Armor is a critical stat in League of Legends, providing essential defense against physical damage. Understanding how armor functions can significantly impact your gameplay, allowing you to optimize your defenses and enhance your survivability.
Armor reduces the amount of physical damage taken by your champion. It converts incoming physical damage into a reduced amount, helping you survive longer in battles. Each champion starts with a base armor value that increases with levels. Additionally, armor can be boosted by items, abilities, runes, and buffs.
The formula to calculate post-mitigation damage is:
Where RRR is the armor value. This formula shows how armor mitigates the damage taken from physical attacks.
Each point of armor increases the effective health pool against physical damage by 1% of the champion's maximum health. This means that higher armor values significantly reduce the physical damage taken.
Armor does not have diminishing returns for effective health. Each additional point of armor consistently increases the effective health pool by 1% of the champion's maximum health. This consistency makes stacking armor a reliable way to boost survivability against physical damage.
Armor can be increased through various means:
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Armor can be reduced or negated using armor penetration, lethality, and armor reduction effects. These mechanics decrease the target's armor, making them more vulnerable to physical damage.
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Choosing between armor and health depends on the enemy team's composition and damage types. Armor is specifically effective against physical damage, while health provides a more general defense, mitigating both physical and magical damage. In some scenarios, prioritizing health might be more beneficial, especially against teams with a balanced mix of damage types.
Understanding and utilizing armor effectively can greatly enhance your gameplay in League of Legends, providing your champion with the necessary defenses to withstand physical damage and excel in battles.
Lethality is a flat amount of armor penetration that scales with the user's level. It directly reduces the target's effective armor value by a fixed amount. Lethality is particularly effective against targets with lower armor values and is often used by assassins and champions focusing on burst damage. For example, if you have 20 lethality, your target's armor is treated as if it were 20 points lower for damage calculations.
Armor penetration can be divided into two categories: flat and percentage-based.
Building armor penetration items depends on the enemy team's composition and the armor values of your targets.
Here is a comparison between Kraken Slayer + LDR or Collector to determine the best item in the situation.
Assume a base physical damage output of 1000 for simplicity.
Post-mitigation damage with LDR
Post-mitigation damage with The Collector:
| Armor (R) | Damage with LDR | Damage with The Collector |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 71.70 | 79.71 |
| 100 | 57.58 | 58.51 |
| 150 | 48.10 | 46.22 |
| 200 | 41.30 | 38.19 |
| 250 | 35.95 | 32.54 |
| 300 | 31.90 | 28.35 |
The calculations show that The Collector provides more damage than Lord Dominik's Regards at armor values below approximately 100. However, Lord Dominik's Regards becomes more effective at armor values above approximately 100.
Therefore, if the enemy team has champions with armor values around or below 100, it is more beneficial to build The Collector over Lord Dominik's Regards. For higher armor values, Lord Dominik's Regards will provide better damage output.
