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Now that Sunfire is weaker, it needs a cost reduction*

The Ecdysiast··32 votes·1,187 views

*unless they're planning on giving back some of its lane phase strength

Traditionally, it's had a slightly lower cost because tanks have a more difficult time getting gold during the lane phase. But due to the addition of Courage and Grasp, tanks had it too easy buying just Sunfire cape and so the cost was increased to 2900. Which was all well and good until both of those masteries were weakened.

Now, the item has been nerfed as well. Due to the switch of 75 HP to 10 Armor, penetration items are more effective than before. And the reduction in damage to champions further decreased a tank's chance of coming out of lane phase with a lead.

Black cleaver, a staple against tanks, has 100% gold efficiency without counting its two passives. Sunfire has only 80%, and a weaker passive. Cleaver gives around 3400g worth of power while Sunfire gives only around 2400g. So the difference in cost isn't 200 in Sunfire's favor-- it's about 600 in Cleaver's. And those champions who buy it are designed to get more kills early while the tanks are not. And the "nerf" to cleaver was not to reduce its effectiveness-- it only serves to make the item shred just as much armor as before. 24% of 60 is 14.4. 30% of 50 was 15. If the had not reduced cleaver's shred, it would've been 20 armor.

Sunfire should have its cost reduced, if no other changes are in store to compensate for the damage it's done to melee-range tanks.

  • As a side not, the ~580 difference in gold efficiency is close to the 530 gold cost of 20% CDR. So perhaps Cleaver needs it removed or Sunfire needs it added.

29 Comments

Jbels5 votes

Honestly all the tank items need to have their price reduced. It's ridiculous how gold efficient damage items are to the point that tank itemization feels like shit across the board

AirKingNeo4 votes

Tank items are already cheap. Damage items aren't insanely gold efficient.

PB4UAME2 votes

What the hell are you smoking? With the way physical damage is calculated, without additional scalars from unique passives, (Runaaan's, Shiv, LDR, BotRK) they have a quantic formula in the loose form: (aV)(bW)(cX)(dY)(eZ)

Where: V = Attack Damage W = Attack Speed X = Critical hit chance Y = Critical hit damage Z = Armor penetration

and a, b, c, d, and e are all coefficients by which you would modify for things like Attack Damage Ratios, Base Attack Speed, Critical Damage Reductions, etc.

This means that the stats from items ADCs get are worth increasingly more the higher the values on every other stat, such that while getting an IE in a vacuum is 107.35% gold efficient (already 27.35% more gold efficient than Sunfire Cape, mind you) it increases to over 155% gold efficiency with 100% crit chance just from factoring in the increased value of its unique passive, and not counting the double, triple, and quadruple dipping of increased damage it provides, and healing when one factors in lifesteal and physical damage vamp from DD. Oh, and did I mention that the >155% gold efficient IE is almost exactly 200% more gold efficient than Sunfire Cape? I think that's kind of worth pointing out here.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

What the hell are you smoking? With the way physical damage is calculated, without additional scalars from unique passives, (Runaaan's, Shiv, LDR, BotRK) they have a quantic formula in the loose form: (aV)(bW)(cX)(dY)(eZ)

?? u speak as if there was only adc in the game.

PB4UAME1 votes

Well, I didn't mention the other formulas because I thought people might be more familiar with them.

For casters your damage formula is

(xAP)(yCDR)

Which, while a quadratic so definitely enough to out-scale defense, it has no way to touch the raw scaling and multiplicative power of ADC itemization and the utterly ridiculous attack damage formula.

For the damage resistance formulas the formulas are: 100/(100+resist) for Armor and Magic resistance respectively and just (HP) against true damage.

What this means is that the defenses in this game have linear returns to scale, which actually means for tanks, they have to worry about efficiency of defense. Both armor and magic resist provided decreasing returns on their damage reduction for each additional point of them you have, and are only kept constant when in relationship to your hp pool, but hp without sufficient resists is a line trying to compete with a 5th degree polynomial. It has literally no chance, and that's before you think of such things as %hp damage which, oh, every champion can get from 3 different item, RIOT criminally undervalues the stat, and increasingly champions are getting it in their base kit. Oh, and then they have to worry about having 30-50% of those resistance flat out ignored and negated, so they have to over cap (or at least, go beyond the gold efficient point for both armor and magic resist) on both resists just to have them be normally effective.

Basically, just from the math of this game defenses will always lose to all types of offense. Furthermore, magical damage and casters in general are afforded way lower over all damage (sometimes made up with range and AoE) than attack damage characters, who have ridiculous damage scaling, self synergy and truly insane gold efficiency, and whom should always, 100% beat any defensive character in the late game-- easily.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

That not what i mean... i mean there other AD dealer.

Tank items are already cheap. Damage items aren't insanely gold efficient.

I agree with this statement. This dosn't inclued Adc. Because i agree with u on this. Adc itemization is the real issue atm IMO.

PB4UAME1 votes

This is looking at the Attack Damage Formula itself. Its not specific to any class, just literally anyone who auto attacks.

From the fromula alone, damage items are ridiculously gold efficient. Many times the efficacy of defensive items, and I even gave an example with IE to demonstrate this phenomenon.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

ur first point was this :

It's ridiculous how gold efficient damage items are to the point that tank itemization feels like shit across the board

i won't take board in accound (full low elo & many don't understand the game). But damage don't rekt tank unless u are an adc. Most of ad champ don't build crit.

AirKingNeo1 votes

You fail to mention that tank items also scale up. For every armor you buy, your health becomes more efficient. You gain "effective" health. There's no dimishing returns either, despite how it might feel.

The difference between 99% damage reduction and 99.99% is about 100 times if I remember.

On a fun side note, you forget to add Cooldown Reduction.

PB4UAME1 votes

See my reply to Ryuu down below.

The returns are diminishing if you care about damage reduction. They are only linear if one is looking at EHP, and then only against non-true damage, non-%hp damage, without penetration is your statement correct.

CDR factors in to caster damage outputs, but not into the Attack Damage Formula as the CDR portion of that formula is covered by modified base attack speed, which comes from any champion plus the total of their AS steroids and items, less any AS slows and reductions on them.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

You're actually wrong. All damage items have above 85% efficiency even without their passives.

But he's wrong too. It's not all tank items that are this inefficient, it's just Sunfire and Deadman's.

Unfortunately, while damage increases greatly for small increases in number, increases in armor have heavily diminishing returns.

Dextix LT2 votes

No, they need their prices and effectis increased, because now it is just bad.....

King of Demons4 votes

They are buffing Bami's and upgrades, making it good enough to just sit on for a while if you want to finish something else first.

Also cost 200g less while dealing more damage pre upgrade, losing 80HP for it though.

Glory ln Death9 votes

Bami's and Cinderhulk are getting buffs, but Sunfire isn't getting any changes. Bami's changes make it cheaper to purchase (so you can get it earlier) and give its passive more damage to minions/monsters, at the cost of its health.

It's not... bad... for Sunfire users, but the changes mostly benefit junglers aiming for Cinderhulk. It really doesn't do much for Sunfire. The main issue with Sunfire is that it isn't really useful for anything but waveclear, now, which most tanks don't necessarily want after laning phase is over. They aren't typically going to be splitpushing, and they're the most useful when they're with their team, who will have much better waveclear.

Cinderhulk stays relevant throughout the game, since it gives 20% bonus health, and the jungler will continue to farm camps throughout the game. But Sunfire's stats just don't contribute much for how much it costs and how little the passive will be used after laning phase (especially considering how weak it is against champions).

Honestly, it's just not that great for tanks anymore. It only continues to be bought frequently because it's the best of a slew of "meh" Armor+HP "tank" items, none of which really benefit tanks (Randuin's is good, but it usually doesn't help laning too much except in certain match-ups). That's why top lane tanks are even starting to buy Knight's Vow and Righteous Glory early.

RainbowIcee1 votes

I think it should build into an optional item. Have 1 cinderhulk build for defensive / wave clear and the other build would be for offensive dmg based on the champions health.

Ralanr2 votes

Not to mention it feels like a poor waveclear item with how its range was reduced.

Effectively the item does such a poor job at its niche that people realize the flaw in logic in building it for that niche.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

Exactly, my man. It's completely ridiculous that they only adjusted 3 junglers, but changed the starter item for tank laners. And the changes are still only suited to those three that were actually updated in this class update.

AirKingNeo4 votes

Due to the switch of 75 HP to 10 Armor, penetration items are more effective than before.

Armor pen was nerfed too, so your argument breaks.

As a side not, the ~580 difference in gold efficiency is close to the 530 gold cost of 20% CDR. So perhaps Cleaver needs it removed or Sunfire needs it added.

Because killing the entire bruiser class is such a good idea.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

Armor penetration items were only nerfed to a state still higher than how strong they were before less-recent buffs.

And the bruiser class was fine when Cleaver only gave 10% CDR and 300 HP. The difference now is that there is no item you can possibly buy early to fight Darius.

Saianna3 votes

Which was all well and good until both of those masteries were weakened.

That sounds like what Riot did with Warwick and Sejuani and Sion long time ago.

Buff items. Buff masteries. Nerf champion. Then nerf items. Then nerf masteries.

And leave nerfed champion for a year or longer.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

Yes. They do this all the time. And unless the champion is Lee Sin, they stay that way. Sejuani for Cinderhulk Xin and Kayle for Sated Poppy for Courage of the Colossus.

This is an ongoing trend that they refuse to own up to.

korg0233 votes

After these nerfs to sunfire damage to champions i never buy it anymore. I avoid playing champions that need that item or that item completely. Splitpushing with tanks never worked,it doesent matter how fast you push waves with sunfire if you cant damage towers with your tank build. Killing tower with shen is so boring since it takes you ages even if towers in this season are wet towel paper rolls.

GayFluffyUnicorn2 votes

Kinda sad that ap champs without lich bane push turrets faster

The Ecdysiast1 votes

You're completely right. At this point, if you wanted to play someone like Poppy or Malphite you might be more effective waiting out the 200 gold to buy Cleaver yourself.

junglerboy162 votes

I'd say buff the stats but increase the cost. Tanks need more big ticket items, not fewer.

The Ecdysiast1 votes

As you an see with my note at the end, 20% CDR is the difference in the costs. If they just added 20% cdr to sunfire and deadman's, the cost would be evened out.

korg0232 votes

That moment when you enter the thread and everyone has 0, -1 upvotes then you know its some quality conversation on Boards.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

And the "nerf" to cleaver was not to reduce its effectiveness-- it only serves to make the item shred just as much armor as before. 24% of 60 is 14.4. 30% of 50 was 15.

So its really a nerf of BC and a buff of tank items. Correct me if im wrong but 45,6 (60-14.4) > 35 (50-15). Btw the shred wasn't the only nerf... the build path was changed too.

The real problem in the game is (are) adc and there crit

The Ecdysiast1 votes

You're not wrong... You're just ignoring HP. Cleaver's still just as effective since the items give less effective health overall. It was not nerfed, it was adjusted so that it's still more effective.

And as I pointed out, it's still 600 gold more efficient despite being built on champions who can farm and kill easier.

The build path was changed before, when they switched some AD to additional health. So that's a moot point.

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