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Armor is a stat shared by all units, including minions, monsters, and buildings. Increasing armor reduces the physical damage the unit takes. Each champion begins with some armor which increases with level (Thresh Thresh being the only exception). You can gain additional armor from abilities, items, masteries, and runes. Armor stacks additively.

Excluding Thresh Thresh whose base armor does not scale with levels, base armor ranges from 64 (Gnar Gnar) to 94 (Maokai Maokai and Poppy Poppy) at level 18.

Damage reduction

Incoming physical damage is multiplied by a factor based on the unit's armor:

$${\rm Damage\ multiplier}=\begin{cases} {100 \over 100+{\it Armor}}, & {\rm if\ }{\it Armor} \geq 0\\ 2 - {100 \over 100 - {\it Armor}}, & {\rm otherwise} \end{cases}$$

Examples:

  • 25 armor → ×0.8 incoming physical damage (20% reduction, +25% effective health).
  • 100 armor → ×0.5 incoming physical damage (50% reduction, +100% effective health).
  • −25 armor → ×1.20 incoming physical damage (20% increase, −16.67% effective health).

Stacking armor

Every point of armor requires a unit to take 1% more of its maximum health in physical damage to be killed. This is called effective health.

Example: A unit with 60 armor has 60% more of its maximum health in effective health, so if the unit has 1000 maximum health, it will take 1600 physical damage to kill it.

What this means: by definition, armor does not have diminishing returns, because each point increases the unit's effective health against physical damage by 1% of its current actual health whether the unit has 10 armor or 1000 armor.

Note: Unlike health, increasing armor also makes healing more effective because it takes more effort to remove the unit's health than it does to restore it.

For a more detailed explanation, see this video.

When a unit's armor is negative because of armor reduction or debuffs, armor has increasing returns, because negative armor cannot reduce effective health to less than 50% of actual health. A unit with −100 has 66.67% (gains −33.33%) of its maximum health as effective health.

Armor as Scaling

These use the champion's armor to increase the magnitude of the ability. It could involve total or bonus armor. By building armor items, you can receive more benefit and power from these abilities.

Champions

  • Braum's Braum's Stand Behind Me Stand Behind Me grants armor equal to 10% / 11.5% / 13% / 14.5% / 16% of his bonus armor to himself and the target ally (in addition to a base amount) for 3 seconds.
  • Garen's Garen's Courage Courage grants armor to himself equal to 20% of his bonus armor.
  • Leona's Leona's Eclipse Eclipse grants armor to herself equal to 20% of her bonus armor (in addition to a base amount) for 3 seconds.
  • Malphite's Malphite's Brutal Strikes Brutal Strikes grants armor to himself equal to 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% of his armor.
  • Malphite's Malphite's Ground Slam Ground Slam deals magic damage equal to 30% of his armor (in addition to a base amount).
  • Rammus' Rammus' Defensive Ball Curl Defensive Ball Curl deals magic damage equal to 10% of his armor (in addition to a base amount).
  • Rammus' Rammus' Spiked Shell Spiked Shell grants attack damage to himself equal to 25% of his armor.
  • Taric's Taric's Gemcraft Gemcraft grants his next basic attack bonus magic damage equal to 20% of his armor after using an ability.
  • Taric's Taric's Shatter Shatter grants bonus armor to himself and nearby allied champions equal to 12% of his armor.
    • Shatter's Shatter's active deals magic damage equal to 20% of his armor (in addition to a base amount) and reduces nearby enemy armor by 5% of his armor (in addition to a base amount) for 4 seconds.
  • Trundle's Trundle's Subjugate Subjugate steals 20% of the target's armor. He continues to drain an additional 20% the target's armor over 4 second before decaying 4 seconds after the drain completes.

Items

  • Randuin's Omen Randuin's Omen active increases its slow duration by a base amount plus 0.5% of the wearer's total armor.

Increasing armor

Items

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Variable Availability

Champion abilities

Note: Only the armor buff effect of these abilities is shown here, to read more information on each of these abilities, follow the link on each of them.

  • Akali's Akali's Twilight Shroud Twilight Shroud lays down a cloud of smoke for 8 seconds. While inside of the cloud, she gains 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 armor.
  • Anivia's Anivia's Rebirth Rebirth allows her to enter an egg-state for up to 6 seconds upon reaching 0 health. While in this state, she will receive an armor modifier of Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted..
  • Annie's Annie's Molten Shield Molten Shield increases her armor by 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 for 5 seconds.
  • Braum's Braum's Stand Behind Me Stand Behind Me increases armor by 15 / 17.5 / 20 / 22.5 / 25(+10% / 11.5% / 13% / 14.5% / 16% bonus armor) to himself and the target ally for 3 seconds.
  • Galio's Galio's Bulwark Bulwark increases an allied champion's armor by 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 for 4 seconds.
  • Gnar's Gnar's Rage Gene Rage Gene increases his armor by 2 × level when transform into Mega Gnar Mega Gnar.
  • Garen's Garen's Courage Courage increases his armor by 20% of his bonus armor.
  • Graves' Graves' True Grit True Grit increases his armor by Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted. every second he remains in combat. This bonus stacks up to 10 times. Graves is considered in combat if he has dealt or received damage in the last 3 seconds.
  • Jarvan IV's Jarvan IV's Demacian Standard Demacian Standard passively increases his armor by 10 / 13 / 16 / 19 / 22.
  • Jax's Jax's Grandmaster's Might Grandmaster's Might increases his armor by 25 / 35 / 45 (+30% bonus AD) for 8 seconds.
  • Jayce's Jayce's Transform: Mercury Hammer Transform: Mercury Hammer increases his armor by 5 / 15 / 25 / 35.
  • Kennen's Kennen's Lightning Rush Lightning Rush increases his armor by 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 for 4 seconds.
  • Leona's Leona's Eclipse Eclipse increases her armor by 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+ 20% bonus armor) for 3 seconds, deals damage after that time to units around her, and retains the defensive buff for an additional 3 seconds if any enemy is struck by the blast.
  • Malphite's Malphite's Brutal Strikes Brutal Strikes increases his armor by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% for 6 seconds.
  • Mordekaiser's Mordekaiser's Creeping Death Creeping Death increases an allied unit's armor by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 for 6 seconds.
  • Olaf's Olaf's Ragnarok Ragnarok passively increases his armor by 10 / 20 / 30.
  • Orianna's Orianna's Command: Protect Command: Protect increases an allied champion's armor by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 for as long as the ball is attached to them.
  • Poppy's Poppy's Paragon of Demacia Paragon of Demacia increases her armor by 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 / 3.5 for 5 seconds upon attacking or being hit by an enemy, stacks up to 10 times. She can also activate this ability to gain max stacks.
  • Rammus' Rammus' Defensive Ball Curl Defensive Ball Curl increases his armor by 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 for 6 seconds.
  • Rengar's Rengar's Battle Roar Battle Roar Rengar lets out a battle roar, damaging enemies increases his armor by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 for 4 seconds. Rengar gains additional 50% armor for each enemy champion or large monster hit.
  • Sejuani's Sejuani's Frost Armor Frost Armor grants her Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted. bonus armor each times she damages an enemy with an ability or attack for 2 seconds. Subsequent damage will increase the duration by 2 seconds up to a cap of 8 seconds, after where damage will refresh the duration.
  • Shyvana's Shyvana's Dragonborn Dragonborn passively increases her armor by 5 / 10 / 15 / 20. This bonus is doubled while she is in Dragon Form.
  • Singed's Singed's Insanity Potion Insanity Potion increases his armor by 35 / 50 / 65 for 25 seconds.
  • Soraka's Soraka's Astral Blessing Astral Blessing increases an allied unit's armor by 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 (+15% AP) for 2 seconds.
  • Taric's Taric's Shatter Shatter passively increases his armor by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 while the ability is not on cooldown and grants himself and nearby allied units' 12% of his armor.
  • Thresh's Thresh's Damnation Damnation passively generates souls for him to collect, with each soul collected granting 0.75 armor permanently.
  • Trundle's Trundle's Subjugate Subjugate takes 40% of the target's armor and gains an equal amount of armor. Over 4 seconds, the bonus armor is doubled. The armor bonus lasts for another 4 seconds after the drain completes.
  • Urgot's Urgot's Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverser increases his armor by 60 / 90 / 120 for 5 seconds upon activation.
  • Wukong's Wukong's Stone Skin Stone Skin passively grants him Error: Parameter '3' is not accepted. armor for each nearby enemy champion.
  • Xin Zhao's Xin Zhao's Crescent Sweep Crescent Sweep increases his armor by 15 / 20 / 25 for each enemy champion hit for 8 seconds.

Masteries

  • Enchanted Armor mastery 2014 Enchanted Armor increases bonus armor and magic resistance by 2.5 / 5%.
  • Hardiness mastery 2014 Hardiness increases your champion's armor by 2 / 3.5 / 5.
  • Legendary Guardian mastery 2014 Legendary Guardian grants your champion 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 armor and 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 / 2 magic resistance for each nearby enemy champion

Runes

  • Template:Rune runes increase armor.

Ways to reduce armor

See armor penetration. Note that armor penetration and armor reduction are different.

List of champions' armor

Trivia

A level 18 Malphite Malphite with 6 Thornmails Thornmails, 3 points in Hardiness mastery 2014 Hardiness, 2 points in Enchanted Armor mastery 2014 Enchanted Armor, 4 points in Legendary Guardian mastery 2014 Legendary GuardianAstral Blessing Astral Blessing, Bulwark Bulwark, Command: Protect Command: Protect, Shatter Shatter aura, Glyphs and Marks of Template:Rune, Seals and Quintessences of Template:Rune, and Brutal Strikes Brutal Strikes enabled will give a total of approximately 1643 armor.

Having an enemy Trundle Trundle with the same setup use Subjugate Subjugate on Malphite Malphite will yield a total of roughly 1789 armor. This is the highest possible finite amount of armor (without using metagame effects—see below), and reduces physical damage by 94.7%.

It is still possible to go higher through metagame functions. If a summoner disconnects from the server and is in the fountain, his champion will gain 1000 armor. With the same setup as above, a disconnected Garen Garen with a disconnected Taric Taric will have approximately 2779 armor. Trundle Trundle cannot exceed this. This reduces physical damage by 96.5%.

If disconnecting grants armor quickly enough that Brutal Strikes Brutal Strikes remains active, Malphite Malphite can reach 3143 armor. This reduces physical damage by 96.9%.

Thresh Thresh, with his effectively infinite stacking, can obtain a maximum of 749999.25 armor off his passive alone. With the same set-up as above, he can obtain a total of about 788575 armor, reducing physical damage by 99.9873205%. If he disconnects, he can obtain up to 789626 armor, reducing it by 99.987337%

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