Wit's End, Ionic Spark, Madred's Bloodrazor, Hextech Gunblade/Bilgewater Cutlass, Sunfire Cape, and Thornmail are all items that provide additional magic damage effects to your character in one form or another. So why do the last two need to do true damage? Well first, let's think about the primary difference between those last two items and the rest of the items.

Sunfire Cape and Thornmail are defensive items (Although Wit's End is debatable, you can argue that the item is firmly half defensive, half offensive, and the damage falls under the offensive aspect of the item.), whereas the other items are offensive. Why does this mean that Sunfire Cape and Thornmail need to do true damage?

Well, in the case of the offensive items, the idea that magic shred or penetration is needed to maximize their use is not strange; it's no different than needing last whisper to maximize the effect of an Infinity Edge. Builds are created with this in mind, and if there is any problem with this line of thinking, it's that Malady currently doesn't completely fill the magic penetration needs of an on-hit build.

As for defensive items, doesn't it seem a little off that an offensive stat, magic pentration, is needed to make either of these items really all that efficient? It doesn't help that magic penetration isn't a stat you want to invest in without investing in other stats. If I was playing an Amumu with Thornmail AND Sunfire cape, I would probably get almost as much damage out of a Rod of Ages (Plus the health and mana) as a Void Staff. Penetration is a great stat to amplify your offensive output; it's not a good stat to base your offensive output on.

Not to mention this completely gimps these items for non-magic damage characters. You can't even count on 10 magic pen from runes on someone like Darius. And yes, the idea that "not every item is good on every character" is certainly true for offensive items, this is simply not how it is supposed to work for defensive items; defensive items are meant to be useful against certain teams or characters, not necessarily on certain characters (Yes, some characters get slight amplification, like how thornmail is better on characters with taunts, but it's no where near as wide a contrast as how much better IE is on, say Graves, than it is on, say, Swain.)

So make these items true damage. If that was done they would 1. Be competitive as defensive items without needing magic pen, which is just a weird requirement to have for a defensive item to be competitive. 2. Choosing these items would be a bigger case of "Who am I going against" rather than "Who am I playing" which is how defensive items are meant to be picked.

So, without raising or lowering the cost, a reasonable change seems to me to be

1. Sunfire Cape's 40 magic damage is replaced with 30 true damage.

2. Thornmail's on hit reflect is changed from 30% magic damage to 20% true damage.

Uhh, no.

Sunfire Cape is possibly the largest DPS increase for a tank possible. 40 magic damage per second is better than any equally defensive AD/AP item in existence. Go ahead, try and find something better.

Thornmail is designed for 1v1 and to counter Lifesteal. It already does this fantastically, requiring them to build a ton of items specifically to counteract Thornmail if they don't want to kill themselves attacking you.

Neither one of them needs true damage.

The problem with the Cape of Suns is that, while the passive is nice, it's all you get for the cost increase. And it pales in comparison to the team-tanking increase of say Frozen Heart, or the Survivability of Randuin's Omen. The item really just needs its cost and armor/HP looked at. The aura is fine.

No. Please actually learn to evaluate the game.

Rationalizing is terrible.

I understand what the OP means though.

Let's say i'm playing a rammus, ofc i will get the 10% mpen mastery and possibly, i might get an abysall scepter if that's what my team needs. Sunfire is probably an item I might consider at those times.

But instead, if I was playing someone like Jarvan or Nocturne, and our team needed a tank, I would never even consider a sunfire cape.



But I guess, sunfire cape is meant for tanks who have magic abilities(check all champs under "tank" category).

And if you think about it, the fact that it is magic damage can make sense, for example, it will do a lot more damage to their adc, but almost little to enemy tank.

But a tank should never be attacking another tank... It's your job to stick on their adc ass.

Although I think the change to sunfire could be good, I don't think it's necessary.

*looks over at what 200 armor comes out to*
66%

*looks at thornmail reflects*

35%

So if it reflected true damage, you would kill yourself every time before killing them, without them attacking. Even with life steal, they only have to attack a few times to still ensure they win.

Do you have ANY IDEA how much damage Thornmail does?

Crit for 500 damage on 200 armor, take 450 true damage back. That's what you want.

ITT: IDIOTS!!!

Sunfire Cape does, however, need true damage. It needs to be more than chump defense late game. Even Exeuctioner's Calling has late game power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nea De Penserhir *looks over at what 200 armor comes out to* 66% *looks at thornmail reflects* 35% So if it reflected true damage, you would kill yourself every time before killing them, without them attacking. Even with life steal, they only have to attack a few times to still ensure they win.

sunfire and thorn aren't good at tanking entire teams because they aren't tank items. tanks don't really deal damage, so why take fundamentally damage base items?

sunfire is a bruiser item and thorn is a niche counter to physical dps. mixed damage isn't new to tanky dps, shyv, skar, udyr, even ww to some extent split their DPS and they do fine.