Thornmail

Availability	Summoner's Rift Dominion Howling Abyss
Tier	Advanced
Stats	+100 armor
Passive	Unique: On being hit by basic attacks, returns 30% of damage, before any reductions such as armor, as magic damage.
Menu	Defense > Armor
Item cost	2200g (1180g)
Sell value	1540g
Item code	3075

Thornmail is an advanced item in League of Legends.^[1] Tanks benefit most from it, when the opposing team has high basic attack damage output. League of Legends calculates Thornmail's reflected damage before armor reduces the damage. This means you can reflect more damage than you ultimately take^[2] if you have at least 234 effective armor (i.e. after reductions and penetration).^[3]

Recipe Edit

• Cloth Armor (300g)
• Chain Vest (720g)
• 1180g

Cost Analysis Edit

Gold Value

• 100 armor = 2000g
  • Total Gold Value = 2000g

Gold Efficiency

• Passive must have at least a value of 200g for Thornmail to be gold efficient.

Strategy Edit

• Thornmail is best used to counter champions that mainly rely on basic attacks such as Tryndamere and Ashe.
• Thornmail is often overshadowed by the other two high armor items, Frozen Heart and Randuin's Omen, because it benefits only the wearer instead of the entire team and only provides armor.
  • Because of these reasons, it is generally acquired only as a counter against certain champions or against an AD heavy team.
• Champions such as Rammus and Shen can make great use of the passive effect due to their ability to taunt enemies, forcing enemies to attack them with basic attacks.

NotesEdit

• Thornmail deals magic damage, and so the target's magic resistance will reduce it. Lifesteal is another option to reduce its effect.
  • There is a false misconception that lifesteal counters the reflected damage from Thornmail. As the reflected damage is calculated before reduction (from either armor or damage reduction) while lifesteal is calculated after reduction.
• Thornmail reflects both physical and magic damage; the only determining factor in its trigger is whether the attack is defined as proccing on-hit effects. For example, Warwick's  Infinite Duress deals only magic damage, but still procs Thornmail's unique passive.
  • The damage reflection works with basic attacks and skills which apply on-hit effects, but not with any damage resulting from on-hit effects (eg, the damage from Wit's End).
• Blind counts as a form of damage mitigation and is thus applied after Thornmail, i.e. damage is still reflected even though none is actually done.
• Damage returned from Thornmail will break passives which are removed by champion damage such as  Move Quick or  Strut. It will also drag tower aggro.
• Fiora's ultimate does on-hit damage based on her maximum damage and calculated armor pen. If Thornmail is built quickly against a snowballing Fiora, she can seriously hurt herself or even suicide against a champion utilizing it.

Trivia Edit

• It is one of the few items mentioned in The Proving Grounds tutorial.
• Currently, this item offers the largest amount of armor, being slightly above Frozen Heart's 95 armor.

Patch History Edit

References Edit