Armor vs. Magic Resistance

[Deepbluediver]

It seems like there is a much bigger focus on armor over magic resistance, and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe someone can explain it to me?

By my count there's 4 basic items that grant armor (Ring of Protection, Helm of Iron Will, Chainmail, and Platemail) and they build into a combined 10 other items (not including stuff THOSE items build into).

There's 1 basic items that provides magic resistance (Cloak, and please tell me if I missed anything) and it builds into 1 other item, 2 if you counted Pipe separately.

There's also a lot more abilities that boost armor than magic resistance, though I didn't do an exact count.


I kind of feel like there should be more items that grant magic resistance or more options to build Cloak into, since Hood of Defiance can be kinda expensive and doesn't feel like it's ALWAYS ideal.

[Егерь]

♥♥♥"еспы"рыга, пиши по русски.

[Deepbluediver]

Originally posted by Цензура:

♥♥♥"еспы"рыга, пиши по русски.

I'm sorry but I don't speak Russian, and Google-translate is notoriously bad with this kind of thing.

[LFA]

I certainly would like at least one more item boosting magic resist.
Unfortunately we seem to be limited to hood of defiance/pipe of insight.
BTW a pipe is almost almways usefull for yourself and the team.

[Psychotic Man]

Well maybe that is because magic damage doesn't scale. Magic nukes are notorious for falling off by late game, because people get more health. Except a few guys with scaling magic nukes (OD and Sky come to mind, as well as Necro), all nukes deal consistent damage that won't increase beyond a threshold. Even the examples I mentioned, Sky needs at least 125 intelligence just to get on par with other nukes (not that much, but still enough to place restrictions on this guy's damage), OD's depends on difference between his and the enemies, so is conditional, an Necro's depends on opponent's health, and is useless against anyone with built in magic resistance.

By late game, countering physical damage means you need both armour and health as this damage scales and getting only one of the two isn't always good. While for magic damage, you need either health or MR, because by then these nukes hardly deal any damage. Also, every hero has in built 25% resistance, not to mention there is something known as BKB that completely nulifies nukers.

If building MR became easy, then nukers will lose all their power because the only time when they shine (early-mid game) will be counterable. It's also why Pipe has such stats, it is only meant to be built by a tank so that they survive nukes and tank damage to protect their team. The balance team doesn't want to make it easy for you to get MR because nukers will become almost useless that way.

It's the same reason why life steal items have more defensive stats than offensive (except MoM, which is a double edged sword). If they had both offensive stats and life steal, it would be insta buy for anyone who even remotely uses auto attacks, kinda like how Bloodthirst/Hydra/BotRK is core on almost every Carry, Fighter, Assassin and sometimes even Tanks in LOL (basically half the champion pool).

[Deepbluediver]

Thank you Psychotic, that's very helpful. It raises another question in my mind though- why do all (or nearly all- the Wiki says Meepo and Visage are different) have 25% innate magic resistance? I realize that only a hero with zero agility would have zero armor to start out with, but it seems like 25% MR is really high. Why not reduce it somewhat and just also reduce the damage magic-based abilities do? What am I not seeing about the scaling that would make this kind of thing unworkable?

[Xi Dong Zhu (腦洞大的人)]

One reason - late game, carries, and some can be dealing 300+ dmage every 0.75 seconds.

One spell, maxed, usually does around 350.