Thanks Zesius. There was a point I misunderstood Challenging Smite while I was working on my guide (don't ask me how I got it that wrong). After figuring it out, I forgot to change those numbers. Appreciate your comment.

Also i want to add challenging smite does not do damage on hit. IT does damage over time and only refreshes the timer on hit. So saying it can do 1,500 true damage is way over.

I appreciate your attention to these details. If you find anything else, feel free to say. I overlooked that. I had been calculating 100 less armor by accident.

I think I see what's wrong with the Black Cleaver.

This must be wrong:



The target has armor of 200, even at -30% armor reduction it has armor of 140. If armor is 140, physical damage received is reduced to (100 / 240) of damage dealt. So the physical damage received cannot be more than 2536.

(It may be your other calculations after resistances are wrong in a similar way?)

All good, give whatever credit you think is appropriate.

My general opinion: damage calculations are a useful tool when comparing one item with another item, only if the calculation is 100% accurate.

On enemy champions in an actual game, you will always do more magic damage than your calculation shows, because you can't always hit perfectly with auto-attacks, but W is still able to damage champions you are chasing - and W probably also damages targets when you are moving in to attack.

1. You need to take account that a Shyvana player should normally use Q after an auto-attack, realistically around 0.25s after due to the attack animation time. So you don't use Q immediately when it comes off cooldown, you wait for the next AA then use Q after. (Alternatively, if you use Q immediately you would maybe have to reduce your AA count by 1.) And the AA timings should start again after you use Q. The only way to calculate this properly is to figure out the whole combat sequence, for example AA-Q-AA-AA-Q-AA-AA, and the exact timings of that after resets. This calculation will be different for different CDR and different attack speed: you really need a complex spreadsheet, or a computer program, to do it.

2. Phantom hits deal all the bonus on-hit effects, but not the basic attack damage. Only basic attack damage can crit. Bonus on-hit damage is not increased when you crit (except on the Statikk Shiv item, that one is special).

3. Black Cleaver has 20% CDR so it changes your Q cooldown calculation a lot, you can see in your calculation Q is on around 1 second cooldown. In a real game it will not be possible to use Q so quickly as that - or if you do, you will cancel auto-attacks which were about to happen anyhow, see (1). So your DPS calculation for Black Cleaver from (Q + auto-attacks) damage is too high.

4. You need to make your calculations for a range of different armor and MR, which will give you a better picture which item is best. If you only look at 200 armor + 180 MR, you may get skewed results - that's not a normal opponent. Also take account that normally the opponents with high armor and high MR have high health also - meaning Shyvana does higher damage with her % health effects.

I also recommend you try different champion levels, like level 11 and level 16. If you change Shyvana's level, it would be fair to change the opponent's level as well.

SpikeThePike,

It is great to hear from you. As I mentioned in my guide, your guide has greatly influenced my Shyvana play style.

You are entirely correct. My Damage Math was very much influenced by your "assumptions," "style," etc. The credit to you is something I missed and should have definitely included in that section. I tried to give you credit in my acknowledgements, but perhaps should have been more specific. I'll update that asap.

In response to your 4 points:

1. I concede that the Q will be used unrealistically. What you say makes sense. If you have a suggestion on how to account for these variable I would honestly love to hear about it. In the mean time, I'm not entirely sure how to consider those. I'll think upon that.

2. I had assumed phantom hits could deal critical damage. It's good to know they cannot. I'll adjust my calculations to consider that.

3. I am presently quite convinced Black Cleaver is the best item. I've gone over my number many times to try and make sure, but I will look again. I do not want to present inaccurate information. My goal is not to make people think I present the most effective build, but to actually present the most effective build (even if I'm actually wrong about the Black Cleaver). If I have erred, I would attribute it to the misconsideration of Q cooldown calculations. However, wouldn't Wit's End also suffer from my miscalculation?

4. I will go over my calculations again in an attempt to consider more realistic armor and magic resist. However, considering the physical damage from both Fervor of Battle and the passive of Blade of the Ruined King, I do believe physical damage is Shyvana's highest type of damage output, making the armor reduction from Black Cleaver significant.

I really appreciate your comments. If there is anything else I have not sufficiently credited to others, I apologize and invite you to point it out.

You have copied the Damage Math general approach from my Season 5 guide, the style and assumptions made etc, without crediting my guide. That is flattering, but you should give credit.

Your explanation of the math is mostly accurate, but there are some errors.

1. You have not properly allowed for auto-attack resets and the time needed for the attack animation on Q. This has an interaction with the Q cooldown calculation - basically you have Q being used unrealistically often. Your approach is not too bad, but it is not quite correct and small differences here make a noticeable difference to the final calculation.

2. You have overstated the Phantom Dancer calculation, by assuming that phantom hits from Devourer can do critical damage. They cannot.

3. You must have overstated the Black Cleaver calculation somehow, the Black Cleaver is not the best item. I have not yet figured out how, but probably it's connected with issue 1 above: your errors due to issue 1 become more material when CDR is high so that Q cooldown is low.

4. A realistic calculation has to take account of opponent armor and magic resist in a range of situations. In a real game, most opponent champions (and all jungle monsters and turrets) have armor which is quite a lot higher than MR: I do not think your assumption of 200 armor and 180 MR is realistic, a typical tank opponent would be higher armor and lower MR unless you have an AP heavy team. This means that items which deal a higher proportion of magic damage - e.g. Wits End - are stronger than your math suggests.

In my Season 5 guide, as you will know, I compared item damage for both tanky and squishy opponents. The relative merits of different items can be different depending on the target.