League-of-legends – How to the damage reduction from Armor in League of Legends not have diminishing returns

Dodge now been removed from the game.

Dodge items do not stack additively. For example, Jax, with level 5 counterstrike, has 18% dodge chance. If he then picks up ninja tabi (+12% dodge) his total dodge chance is 28% (and not 30%).

The reason dodge is handled this way is such that the mitigation of dodge as a stat scales linearly; were dodge strictly additive, the more dodge% you had, the more damage further dodge% would reduce.

Ignite

Casting ignite on an already ignited target will reset the duration of the DoT, losing any remaining damage the original ignite would have done.

Speed

I'm just going to quote from the "mechanics FAQ" from the official LoL forum.

Q: How do movement modifiers work? (Credit to Larias)

A: First, you have your base movement of say 300. You add boots first, always boots first, so if you have boots added.

Let's say you get boots 2. That's 370 movement. Then, you get 35% movement speed buff from items or runes or masteries or buffs: that 370 is multiplied by 1.35, or 499.5 movement speed. If this is the only thing affecting your movement speed, the diminishing returns formula kicks in.

Now, let's say you get slowed by 38% (ashe arrows). What happens is the ORIGINAL 499.5 is multiplied by .62, and you get 309.69 movement speed. Because 309 is not above or below diminishing returns, you stay at that speed.

Q: What are these diminishing movement returns? (Credit to Guinsoo)

A: For each point of movement you would have above 490, that amount is reduced by 50%. So if your final movement speed was 748, it would be reduced to 490 + (748-490)*0.5 = 604. For each point of movement you would have above 415, it is reduced by 20%. So if your speed after all mods was 445, you would end with 415 + 30 * 0.8 = 439.

Q: Do slows stack?

A: Yes and no. Slows from items do not stack among themselves (Phage, Frozen Mallet, Rylai's Crystal Scepter). However, all other slows stack.

Just like the diminishing returns for bonus movement speed, being slowed has diminishing returns starting at and below 210.

And one addendum: The strongest slow/speed boost is always applied first.

Lifesteal

Lifesteal has no diminishing returns. If you hit an opponent for 20 damage, and manage 200% lifesteal, you will regain 40 health.

Lifesteal is based on damage done, so it is reduced by Armor (which does not have diminishing returns, see below) and doubled (or more!) by crits.

Attackspeed

+Attackspeed from items is additive and references the base attack speed of the champion. Buying two phantom dancers, for example, gives you 110% additional attacks per second, but because they are additive, the effect doesn't increase due to any other items you may have.

Attack speed has a hard cap of 2.5 attacks per second.

Armor and Magic Resistance

The effectiveness of Armor and Magic Resistance do not suffer from diminishing returns.

Please see this answer for a fully detailed explanation of why.

Okay, from my experiments, it goes:

Armor/MR reductions <--> Percentage Reductions
(They stack multiplicatively, so order is irrelevant)

Flat Reductions

This makes sense, since if flat reduction was the first thing applied, after armor, it may have failed to provide a benefit at all (since, for instance, the difference between 50 * 27% and 48 * 27% is minute at best. 50 and 27% being the base attack damage of Ezreal and the armor of Amumu, my two test characters.)

Shields act as health, and damage done to shields is likewise reduced by armor / magic resist. (Meaning shields on tanks can generally absorb more punishment than shields on squishies)