Hi there, it's Glizdka again.

So I've heard you know about my daily general guides series, and now you need my help again.
-Wise man, please tell me, how to make optimal defense fo cost ='(
-OK

How to build most cost efficent defense in situations you need to counter some troublesome enemies.
How to generally ballance HP and Armor/Magic Resistance.
Several extra facts.

This term was introduced by me in several of my guides before,
but it's very important part of the very game mechanics.



It means basically that each point of defense (armor/magic resistance) increases effective health by 1%
So if you have very high armor and low health it's like having high health and low armor.

Effective health is the amount of damage you need to take before you die



If you believe that after reaching some imaginary point armor becomes ineffective,
you should read my guide where I beat that myth.

Considering benefit/cost of basic items (as they give those stats purely unlike upgraded items),
I was able to count that:

Average armor/magic resistance cost lies somewhere around: 17 for a point,
Average health cost liest somewhere around: 2,6 for a point.

It means that armor/magic resist is basically around 6,5 times more expensive than health.
We want here to reach as much EHP (effective health) as possible for its cost.

Well well well...

If we consider costs of health and armor/mres. we can say, that for the same amount of gold,
we can buy either 1 armor/mres. or 6,5 health.

We want to find "sweet spot" for armor.
I used the method where I give different ratios between gold spent on health and on armor,
And apply them for several amounts of virtual gold spent.
Our "sweet spot" is the moment, when EHP stops growing, and gets lower if we change ratio.

Let's say, for spending 4000 gold on defense, the "sweet spot" is at 1000HP and 70Armor,
if we decided to buy more armor instead of HP or vice versa, we would get less EHP as a result.

The thing I realised is that there is no simple ratio between armor and health,
as it changes along the growing amount of health.
This is logical, because armor works better on high levels of health.
To be accurate - it starts being beneficial to buy ANY amount of armor only past 700 health.

Here I give table with "sweet spots" for 500 HP gaps.
Although I decided to give also "sweet spots" for 730HP, 800HP and 900HP.

Remember that these are approximate values.




Values above are for TOTAL HP/Armor/M.Res you should have,
including amounts you already have from basic stats, runes and masteries.

Those "sweet spots" values I gave you in previous chapter,
are most cost efficent ratios between armor/m.res. and health against ONE SOURCE OF DAMAGE.

For example if enemies have a lot of physical damage,
and you want to build as much defense for gold as possible.

It doesn't work so well against MIXED SOURCES OF DAMAGE.
In that case, you should split "sweet spot" between types of defense.

For example at 2000 HP you should have 210 armor if you want to defend only against physical attacks,
and you dont pay attention to m.resist.

But in case you actually care at least a little bit about that magic damage,
you can split that 210 on, say 120 armor and 80 m.res..

Keep in mind enemies have flat armor/m.res. penetration from runes/masteries (usually around 30).
If you want to counter that penetration,
just simply increase you armor/m.res. by amount of penetration you predict they have.

Although if they bought percentage penetration ( Last Whisper, Void Staff),
then it decreases armor efficency around 2 times.
That means you should buy 2 times LESS armor/m.res. in that situation,
(because then buying health is 2 times more efficent).

Note that sometimes you face enemies with True Damage ( Vayne, Olaf etc.).
In such a situation pure health matters more than armor/magic resist.

Keep in mind that your life regeneration forms (Lifesteal, Heals, Spellvamp, Health per 5 sec.),
will benefit from your high armor/magic resistance,
as each health point regenerated will be more effective, and will need more damage to be taken away.
Armor/M.Resist. matters more in cases you have high health regeneration.

---

-I think that this is all about the optimal ratio between armor and health.
Hope you learned here something useful at your way on League of Legends.
-Yes Sensei, thank you.
-Lol, np.



If you find my guide informative, it helped you or you just like it - please don't forget to rate it.
Litt'e credit: JhoiJhoi's guide to making a guide, that helped me A LOT.