Boards›Gameplay

Armor Does NOT Have Diminishing Returns

PhalseLogic·12/14/2017, 8:15:54 PM·3 votes·1,135 views

If your Malphite with more than 800 armor your looking at aboooout a 90% dmg reduction from physical dmg. Some might say this is overkill, and in reality it is. However, from a mathematical point of view this extra armor past the 300ish mark (I think its less) which people believe you shouldn't go over, acts as a BUFFER to lethality and percent armor shred. After Black Cleaver and maybe a last whisper Malphite would have about 400ish armor but he would still have about a 20% dmg reduction from physical dmg. To me, that is HUGE. So even if increasing armor doesn't give you more increased resistance to damage, it allows you to take roughly the same amount of damage from armor pen builds.

This doesn't take away from the fact that there are well balanced teams out there with mixed damage, making item diversity important in a well rounded build. This would only work when the other team is made of monkeys and they all go one damage type. or if their mage is feeding/focus mage down in team fights first idk.

Let me know your thoughts non-toxic LoL players <3

13 Comments

nm101012/14/2017, 8:25:44 PM8 votes

I thought you were actually going to be a gameplay poster that understood armor, I was only half disappointed. There is no diminishing return on armor, there is no 'buffer'. Every single point of armor increases your EHP (effective hp) to that type of damage by 1%.

100 armor = 100% more survivability

With 3k hp you would need 6000 raw physical damage to kill that target. This can also be expressed as a 50% reduction in damage taken.

300 armor = 300% more survivability

With 3k hp you would need 12000 raw physical damage to kill that target. This can also be expressed as a 75% reduction in damage taken.

500 armor = 500% more survivability

With 3k hp you would need 18000 raw physical damage to kill that target. This can also be expressed as a 83.33% reduction in damage taken.

Every 1 point of armor with 3k hp = 30 EHP, no diminishing returns EVER.

Eedat12/14/2017, 8:40:08 PM2 votes

But there is. In a mathematical sense, no there technically isn't. 1 armor gives 1% more effective HP indefinitely. However, in practice it has diminishing returns in sense that to achieve maximum efficiency you need a proper balance between HP and resistances. 500 armor with 1500 HP gives you 7500 effective HP. 300 armor with 3000 HP gives you 9000 effective HP.

General rule of thumb is you want 10 HP per 1 armor. If you have 300 armor, you want 3000 HP to maximize efficiency. If you're stacking Tabi + Frozen Heart + Iceborn + thornmail, you are comparatively getting diminishing returns. Slot space is an issue so if your build impairs your ability to build enough HP, you are in fact diminishing your effective HP

Don't forget % armor pen also makes armor less efficient as a stat as well

MagicFlyingLlama12/14/2017, 8:56:12 PM2 votes

There are diminishing returns.

The more armor you have, the more you lose to item 3071 item 3035

You also did not factor in magic or true damage.

TehNACHO12/14/2017, 8:17:14 PM1 votes

Ehh, close enough.

You could use the Effective HP Argument written on the wiki: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor

NotSpecialDude12/15/2017, 12:12:16 AM1 votes

Yes it does, but not in the literal sense.

Considering the limited item space and 5 other important stats to build (HP, MANA, AP, AD, MR) Spending all that gold on solely armor is indeed a waste. 200 armor or 800 armor, you'd still get bursted by any ap mage worth their rank.

PopcornBunni12/15/2017, 3:08:20 AM1 votes

50 Armor 1225 health is 1838 effective health against physical damage

100 Armor 1225 health is 2450 effective health

150 Armor 1225 health is 3063

200 1225 is 3675

But 150 Armor and 1600 health is 4000 effective health against physical

By adding just 375 health, you get more effective damage soaking than adding an additional 50 armor.

In other words, buying 1000 gold worth of health here gives you 325 effective extra health than buying the same gold worth of armor.

Yeah, armor DOES have diminishing returns, relative to the gold value of other stats. The same is true with health; stacking one without the other is extremely gold inefficient.

The gold value for the amount of health you want to have for a given resistance value is 750 +7.5(r), where r is the value of your resistances.

Another way to think of it is that, after 750 health, for every 50 resistance you want 375 extra health. If either value is below where it should be at a given point, you're better off buying the other, (depending on the damage comp of the enemy team).

Good benchmarks are: 2250 health, 200 resistances; 3000 health, 300 resistances; 3750 health, 400 resistances.

This is obviously a general view. If you're against a sufficient threat of true damage, you'll want a bit more health, and if you're against %health damage you'll want a little more of that damage's resistance type.

And if you're against MasterYi or Vayne you're fucked