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Why AD Characters are better than AP Characters

Puppy Storm·3/19/2015, 7:27:56 AM·3 votes·731 views

Why Attack Damage Champions are better than Ability Power Champions

Armor Penetration & Magic Penetration

Armor Penetration for AD characters is far more rewarding than AP characters. As an example staple build, I’ll use Black Cleaver & Last Whisper and compare them to Void Staff and Abyssal Scepter.

The total Magic Pen you gain from a Void Staff and Abyssal Scepter together is 20 Flat Magic Penetration and 35% Magic Penetration for a total cost of 4735 gold.

The total Armor Pen you gain from a Last Whisper and Black Cleaver is 10 flat Armor Pen and 35% Armor Pen (+25% after 5 hits) for a total 5300 gold.

With two players using these two very commonly used penetration item sets together, The AD champion has a whopping 25% more Armor Pen than an AP champion, with only 10 less Flat Armor Pen for the increased cost of only 565 gold.

This is not taking in to account other amor and magic penetration items, but as far as it goes, The AP has two other possible additions; Sorcerer's shoes for another 15 flat Magic Pen, and a Haunting Guise for a further 15 Magic Pen. AD Champions have the options of the Brutalizer for a further 10 Armor pen, The Youmuu's for a further 20 Armor Pen, and the Warrior enchantment for a further 10 Armor Pen. Comparitively, if hypothetically an AD and AP champion were to make a build out of Armor and Magic Pen items, the AD character has a far wider variety of other stats such as more AD, cooldown reduction, health, critical chance, and an item active from Youmuu’s, where the AP champion gains far smaller amounts of AP and health from a haunting guise or Liandry’s Torment.

The comparison between Life Steal and Spell Vamp

Life Steal is extremely cheap to buy. Starting with Doran's Blade on 3% Lifesteal, and Doran's Ring with no Spell Vamp. The first item available is Vampiric Scepter, giving 12% life steal for 800 gold. Life Steal will trigger on all Auto Attacks and a number of champion spells. Hextech Revolver gives 12% spell vamp for 1200 gold. This heals you on each single target spell hit, with reduced spell vamp on spells that affect more than one target. Comparatively, the AD character is spending two thirds of the price of an AP character to heal for 12% of the damage of their auto attacks and some abilities, and this includes auto attacks that can hit in an AoE. The AP character is spending a third more of the price of an AD character to heal for 12% of the damage of their single target spells, and 3.96% of their multi-target spells. The maximum spell vamp you can get is 52% and it is restricted to every time you cast a spell, and it has to be single target and it has to hit, and building this amount of spell vamp is unreasonably restrictive, putting the AP character at a significant sacrifice of their ability power to an AD character who could (easily) build up to 52% lifesteal.

Critical Strike

AP Characters cannot critically strike on any of their spells which innately have cooldowns attached to them. The only exception to AP characters being able to critically strike on spells is Nidalee’s Takedown and Viktor’s Discharge. However please note that Nidalee’s Takedown is critical strike is scaled from AD, but is delivered as magic damage, and is an auto attack. Viktor’s Discharge is also triggered on Auto Attack. AD Characters can critically strike on their auto attacks, and a selection of AD spells. Listed below are all spells that can critically strike.

Blitzcrank's Power Fist, Darius' Crippling Strike, Draven's Spinning Axe, Garen's Decisive Strike, Jinx's Switcheroo, Nautilus' Staggering Blow, Nidalee's Takedown, Nocturne's Umbra Blades, Poppy's Devastating Blow, Quinn's Harrier, Renekton's Ruthless Predator, Rengar's Savagery, Riven's Runic Blade, Skarner's Crystallizing Sting, Shyvana's Twin Bite, Talon's Noxian Diplomacy, Trundle's Chomp, Vayne's Tumble, Viktor's Discharge, Volibear's Rolling Thunder, Wukong's Crushing Blow, Xin Zhao's Three Talon Strike, Caitlyn's Headshot, Gangplank's Parrrley, Garen's Judgement, Jayce's Hyper Charge, Lucian's Lightslinger, Master Yi's Double Strike, Master Yi's Alpha Strike, Nasus' Siphoning Strike, Yasuo's Steel Tempest, Shaco's Backstab, Talon's Mercy and Tryndamere's Spinning Slash.

Soraka's Starcall counts as a critical strike if it hits in the center but is not affected by critical strike chance.

Thanks for reading my rant.

In closing, AD champions have a wider variety of options and stats tailored to them in comparison to AP champions, giving AD champions a wider set of building and counter building options and a significant advantage over AP.

10 Comments

AHeroNamedHawke3/19/2015, 8:27:48 AM2 votes

When was the last time you saw someone with 300 MR

Now answer the question again but with armor

LoRdJeSuS69694203/19/2015, 7:39:46 AM2 votes

You can't compare them like that...apples and oranges man. All the items are different, scalings are different, the way individual champions function is different....

IcyPepper3/19/2015, 9:08:43 AM2 votes

AD scales into late game the best. AP is best around mid to late (which is why mages go to mid lane, because they scale better with levels).

67chrome3/19/2015, 9:10:13 AM2 votes

Armor Penetration & Magic Penetration

Average armor at 18 is 75. The lowest is ~60, highest is ~90. Average MR at 18 is 30 if you're ranged and 52 if you're melee.

Even in the melee case, 75 happens to be ~30% more - effectively causing all magic damage to essentially have a free 30% armor pen without any gold investment at all. This generally persists with items as well, as it's considerably easier to amass large quantities of armor with armor items than it is magic resistance with magic resistance items - again, causing at least a 30% disparity in favorable conditions to AD.

The comparison between Life Steal and Spell Vamp

Sustained damage dealers have life steal to sustain while doing sustained damage. Burst casters get a burst of survivability with Zhonya's.

Looking at Fiddlestick's choice of Zhonya's or Spell Vamp for survival, penta-kill or maybe 2 kills, I'm pretty sure it's safe to say item 3157 > life steal, and a ton of AD champions would really like Zhonya's.

Also, max spell vamp isn't 52%. Akali and Morganna pushes max spell vamp to much higher if you're just going for max spell-vamp, there are spell vamp runes, Spirit Visage multiplies spell-vamp (which it even explicitly states in it's tooltip and which the champ info HUD displays), and Rageblade offers spell vamp.

The AoE reduction is also there so spell-vamp isn't explicitly an AoE thing. Minions take true damage from pretty much everything, single-target spells are often only properly used against rival champions (which have a minimum of 30 MR). If you're not using an AoE skill to hit at least 3 targets in a team-fight or in lane, you're doing something wrong. It's also worth noting "manaless" is the common thread for champions that get spell-vamp as-is, and a lot of the biggest offenders (Vlad, Morde, Kennen, Rumble, Katarina) are almost exclusively AoE champions.

Critical Strike

AP have major secondary multipliers as well in item 3089 item 3100 item 3285 item 3135 Just because those passives aren't all the same stat doesn't make them any less effective.

It's also worth noting casters tend to get ~40 damage each level on their QWER bringing their combo to ~1000 damage with only 1 cast of everything @18. AD champions only get +3.5 AD for ~110 AD at 18 by comparison. At level 18, average HP is ~2000, and per-level armor offsets whatever traction per-level AS offers.

Without multipliers like Crit, you still need to AA someone 19 times to kill them. You only need to QWER twice, which is why you don't see AP items easily offering double-damage like AD stuff. When all's said and done, needing to AA someone 5 times can be a tall order in a team-fight scenario, where a QWER is nowhere near as risky.

The Whamboozler3/19/2015, 9:39:58 AM1 votes

AD and AP aren't really meant to be compared against each other. They do different things. AP champs are (usually) better in the CC, utility, burst and AoE damage departments. AD champs (again, usually) are better at farming/pushing, sustain, and doing sustained damage. AP items are far more likely to have defenses on them as well as raw damage, but the best AD items have very little in the way of defenses, forcing AD champs who want to maximize their damage to build VERY squishy to do so. AD items are also usually more expensive overall, but provide more damage once full-builds are completed. AD items have far more access to armor pen, but AP items need less magic pen, as MR is a less commonly stacked stat and it difficult to itemize for on any but full tanks. An MR of 200 is pretty rare to see in a build (Unless you're galio, I guess), but armor ratings of 200+ are commonplace in most tank/bruiser builds.

Your comparisons kinda fall flat, since AD and AP are meant to do different things, and a blanket statement like "AD is better" is inherantly flawed. There are very powerful AD champs and there are very powerful AP champs in every version of the meta. There is always a need for champs of both types, and there always will be. What your team needs is always more important than any preconceived notion of power in the meta. In a vacuum, you can say "AD champs are better", but if that's the case... why is a team of 5 adc's a bad idea? Why do they need tanks and mages and supports if they're so powerful? After all, AD is godly and they unleash more hurt than anyone. Or maybe, just maybe... is it a bit foolhardy to judge a group of champs bad or good for their ability to do ONE of the several tanks and roles required to do well in the game? Show me one ADC that can drop an Orianna ult into 5 people and pretty much win that teamfight on the knockup alone, and I'll admit that AP champs are useless.

TL DR: Everything you said is irrelevant because AP and AD aren't MEANT to do the same things, and you're comparing them as if they are.

MrPerson103/19/2015, 7:40:08 AM1 votes

Why AD assassin champions are inferior to AP:

item 3143 item 3075 only takes two items to destroy an ADC's viability vs a tank.

item 3065 item 3111 item 3102 3 defensives, AP can still burst hard.

Why AP champions are far superior to AD champions on a general note:

CC. Utility. They have it, AD champs generally don't have nearly as much in exchange for their higher damage. The exception to this being LeeSin however he's the absolute hardest champion to master by a long shot soooooo it's worth the overloaded kit.

AetherKingdom3/19/2015, 7:31:42 AM1 votes

lets not forget ap people have pen on shoes.