Fact.

The whole point of the previous penetration system was to force a trade-off. You could itemize to dominate the early game or be better in the late game. This is how balance works, to be good at one thing you make a conscious choice to inhibit yourself in another area.

But with the new system. You can go full flat pen(see:cleaver, guise, brut, etc). And if you in the end see a lot of resists on the other team, you can just build a LW/Void and be just as good. They synergize now instead of de-synergize, so theres no tradeoff.

Resists already got worse enough with the price changes. But the new pen system is...well..."toxic"(to use Riot's wording). This can be seen by the fact that Pantheon and Kha and Talon have basically replaced all AP mids(because they take the most advantage of the combination early game/late game pen help).

Points are logical.

However I think buffing Armor is probably a better solution, because AP damage isn't a problem right now.

Pantheon only replaces AP mids if you can't land skill shots.

Talon has been the quintessential anti-mage for a long time. He got incredibly popular during the time of the stacked Black Cleavers and more people learned how to excel at playing him, so he has remained popular. But Talon has always been a hard counter to several mids and if you intend to pick one of those first you should always ban Talon. That's not new.

Kha'zix... lol. He is definitely an unorthodox pick. Right now I think Kha'zix might need some tweaking. He is only extremely good at mid lane when in the right hands, and there aren't a lot of top tier Kha'zix mid player, so the jury is still out on that IMO.

that's what she said. hehehhe

The biggest problem is champions who have reduction or penetration built into their kits. All sources of flat and % penetration from items, runes, and masteries got nerfed in S3 to compensate for the penetration changes. However, the built-in penetration in certain champion kits wasn't changed. This means these select few champions are capable of penetrating A LOT of armor/mr compared to other champs.

I do agree that the penetration changes should be reverted though. It feels like everyone stacks penetration over raw stats these days.

Buffing armor may need to happen. But that doesn't change the fact that flat pen applying last removes tradeoffs. And makes it so there is one "build" for every offensive hero. Stack flat pen until people get resists, then get the big % item and be in a perfect spot.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Riot want to increase build diversity? And not stifle it.

EDIT: Corrected!

That is a wonderfully thought out and well reasoned argument. Oh wait...it's just someone who can't argue against me so would rather call me dumb than admit I'm right.

The fact is that when LoL started, penetration worked the way it does now. Riot saw that it was "Toxic," "unfair," and let to "only one reasonable build path." Which is why they changed it.

Why they would change it back honestly baffles me, because they've put thousands of hours into research to prove definitely that the old system was better than the current(/beta) one.

Hymens don't work like that, op.