Debunked: AD Runes are Better than ArPen Runes

Come one, come all to the latest edition of Debunked! on A DIFFerent View.

Today we will be busting something that most people wonder at some point or the other. Without further ado, let's dive in!

Myth: AD Runes are Better than ArPen Runes

Now first, we need to constrain ourselves for this myth -- in other words, how do we go about busting this?

The one question that must be answered in this post is: at what times are AD Runes better than ArPen runes, if at all.

For this post, I'm limiting the constraints to Tier 3 Marks and Quints, simply because they are the most common.

This post will be looking at the increase in damage due to 9 AD marks/3 AD Quints VS. 9 ArPen marks/3 ArPen Quints.

I will not be calculating how much damage AD Marks/ArPen Quints vs ArPen Marks/AD Quints or any other mixture do in this post. Those are for future analysis and do not help in busting the myth. We want to strictly look at the difference between ArPen vs AD runes.

Time for some Calculations

Firstly let's figure out how we calculate the damage reduction due to armor. This is the formula we will need:

So if a target has 100 armor, we will end up doing 50% of our base damage.

Having said that, let's create a table with the damage done value for different values of AD and Enemy Armor:

As you have probably realised, it is colour-coded. Red numbers are higher and green numbers are lower. Also take notice that it is on an uneven scale (ie. the intervals between values are not linearly spaced).

Remember that I said we are going to use 9 Marks and 3 Quints for each stat? Well, if we do, we come out to a rounded value of 25 Armor Penetration vs. 15 Attack Damage.

You can manually check to see if 15 AD or 25 ArPen is better at a value by using the table above. Just pick a value, go down the table to add 15 damage or go left to subtract 25 armor. Keep in mind that armor penetration will NOT reduce the target's armor below zero, so for targets with armor below 25, you are wasting some armor penetration stats.

When I first made this table, I was pleasantly surprised to realise that the decrease in damage as armor increases was not linear. I then realised my own stupidity -- armor stacking does not decrease the damage done linearly but increases your effective health linearly. So here's a quick lesson.

Each point of armor increases your effective health by 1%. So if you had 1000 health and got 100 armor, then your effective health (EHP) is now 2000. Compare this to the damage reduced. If Tryndamere is hitting for 1000 every hit, he would kill you in one shot without armor. If you had 100 armor, he would only do 50% damage as 1000/2000 is half of your EHP. Let's add 100 more armor, so our EHP is now 3000. If Tryndamere hits us now, he does 1000/3000 of our EHP as damage -- so 66% of the damage is reduced.

If you understand what I just said, you will understand that armor stacking is not inefficient. Having done that quick detour to debunk armor stacking, let's get back on track to the current Debunked!

Visualising the Data

I decided to graph the data so visualising it would be easier. No one likes scanning through tables (including me!).

Note: The increase in damage is compared to the damage you would do if you didn't have any runes.

At 50 AD:

At 50 AD, we can see that AD runes outshine the ArPen marks at any given armor value (from 0-400).

At 100 AD:

At 100 AD, we can see that the ArPen runes outshine the AD Marks from armor values of 15 to 91 armor.

At 150 AD:

At 200 AD:

I have graphs for a few other values of AD, but I didn't want to clutter this post with all of them.

Conclusions that can be drawn

As you can see, the results of the graphs are quite interesting. At lower levels, AD marks outshine ArPen runes.

Let's take a look at the armor of the camps in the jungle:

Given that junglers are facing enemies with low armor values and that clear speed is key only during early levels, it is safe to say that AD Runes are clearly better for junglers when it comes to clear speed. So for clear speed, AD > ArPen, junglers take note!

Conclusions that cannot be drawn

As you can see, the effectiveness of AD and ArPen runes varies over armor and AD value of the players in question.

AD runes deal more damage earlier in the game and will be easier for last hitting. Would this be enough to dominate your lane opponent?

ArPen runes in general deal more damage than AD runes from 15-90 Armor for values of 100 AD and more.

Questions that need to be answered:

• Are you going to be focusing the carry or an off-tank?
• Are you going to buy Last Whisper if you use AD runes or ArPen runes, or does it not make a difference to your build?
• Are you an early game beast or late game beast?
• Are you an AD Caster who requires AD for damage?

Due to these factors, I cannot conclusively debunk this and will have to give Plausible status to this myth.

Once again, I hope you enjoyed reading this issue of Debunked!

-- DiffTheEnder