I always have a hard time deciding what to buy. Say you are going against a team with hybrid champions (i.e. Teemo, Jax, etc.), or even just a balanced team with strong AD and AP champs. What do you build? GA is always nice but when that isn't enough what do you get? Just work on health items? Seems like a waste of gold to get a strong armor item, and a strong MR item.

See, the nice thing about 99% of the defense items (besides warmogs) is that they add utility too. Alright, jax is technically hybrid. But he's also (usually) primarily an auto attacker, and a melee one at that. Randuins slow works pretty darn well against him. Or, if they have lots of cc, you get BV. Etc

But yeah, maybe a slightly higher emphasis on hp is warranted. Just dont think that you've got to HP stack and nothing else. Even when the damage on their team is pretty evenly split, theres usually a player who's better than the rest and who is more dangerous to you.

Finally, if you're thetank, put a slight emphasis on armor (keyword is slight). more armor lets you tower dive better, which lets your whole team tower dive as long as you are keeping tower aggro.

Aegis, Bveil, Randuin's, SV, Merc Treads.

Great spread of stats and 4 of them add HP too.

Enjoy...

Like above has mentioned, get BV and Randuins, they also add health, increasing your eHP. If you need abit of both defenses focus on getting an item that provides resistance and health.

Double chainvest
Double Negatron cloak
upgrade later

Larger Values in both charts are better. I used the current Gold Values posted on the Item's Section of this website. Let me know if any of those are wrong as they sometimes are.

Keep in mind the EHP/Gold spent calculation is extremely biased. I don't generally advise using it as anything but a purely statistical fact that has little relevance; in that it is impossible to accurately include all of the various items unique properties in the cost.

What it does show is that when comparing solely the EHP gained for any item...there tends to be a cluster of items with similar values and about 3 that excel above those in cost efficacy. This however may not be completely accurate if you take into account the "Value" of other items utility from unique properties and passives.

For example...RO is ranked 4th in EHP/Gold efficiency for 100% PD...but this is largely because it is to difficult to accurately calculate the effect the unique passive of AS-redux will have when it procs randomly for every individual champion attacking the wearer. You could have 5 champs that all attack and only 2 of them proc the effect during the fight... Next time you can have a single champ engage that procs it indefinitely...or not at all. Then you have the option of the Active Aura and its duration and CD to account for. All these things improve the True EHP efficiency and thus EHP/Gold value of the item...but are not easily put into spreadsheets. A long detailed empirical study could possibly get a more realistic value...but good luck with that one. Frozen Heart has similar problems, due to some PD not being slowed such as skilled attacks...and champions with extremely long ranges, ala Caitlyn or Trist, that can get outside of the Aura's effect.

These also make my numbers for the 1st chart biased...but probably less so. There are fewer effects that directly impact EHP than ones that are just plain useful and deserve to have some cost advantage associated with them. However, deciding on what those values should be is harder to quantify, thus in an effort to standardize my numbers to some degree...they are ignored for the purposes of these graphs. That dopes not mean however that they should be ignored in your assessment of an items worth in the game. These graphs simply give you some baseline foundational information to start from...and build your own opinions from there.

Good luck...and as i said before...Enjoy!

-gap81


[EDIT] Forgot to subtract out your Base EHP before calculating the gold values in the second graph. Fixed it and replaced with the correct Net +EHP/Gold values.

A lot of AD -- Thornmail. Thornmail is kind of a no-brainer, specially against agi. champions such as Master Yi and Jax; if you have good HP, you will have them raping themselves. Not of much help if you're also a squishy, however.

Randuin's Omen is decent, as well, and pairing it up with Banshee's Veil will have you protected against the worse of both worlds.

Aegis' Legion is a good item, too, considering how it's relatively cheap and can be acquired in the early-mid game stage, only losing its usefulness at late/end-game phases.

Mercury's Treads is more impressive than it looks; the 35% reduction goes ways into saving your a**, and you will thank god for having one when you're getting chased by an escorted Ashe or a skilled Twisted Fate.

All-in-all, defense items are *very* situational. It's hard to find a team that doesn't lean one way or another (AD - AP), but generally items that give de-buffs to enemies, buffs or increase your health are very multi-situational.

Guardian's Angel can be a good item, but unless your champion has escape abilities (Guardian Angel can be ridiculous with Shaco -- if the team doesn't spam CC and AoE right before you respawn from GA, you will escape), or a good team pushing the enemy off, you'll just revive to get killed again.