Runes: AD vs. Arm Pen
Hokay, so. Armor pen basically just gives you AD because you penetrate armor thus dealing more dmg, effectively same as adding more AD, so is there any difference between taking AD runes or Arm Pen runes?
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AD runes are better early game in most scenarios, as the enemy has yet to buy any armor items. However, they quickly become obsolete due to the minuscule amount of AD they do grant. (Equivalent of 1 to 2 long swords in total)
Armor Pen Runes on the other hand are not that useful prior to the enemy building armor since the percentage penetrated is so small. However, they stay relevant throughout the game since it is %pen, and they outscale flat AD runes.
ADCs typically get AD marks to aid their CS. Melee champions with high base AD should take Armor pen marks instead. (ie. Zed)
TL:DR,
Low base AD, late game champion? (ADCs, Yasuo, etc.) AD runes High base AD champion? (ie. Zed), Armor pen runes.
Of course, the difference isn't that significant with items involved. Choose the one you feel more comfortable with.
arpen kinda reduces the effecktive hitpoints of ur enemy( u can also see it as amping all ur physical damage) and therfore works well with bursty all-in patterns.(the effecltive hitpoints vs physical damage is equal to health+1*(armor/100)).
Tha means a target with 1000hp and 50 armor got 1500 effecltive health. if u have 20 arpen, u reduce that to 1000hp+30armoe, so only 1300hp effecktive health. That means if u can get more than 200 damage over full length of the fight out of X ad, then X ad is more effecktive than 20 arpen.
that also means arpen is more effecktive vs low armor. 20 arpen vs a 20 armor 1k hp target reduces effecktive hp from 1200 to 1000, thats a los of ~16,6% 20 arpen vs a 100 armor 1k hp target reduces effecktive hp from 2000 to 1800, thats a los of 10%
As a rule of thump, high basedamage, low ratios -> arpen, low base good ratios -> ad also, the more ad(or overall damage) u already have, the more effecktive arpen is, and the more arpen u already have, the more effecktive raw physical damge becomes, so overall u need to find a good balance between pen and raw stats to maximize ur damage.
Yes, armor pen isn't free AD, it specifically removes armor. Only relevant when we're talking about physical damage. But any AD scaling abilities that don't deal damage or deal magic/true damage don't benefit off of armor pen.
Armor pen for physical damage typically scales better into late game (or on abilities that have low/no AD scaling but great base physical damage). Flat AD is stronger for early game.
depends partly on the scaling on your abilities. an example where AD is unanimously better than penetration would be riven who has a shield that scales with total ad so it gives you both offensive and defensive stats to build flat ad in your rune page.
minions and monsters dont have armor anymore so it reduces your waveclear to take armor pen. it can make laning tougher in matchups where you have to fight over lane dominance so it's especially advised to take flat AD (or attack speed) in bot lane as a marksman so you can shove.
jayce and zed can take penetration easily, on the other hand, since they have innately good waveclear and %damage abilities.
a jungler generally wants AD or attack speed (attack speed scales really well with gift of heavy hands for early clear and the on-hit from machete)