League of Legends - F2P MOBA (like DOTA) part 2

[ImpulsE69]

I know. It was extreme laziness. I was hoping that it would be obvious due to Rivens AD only nature.

Screw that I'm going pure AP Riven from here forward. You sold me.

Humble - that is an interesting note. What about certain junglers? I tend to take AS/ArPen on any jungler/AD chars but from what you are saying just skip ArPen all together? I was always under the impression runes really only help low level because their values don't scale all that great compared to items later, but if they don't even help early game then they are almost pointless on most chars.

Does this also include MPen runes?

 

[NikolaeVarius]

I have to disagree with you. Ar Pen is useful because it is such an expensive stat to come across, and yet especially at lower levels, its so damn effective, because each point of armor it is reducing by is a LOT of actual percentage points. This means that, AD, which is extremely easy to come across, is much much more effective early on because the Ar Pen is multiplicatively increasing damage per point of AD.

ArPen is of limited usefulness in the jungle as the max armor is around..20 I think.

 

[HumblePie]

Screw that I'm going pure AP Riven from here forward. You sold me.

Humble - that is an interesting note. What about certain junglers? I tend to take AS/ArPen on any jungler/AD chars but from what you are saying just skip ArPen all together? I was always under the impression runes really only help low level because their values don't scale all that great compared to items later, but if they don't even help early game then they are almost pointless on most chars.

Does this also include MPen runes?

I'll have to do the numbers out for you guys when I get home. Basically it comes down to the fact that AD heroes typically start with low AD that the percentage of increased damage from ArPen is not all that much. If you start with 53 AD (average starting AD of range AD champs) and get 10% increased damage from ArPen (about average damage increase) you only get 5.3 extra damage per auto attack. Compared that with just straight 15 AD from AD quints and you will why it's just not as good.

Also, late game the damage increases for gold is much more significant for attackspeed and crit.

Basically once you start reaching 200 AD on an AD based champ you don't need to focus on AD anymore. It's cost prohibitive for the gold investment for the extra damage at that time. Going from 0.7 ASPD to 1.4 ASPD is doubling your damage literally and usually much more cost effective after reaching 200 AD. Same thing with crit. Upping crit chance closer to 70%+ is going to give out way more damage in the end. Finally crit damage is another stat that is underutilized. Only one item in the game gives it which is Infinity edge. Which is why that item is the most cost effective item for AD champs for increasing damage output. Crit damage runes and the 10% from the one mastery point is all that it left to increase that damage output.

 

[redrider4life4]

I'll have to do the numbers out for you guys when I get home. Basically it comes down to the fact that AD heroes typically start with low AD that the percentage of increased damage from ArPen is not all that much. If you start with 53 AD (average starting AD of range AD champs) and get 10% increased damage from ArPen (about average damage increase) you only get 5.3 extra damage per auto attack. Compared that with just straight 15 AD from AD quints and you will why it's just not as good.

Also, late game the damage increases for gold is much more significant for attackspeed and crit.

Basically once you start reaching 200 AD on an AD based champ you don't need to focus on AD anymore. It's cost prohibitive for the gold investment for the extra damage at that time. Going from 0.7 ASPD to 1.4 ASPD is doubling your damage literally and usually much more cost effective after reaching 200 AD. Same thing with crit. Upping crit chance closer to 70%+ is going to give out way more damage in the end. Finally crit damage is another stat that is underutilized. Only one item in the game gives it which is Infinity edge. Which is why that item is the most cost effective item for AD champs for increasing damage output. Crit damage runes and the 10% from the one mastery point is all that it left to increase that damage output.

Armor Pen is the most effective stat in the game and it only gets better the more armor the other team has. There is a reason that every single AD carry uses armor pen marks at high levels of play.

Crit has been proven in every game to have diminishing returns over 50% and attack speed is only doubling your dmg if you stay stll which doesn't happen all that often. Often times you will get 1-2 auto-attacks off then have to move out. You want a blend of everything is what it comes down too.

A lot of guys will build last whisper as their 2nd or 3rd ad item, I see quite a few hard AD carries like Ashe/Trist build IE then LW to maximize dmg output.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Armor Pen is the most effective stat in the game and it only gets better the more armor the other team has. There is a reason that every single AD carry uses armor pen marks at high levels of play.

Crit has been proven in every game to have diminishing returns over 50% and attack speed is only doubling your dmg if you stay stll which doesn't happen all that often. Often times you will get 1-2 auto-attacks off then have to move out. You want a blend of everything is what it comes down too.

A lot of guys will build last whisper as their 2nd or 3rd ad item, I see quite a few hard AD carries like Ashe/Trist build IE then LW to maximize dmg output.

In the past yes, everyone used armor pen marks and usually quints to basically deal full damage up to level 5-6 in lane. Now however after much math crafting and laziness in last hitting/wanting more efficient last hits; most top tier players will recommend that you get flat AD marks and quints instead as you get roughly +15 at level 1 from that. So that's 15 extra damage her hit minus whatever the target's armor negates (which for lane creep is 0) and not to mention most ranged AD carries have something that scales off AD, not all but most.

Also I wouldn't normally grab a LW that early with a carry like Tristana, aside from 1 or maybe 2 targets the math just doesn't justify the cost of the item when you could invest slightly more and see MUCH larger returns from something like a Black Cleaver or PD.

 

[Firsttime]

Apen just isn't as useful with new masteries. You get 10% and 6 from those with most AD heroes, then last whisper or Ghostblade late game. The AD you get instead makes last hitting easy.

Currently, I think most top players use AD runes, not Apen.

 

[kyonu]

Apen just isn't as useful with new masteries. You get 10% and 6 from those with most AD heroes, then last whisper or Ghostblade late game. The AD you get instead makes last hitting easy.

Currently, I think most top players use AD runes, not Apen.

I thought that you did more % damage with ArPen over AD? Doesn't 1 point in armor negate more than 1 point of damage?

 

[Chiropteran]

I thought that you did more % damage with ArPen over AD? Doesn't 1 point in armor negate more than 1 point of damage?

It's a very complex relationship.

At the lowest armor values, where extra armor penetration is wasted, damage is better.

At the best possible case, where your armor penetration puts the target at exactly 0 armor, it's best by far.

At cases where your armor penetration reduces armor significantly (by half or more), it also edges out damage mostly.

At cases where armor is very high in relation to your penetration value, damage is better, mostly, but it depends on your total damage. Higher total damage values penetration more, lower values damage more.

BUT- in that last case of very high armor values, last whisper is the item to build, which diminishes the value of your armor penetration.

Then there are your item builds to consider, for example if your build includes wit's end (magic damage), or madred's bloodraxzor, armor penetration is less valuable since some of your damage is magic. And if you are building brutalizer and black cleaver, armor penetration is often superior as those sort of builds can push non-armor stacking champions down to 0 armor.


So to answer your question: it depends.

 

[Firsttime]

AD helps too much with last hitting as well to take Apen.

10% and 6 Apen from masteries is enough till LW.

 

[krnmastersgt]

The calculation is pretty simple, armor damage mitigation is:
total armor/(total armor + 100) as a percentage of damage mitigated, hence the diminishing returns on it.

But the reason ArPen was used for a long time on AD carries is you'd hit roughly 31 ArPen most of the time, most champions from just leveling will take full damage from your physical attacks until around 5-7 depending on the champion. That and most champs cap out around 70 armor so the 30 flat penetration does boost damage a decent amount.

As to why the meta shifted into flat AD instead, more ranged AD carries with AD scaling abilities. Another reason is it made last hitting much much easier, as well as random auto attack harass relatively the same in strength as flat ArPen.

 

[HumblePie]

say for example you Graves

51 Ad with 3.1 AD per level

At level 1 with no additional items you have a whopping 54 AD.


With 3 quints and 9 marks of desolation you get 25 armor pen. Lets take a graves on graves example. Graves starts with 15 armor base and 3.2 per level so 18 armor at level 1.

18 armor - 25 pen is -7. So you get a bonus with auto attacks against a level 1 graves with no armor of 0.06% damage. This makes the effective hit of graves go from 54 damage to 57.24 damage per auto attack.

So a level 1 graves with all desolation quints and marks is going to hit another level 1 graves for 57.24 damage per auto attack. Not counting any items or runes.

Now pure AD marks and quints at level one gives just over 15 AD. The game rounds up to 70 AD for a starting graves, but lets stick with 69 and round down instead. So a graves with 69 AD auto attacking another graves with 18 armor is going to hit for 58.65 damage per auto attack.

So in reality, full AD versus full ArPen the AD at level 1 is going to hit for more damage. almost 2 more points. But the bigger benefit is that the higher AD graves will hit for more with all his abilities ANd have an easier time last hitting. Both of those factors are HUGE when it comes to winning the lane sooner.

ArPen is just not worth it early on compared to pure AD. Less damage (not by much but less), harder to last hit, and less scaling damage on abilities most of the time.

In other words, don't bother with ArPen for AD champs. Stick with pure AD. Except in some circumstances where going crit % chance is actually better for some champs. 14% crit chance is nothing to sneeze at.

 

[Maleficus]

nice to read this after i spent my 7k on ArP quints etc

 

[Firsttime]

Haha. I own almost every useful rune in this game here is the list of runes I think everyone should have:

Reds: AS, AD, Mpen, Armour
Yellows: Armor, Gold
Blues: MR, Scaling AP, Scaling MR (just cause they're so cheap)
Quints: MOVESPEED (these are the single most important runes in the game to have IMO unless all you play is ranged AD), AS, AD, Gold

AS runes are essential for jungling, MR related blue are too cheap and good to not have both kinds. You will never regret having MS quints, everyone gets better with them. AD helps with ranged bot and a lot of tops. Gold generation for supports. Typically to change a rune page you're swapping Reds and Quints, it's rare to use something other then MR blue and Armor yellows.

 

[Fallengod]

I honestly dont hear to many experienced people say to get MS quints. They have a very minimal effect. I think there are far more useful things to get than movement speed..

Also, regarding above posts. Its always been a toss up between AD/Apen and AP/Mpen. One helps early game, and the other helps late game. Personally, most people usually get Apen/Mpen. Why? Because if you do not win your lane out early and dominate, the extra AD does nothing for mid/late game where as Apen/Mpen does. Its far more useful to have higher Apen/Mpen imo. You may do less damage at lvl 5 and below, but as soon as you get to like lvl 6+ and people start buying stuff, Apen/Mpen do more for you.

 

[0___________0]

I run AD marks and quints and my AD carries. I'm not a great last hitter, which is the main reason why I take them. I'm not too concerned with loosing an insignificant amount of damage late game, I'll have a last whisper or black cleaver. I want that extra 25 CS I wouldn't normally get.

I think movement quints are extremely useful on certain champs, like AP Kog, I saw Crs Nyjacky run them on him, since he lacks an escape. But I wouldn't run them on everyone.

For anyone who plays Kennen, do you run energy per 5 per lvl seals on him? And what about spell vamp quints?

 

[Firsttime]

I have an energy regen set of seals, mixed scaling/flat. They're expensive as fuck and I don't think I would recommend them unless you have IP burning a hole if your pocket. I also have the spellvamp quints and they are solid. The nerfs to Wota though hurt spellvamp builds a lot, having 49% spellvamp at 15 minutes with a double wota rush team was imba. I've swapped my spellvamp quints for Mpen quints. Kennen makes good use of the Mpen with his high base damage and shitty scaling. His escape lets you get away without MS quints. I think most mids without natural escapes need MS quints more then 6 Mpen or 15 AP though.

 

[ImpulsE69]

For the love of god why haven't they implemented the easy add of "remember password" so that it just takes you to the main screen rather than the clickfest you must do to rejoin a game??

Minor but very annoying thing when you randomly get dc'd due to their servers.

That being said, why can you only adjust things like video properties within the actual game?

 

[0___________0]

Well I just started in February, so I'm dirt poor. I guess I'll run mpen, try and use it as a general page for most of my mids, until I accumulate some IP.

My guess as to why you can only change graphics settings in game? Might be Adobe Air, I dunno. Maybe the devs just thought it wasn't necessary, but that's pretty stupid, I spent a while trying to find the options in the client...

 

[Fallengod]

You will learn there are lots of things that could be done easier and more efficiency for the user..... I dont know why they dont have a remember password either. Fairly stupid. Its how they roll.

 

[crownjules]

Lots of games don't do that nowadays for security reasons. They want to make sure it's the user who knows the password to the account and not someone else who might cause trouble. LOTRO also has no password save feature.

 

[zebano]

nice to read this after i spent my 7k on ArP quints etc

I still like ArPen quints + marks, especially on champs where you can effectively use a black cleaver which I think is a seriously underrated item if you can get 3 stacks on your enemies reliably. It's also the cheapest of the 3 BF items so I'll rush it occasionally on Kog or Corki who have additional armor shredding skills to really amplify the effect.

 

[zebano]

I honestly dont hear to many experienced people say to get MS quints. They have a very minimal effect. I think there are far more useful things to get than movement speed..

Also, regarding above posts. Its always been a toss up between AD/Apen and AP/Mpen. One helps early game, and the other helps late game. Personally, most people usually get Apen/Mpen. Why? Because if you do not win your lane out early and dominate, the extra AD does nothing for mid/late game where as Apen/Mpen does. Its far more useful to have higher Apen/Mpen imo. You may do less damage at lvl 5 and below, but as soon as you get to like lvl 6+ and people start buying stuff, Apen/Mpen do more for you.

The MS quints are huge on some champs, especially at early levels. That said I find them best on short range casters (Ryze, Vlad though he has better options, Cassiopia, and even Annie) and junglers (Udyr, Mundo, Shyvana).

 

[HumblePie]

Just to put in about late game and damage with regards to ArPen and AD runes lets draw out the comparison.

Using the example of Graves versus Graves. Let's use level 18 as an example. No extra armor bought and just straight AD items. Graves at level 18 is going to have a base of 72.6 armor which is 42% damage reduction.

Graves 1 with 200 AD versus armor of 72.6 / 172.6 = 42% reduction. He's going to hit with a normal hit for 116.

Graves 2 with 185 AD but 25 ArPen is going against another graves armor at 72.6 - 25 = 47.6, 47.6 / 147.6 = 33% reduction. so a normal hit is going to be 124.

That's 8 more points of damage per hit. Not a whole lot to sneeze about. Now let's toss in a last whisperer into the mix.

That drops the base armor of graves if both have that item to 43.56. Graves 1 will have 200 ad versus 30% reduction, and graves 2 will have 185 AD versus 15.6% reduction. So a 140 hit for graves 1 and a 156 hit for graves 2. The flat armor helps a bunch on a "soft" target after LW is used.

Now lets go against a hypothetical hard target of 300 armor. LW reduces that down to 180 armor. Graves 1 will do 72 damage and graves 2 does 72.15 damage with an extra 25 flat ArPen.

So soft targets the flat armor does more against, but against hard targets or anyone that builds any armor at all, the flat ArPen just doesn't do much more over the straight AD. Mainly because of how armor scaling damage reduction works.

So if you are going against a team of squishies the ArPen might be to your advantage. However, most teams are full of bruisers as tanky DPS is a common meta still. ArPen just doesn't make that much of a difference for runes against hard targets. And really, against a "soft" target do you really need 8-15 points of extra damage per hit to kill a squishie late game with an AD carry?

To me, the benefits of starting with a higher AD over ArPen just is better. Yes late game the ArPen will have a more dramatic effect with higher AD to work on. But higher levels of armor make that small bonus negligible. The ability to last hit easier in my opinion early on FAR outweigh that extra insignificant damage you may have later in the game.



Now Magic Pen on the other hand is HUGE because AP casters are able to achieve high level of AP and most champs don't stack MR as often as Armor. On top of that, most champs don't scale MR as they level which leaves them with the base of 30 MR if they don't buy MR in game. High AP + low MR target means that Magic Pen will be that much more effective.


So there you have it. Both a high and low level comparison of flat AD runes versus ArPen runes.

 

[HumblePie]

I still like ArPen quints + marks, especially on champs where you can effectively use a black cleaver which I think is a seriously underrated item if you can get 3 stacks on your enemies reliably. It's also the cheapest of the 3 BF items so I'll rush it occasionally on Kog or Corki who have additional armor shredding skills to really amplify the effect.

Meh, again ArPen runes don't add that much damage throughout the game. A few points extra in early levels, and basically nothing against "hard" armored targets. You get more out of flat ArPen against squishie targets, but you really don't need armor pen against those in the first place.

BC is a great item though for the right champs. Same with Ghostblade and Last whisperer. Still if I was going to rush an Armor Pen item it would be Last Whisperer.

 

[HumblePie]

And to anyone who spectated my games this weekend, hope you enjoyed watching how I got trolled in damn near every one of them. AFKer's, massive feeders, and just massive trolls in damn near every game. So annoying going a score like 7/1 only to end up 16/8 but still losing. That kind of crap is just.. grrr.