Some funny things I noticed about Armor Penetration

TehNACHO·Jan 3, 2015·6 votes·1,275 views

So, weird thing about Flat Penetration vs Percentage Penetration, Flat Penetration is stronger against targets with less resistances whereas Percentage Penetration is stronger against targets with more resistances. I've graphed out an example from the damage multipliers of Youmuu's Ghostblade and the Last Whisper. In short, the purple line represents Youmuu's Ghostblade, Flat Penetration, while the blue line represents Last Whisper, Percentage based penetration. X is how much armor the target in question has whereas Y is the damage modifier.

I wanted to point this out to help the players - especially Top Laners - who don't know what to do in a losing lane when their opponent buys, for example, a . Many (Not all, but enough to make me worry) players seem to have built this misconception around Armor Penetration, specifically that any and all Armor Penetration straight up negates Armor. It's really not like that; damage from Flat Penetration falls off just as hard as not having Flat Penetration in the first place the more you build armor. In other words, for those of you faltering against enemies building a lot of Flat Penetration, don't panic. Just build the Armor or Magic Resist you think you would need otherwise; they're still just as helpful as ever against enemies who invest Flat Penetration. On a related note, for those players out there who want to snowball lanes through raw damage, and your opponent refuses to build any resistances towards your damage type, abuse this by buying Flat Penetration.

There was a second thing I noticed about Armor Penetration, but I realized that my commentary on it was more of a "Gameplay and Balance" sort of thing to talk about. If you want to see this through, please check out the other half of this thread.

10 Comments

ImHerVoiceJan 3, 20155 votes

flat penetration is good pre 100 armor. Full penetration is good post 100 armor.

Both are broken. Nerf penetration.

TehNACHOJan 3, 20152 votes

Ehh, not really.

Void Staff and Last Whisper are, regrettably, still extremely gold efficient against enemies below even 80 armor.

Part 2 comments on this.

ImHerVoiceJan 3, 20151 votes

they're broken, I don't have to talk about it.

Chaos OpenJan 4, 20151 votes

There are no full penetration items...

You forget that void staff is based on a percentage. 35% magic penn, or it completely negates 35% of whatever amount of MR you have.

Okay, lets say the opponent has stacked MR items, if they have 100 MR then your theoretical damage is cut in half(200 more MR and it's cut in half again), which is a rather large amount to take off. But, thanks to void staff, you get 25% of your damage back. But, if the person has less MR then it becomes less effective Someone who didn't buy any MR items and stuck with the stock 30 MR that all champs have, it will only lower by 10 MR. But 30 MR isn't taking very much damage away.

The void staff and last whisper are designed to cut through champs stacking Armor or MR which would have reduced you to throwing peas at them but it hardly effects people who aren't stacking MR or armor. Imagine taking on a tank with a shit-ton of health and 200MR and you are only doing 25% of your damage.

Also, keep in mind that DFG's passive is applied before MR, so if the above scenario occurs, and you use DFG your ability will dp 25% of it's listed damage plus another 20% which equals 30% of the damage listed. So, if someone had 200 MR and lux tried to ult them with an ult listed as doing 600 damage, after using DFG her ult is only going to do 180 damage. So, she does 15% of their max health and another 180 damage to a tank that might have over 4,000 HP. How is that broken?

ImHerVoiceJan 4, 20151 votes

i know what the fuck it means. Thank you captain obvious.

Chaos OpenJan 5, 20151 votes

You say that, but your previous comments suggest otherwise.

DeusVultJan 3, 20153 votes

and double penetration is good on akali

;)

ccseancc143Jan 3, 20151 votes

Thats why I take armor pen runes on Talon. lvl 6 when i buy brutalizer I have 29 armor pen+6%, Percent armor pen gets calculated first, and the typical midlaner has 45 armor lvl 6 if they haven't bought any armor items. 6% of 45 is 3. so 42-29=13. Pretty much how I win lane everytime as Talon. People dont understand how broken armor pen is. lvl 6 basically you have like minion armor. Its hilarious watching people freak out when I 1 shot them lvl 6.

FantasySniperJan 5, 20151 votes

Common misconception: flat penetration never falters in effectiveness, its impact just becomes less noticeable as they get more resistances, and then % penetration takes over.

No matter if the guy has 20 or 200 armor, a Brutalizer will always remove 10% bonus physical health, while Last Whisper becomes more effective in the latter case.

TehNACHOJan 5, 20151 votes

I was speaking relative to % pen.

This is why I later more or less retcon my statement by saying "damage from Flat Penetration falls off just as hard as not having Flat Penetration in the first place the more you build armor" and "Just build the Armor or Magic Resist you think you would need otherwise; they're still just as helpful as ever against enemies who invest Flat Penetration.".