Thornmail


Item

Thornmail

Total Price: 2200

Recipe Price: 1180


100 Armor. UNIQUE Passive: On being hit by standard attacks, returns 30% of damage taken before armor as magic damage. A minimum of 15 damage must be received.



Comments
Quote | PM | +Rep
by BBerger » August 27, 2011 4:38am | Report

A little insight on this item:

It's counterproductive against itself. It reduces the damage you take, and of that damage you only fire back 30% as magic damage. This is useless on mages who wish to survive against attack damage carries, as they would likely already have invested in magic resist.

Superior (most of the times) items are Frozen Heart or Randuin's Omen, or Zhonya's Hourglass if you are a mage. Why? Because they are better at preventing the phsyical damage taken through their slow, and can't be countered by pure lifesteal.

Though it's your choice to take Thornmail, it's only viable against a glass-cannon setup.

Edit: I was unaware that the damage reflected is before damage migation, making this item a lot stronger on pure tanks. Though for any champion that does not have the skillset/health availible, any of previous mentioned items might still be worthwhile. Thank you for the info.

BBerger's Forum Avatar
BBerger
Notable (30)

Posts: 91
Joined: 2010-10-22
IGN: BBerger
Quote | PM | +Rep
by Kaemonarch » August 28, 2011 9:08am | Report

Not really BBerger...
Thornmail is in fact really imba, and it's not counterproductive, but all the way arround.

It does return the 30% of the damage before the damage mitigation (true story) and that is what makes it (imo) too hard to counter for ADs (specially on Tanks) and really hard to counter with lifesteal.

An example:
I'm Tryndamere, and I hit someone with Thormail for a 1.000 Raw Crit.
Thormail returns then to me 30% of that damage (300 damage) as Magic damage.
Then, the guy wearing Thormail reduces (for example) 50% of physical damage with his armor value, so I'm really only hitting him for 500 damage, while he returns 300 damage to me.
If I had 25% of lifesteal (a full charged Bloodthirster for example), I would be healing 25% of the 500 efective damage, healing back 125 HP; still getting efectively hurt 175 for every 500 damage I'm doing to that guy.

The real problem starts with tanks (or Armor Stacking people).
If my 1.000 damage was reduced by 75% by a Thornmail wearer; I would be making 250 damage (healing only 62 with a big 25% lifestealing ammount) for every 1.000 Raw Crit, while getting hurted by 300 Magic Damage.
Meaning that it costs me 238 HP to hurt 250 HP to a tank that has more HP than I do, even taking Lifestealing into account.

However, it's truth that the Magic Damage reflected can be reduced using Magic Resist (not counted on the examples) or that you can make a lower % of your total damage being reflected with Armor Penetration; but Thornmail is not a usless as you seem to think; and it's in fact more powerfull the most Armor/HP you have (and the wearer Magic Penetration helps; reason why Mordekaiser with MagicPen Boots/Scepter and Thornmail is so hard, also his shield reflects damage as if he was getting hit normally).

So it's not counterproductive against itself. You return the same damage to the attacker (no matter what Armor you have; since returns the freaking Raw Damage); and then reduces the damage by increasing your armor.
Imo, this item should be changed to return 50% of the real damage dealt or something like that; if a good tank gets it, AD can only hurt him (without suiciding) using a high combo of Lifesteal, Magic Resist and Armor Penetration (Last Whisker). Too expensive to counter an item that also gives survibality via increasing armor.

Kaemonarch's Forum Avatar
Kaemonarch
Unremarkable (2)

Posts: 1
Joined: 2011-08-28
Quote | PM | +Rep
by nifflo » December 21, 2011 12:55am | Report

If I stack 2 Thornmail will I return 60% of the raw damage?

nifflo's Forum Avatar
nifflo
Unremarkable (2)

Posts: 29
Joined: 2011-12-07
IGN: nifflo on NA
Quote | PM | +Rep
by PsiGuard » December 21, 2011 1:25am | Report

nifflo wrote:

If I stack 2 Thornmail will I return 60% of the raw damage?

No.

That's why it says "UNIQUE PASSIVE." Unique passives and actives on items do not stack with each other.


Thanks to Xiaowiriamu for the sig!
PsiGuard's Forum Avatar
PsiGuard
<Moderator>
Renowned (698)

Posts: 5185
Joined: 2011-06-26
IGN: PsiGuard on NA
View My Blog
Quote | PM | +Rep
by Teyso » November 4, 2012 11:19am | Report

Does this return damage from Vayne's Silver Bolts?


If this comment was helpful, consider +rep-ing me :)

If I reviewed your guide it would be nice of you to review / vote on my Maokai guide, my Dominion guide or my Maokai Dominion Guide. ^_^
Teyso's Forum Avatar
Teyso
Notable (55)

Posts: 230
Joined: 2011-09-29
IGN: Teys0 on NA
Quote | PM | +Rep
by The Death Within » December 10, 2012 12:06pm | Report

Teyso wrote:

Does this return damage from Vayne's Silver Bolts?


yes, even though Vayne's Silver Bolts does 4/5/6/7/8% of the target's maximum health as bonus true damage and Thornmails dictates that it returns 30% of damage taken before armor as magic damage. True damage is still damage inflicted to the enemy, meaning the enemy will receive 30% of that true damage done too since it was done by a standard attack.

The Death Within's Forum Avatar
The Death Within

Posts: 1
Joined: 2012-12-10
Quote | PM | +Rep
by mathbrook » February 4, 2013 6:25pm | Report

I only see this working on Rammus since it stacks with his Defensive Ball Curl


( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
mathbrook's Forum Avatar
mathbrook
Unremarkable (1)

Posts: 12
Joined: 2013-01-29
IGN: Mathbrook on NA

Quick Reply


Please log in or register to comment!