Well the title says it all, I know Madred's bloodrazor is better for killing people with more health but Cleaver is better for people who are stacking armor. In general though, which is better. Even if they stack health they might have high mres right? We also have to look at the fact that the Cleaver is almost 1k cheaper.

Madred's Bloodrazer = Lategame for Tanky-DPS, scales perfectly with % damage.
Black Cleaver = Midgame, delays AD carry's lategame and fails to scale well by using flat Armor Reduction when Last Whisper is already mandatory.

It's not that Black Cleaver is a BAD item, per se... It's niche just isn't really needed, so everyone skips it. A great item for an empty audience.

bump?

Black Cleaver is a support item, its only capitol value is shread so multiple allies can deal more damage, typically a tanky DPS choice since it also offers a variety of AD, AS and shread. Unless you have an ally to benefit from the shread razor will almost always be better, even with MR, that passive and greater AS will probably deal more than the difference in damage and shread, and doesn't razor still have armor?

In some cases though, the cost effectiveness and supplement of other AD items may make Cleaver more valuable, if your also getting more AD, Crit, and LS, Cleaver will amp those more than MBR which has less physical damage and only a little more AS vs shread, but if your some hybrid AS who focused spell pen over Apen, MBR has significantly more value, in particular, a hybrid on hit with wits, MBR, and void staff can be obnoxious.

What they do alone and how they build with other items varies greatly.

It usually depends on some things like, does your opponent have a lot of MR, do you have a last whisper, do you already have some armor penetration/reduction, how much AD you have etc etc.

If your opponent has a lot of MR (150-200) you're probably better off not getting bloodrazor, because the extra magic damage is reduced to nearly nothing.

If you already have a last whisper, you shouldnt bother with a black cleaver since the last whisper will reduce armor without the condition that you need to hit several times before penetration hits a peak, AND most tanks will have 200+ armor, so your black cleaver has much less of an overall effect than a last whisper.

If you have a lot of armor pen already, you might want to consider black cleaver.... lets say 31 from runes/masteries, 20 from brutalizer, and 45 (max) from black cleaver gives you 96 total armor reduction. Its great early through late game, but again if you are mainly having problems with the tank, you might want a last whisper since it applies instantly instead of requiring 3 hits to max it.

If you are applying on-hit effects to multiple opponents with, say, tiamat or Kayle, you might want to consider a black cleaver since it will reduce armor of multiple opponents that your teammates can utilise as well.

Ah but what you fail to mention is what black cleaver does to their non-tanky built folks(especially their other ad carries). -45 armor on a 30 armored target = nearly double damage per hit, instantly making it as good as about 80% crit rate(assuming you will be attacking them for a period of time of course). In addition its value in team play especially vs self healers is much greater than madreds which only help you...30% more physical damage on targets with less than 375 armor is very valuable as even your AP carry's auto attacks will be doing more, which MAY be JUST ENOUGH to win you that team fight, where as madreds/whisper will ONLY help YOUR damage and only vs their teams heavily tanky targets(which they may only have 1 or 2).

Black cleaver lets you counter anyone in a 1v1 scenario as well as many team fights will come down to only the ad carries remaining if both sides played perfectly, and you will always win a 1v1 against an ad carry that doesn't have black cleaver and you do have it. I've also been able to easily 1v5 with it late game on miss fortune with a minimum of 40% life steal and 2 attacks per secon, dealing around 1-2K damage an auto attack on even their tanky targets is nice, with a bit of kiting and switch up focusing you can heal off their squishies (killing them nearly instantly) and continue to decimate the tank, this even lets you counter thornmail if you have no mr as well, and grants enough atk speed to counter frozen heart.

i recommend to get them both cause they give attack speed and nice damage output

Vayne has ability which is actived every 3rd hit
Twisted Fate has ability dat is actived every 4th hit
so if u get the attack speed which madred offers would be great for activing their ability more often

if u get attack speed on Lulu she would deal more magic damage by her passive

madred is not only tank destroyer but also champion destroyer

but its all depends how u wanna build ur champions
1. speed+dmg [madred + cleaver]
2. dmg+crit [infinity + phantom] or [yoummi + infinity]
3. just have the items from 1. and 2. in ur invent =]

Black Cleaver is bad.

By itself, on champions who don't rely on autoattacks or do a lot of their damage through AD scaling burst spells. For example, Tristana is perfect for Black Cleaver. She has zero AD scaling, just super long range and the most powerful attack speed steroid of any ranged character.

But here's the thing. Even on Tristana, Black Cleaver isn't that good by itself. It needs backup. Youmuu's Ghostblade provides that backup. With a Yomuu's and Black Cleaver, plus masteries, you've got a total of 71 flat armor penetration and reduction. For Last Whisper to beat that, the target would need 200 armor. With Tristana's range and decent positioning, you should be able to hit just about anyone you want. There's also the option of using armor penetration runes which can get you more than 80 flat penetration. People just don't use them because they think their last hitting will become **** without full flat AD. You really would have to practice your last hitting before you can do it consistently without 15 flat AD.

These items are also good for Tristana because they are extremely strong in the mid-game, where Tristana is weakest.

Madred's Bloodrazor isn't even a comparison with Black Cleaver. They really don't fit the same niche. MB is only viable on Kog'Maw. That said, MB + IE + PD is the highest possible DPS build Kog can get against any target. It's just absurdly expensive, and kind of unnecessary. If Kog gets that fed, you really should have already won the game.

I really hate to get off topic, but saying madreds is good on kogmaw is like saying ionic spark is good on voli. The only time I've seen anybody get madreds is on bruiser vayne because they are relying on her true damage to do everything mixed with attack speed.

And back to Black cleaver, as a 1 item purchase on vayne and kog'maw nothing increases their damage more. However since this whole meta revolves around crit it doesn't really offer much at a full build.

You don't see people getting Madred's on Kog because it costs so damn much compared to Last Whisper, which is what it would be replacing.

Again, if Kog has that much money you already won the game about fifteen minutes ago.