ehm, are you sure about that?

maybe it differs from DG to DG, but i'd say far more last hits are ranged spells or even dot.

(Penitence, Fireball, Snipe, Spit, batswarm/bite, groundspikes)

...

I'd love to see more Spell-damage resistance items like Bulwark,

but not affecting physical damage of course.

they wouldn't have to change the health/armor system

just add a few items that reduce spell damage

i don't have any data or anything, but yeah i'll stand by that.  even when a bite or penitence or somesuch seals the deal, it's usually an autoattack of some kind that actually score the kill.

i think the reason for this is that people know when they are getting near the critical-danger HP level where one ability can finish them and they try to break off before than. player B knows that player A knows that he's in danger, so player B uses the ability while he still can, before player A breaks off. this leaves player A with an extremely low amount of HP, rendering him killbait.

the principal exception to this is snipe.  Spit too, sometimes.

I would bet it's a speed issue.  If dying persons' speed greater than killers, than a burst damage ability will more likely kill them.  Other way around, you will finish the 'runner' with auto attacks.

Even then though I'm not convinced. Burst damage is just that, and tends to overkill a little bit due to the damage chunk size.

Anyhow, none of this really has to do with the original post.

It's the burst damage that usually causes a person to run.  And if the pursuer is faster, then you are dead to autoattacks.  But if you were to look at the damage you receive before you ran, it is invariably burst damage or some type of damage that bypassed the armor which causes the majority of damage. It's not damage over the whole course of the battle that matters - it's the damage up to the point when someone decides to turn tail.  So even if you start to break even with armor at say 5K health, that is misleading if you start to run with 2K health left.

Not until the late game do autoattacks really come into their own.  So armor gains some significance when you start getting a few artifacts, but until then, HP just seems to rein supreme.  This is even moreso in large games where you may have 3 DGs that all drop their abilities on you at the outset.

Furthermore, there is the psychological effect.  If I have 4.5K hits and my opponent has 7K hits, I can tell you that I am less likely to go for a straight up 1v1.  It maybe that I have enough armor to overcome the HP difference, but I will not know that until it gets to a point where I will be unable to retreat if I do not.

Hmmm, armor does not save you from my snipe!

but high health does.

As a reg player, the players who cause the greatest threat to me are the ones stacking health. That tells something.

Armor is a flat improvement. It doesn't look like it since the % reduction per point of armor decreases, but the percentage of effective HP you gain is linear. To demonstrate, imagine you have 25% damage reduction from your armor. If you have X hp, then when X flat damage hits you, you stil have .25X left. If armor didn't apply to this remaining hp, then you would have exponentially diminishing returns. But since it obviously does, you have to sum the infinite series (.25)^k for 1<k<infinity. This is a simple geometric series so you must take 1/(1-.25)-1 = .333x additional damage before you die. If you have 50% reduction, this is double the amount of damage reduction, but it gives you more than double the effective hp compared to 25% reduction. Same formula applies: 1/(1-.5)-1=1, so you must take x additional damage before you die. In this case you can take 3 times as much additional damage for 2 times the % reduction.

The reason comparing it to your current health is relevant is because your health increases throughout the game. Armor bonuses get better the more health you have, health bonuses do not. 1000 armor at level 20 provides more benefit than at the beginning. 1000 hp provides the same core benefit (aside from the fact that you have more armor at the end).

I'm going to admit to not having read the entire thread, but I think the changes to HoL, an item that currently nearly everyone uses to replenish both health and mana constantly from the mid game onwards will greatly affect armor usage. Armor reducesthe amount of HP you need to recover after a fight, and without the magical mobile health crystal we all love to hate, this is actually going to mean something.

Those saying auto attack is bugger all of the damage taken for most of the game are spot on in terms of the auto attack that you notice, but how much AA do you actually soak up with HoL? Burst damage you notice, but getting down to 50% health from being AA'ed costs the enemy nothing, and with the HoL, costs you nothing either. Without the HoL its another story, armor will hopefully be more useful since stacking 5000 hp will require you to take a number of pots to replenish that hp, whereas the guy who got +armor items only needs a single cheap potion to heal back to full, albeit at higher vulnerability to burst damage.

Bottom line: if you stack HP without having HoL you're going to need to either

1) be Sedna and have mana pots

2) buy lots of health pots

3) frequently RTB

That's exactly right, and is the "real world" situation the theorycrafts ignore.  If you take a frontloaded 2k from nukes out of your 4000 hp, you are not going to stand and fight and rely on your amazing armor - you are going to run lest you eat more nukes or maybe a snipe from beyond.  If you are running you aren't dealing any autoattack damage to them, but they may be to you.

You might die to autoattacks but it's not what killed you.

ok might be a noob, but i would swear that armor helpes vs all dmg right...

i had matches where my attack was constant between 350-400 per hit only on the UB it was around 280, is someone able to explain this to me?

thnx

No, armor helps vs auto attack only.

And minion damage, and Rook towers I believe.

Armor is supposed to mitigate all damage that is not specifically activated/cast by a Demigod.

This would include auto-attacks, grunt damage, building damage, and I THINK minion damage, too.

I think the importance of armor depends on who you are fighting against. If you are experiencing a high volume of ability damage, then you need to stack on the HP, but if your enemies are using a lot of auto-attacks and minion damage, you need to get some armor.

Typically a good balance of the two is good. All HP and no armor is no better than mostly armor and low HP.

No, that's wrong, and is the point I've been making all along.

Ability damage is unaffected by armor, so all hp and no armor does help greatly against it!  + 1000 hp/0 armor helps in so many more situations than +500 hp/+300 armor because you will die to that 600 dmg pounce now, where before you would have lived.

Actually I'll amend my statement. I think that as the game progresses, armor matters more and HP matters less. At around 4-5k HP, it's best to start stacking on armor. That's because most Demigods are not capable of bursting that much damage, and will rely on killing you with AA.

Also, armor is ESPECIALLY good against crit-stacking.

You are right that armor begins to matter more, but it is not at the 4K-5K range for the reasons I stated above.   You are going to flee well before you get close to zero damage so the better metric to use is the point at which you flee.  So even if you have 5K hits, if you are fleeing at 2K hits, then the better metric of your staying power is 3K, not 5K.  Using 3K as the metric, at least a third of that damage will be done at T=0 and possibly more in a 1v1 fight.  If you are involved in a 2v2 straight-up fight, at least 2/3 of your staying hitpoints will be done at T=0 if the damage is focused.  (And God help you if Reg is sitting off in the wings waiting to snipe).  You are way better off having 8K total HP (6K v. 3K staying HP) and no armor than you are with 5K HP and some large amount armor.

Late in the game when people get vasts amounts of AA increases and attack speed increases, armor makes a lot more sense.  But this is late in the game when people start stacking artifacts and at this point the game is typically decided.  There are always games that will be the exception, but I typically fear a UB coming at me with 8K hits more than a UB coming at me with 5K hits.  A big exception for me is a map with a couple of rooks or a lot of defensive towers.  That is when armor makes much more sense because it gives you more staying power when you are knocking down defensive structures.  Other than that, I stack HP until I start doubling up on artifacts.

The fact that most people are failing to understand, is that if you stack say nimroths plate, groffling warchest (or whatever the 2 hp + armor pieces are called)

TO STACK HIGH HP YOU WILL END UP STACKING HIGH ARMOUR AS WELL ANYWAY

Add in some lifesteal from say narmoths ring + mageslayer, and the obligatory move speed boots, and its gg with relatively low cost items (i.e. u can buy all of them well before lvl 20).

Nimroths + Groffling alone give you some 50% autoattack dmg mitigation, which is especially powerful when you consider you will have up to 8k hp as well by this point. This means a ) you will not be killed by spells and b ) you will not be killed by autoattacks.

Here is one of my standard game builds:

Start with:
blood of the fallen
1000g starting on banded armor + scaled helm
save up 1800g, get scalemail, gauntlets of brutality and boots of speed, then replace:

(dont forget to buy currency I early as well)

banded armor -> narmoths ring (4000g) - nice hp, hp regen and life steal
scaled helm -> vlemish faceguard (1750g) - to satisfy most mana needs
scalemail -> nimoth chest armor (1500g) -> groffling warplate (5200g) - nice hp and armor
gauntlets of brutality -> slayers wraps (3300g) -> mageslayer (8000g) - crits + hp regen off slayers wraps are rly nice
boots of speed -> journeymans treads (6750g) - last upgrade to buy, usually dont need it

slots: town portals, flag locks, wand of speed

Offers excellent survivability with high hp, high armor, high hp regen, high lifesteal, enough mana regen, some nice damage, and enough move speed to chase people down.

This is pretty much it for UB, Sedna, Erebus, and Oak, but you can switch some things up.

Instead of the scalemail or gauntlets you can get unbreakable boots and hauberk (if you're a general) for more hp at the expense of armor and damage - which is better in the end for the reasons listed above.

Oh yes and I saved my trump card for last.

Priests heal is based on your max hp.  Yes, your MAX.  Thus it is absolutely crucial as a general to get as much hp as you can.  The priests will heal for more.  This clearly makes armor less important for generals.

err no heart of life in that item build. Not going to be able to tank more than 1 push...

...The healing is more efficient when you have more armor. That goes for regeneration, self heals, and life steals as well. 

groffling warplate is not an hp item.  if the armor is incidental you can just use the hauberk of life instead.

I end up with over 50hp regen per second, and by the point i have those items I usually have 5+ kills anyway. I have never personally needed to use HoL ever, and rarely get beaten by people who have it because they will be dead before they get away to use it. Only time I ever have problems with HoL is with a shielding Oak, for obvious reasons...

I do sometimes buy a robust rejuv potion, depending on map and whether I buy vlemish around lvl 5 or not (roll + slam eats mana).

(edit: rooks shoulder weapons + wand of speed really f&$%'s up HoL users) 

*Not* against ability damage.  I really don't know how many times I have to repeat this.

Armor is good for decreasing incoming damage. *waits* 

No shit.  It's almost as if the effectiveness of armor depends on how much of the damage you are taking is ability based.

And as Melric said, it's about how much you take until the "I better run" HP level.  You're going to be hit with a frontload of ability damage in battle, followed by autoattacks, followed by more ability damage as the cooldowns finish.  The priests immediately heal you after you take the frontload. (Assuming you were at full already)  The amount they heal will be based off your max hp, and the amount you get back will be extremely important towards keeping you above the "I better run" HP amount.

It's going to be ability damage that decides that for a majority of the game.

The Rook does not have that luxury ^^