What is Diminishing returns ?

elabyed25·6/26/2015, 9:05:36 PM·1 votes·626 views

I have heard of diminishing returns i never heard of it before even i play since season 1 i didn't hear of it before . I couldn't understand it but all i understood that Riot made undercover limits for all stats so you don't go off meta and stack 1 stat and get forced to play the same way they want all your life ! xD joking i just want to know what does it means because i get bored sometimes and i go stack 1 stat i just tried magic penetration and had 110 flat and 40% and was going to try something else but saw that thing

6 Comments

JW Sephiroth6/26/2015, 9:47:09 PM2 votes

The most common example of diminishing returns is armor and magic resistance. In this instance, the more you invest in a certain stat, the less each new stat increase gives. For example, you have 100 armor, which reduces physical damage by 50%. Let's say you buy thornmail and you now have 200 armor. Instead of the 50% doubling, it only increases to 75%. So instead of a direct relationship between the two, one is diminishing in comparison to the other.

On the other hand, the stat really isn't "diminishing" so much as being effective relative to your health. 100 armor means 50% damage, which is half damage. So 100 armor is like +100% health to physical damage. and 200 armor is 75% reduction, which means 200% of your effective health.

There are other types of diminishing returns, such as slows. In this case, the first slow is 100% effective, but any slow thereafter is only 50% effective.

As for penetration, it functions oppositely of armor and magic resistance. If they have little armor/mr, then flat penetration is exceptionally strong. for example, if the enemy has 30 MR, then they will reduce damage by 23%. 20 penetration means they have 10 MR, which reduces that to 16% reduction. That almost cut the reduction in half!

But say the enemy has 100 MR, for that 50% reduction, and you penetrate 20 again. That goes to 80 MR, which reduces it to 44%. That was only a 6% decrease...

I hope that helped!

Supp Hero6/26/2015, 10:24:51 PM2 votes

Diminishing returns mainly applies to armor/magic resistance, but it can be applied to other stats too.

It means that the first 50-100 armor or magic resistance is worth a lot, giving you reduced damage from physical/magic damage. But after that first 50-100, the gains you get from reduced damage decreases after a certain point. I don't know the exact numbers.

So you add a lot of armor, and damage is reduced a lot, but the higher you raise armor, the less benefit it gives after a certain point. 100 Armor may give 60% resistance, while 150 may only give 65%( only +5% for 50 more armor) (not exact numbers just example)

Matthias91196/27/2015, 5:45:39 PM2 votes

The only stat with real "diminishing returns" in League is movement speed. Past a certain amount of increase/decrease the change in MS is soft capped. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Movement_Speed

Attack speed is hard capped at 2.5 attacks/second. This is a different amount of AS depending on the champion you are playing.

CDR is hard capped at a total of 40%.

Armor/MR do not have diminishing returns. Each point is a 1% increase to your effective health against that type of damage. e.g. 100 armor is 50% damage reduction (+100% effective health against physical damage). 200 armor is 66% damage reduction (+200% effective health against physical damage). 300 armor is 75% damage reduction (+300% effective health against physical damage). The effective health gain is linear.

What does happen with armor/MR is that after a certain point it's more cost-effective to buy health than more resistance. But it's not really a "DR" (soft cap) like with movement speed where each point becomes less and less effective.

SomethingUnknown8/18/2015, 7:29:49 AM2 votes

Matthias9119 is right, the only diminishing return is on move speed. Everything else is always equally effective.

Eleshakai6/26/2015, 10:50:50 PM1 votes

Within LoL "Diminishing Returns" predominately applies to armor/mr as people said.

But it is basically the concept that the more of something you have or use, the less effective getting more of it becomes. Like the Armor/MR example that was provided above displayed.

Another example is in World of Warcraft, any crowd control effects apply diminishing returns. So if you stun someone for 4 seconds, then immediately try to stun them again for 4 seconds they'll only get stunned for 2 seconds. Next time, only 1 second. And then they'll be immune(at least that's the ratios it used to use, may have changed).