A solution to % Penetration

iPooUnicorns·Feb 17, 2014·7 votes·1,051 views

As it is right now, Void Staff and Last Whisper are probably the highest damage spike items in the game against all types of enemies, even early in the game, or against enemies with little resistances, they still offer huge amounts of damage for a very low cost. The solution? Make them scale.

Last Whisper:
40 AD
Unique Passive: Gives 20% + (.1 * Bonus AD )% Armor Penetration

Void Staff:
70 AP
Unique Passive: Gives 20% + (.05 * AP)% Magic Penetration

The numbers are not perfect but I think it's a good starting point. It reduces the effectiveness of rushing these items and getting huge power spikes. It also reduces the power of tanks buying only a void staff or last whisper but still being able to do large amounts of damage thanks to high bases. This also helps counter mega tanks end game, as it allows for champions that build high amounts of AD or AP to have more penetration. All in all it really helps with the idea of, the bigger your offensive numbers, the bigger your damage will be.

15 Comments

JackAquaFeb 17, 20142 votes

I do think they should scale, but not necessarily with AD and AP.

Goth SkunkFeb 17, 20141 votes

Maybe with multiple attacks?

LightEchoFeb 18, 20141 votes

So what then level maybe? Although that has other concerns

JackAquaFeb 18, 20141 votes

Maybe with time in battle. The main reason penetration is so OP, is because Tanks can easily and quickly be shred down to nothing.
Assasins who have one or two too many kills (not actually fed, bit still healthy) can insta-burst tank characters and make them useless, except for 2 seconds CC on most champions.
But if you made penetration ramp up over time in battle, then you'll actually have to fight against Tanks, and then Tanks will actually be able to do what they're supposed to do -> Use their spell set more than once before dying.

Pollyanna WrightFeb 17, 20141 votes

Seems like it hurts bruisers/tanks the most with that change.

Renekton Sometimes I'll grab LW as my only damage item on him but that wouldn't be an option anymore.

Don't like it personally.

iPooUnicornsFeb 17, 20143 votes

I think this would actually be a change for the better, personally I don't like tank/bruisers grabbing only a last whisper and still doing large amounts of damage. It would be a nice power check, stopping super tanks from being able to destroy ADCs.

Pollyanna WrightFeb 17, 20141 votes

The only reason it does that is because ADC's don't have HP to back up their armor. GA only gives armor/mr and not HP which means armor pen is going to be more effective against them.

There's also the fact that armor will multiply the effectiveness of sustain on them. It's important that a tank can at least have a chance to kill a carry. If the carry drain tanks the actual tank then you have more problems.

iPooUnicornsFeb 17, 20141 votes

This wouldn't outright shutdown a tank's ability to kill carries, 24% (30% with masteries) pen is still pretty significant vs carries.

Pollyanna WrightFeb 17, 20142 votes

They don't get armor pen from masteries. Since you know, they are a tank and don't go farther then 9 in offense.

It would also jack with the cost efficiency of the weapon so either it's painful to get for a tank or godly for people building damage.

OceanBIuesFeb 18, 20141 votes

eh Bruiser's are a bit imbalanced atm in my opinion they could use an indirect nerf of sorts

Teen IdleFeb 18, 20141 votes

Smart idea, I think this could really work :D

IlyaK1986Feb 18, 20141 votes

So now if you have an AD mid (meaning most likely, no significant sources of AP damage), you're absolutely screwed over if the other team decides to rush a Randuin's, since rushing Last Whisper would be 25% less effective?

GG Yasuo, Zed, Talon, Riven, and all other AD mid-laners who rush LW after their first big damage item.

Pollyanna WrightFeb 18, 20141 votes

You understand the numbers are horribly unbalanced.

BT+LW would give you 34% pen and get 10+ damage more and you are surpassing how much armor pen it gave before the change.

I don't like this change. Only hurts tanks/bruisers.

KosmicosisFeb 18, 20141 votes

"I don't like this change. Only hurts tanks/bruisers."

That's the point. They should be getting item 3071 anyway.

Fulminous EdgeFeb 19, 20141 votes

What if we simply put a cap on the amount of MR/AR these items can shred? For example; Last Whisper and Void Staff % Penetration cannot exceed Base Armor or MR. These items were designed to give carries a way to deal with resistance stacked tanks in mid to late game, not an auto 2nd item after DFG/IE/BT or w/e.

So if a tank class has 80 Base armor, the tank will always have a minumum of 80 armor against carries with LW.