Which is stronger? Tank or Penetration?

Drugoth·Jan 9, 2016·6 votes·1,471 views

Just a question I've been asking myself a lot recently. I'm no mathematician though.

However is there any of you brilliant math geniuses out there with some insight into this you can dumb down for me?

For instance, at equal build strength of 5 items + 1 boots does armor or it's evil nemesis armor pen win out? When should I build health to counteract burst? Also does armor even do anything to Vayne? Because health certainly doesn't. However one could say attack speed slows such as Malphites can counteract her chunking speed greatly giving you precious seconds of life.

Sorry I'm going off on a tangent. TL;DR: Which will win out in the end? Tanks or penetration? (This question is not exluding magic pen and magic resist btw) Also everyone knows the only counter to true damage nukes is health except when they're % scaling executions.

28 Comments

KirbyCakeJan 9, 20164 votes

tank generally wins

simple example, if you're ap vs ap mid, the person who rushes merc treads against sorc shoes has a definite advantage of having extra MR than the pent can do.

however, the thing to note is that pent applies to everybody on the enemy team, while tank is generally built either armor or mr. it's when tanks have to build both that pent wins.

TehNACHOJan 9, 20161 votes

Should note though that Sorc Shoes is Flat Penetration, which is in fact countered by buying any MR.

DrugothJan 9, 20161 votes

That explains why in most mage vs mage situations when i buy sorc shoes and chalice i tend to win trades more early.

Sire HippingtonJan 10, 20161 votes

That is **early **in the game. Once the multiplicators like %pen and rabadons kick in, that changes. Also, mr is purely vs magic damage, so ofc it is more potent vs mages. But what happens if the oppsing ad-jubngler shows up, or maybe your opponents swap top and mid(with an ad-top)? Then suddenly your mr does exactly nothing.

And for ad, there are far more multiplicators....

Bottom LanerJan 10, 20164 votes

Both. Taric

TehNACHOJan 9, 20163 votes

5 items entirely? Tank.

It depends on the context really. You need to remember that Penetration is for all intents and purposes, a multiplier. It doesn't work when you have no base to start with (hence why 5 items is a bad move). This also means that it sometimes depends on the champions; those that already have high base numbers Garen , have already built a lot of damage (Marksman) , or are naturally designed to kill tanks Vayne are really the first and best to take advantage of Armor Penetration while already having the built in tools to kill a Tank anyway. Vice versa however, most champions ill-equipped for fighting Tanks, let's say Xerath, won't be able to kill Tanks very easily regardless of whether or not they for example invest in a Void Staff; the base you're working with already is bad against tanks.

Also you should keep in mind that it only applies to % based penetration; flat penetration like Youmuu's Ghostblade is actually countered by Armor.

To be frank you should almost always be building a mix of Health and Resistances if you want to invest defensively. Items that only offer resistances are either bought for their offensive power item 3001 or are niche in usage item 3110 .

It helps; about 70% her damage actually comes from the actual Auto Attacks (this also means Health helps too, surprisingly or not). Of course though, the real way to counter Vayne is to burst her down, not try to turtle through her Silver Bolts.

Tankiness wins if we're purely comparing items. Anything more than that is subject to the situation and context, like if the penetration user is a natural Tankbuster already. Also the true counters to true damage tends to be champion specific. Vayne's for example is burst or long range artillery, as she's squishy and easy to kill and thus easy to shut off her true damage like that, or auto attack reliant and doesn't like stepping anywhere near a fed mage with 1000 units of Vayne dying if she got too close.

Critmaster GarenJan 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

5 items entirely? Tank.

It depends on the context really. You need to remember that Penetration is for all intents and purposes, a multiplier. It doesn't work when you have no base to start with (hence why 5 items is a bad move). This also means that it sometimes depends on the champions; those that already have high base numbers , have already built a lot of damage (Marksman) , or are naturally designed to kill tanks are really the first and best to take advantage of Armor Penetration while already having the built in tools to kill a Tank anyway. Vice versa however, most champions ill-equipped for fighting Tanks, let's say Xerath, won't be able to kill Tanks very easily regardless of whether or not they for example invest in a Void Staff; the base you're working with already is bad against tanks.

Also you should keep in mind that it only applies to % based penetration; flat penetration like Youmuu's Ghostblade is actually countered by Armor.

To be frank you should almost always be building a mix of Health and Resistances if you want to invest defensively. Items that only offer resistances are either bought for their offensive power or are niche in usage .

It helps; about 70% her damage actually comes from the actual Auto Attacks (this also means Health helps too, surprisingly or not). Of course though, the real way to counter Vayne is to burst her down, not try to turtle through her Silver Bolts.

Tankiness wins if we're purely comparing items. Anything more than that is subject to the situation and context, like if the penetration user is a natural Tankbuster already. Also the true counters to true damage tends to be champion specific. Vayne's for example is burst or long range artillery, as she's squishy and easy to kill and thus easy to shut off her true damage like that, or auto attack reliant and doesn't like stepping anywhere near a fed mage with 1000 units of Vayne dying if she got too close.

bad choice. garen isnt a tank, hes a bruiser/heavy fighter/juggernaut whatever you want to call it.

and vayne s kit actually makes it easy for vayne to win against him.

an actual tank would probably have better odds against her.

TehNACHOJan 9, 20162 votes

Wait what, did you actually read the post.

Garen is the Penetration user when I used him as the example. item 3071

I didn't even pit Garen against Vayne in that example wtf.

Critmaster GarenJan 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Wait what, did you actually read the post.

Garen is the Penetration user when I used him as the example.

srry, im drunk.

edit.: metaphorically

edit.: though it is saturday night, and i had a few.

DrugothJan 9, 20163 votes

http://cdn.meme.am/images/300x/11142617.jpg

Shrek LuigiJan 10, 20161 votes

Sustained-damage Champs like Vayne fare way better against Full Tanks than they do against high-mobility AD Champs with burst damage. Vayne can potentially beat out anyone late game with proper positioning and decent skill but, all throughout midgame and possibly longer if he gets a good enough gold advantage, Garen will run train on most ADCs.

DrugothJan 9, 20161 votes

Thanks for the reply, you bring up some very valid points I hadn't thought of. Like how the real way to counter damage is with OTHER damage in some circumstances. Like in your example of Xerath. He's not really designed to kill tanks but he can sure give Vayne a really rough game.

SachabotJan 9, 20162 votes

Depends on what's built, who is building it, how much CC, how much attack speed, how much healing, etc.

vIbvdOwbkoJan 9, 20162 votes

You need more details. This answer varies between champions matchups very greatly.

A full tank 5 item twitch will get fucked by a full pen vayne.

A full tank Nunu will get fucked by a full pen fid.

etc.

DrugothJan 9, 20161 votes

I was thinking more along just the items themselves barring specific champion stats or masteries. The Vayne thing was just me QQing like a bitch because you can't tank her damage :(

vIbvdOwbkoJan 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I was thinking more along just the items themselves barring specific champion stats or masteries. The Vayne thing was just me QQing like a bitch because you can't tank her damage :(

Even then, you're going to have to list out every single stat from health regen to total AD. This problem is easily solvable by "math people" if you'd make it possible.

Lordk0zJan 9, 20162 votes

ADCs are, and have always been ridic compared to tanks.

Sire HippingtonJan 10, 20162 votes

let's asume generalistic base stats: 2100health and 100armor vs 105ad, 0.650 base-as and 1.100AS at 18(estimated values that reflect the average basestats + runes of tanks/adc)

As items for the tank, we asume item 3742 item 3102 item 3068 item 3065 item 3075 item 3111 (highest winrate built for Shen on champion.gg)

As items for the adc, we asume item 3006 item 3031 item 3036 item 3094 item 3085 item 3072 (highest winrate built for Cait on champion.gg)

This results in 4100hp and 295armor(~200 bonus armor) for the tank, and 285ad; 1.750AS; 80%crit; 150%crit damage; 15 on-hit; 40% bonus-arpen and 15% increased damage for the adc

Meaning an effective 4100health+215armor so 12915 effective hp (hp x (1+armor/100)) vs physic damage for the tank, and 1292 raw dps for the carry. (((ad x as x (1 + crit x critdamage)) + (on-hit x as)) x other multiplyers)

So in average, a single ADC at fullbuilt needs ~10sec to kill a tank with AAs. Keep in mind that this does not involve any abillitys health reg, masteries or other buffs, nor the damage proc from RFC, as that is hard to asses in dps. Every buff from monsters increases damage, but non gives tankiness, Materies give far more damage than tankiness, and in reallty a tank rarly **only **takes damage from the adc So with masteries and eventual neutral bnuffs, it is probably closer to 8-9sec...

considering that this is only the damage from one out of 5 champs hitting the full tank with nothing but AAs and no steroid, i would say tankinesses looses, especially if we asume one of the other champs has some aditional armor shred.

However, at like boots+2-3 items, that would probably look rather different, as AA dps has many multipliers but low base values and outscales all and everything later on, while most tanky champs have high base stats and tank items are usually rather gold efficient in their effective hp vs a specific damage type. If the tank was to fully buy 5 armor/health items, it would look differnt, just that he would die rather fast to any mage.

Mages usually have way less raw dps than adc, so they don't outscale tanks that much, though tanks usually are forced to invest far more into armor than into MR due to the huge raw damage of adc, and have less base mr.

DrugothJan 10, 20161 votes

Thank you for your hard work good sir.

EnderDDTJan 10, 20161 votes

Armor(resists) and HP stack multiplicatively. That means that if you have 1000hp and you buy 200 armor than you can take 3000 physical damage, but if you have 1000hp and you buy 100 armor and 1000hp than you can take 4000physical damage. Both are therefore important.

Penetration/reduction stacks in the most favorable way, so first you penetrate %, than flat, than reductions. So you can actually reduce someone into the negative armor (if you penetrate everything first) causing you to deal bonus damage. That said, "penetration" still only stacks onto one side of the multiplication problem shown above and can only go as low as 0 if you don't have "reduction" as well. Getting to 0 almost never happens against someone actually building resistance, since resist items give so much more than flat penetration items do. Health can always help.

Due to the rarity of armor reduction, which would allow armor to go below 0, armor wins out over pen. The question of flat pen or % is all about your target. If you are attacking a squishy target who hasn't built armor, than flat pen will increase your damage by a larger percentage. If you are dealing with a tank than % is the bigger help. Having a bit of both, flat from runes/masteries and a % pen item, is usually the best way to go for most characters.

This doesn't necessarily make tanks better, a character who does no damage is still going down /eventually/, all it means is that buying tank isn't worthless against a fed carry. If penetration completely countered all tank than tanks would be utterly worthless, because the killer (carry with kill gold) would always have more gold to counter anything the tank (player who generally only has assist gold) could buy. Eventually, if the game goes long enough and if your team doesn't focus their attacks correctly, the ADC will always win. This is because tanks have HP/resist scaling and sometimes a shield or passive that adds onto one of those two; while the ADC's damage multiplies by AD, Crit, AS, and PEN. Multiply 4 numbers together on the ADC, and they will almost always end up higher than what multiplying 2 numbers together can give your tank. Furthermore tanks often have to buy some sort of "attack" to give them threat (such as a sunfire) which does not stack with the tanky items they have except as an extra effect, meanwhile the ADC buys Lifesteal and every boost to their AA will increase their survivability as well.

As for Vayne, armor does a lot to slow her down since an extremely large chunk of her damage is in her attacks in addition to her passive, but do be aware that she is specifically a tank killer. Tanks deal with Vayne by CCing her till someone else can kill her, which is made more possible by her short AA range. That said, she /IS/ a super-carry (more damage and less defense than most carrys) so her extreme damage isn't exactly surprising. Any CC that can hold her down is usually enough to ensure a kill if your team is good at following through. A Vayne on a team without 2 tanks and a support, or just 3 tanks, is just asking to be shut down.

i am sparttaJan 10, 20161 votes

how do u write so musch without falling asleep?

EnderDDTJan 10, 20161 votes

Practice! Remember kids, this is what school will do to you.

VesarixxJan 10, 20161 votes

There isn't really enough information in the question to answer that, the more resistances you have the more effective your HP will become and armor pen will never be able to negate armor stacking entirely, the damage mitigation of resistances is calculated as X(100+X) where X is the amount of resistance, at a certain point it will become more gold efficient to buy health since every 1 armor will give you 1% effective health vs physical damage, so if you have 1000 health and 300 armor, buying item 3075 would give you 4000 effective health vs physical damage while buying item 1011 will give you 4140 effective health vs physical damage, not to mention that it also helps vs magic and true damage.

In the case of Vayne the silver bolts proc will deal % health true damage, so it is not affected by armor, the armor will however help vs the rest of her auto attack damage since it is all physical.

Flat penetration is better vs opponents with low resistances, especially if you have high base damage as with enough penetration you deal close to true damage to the target, % penetration is better vs high health targets because it becomes more effective the more resistances they have. Resistance shred/reduction works similarly with flat shred being better for squishier targets and % for tankier enemies. Combining % penetration with shred/reduction is usually not worth doing since shred/reductions is applied first making % penetration less effective.

i am sparttaJan 10, 20161 votes

what are u trying to say? im so confused

WolfBVJan 10, 20161 votes

Okay so I spent 10 minutes making a helpful comment and realized it's bad, but I'm going to say that a pure penetration build would lose to a pure tank build.

Slamurai JackJan 10, 20161 votes

While I can't give any specific math, the scales are pretty heavily tipped in favor of tank stats over penetration. That's why champs that are rewarded for stacking resistances are so good right now: Think Rammus, Malphite, Mundo, etc. Tanks are definitely a bit too tanky atm, which is why Riot is buffing armor pen next patch.

IcyPepperJan 10, 20161 votes

Also does armor even do anything to Vayne? Because health certainly doesn't.

Er, to a degree. Not all of Vayne's damage is true damage, mind you. A lot of her damage is still physical, and a little bit magical, so health and armor aren't completely wasted. It's not as effective as it would be against other ADC's, but it's not entirely useless.

However, if Vayne is the only AD threat, you can build some hybrid instead of just tank items. If a bundle of tank stats isn't as effective, you'll want to look into boosting your disruption (aka add a little penetration to your build, because you're not going to go full AP), or look into specific passives to give you an edge (immolate, frozen heart passive, etc).

But never, ever, ever try to 1v1 a Vayne as a tank. Tanky tats don't win against Vayne, burst does.

LlaniteJan 10, 20161 votes

You spend 300g for 10 armor.

They spend 500g for 10 pene and there's only 2 items that grant it (youmumu + hex).

Armor is cheaper and easier to acquire, however, Mortal pierces 40% BONUS armor, hence, you don't want more than 3 armor item or mortal will become cost-efficient.