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Lux Build Guide by LuxTheGreyWarden

Lux Quints-MPEN vs AP Quints

Lux Quints-MPEN vs AP Quints

Updated on March 9, 2017
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League of Legends Build Guide Author LuxTheGreyWarden Build Guide By LuxTheGreyWarden 17,738 Views 12 Comments
17,738 Views 12 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author LuxTheGreyWarden Lux Build Guide By LuxTheGreyWarden Updated on March 9, 2017
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Lux
    Lux with AP Quints??
  • LoL Champion: Lux
    OR MP Quints??

Introduction

Hey all, my name is Luxeøn and I currently have a Lux guide here. I'm sure most of you just came from the link I put on my guide (like 5 million times in my runes section lol), however, not everyone will. There are many different rune alternatives you could choose with Lux. I have some examples of what I like or that can be viable on my build, but most people just take 9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, 9 Greater Seal of Scaling Health, 6 Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction with 3 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, and 3 Greater Quintessence of Ability Power. This is actually currently a "standard" on any mage. However, what happens when we replace these Greater Quintessence of Ability Power with Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration instead? This guide will show you why I think it's worth it to take AT LEAST one!

*Sidenote: The damage charts doesn't calculate things like Sorcery or Double Edged Sword because they don't change anything. Even if you add them, it won't change the results, only the damage numbers. It also does not matter if these are applied before or after resistances. For this case, I decided to leave them out to make things less complicated.
*Please remember that I am only testing this idea with Lux (aka why I use her spells and damage stats). I'm not 100% sure how it is with other mages.


Explanation

I made some charts showing hypothetical times in games and how much damage Lux can do with having either the Magic Penetration Runes, or the AP ones. I chose levels 1, 6, 9, 12, and 18, and tried to itemize regularly across the board to show the total damage she does. You can see that there are 4 different rune page ideals. One with 3AP Quintessences, one with 2AP+1MP Quints, one with 1AP+2MP Quints, and then finally one with just 3MP Quints. We'll go one level at a time with a little explanation for each to see what your best bet is!

*Note that in these graphs, the colours mean different things:
  • Pink: This is going to be the AP based on where we are in the game and how much you get from items, runes, masteries, etc. Lux's damage scales with AP, making this an important factor.
  • Blue: This will be the Magic Pen. There will be more based on how many MP runes you use!
  • Green: This is the damage BEFORE resistances. We need this number to calculate the damage using resistances based on the MP you have.
  • Red: Is going to be the damage Lux will actually do after resistances are applied (what we are comparing). Compare these red numbers to see which one actually does the most damage after a combo!


Level 1:


As you can tell from the graph, technically taking the 3AP Quints at level 1 DOES do the most damage. This damage includes an E>Thunderlords proc>Passive proc. I did not and will not add any type of physical damage (auto damage) because AP and magic penetration do not apply to them. Notice that I put a standard of 42 magic resist because a lot of mages have the 12MR from taking magic resist glyphs.


Level 6:


Again, at level 6, you still do a taaad bit more damage with the 3AP Quints. I did not add any items besides Doran's Ring to the AP section of this because normally you stay until level 6+ before going back for items, and you might have the opportunity to use your full combo on someone before you go back. This is very minimal damage, only by like 1-2 damage in total based on what runes you took.


Level 9:


Alright, here's where things start to switch up. At level 9, arooound 10-12 minutes into the game, you start doing MORE damage (you actually probably start around level 7 or 8)! I added just Morellonomicon here because you should have Morello's at around this timeframe. I also added +40 to magic resist in case someone gets a Negatron Cloak, which a lot of mages do. Either way, the MPEN will still be doing 3-7 more damage, based on how many you took!!


Level 12:





Again, the damage now is going to even further with Magic Pen, rather than Ability Power! I added Liandry's Torment to follow what's on my build. I know some people do get Luden's Tempest instead, and that's okay if you do, it won't affect anything :)
Notice how now, you'll be doing from 9-26 more damage!!


Level 18:



As you can see here, the more Magic Pen runes, the more damage you actually do! I added all 6 items that I recommend on my guide, as well as the Elixir of Sorcery. I also upped the magic resist the enemy had because their Negatron Cloak will turn into an Abyssal Mask. This is why you see a column has '102x.35' near the bottom of eah one. If the mage has 42MR and buys an Abyssal Mask, they get a total of 102MR. However, with Void Staff, we ignore 35% of their magic resist (that's where the .35 comes in). From there, they now have 66.3 magic resist. Now, we can subtract this number by how much flat Magic Penetration we have- like I have done on all of the other slides. This is how I calculated the resistances.


Results





This graph just took all of the red numbers from the graphs above and made it a little easier to see. As you can see from this graph, the AP seems only significant up until around level 7 or 8. By level 9, using any Magic Pen Quints is actually better. The reason I love this is because lets think about a game. Levels 1-6, and even a little after, you're mostly farming with the casual poke. Not to mention, level 6-9 comes pretty fast. It's only around 10 minutes into the game! If your whole combo does only 0.46-6.25 damage less damage early game, versus your combo doing 2.21-89.27 MORE later on, it is definitely worth it. Especially because level 1-9, you aren't as active with spamming your spells at enemy champions and are mostly farming. After level 9 and the lane phase comes teamfights, where damage is important. You will also be using your spells WAY more frequently on champions when the teamfights roll around. You are going to have more damage by taking these!! Not to mention, this is just an example of damage from a burst combo. Imagine hitting 4 enemies with your E. Say it does 5 damage more per person, that's an extra 20 damage you just inflicted easily (this is assuming they all have the same amount of magic resist, but we'll save the complicated stuff for another time).


We do have to think of the cons of not taking the AP Quints. For one, your early game damage IS lowered a little. It's not by much unless you take 3 MPEN Quints (which is only 6.25 less damage at level 1). However, it is still less damage. Second, minions don't apply to Magic Penetration. You won't have that AP do naturally do AS MUCH damage to minions with your spells. It may only be an extra 5-10 damage, but that can mean a lot for some people who rely on their spells to farm (Which I am totally against because you will be out of mana quickly and last hitting with your auto attacks is important, but whatever gets you the farm). I personally don't mind it, but if you feel this is really important, taking AP Quints is still perfectly fine! However, doing 5-10 more damage is 1/10 of an auto, very minimal, that's why I don't see it as a huge issue unless you want that early game damage in general. Now that the cons are out of the way, we can conclude that taking 1-3MPEN can be more beneficial in the long run!!


FAQ

Here are some questions that might arise in your head or have even popped up in my head while doing this experiment. I am still new to this experiment in general, so if you have any questions/concerns in general, PLEASE share with me. If we can cover it up, I'll be sure to add it on here and give you credit :)

1. Why take these runes if you are doing less damage early game? What if you want to get ahead?

The idea here is that the damage seems minimal, but it definitely does add up. If we are doing 6.25 less damage at level 1 by taking 3 MPEN Quints instead of the 3AP Quints, you would think it can really add up. However, how many times are you going to E>Auto WITH the Thunderlord's proc before level 6? A couple times, if that. Yes, you will also be poking the mid laner with your E, but most of your attention will be on minions. You get to level 6 arouuund 7 minutes (could be earlier or later), meaning that you will be doing a small fraction of damage for only a little part of the game. After that, you will be doing more damage for actually most of the game. An average game length is 30-40 minutes, so you'll be doing more damage for about 23-33 minutes!




2. Is it better to take 1, 2, or 3?

That is completely up to you! Look at the graphs to see. If you take 1 Quint, you lose only a small fraction early game versus taking 3 quints and losing almost 7 damage at level 1. However, you also lose out on around 60 damage at level 18 (3MP quints does 2572 damage, while 1 MP Quint does around 2511 damage). You can take one, two, three, or even none if you prefer! Taking one or even two can guarantee you a little better early game than taking all 3, so you can just take one if you still want a good early game to try to get ahead, but want a little more damage later on as well. However, taking 2-3 gives you more damage easily after not even 10 minutes into the game, even though you lose a little more earlier on. You can even take none and stick with the AP (or MS/CDR/whatever else) Quints! All up to you :)




3. So, I will only be doing 2 less damage in the beginning, but I'll end up doing 80 more later on?

Sort of. This is where it can be hard to both do the calculations and explain them so here we go. I didn't apply Sorcery or Double Edged Sword (or Battle Trance / Bounty Hunter if you prefer) and whatever else there is that I can't think of that boosts your damage. It's a little complicated since 5% is a very minimal amount of damage. For example, when you lose two damage, you lose two damage in this situation.

Application 1: If I do 500 damage versus 498 damage, I am missing 2 damage. If you apply this 2% and 3% damage to these two numbers, you get 500->525 and 498->523, which is also 2 damage apart.

Application 2: If I do 200 damage and 198 damage, but we have an 80% damage increase, the 200 damage will turn into 360, and the 198 damage will turn into 356.4. 360-356.4=3.6- which is more than 2 damage.

This is the reason I didn't add these two masteries into the damage numbers, it would be too complicated and would only change the numbers by decimal points.

Anyways, this all just depends on how much damage you do to them in general (whether it's just an E poke or a full on burst). However, when you're doing 80 damage more in the late game, it will actually notice the damage, rather than that 2 minimal damage you lost out on early. The idea with this project was to see WHEN you start doing more damage with MPEN runes and if it is worth it. Like I said before, you get to level 9 very fast, I'm sure the damage will seem unnoticeable. If you still don't like the idea or think the cons I wrote (or any you can think of) outweigh the pros, no worries, taking those AP Quints are still great!


Conclusion

Take whatever runes you prefer, but this is just an idea of why you might want to take Magic Pen runes over AP ones. It saves you the 8+ hours of doing math that I did lol just to figure out if they're worth it or not. I also love the fact that you get a power spike with these runes around levels 7-9 because that's when Lux starts to shine- in her mid game.
Hope all of this helped and hope you consider taking these runes! If not, the AP (or even movement speed/CDR like I mention in my guide) runes are okay :)

-Luxeøn
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