Dr. Mundo's Cleavers - Huge damage, no attack stats? What the fuuuuuuu-

darkdill·Aug 12, 2014·2 votes·140 views

So Mundo's Cleavers still deal 25% of your current health in magic damage... on a 4-second cooldown... with a 280 damage floor? And he doesn't need to build a single offensive item to do that kind of damage output...

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/86/86b5a4290062980ef4a4f26601c7a348337de3fab0656d85da390835d4f9d430.jpg

EDIT: To clarify, I am surprised that Riot allows this when they have the "build no damage, do no damage" rule going on.

5 Comments

Sir ArmaMalumAug 12, 20141 votes

That's the point, as the rest of his kit scales horribly with anything except health. He has to be able to do enough damage to be relevant without building too many offensive stats or else he will get killed in a heartbeat. Keep in mind this is also after the cleaver width nerf, which was imho very much needed.

This is largely the issue with a lot of fighters in the game, their kit's raw numbers need to be strong enough to deal decent damage with only a little bit of offensive building and tanky enough without building full tank. Keep in mind that all of that damage you're talking about is also before magic resistance as well.

darkdillAug 12, 20141 votes

You'd think Riot would be able to do better with it, though. Maybe give Mundo incentive to get an Atma's Impaler by giving his Q a bonus AD scaling?

Might not be the best idea, but at the very least, he should have to build SOMETHING offensive to retain threat factor. Otherwise he's just being a cheapass.

Sir ArmaMalumAug 12, 20141 votes

That would synergize way too well with his E's bonus though. I can imagine that's also why the cleaver itself does magic damage instead of physical, to prevent Mundo's building armor pen.

Mundo himself is a special case, as he's effectively a tank that trades cc for damage and...well...more tank. Shyvana runs into the same issue as well from the other end. a high damage fighter who trades cc for free tank stats. Mundo specifically, though, also treads into the out of combat health regen pain point that Xypherous and others have been chewing on. Any champ (i.e. Soraka) that can heal a respectable amount out of combat actually has a somewhat toxic natural playstyle, as they can trade badly, walk under turret or simply away, heal themselves, and come back in. making your trade useless. So I can imagine Mundo is also stalled until heath regen, grievous wounds and healing in general is sorted out.

Lord Graves IIIAug 12, 20141 votes

He has a damn good incentive to build Atmas. The issue is that most don't see to capitalize on it. Atmas or Sword of the Divine item 3131 are both super funny on mundo when he is getting 150 free damage from his E, then he gets a lucky Atmas crit.

Seriously

67chromeAug 14, 20141 votes

EDIT: To clarify, I am surprised that Riot allows this when they have the "build no damage, do no damage" rule going on.

Bruisers are kind of a special case.

Assassins, mages, and marksman are supposed to build damage to deal damage. Melee-carry-esque fighters as well. In all those cases, the champions actually come with pretty impressive defensive mechanisms built into their kit though. Like range and mobility, and on the melee carry side things like Endless Rage, Wind Wall, and Diplomatic Immunity that just don't scale with defense to any capacity.

As for tanks and supports - those often remain useful with pretty powerful utility effects. Mostly CC, which makes those as big of a problem as all the damage on their team, despite just going heavy tank/utility builds.

However - bruisers arn't particularly mobile, they don't have much in the way of range, and they often don't have much in the way of crowd-control. Bruisers are tanky DPS. They rely on being tanky to deal DPS. Unlike marksman, assassins, and mages though - they often come with very little in regards to survival mechanics. They have to build tanky to function.

Which causes a problem concerning the DPS part. If you force bruisers to itemize for damage to deal damage, but you also force them to itemize for defense to have defense - they'll just end up dealing mediocre damage and having a mediocre level of health. Like everyone esle that does that - except what little defense bruisers come with comes noware close to the level of protection range, mobility, and even CC provide for just about everyone else.

So, ultimately, it seems Riot decided to give Bruisers a boatload of damage that always allows them to be DPS while forcing them to build tank. Mundo isn't a special case among bruisers concerning stupid amazing damage either - Nasus, Shyvana, Warwick, Darius, Udyr, Renekton, they all deal a pretty impressive level of damage without actually building any damage. Which in turn lets them build full-tank and function the way they're supposed to.

I should also note - bruiser damage tends to have awful scaling. A lot of the things that make it really solid without offense also cause it to be kind of mediocre with offense. Most bruisers are split pretty evenly between AD and AP, auto-attacks and abilities, physical and magical damage. Which really limits there damage scaling. So - they have issues using offense, but they scale super-well with defense.