Difference between flat-pen and power

[slim summit]

Can someone help me understand the difference between flat penetration and power? For basic attacks: If i have 5 more power i will do 5 more damage, right? eg.
if the enemy has 30 armor and i have 50 power i will do 20 damage... if i have 55 power i will do 25 damage.
Now. if i instead get 5 penetration the result would be the same? right? because ignore 5 of his 30 armor and it comes down to 25.
Usually you get very little penetration per card in pred. you usually get 3-5 times the power per card. So i don't really understand why I would be interested in Penetration instead of power.

For example, i dont get the patch notes for the vanquisher item. Why does giving flat-pen instead of power make the item more bursty?

Vanquisher:
A quick shift in numbers to better define Vanquisher as a burst option via Penetration to better suit those Carries looking to blow up an Opponent in a shorter window (looking at you, Drongo), rather than it serving as an all purpose DPS stick. 

◆ Physical Power decreased from 50 to 45.
◆ Physical Penetration increased from 10 to 12.

someone pls help

only getting 2 penetration instead of 5 powerr seems like a down grade to me

[restive flicker]

Well losing 10% of power but gaining 20% more pen is a net benefit

[dry glen]

Armor isn't flat damage reduction. It's essentially a % increase to effective hp, which means it's a logarithmic % damage reduction. Therfore, pen is multiplicative with power

It also bypasses power scaling on abilities, and applies to their base values, multiplying them as well

You can think of the ultimate extreme, a physical ability with 0% power scaling. It wouldn't benefit at all from power, but would do more damage if you built pen

[slim summit]

no, that is not the point. you cant look at it this way

[slim summit]

thanks for the long reply, so essentially what you are saying, it is pretty complicated. Its pretty impossible to calculate the value of a certain item in your head

what is the formula for the armor benefit? do you know>

[restive flicker]

Pen translates into damage more directly than a power increase.

[slim summit]

if a card gave you 100 power and 1 ability haste. and in the patch the card loses 40 power but gains 1 ability haste it is still a dwongrade. even tho the ability haste gain is 100% and the power loss is 40%.

[slim summit]

yeah, thanks to the replies i get that... it not that simple tho. there definitely is going to be a break even point of some sort

it's dificult to weigh extra 10 pen compared to extra 40 power for example

it's not just. always go for the pen because it is percentage based damage

[restive flicker]

That example you gave is extreme, and yes obviously in that case the 100% increase in ability haste would be meaningless because in raw terms it only went up one. But going from 10 to 12 is a big change and going from 50 to 45 is not

[dry glen]

Not certain, but it's like how 20 cdr means you cast 20% more abilities, 20 armor is kinda like 20% more hp against that damage type, but I am uncertain if it is 1:1 like cdr, or if there is a scaling multiplier, e.g. 20 armor giving only 10% bonus health. Or 40%

[slim summit]

doestn matter if it is extreme. The way of looking at the subject is flawed

[slim summit]

yeah, that makes sense. well with cdr the first 10 give you 10%, 20 gives you 18% and so on.. i think

[restive flicker]

I disagree. In the specific case you mentioned, I would rather have 12 pen to 50 power. I'd rather have an increase in pen over power, and in this case the proportion isn't an even exchange: it's better on the side of pen! Which is great!

[slim summit]

probably.

also depends on what stage of the game you are at

with cdr it doesnt benefit you going above 50 that much

[restive flicker]

Every character got a 10% reduction in how power adds to their auto attacks, making power slightly less impactful, pen wasn't touched. Pen is a good thing to have

[slim summit]

like the first 10 points in cdr are way more important thant the last 10 points

again.... i think

[dry glen]

18% off the timer, maybe. But in this game, if you could cast your ability 5 times in 20 seconds with no cdr, at 20% cdr you would be able to cast it 6 times in 20 seconds

[slim summit]

there really needs to be a wiki for this 😄

[remote belfry]

1 penetration = -1 armor for the target

1 armor = +1% EHP against that damage type.
So 1 Physical Armor means a 1% increase in effective max health against Physical attacks.

A Rampage with 4000 HP that buys 1 extra armor now has 4040 EHP against Physical attacks, and that armor was worth 40 EHP.

1 penetration therefore, would "decrease" that EHP back down from 4040 to 4000, results in the damage required to kill him being 40 less, compared to buying 1 extra Physical power that would require several hits to make up that 40 damage.

Now there is a lot of mathematical nonsense that goes into optimising power vs pen vs crit vs attack speed buys that I won't get into here, but as a general set of simple rules, you want Penetration when:

• Your Hero wishes to burst an opponent down quickly with a few abilities/basics (Drongo is a good example as he looks to 1-combo someon.)
• Your hero has higher base damage abilities with lower Physical power scalings (there is always. Penetration:Power breakpoint but it changes per ability.)
• When playing against several squishies as their base armor scaling is less, and therefore each point of penetration is a larger EHP reduction RELATIVE to buying power etc.

If you wish to learn more id advise checking out the smite or league wiki as they operate on a similar formula to us and those pages can explain some of the general concept of these calculationa way more succinctly than I can.

Hope this helped

[slim summit]

thaks, great explaination!
If I understand this correctly, in the given example of rampage having 4000 HP and 4040 EHP.... The 1 pen I have wont actually do 40 extra damage each hit? Instead i see his health bar not having 4040HP but 4000hp instead, because i reduced his armor by having 1 pen?

if that is true, this explains a lot 😄

[remote belfry]

this is correct.

1 pen does equal more damage, but that's where the % damage reduction comes based on X armor, which goes lower obviously the more pen you buy.

but my explanation shows you how armor is not diminishing returns in a real sense

cos no matter how much armor someone buys in the rampage example it's always an extra 1% per point

[slim summit]

yes, and if i am correct, you will never run into a situation where the enemy has less armor than you have pen

or cant that happen?

can*

[remote belfry]

so ofc relative it's less the more you buy, but you get the same value per point

[remote belfry]

its extremely rare, but in the case of 0 armor targets and you have 1 pen, it won't result in additional damage

its what's known as "overpen" in other games

but we don't use it as it can result in extremely fast TTK when someone snowballs and hits it

especially with various team shreds etc

[slim summit]

yeah, in that way it is similar to power

[remote belfry]

exactly

but yeah any other questions feel free to ping me and I'll respond if/when I can

in terms of equating how much extra damage 1 pen is compared to 1 power, thats a lot more complex and you will have to use a damage calc to solve that in most cases

but the general rules should give you a rough idea of when to opt for power vs pen

and in the case of most pen options, like crit, they're paired with power so the decision is a little simpler based on item theme so you dont have to worry too much about damage calcing, just oick items with stats and effects that make sense for your character as a baseline