not. The league wiki gives an actual list of who gets it by level and who doesn't.