Unpopular Opinion: Pen stats are why Burst is so strong.

Alternative Title to this post: Pen Stats: The primary supporter of the burst meta. TL;DR: The increase and changes to pen stats (specifically Armor Pen) has made burst very strong and rampant.

Yes, i'm saying that correctly. Burst isn't solely the huge issue, Pen stats are a reason for making it a huge issue. This is why I say this: Currently there are a good amount of pen items that exist in the game, for both AD and AP (More on the AD side) AD: AP:

However some changes (One of which is from last year) combined with more access to bonus damage, has created this world we live in, a world of burst or be bursted. 7.22 saw gain 5% more Magic pen, putting it at 40%. 8.11 (One of the midseason patches) saw items have their percent changed in effectiveness,** from bonus armor pen to total armor pen** (Mortal Reminder then got a increase to put it at 25%). People kinda shrugged the change off as not a factor to much, when in fact it was a huge buff to ADs, but more importantly, AD assassins. Lethality and Armor Pen has been a weakness to assassins for quite some time. They either did too much or too little in most cases. Before the midseason change, they were not as strong as perceived. With the switch to Total Armor Pen on LW, they finally had something that would weaken a target's armor amount (Old one barely did much for them vs squish) before their Lethality kicked in (because % is applied first). Not only that, but they could theoretically get through tanks easier than before, where they struggled. But i'm pretty sure these items weren't the only type changed.** In fact, I believe that the % stats were changed for anything that had % pen on it, meaning Darius and Garen's armor shred is total and not bonus. Same with .** Before, I'm pretty sure their pen was bonus and not total, which explained Darius' huge weakness to tanks last season. Most of the boards talk about AD assassins, so to make my point I will use them in an example. Conqueror is also another thing that helps champs bypass armor and magic resist stats (hybrid damage dealers like Jax heavily benefit from it, which made the overall goal an overshot) (May or may not be exactly 100% spot on. Hard to calculate in a theoretical situation) Lucian has 79 base armor at level 18. He usually would build and vs AD assassins, raising his armor to 139. Most Zed builds have , , and as a core, giving him 39 Lethality and ( max stack) 24% armor pen. Late game he would pick up to up his pen amount, to 39 Leth and 59% (with max stack) Armor Pen. What does this all mean? So Zed fights Lucian, and here's how his damage will go: Intially, the 35% armor pen from will lower Lucians armor down to 90.35. If he full stacks (since it would apply after Dom theoretically) on him, it lowers the armor down to 37.04. Zed likes to run Sudden Impact, which grants him 7 Lethality for 5s if he comes out from stealth or uses a dash, leap, blink or teleport. This ups his Lethality number to 46. At level 18 its a 1 to 1 ratio, meaning he ignores 46 of Lucian's remaining 37.04 armor, putting him at -8.96 armor (aka true damage). If Sudden Impact is down Lucian's Armor is at - 1.96 instead. This means Zed's burst cannot be mitigated by Lucian's armor, therefore making Lucian take full damage from Zed. That's if is stacked. Without stacked, Lucian's armor will be at 43.65 with Sudden Impact involved, and 50.65 without it. That puts Lucian at his level 10 base armor stat. Either way Zed's burst will severely chunk him. If the percent pen wasn't changed, Zed wouldn't be able to burst Lucian heavily through his 139 armor.

So, what could be changed? (Not all of them at once, just which would work the best)

1. Well, maybe lowering the % on items like Void and the two Last Whisper items would be a good start.
2. Nerf Sudden Impact (lower the stats but maybe buff the duration (idk)).
3. Subtract 3 Lethality from Ghostblade, 6 from Duskblade, and none from Edge of Night. These are ideas, but the point is to not gut pen stats, but make them not as strong as they are now. If anyone else has an idea, feel free to pitch it down below in the comments. (EDIT) Post is mainly about Leth atm since mages as a whole are alright, but kinda close to being over the top with a few changes if they happen to occur. The AP stuff is just mentions now.