question about malady's effect

QFT and lovin' that extra MR.

I should note;

Magic pen cannot reduce MR below 0.

Only MR reduction can.

MR reduction is factore before Magic pen.

This means if your target has 30 MR and you have 25 MR reduction and 10 MPEN, they will have 0 MR, not -5.

If they have 30 MR and you have 35 MR reduction, then they will drop below 0 and have -5.

IF THIS IS NOT CORRECT, PLEASE INFORM. This is how I've been told it works.

I always thought MR pen/reduction worked just like armor pen/reduction. They can both reduce your MR below 0.


(It sure sounded betetr in my head. Oh well.)

Nope, to my understanding Penetration does not (Can't pen that which is not there)

Reduction does. (Reductuion etc)

MrP and ArP work exactly the same way, but they cannot penetrate resistances that aren't there; thus cannot make it go below 0.

Seeing what stuff can be obtained that give Reduction, it's totally dumb that Penetration is applied afterwards...

Is there even a case where you can really obtain some serious reduction below 0 ?
I mean without forcing a perfect champ setting and enemies that don't buy defense at all...

There are only 3 items that grant reduction, so you have to rely mainly on the champ itself, but in normal cases even if you manage to scrap a great amount of armor/resistance that way, the target's natural defense is normally enough to counter it.

Ofc Red effects the target itself granting your team the sam dmg boost, but that doesnt cut it.

If there was some more %-reduction you could use it to prevent the flat/percent apply-order from buttraping your stats, but seeing as it is they should've turned Red into Pen instead of dropping things like Dodge.

I bet you know all about that, don't you ?

Okay, to answer the question properly, things are applied in this order.

First, you apply percentage reduction. Percentage reductions from different sources are all applied multiplicatively, so if you have a 20% reduction and a 15% reduction (five stacks of Holy Fervor and first rank Bushwhack) you'll get a total of 32% reduction, not 35%.

Second, you apply flat reduction. Different flat reductions are applied additively, so if you have flat reduction from multiple sources (such as Fiddlesticks with an Abyssal Scepter) you can just add them together.

Third, you apply flat penetration. Different flat penetrations are applied additively, so if you have flat penetration from multiple sources (such as MPen runes and Sorcerer's Shoes) you can just add them together.

Fourth and finally, you apply percentage penetration. Percentage penetrations from different sources are applied multiplicatively, which is why having Void Staff and Arcane Knowledge gives a total of 46% MPen instead of 50%.

The first two, which directly reduce enemy resistance, can bring their resistances below zero. The second two only penetrate enemy resistance but cannot ever bring your enemy's effective resistance below zero; as Duff already put it, you can't penetrate what isn't there. But, to expand and mix his metaphor a little, you can have less than nothing.

To those who don't believe, just try using any source of flat MR reduction on the blue buff golem. Normally it has zero MR, so it'll be rapidly clear that reduction can bring resistances below zero. I've often used this as a trick to take blue buff faster as Morgana; wait for all five stacks of her W to be on the golem before hitting it with Q to get a 128.6% damage multiplier, just from timing. I'm sure there are more tricks like this, but they likely only exist in the jungle, where things have no MR, and I don't end up there often enough myself.

A Black Cleaver in a top+jungler+ad carry (here all 3 physical damage oriented) is monstruous. 45 flat armor reduction for eryone, even for that top and jungler that do not have (yet) arpen ?

Seems really solid

Yeah, but normally the only one who is able to buy BC is your AD carry.

Judging by the current meta: Top/jungler aren't fit to buy it in 95% of the cases and even not every bot champ will get it.

And if your team is really AD top + AD Jungle + AD carry bot the enemy will start buying armor and focus your AP caster.
Not to mention, if you dont buy BC as your 2nd/3rd item the others of your team will simply buy LW beforehand.