A League of Legends clip that was shared earlier today displayed a surreal fight between Ashe and Malphite. It showed how weak a bot laner is against a tank without a lethality build in the cruelest manner.
In a normal game with a balanced score, Ashe decided to try to take a trade against a tanky Malphite to defend her turret. She unleashed everything she had to attempt to kill him, but he didn’t even have to try to defend himself. Instead, the Malphite stopped in front of her, certainly knowing how the trade would turn out.
He had so much HP that Ashe didn’t even reduce Malphite’s health from half after nearly 30 seconds of landing relentless auto attacks on him. And she would’ve eventually died due to Malphite’s Thornmail.
The opponent didn’t give her that chance, though. They decided to finish Ashe by using their flash and Q, just to show how much they didn’t care. But if they didn’t do anything, Ashe would have simply killed herself trying to deal damage to the Malphite.
Thornmail is a legendary item that allows the wearer to deal back 10 magic damage, with additional 10 percent bonus armor, to any attacker when struck by an auto attack. If the attacker is a champion, it also applies a 40 percent Grievous Wounds effect for three seconds.
The Malphite player had built over 150 armor, which brought the damage dealt to around 25 damage for each auto Ashe dealt to him. She had no lifesteal and saw her health melt away without Malphite needing to do anything—although it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference due to the Grievous Wounds effect.
This situation might have turned out differently if the Ashe player built items specifically meant to combat tanks, however. They only bought attack speed and attack damage items without armor penetration. They didn’t take the Kraken Slayer either, which is Ashe’s core item against tanks in season 11.
This fight also displayed the potential of Thornmail for tanks. Riot Games often struggles to balance tanks in an effort to not make them too strong, particularly compared to bot lane champions. Adjusting this item isn’t likely a priority for Riot, however, who plans to focus more on adjusting Goredrinker and Staff of the Flowing Water in Patch 11.3.
Lord Dominik’s Regards, one of the main ADC tools to counter tanks, is slated to be buffed, too. It will gain 10 percent more armor penetration, according to Riot. With the astonishing power of Goredrinker bruisers in this meta, this item could be useful for champions like Ashe—or to try to fight a tank like Malphite.
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