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I don't understand why people want Thornmail to be a big damage item.

Ralanr··95 votes·4,006 views

Thornmail as a damage item is frankly unhealthy by design. This is because it punishes people for playing correctly instead of just making them less effective.

Look, DPS is supposed to beat durability through sustained damage. That's basically the reason dps is valued over burst in some scenarios. So if suddenly they are actively punished for doing their job correctly, then they wouldn't exactly function.

And for reference, when I mean punish I mean that it directly hurts them (like a catholic nun hitting you with a ruler because you did something wrong).

Thornmail as a damage item does this. If it's good enough, its actively reflecting damage back to squishy high damage champions that can't take as much. If I'm going to be hitting myself with my own bullets while hitting you, why risk it?

But as a GW item that's built to weaken healing instead of reflecting damage, it works healthier because it makes the opponent less effective rather than actively punishing them for playing right. Now an ADC can't life steal off of a tank as easily as before, but it doesn't mean they can't kill them with their dps.

To give another example, let's look at the LW items. LW itself is an item that makes armor less effective, it doesn't make your armor suddenly hurt you. The giant slayer upgrade however punishes the target by rewarding more damage based on health difference. Because tanks tend to build lots of health, the item is rewarding more damage for tanks that are playing properly. Which isn't fair (almost like old Veigar ult scaling with enemy AP).

The mortal reminder upgrade however doesn't punish someone for building or having sustain, it just makes it less effective. Getting a GW item doesn't suddenly make Mundo's regeneration act the opposite, it just makes his healing weaker.

So imo Thornmail should not be a significant damage item because of its reflect. It should be an anti heal item. Items that punish you for building or playing correctly just aren't fun. I honestly don't think something like Giant slayer should even exist in the game (especially because items that did more damage to big health targets already exist: Namely Bork).

134 Comments

makkii23 votes

What you just said belays a fundamental misunderstanding of both the argument people are making, how thornmail works, and why thornmail exists.

Lifesteal has always been a central component for adc's. it has been core to build for the games entire lifecycle and has almost always been one of the first 4 items purchased.

Thornmail on the other hand has always been a niche pick, used to counter lifesteal, and is typically built as a 5th or 6th item.

When people complain about the lack of damage on thornmail, they arent complaining about damage for damage sake, they are complaining about how when you do the math, the current damage+grievous wounds is actually significantly less efficient for countering healing from life steal than the old ones pure damage was.

Lets not sit here and pretend that adc's were sitting here killing themselves on old thornmail and use it as justification to call old thornmail "unhealthy design" in order to neuter it, it was being used purely to counter lifestealing against tanks because it is always built after lifesteal in games, that is in the current climate not only needed, but needs to be significantly buffed in order to keep up against adc dominance.

Ralanr1 votes

Is it really? On its own I mean. I haven't done the math.

makkii3 votes

{quoted}

Is it really? On its own I mean. I haven't done the math.

The only way in which new thornmail comes even close to "breaking even" with old thornmails anti healing is if the adc in question already has LW, a lifesteal item, and has built some kind md of magic resist item, that being said new thornmail doesnt require extra magic resist to counter it comepletely, so you can use standard itemization to counter lifesteal which makes it even worse.

In fact, even with 0 armor pen, if you have 15-20% lifesteal and warlords bloodlust, you're still healing through new thornmail by about 10-30 points per hit depending on the thornmail users armor value, if you have armor pen and a mercurial schimitar however you're healing above 50 per hit at least, if not 70+

Ralanr1 votes

{quoted}

The only way in which new thornmail comes even close to "breaking even" with old thornmails anti healing is if the adc in question already has LW, a lifesteal item, and has built some kind md of magic resist item, that being said new thornmail doesnt require extra magic resist to counter it comepletely, so you can use standard itemization to counter lifesteal which makes it even worse.

I'm confused, do you mean against current or old thornmail? Because those requirements aren't uncommon in ADC builds.

makkii2 votes

{quoted}

I'm confused, do you mean against current or old thornmail? Because those requirements aren't uncommon in ADC builds.

That is to say, if you put old and new thornmail side by side and compare them.

It is true that armor pen and lifesteal are both standard everygame stats for adc's, magic resist is not, and only picked with needed, the only scenario in which adc healing vs old thornmail even relatively matches new thorn-mail (but does not exceed) is in a scenario where you have two different builds for the adc for the two thornmails.

To put it as simple as possible

Lets say you have adc A and adc B, then thornmail user A(new thornmail) vs thornmail user B(old thornmail)

Adc Aattacks tmail A, adc B attacks tmail B

If adc A and adc B have the exact same build( for ex zerks, IE, BT, RFC, GA, LW.)

Adc A will outheal adc B by quite a bit

If adc A has the same build, but adc b has (boots, ie, bt, rfc, Merc schimitar, LW) Adc A will still outheal adc B but only slightly.

Ralanr1 votes

Are you factoring the scaling MR ADCs get now?

makkii3 votes

{quoted}

Are you factoring the scaling MR ADCs get now?

Yes, i did my original calculations based on lvl 18 with 28% base mr

ModAcademy Kayn11 votes

Some dude in another thread actually did the math that proves that new Thornmail actually is better, lemme see if I can find it.

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/iEYqhWqG-you-know-i-didnt-really-think-thornmail-would-actually-get-worse

There's math done, but both sides show a point of their own.

Sire Hippington5 votes

The math in that thread actually shows that new Thornmails damage+GW is far worse than old Thornmails raw damage vs targets with 20%lifesteal(BT) Though the math there asumes that the old return damage was based on pre-mitigation damage, not sure if that actually was the case.

Cosmic Warper1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sire Hippington,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vXzPPspA,comment-id=0001000000010000,timestamp=2017-07-20T02:01:51.580+0000)

The math in that thread actually shows that new Thornmails damage+GW is far worse than old Thornmails raw damage vs targets with 20%lifesteal(BT) Though the math there asumes that the old return damage was based on pre-mitigation damage, not sure if that actually was the case.

the old damage return was based on pre mitigation damage

Sire Hippington4 votes

So the old had roughly wice the damage return at lategame vs a BT useing adc than the new one with GW factored in for 550g less, no wonder why people complain about new thornmail feeling weak.

Cosmic Warper3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sire Hippington,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vXzPPspA,comment-id=000100000001000000010000,timestamp=2017-07-20T14:57:11.369+0000)

So the old had roughly wice the damage return at lategame vs a BT useing adc than the new one with GW factored in for 550g less, no wonder why people complain about new thornmail feeling weak.

Yeah, the only good things about new thornmail are sitting on bramble vest and the fact that GW helps against supports healing their adc.

ProfDrDeath6 votes

I have. Here, for a full item ADC vs. a two Armor item tank:

A six item ADC with IE, Zeal upgrade, BT, LDR, Mercurial, Boots has some 87 MR and 30% Lifesteal and 400 AD. He deals, on average, 700 damage per attack, 840 with full effect of LDR.

A tank with Thornmail, Dead Man's Plate and 90 base Armor (+ about 20 from runes and masteries) has 270 Armor, 180 of which is bonus (Thornmail flat damage part: 45 magic damage). Against the ADC, the tank still has about 210 Armor after LDR.

The ADC deals 271 damage to the tank per attack, healing for 30% of that or 81 HP.

Thornmail dealt 15% of 840 + 45 as return magic damage. Total 171 magic damage. After resistances, the ADC would have taken 91 damage.

Old Thornmail: 91 damage > 81 HP healed.

Even with 30% Lifesteal, ArPen and MR against a 2 Armor item tank, an ADC would have still taken damage on attacking said tank.

Assuming the tank has equal Armor with new Thornmail for ease of comparison:

With new Thornmail, the damage effect does 25 + 27 = 52 damage. After resistances, 28 damage.

With the Grievous Wounds effect, the ADC heals for 18% of damage dealt, or 49 HP.

New Thornmail: 49 HP healed > 28 damage dealt.

So, old Thornmail did more to deny Lifesteal, and thus was better at its purpose of denying its user as a Lifesteal target.

However, in your main post, you make a good and compelling argument why new Thornmail is actually healthier, from a gameplay perspective, than old Thornmail - old Thornmail's fatal flaw was that, while it denied huge amounts of Lifesteal, it also heavily punished low Lifesteal builds. So, in fact, yes, ADCs were killing themselves against old Thornmail, even with a balanced, fairly defensive build.

Scary Door21 votes

I don't think most people want Thornmail to be a huge damage item. I think that the majority of players would just like to see it be a viable choice.

Originally Thornmail was an item that was just too powerful and simplistic. You could brainlessly walk into a fight and provide enough feedback damage that you simply killed the ADC. This was back before there was so much armor pen/lethality and lifesteal was a bit less prevalent. Thornmail used to be too good for what it was.

The last two changes to Thornmail in recent seasons have made the item subpar and then a pitiful shadow of it's former self respectively. People just want Thornmail to be viable, provide some return damage without having to stack four other armor items to make it worth while and maybe have it be useful on champions that aren't named Malphite. Hell, even Malphite doesn't get quite the mileage out of it that he used to.

I Main Swain2 votes

my top complaint is that they put coldsteel on it, which makes no sense at all. why would you lower their attack speed on the same item that makes it so each aa they hit you with deals damage to them? that would be like making warmogs convert damage to a bleed, it would damage the primary function of buying it in the first place.

Ralanr4 votes

The slow makes it so they get less sustain through their already reduced sustain thanks to GW.

lolipopevelynn8 votes

Who is saying thornmail is a damage item? it has always been an item to TRY and offset the healing from ADCs or other carries that abuse LS. the main problem i have with the current thornmail is its cold steel passive. it actually weakens the thorns effect...

Ralanr2 votes

Some people complain that it should be one.

The cold steel passive actually does help as an anti healing item. It slows down the attacks that are already taking GW, further reducing the amount they get back.

What sucks is that you can't really build Thornmail and Omen together.

Skias3 votes

{quoted}

Who is saying thornmail is a damage item? it has always been an item to TRY and offset the healing from ADCs or other carries that abuse LS. the main problem i have with the current thornmail is its cold steel passive. it actually weakens the thorns effect...

And the reflection is too weak to mitigate the healing even with Grievous wounds' help. It doesn't do its job late game. That's why bramble is so good. You get it early and it's effective. Two lifesteal items and its shit. Also buying it with Randuin's, you waste a ton of gold on a crap passive that conflicts with your other item that you already have said crap passive on.

Escheton1 votes

{quoted}

Who is saying thornmail is a damage item? it has always been an item to TRY and offset the healing from ADCs or other carries that abuse LS. the main problem i have with the current thornmail is its cold steel passive. it actually weakens the thorns effect...

Who cares about the thorn effect? I'm trying not to die here. Cold steel plz.

Sire Hippington2 votes

when why not buy item 3143 ??? If you don't care about the thorns, then what's the point of getting thoenmail? Randuins gives better stats, the coldsteel, 20% crit damage reduction and an aoe slow active on top.

I really agree with evelynn here, cold steel feels out of place on thornmail, and if you still want it together with thornmail, you can just pick up randuins on top. I'd rather see better stats or another unique defensive effect like flat damage reduction to help with not dieing instead of coldsteel.

Darkdemon6537 votes

The main issue isn't just that Thornmail deals less damage. The main issue is that it is just plain worse. The previous damage taken minus healing through lifesteal was far greater than the current damage taken minus healing through lifesteal. You say Thornmail should make it harder for an AD champion to lifesteal off of the champion with Thornmail, but it is now far worse at that than before.

Another issue with Thornmail is part of its budget goes to something that is already present on another armor item. This wouldn't necessarily be too bad, but if I want to get armor, Randuin's and Thornmail are both items I must buy. They're already both weak items, and wasting gold on two Cold Steels that don't stack makes the situation worse.

If you want to make Thornmail an anti-drain item, have it apply GW and some amount of damage, and make the amount of healing gained through lifesteal and spell vamp against the target with Thornmail 0.

Pierce The Veal6 votes

But guardian angel, death's dance, phantom dancer, maw of malmortius, mercurial scimitar, and edge of night (did I miss any?) aren't at all "frankly unhealthy by design?"

I almost only played AD champions (until I started playing akali and recently picked up vladimir). Nowadays I see 6/10 of the bans at the minimum are AD champs. Mostly AD carries or champions who build ad carry items.

I'm fairly convinced that any item that is both offensive and defensive should not exist in the game.

ForeverLaxx3 votes

Thanks to Riot's "let them have and eat cake" design, yes. Apparently, they felt that being forced to "ignore" defensive items so they could do their job was bad, so now AD get a bunch of incidental defense to go along with their offense. It's too bad we don't also have items that can help offset this gain like in Dota. Someone builds Butterfly? Here's a Monkey King Bar or Solar Crest or Abyssal or Basher, etc etc. This is why they're starting to put damage on primary defense items -- they did the reverse already.

nyakasgoods5 votes

Everyone forgets that the Cold Steel on Thornmail reduces the amount adcs lifesteal by reducing how often they can.

ForeverLaxx1 votes

That matters a lot less when they still gain HP by attacking you. As you're the tank, your place is in front of your team, which makes you the only viable target (generally) that the AD can get free hits on. Allowing the enemy AD to heal back up just from attacking you, negating any poke you may have caused, is why the item needs another look.

Pandemic Punch5 votes

IMO this is my favorite iteration of Thornmail. Incredible build path and is debatable that it is currently overloaded. Health, grievous wounds, and attack speed slow. Wow. If anyone keeps thinking it is weak, please keep thinking it so I can keep abusing it :D

nosafterburn4 votes

this is a pretty great item on Taric too.

RogueWill5 votes

You are fine with item 3033 thou? That items punishes tanks for building resistances (which they are supposed to do) item 3153 punishes you for building HP.

item 3075 punish you by damaging the tank (btw you are not supposed to until he is the last unit standing)

Rivini4 votes

I'd say it needs to diminish lifesteal more than -40%.

Rainfall3 votes

riot will either have to rework literaly almost all tanks or buff tank items.poppy a champion that got her rework not long ago is currently complete garbage.Last year she was picked in the lcs now pro players dont even consider picking her nevertheless solo queue players.After all those nerfs Poppy Sion TahmKench and a lot of others are unplayable in the toplane.

Glory ln Death27 votes

Sion has the second highest winrate in top lane, and Tahm isn't even considered a secondary top laner...

Edit: Sion is #6 highest winrate in top lane - he dipped down slightly in the past few days, but still has a 53% winrate.

Rainfall1 votes

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/top/all in the toplane he has the 36th highest winrate right now. most of his playrate comes from the support role.

Velzard of Koz5 votes

Poppy has 47.3% winrate and is 31st. Sion with 50.8% is 35th. Wrong sorting.

Tails90161 votes

Wait a sec. If Sion is a as strong as a he is, and made his way to 2nd place, then who's first?

Glory ln Death10 votes

Pantheon. He's been top for a while.

Tails90161 votes

I completely forgot about him

General Esdeath 3 votes

Pantheon They always forget Spear-Man!

crippler385 votes

Boom Pants, so that's how Pantheon flies everywhere with his ult. Here I thought it was just his shins or his buns (because baker).

That or the Boom Pants are just what to call the enemy's pants after he falls from the sky on them, since their trousers are likely sodden with Boom Boom.

Neo Metalsonicv21 votes

Sion only works in low ELO, he's too inconsistent and his itemization has been bad since forever. He's a noobstomper not much else, he's not a viable tank toplaner.

I feel for Sion to be viable his ult needs to change or the E gimmick (punting a minion and getting extra damage) needs to go. Possible things to do are more range on the E or simply make Sion's ultimate charge faster when you just activate it (it currently gains speed over time).

Glory ln Death2 votes

Because 53% winrate in Plat+ ranked games is clearly unviable.

And getting rid of the "punting" aspect of his E would absolutely ruin Sion as a champion.

FantasySniper3 votes

It's not about it being a "big damage item"; it's the fact that it doesn't counteract lifesteal anymore.

It used to reflect 30%, and ADCs had 10 to 20% lifesteal, so it perfectly counteracted the drain-tanking and then some after MR.

Then it got reduced to 15% damage and the 25% bonus armor scaling was shit compensation, so it just got straight-up nerfed for no good reason and lifesteal subsequently became a problem.

Then it gets nerfed yet again to the point where it can't counteract a single lifesteal item even after Grievous Wounds. And thus lifesteal is still a problem.

Ariel the Cruel4 votes

It used to reflect 30%, and ADCs had 10 to 20% lifesteal, so it perfectly counteracted the drain-tanking and then some after MR.

The problem with that iteration is how it forced ADC's to stack lifesteal, based purely around the possibility of someone buying thornmail. Because anything less made killing the tank reasonably impossible.

FantasySniper1 votes

It didn't force them to do anything. You built Last Whisper like normal, then you would get your lifesteal back and kill the tank before their reflect could rack up too much damage over the course of a fight.

People stacked lifesteal like idiots thinking that they could outpace the reflect, but forgot that by the time they've finished another item; the tank already had more armor, making the lifesteal pointless because there was no damage to leech off of. And when it takes forever to kill a tank with Thornmail, you're going to get your ass handed to you.

Ariel the Cruel3 votes

And when it takes forever to kill a tank with Thornmail, you're going to get your ass handed to you.

That was the crux of the problem. A single armor item shouldn't be enough to kill you. But because it reflected so much damage back on a target that has so little durability, you had to out-lifesteal the return or gimp damage to build resists. Even with pen, Tanks could survive enough autos for the return damage to kill the ADC first. This meant ADC's were forced to stack Lifesteal, because the tank was assuredly going to stack more armor. It became an arms race of who could last longer: and ADC eating 30% of their own damage, or the tank building specifically to survive. Heaven forbid you were a non-lifesteal right-clicker (on-hit builds); then you just didn't attack thornmail tanks. At all.

FantasySniper1 votes

If Thornmail was their only armor item, it would do squat. Lifesteal was not how you countered Thornmail and its reflect.

Thornmail reflected magic damage based on pre-mitigated physical damage. 30% of your own damage was more like 21% after MR. If a tank had 250 armor, they were taking around 30% of the original physical damage. It took 3.5 times their health bar to kill them. That's worth at least 105% of their health bar in magic damage, 73.5 after MR.

If you built Last Whisper, it would reduce the armor by 35% down to 162.5, meaning 38% of original physical damage. It took 2.625 times their health bar to kill them. That's worth at least 78.75% of their health bar in magic damage, 55.13 after MR.

If you had a lifesteal item, it was most likely BT, but for argument's sake let's assume that lifesteal averaged at 15%, and with another item it hit 30% lifesteal.

At 30% post-mitigation and 30% lifesteal; You're taking a total of 43.35% of their HP after MR; It took 350% their HP in physical damage to kill them.

At 38% post-mitigation and 15% lifesteal; You're taking a total of 40.12% of their HP after MR; It took 262.5% their HP in physical damage to kill them.

Do you see that difference? Do you see why armor pen was better than lifesteal at countering Thornmail? Why it was better overall for killing tanks like your job description states in the first place?

Ariel the Cruel3 votes

I'm not disagreeing about pen being important. You're missing the point.

The whole reason the 30% version was thrown out is because ADC's could suicide on a tank because of 1 item. Pen doesn't solve this problem. The ADC has to 100-0 the tank, before the 30% return 100-0'ed the ADC. And tanks could eat a lot more damage than ADC's (significantly more depending on what season you look at). Because thornmail was designed to counter lifesteal, it had to have [relatively] high damage numbers. Those same numbers meant non- or low- lifesteal builds could potentially kill themselves before the tank went down.

If 1 item turns doing what you're supposed to do into potential suicide, then that item isn't healthy and risks warping the game.

EDIT: To clarify, by "1 item," I'm referring to Thornmail being the tank's only damage item.

FantasySniper1 votes

While it's true that Thornmail could have let a tank 1v1 an ADC (especially armor stackers like Rammus, etc), I still think that scrapping its old reflect was unwarranted.

ADCs weren't generally supposed to 1v1 anyone in the first place, and only certain carries used to be capable of that in their respective stages of the game. They were always supposed to be protected by the team, and especially the support, even into the endgame.

The right response would've been to nerf the reflect and compensate by having it reduce on-hit healing by a reasonably complementary amount. It would've retained its niche as anti-lifesteal without overly punishing anyone.

Ariel the Cruel2 votes

The right response would've been to nerf the reflect and compensate by having it reduce on-hit healing by a reasonably complementary amount.

I agree. And that's the direction they are going with the AS slow and Grevious wounds. It is much healthier for the game than the previous approach of "do more damage." Did they get the numbers on the first try? Probably not. Ignoring the numbers, their track record isn't great for new releases. (>_>)

BLACK REALM GOD3 votes

because people have a hard time accepting the idea that items are meant to support your champion and not make your champion. part of this issue is caused by items lacking purpose or having too much purpose.

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