I.10d - Take two - military expenditure

My previous post was lengthy and I was wrong about a very critical fact about mitigration scaling. Thanks to Phreak for setting me straight.

TL;DR Both health and mitigation scale linearly; prefer health early on because it helps against all incoming damage sources. Itemize not only based on your opponent's comp but also which of your opponents is doing well.

In depth:

I previously stated that the mitigation becomes less efficient over time, but I was wrong. Both health and mitigation scale linearly. 100 armor provides you with 50% mitigation. If you have 1000hp it will take 2000 physical damage to kill you. 200 armor gives you 66% mitigation, meaning it will take 3000 physical damage to kill you. Every 100 points of mitigation gives you 100% more effective health from that source.

I maintain that health should be favored over mitigation because it allows you to absorb all 3 types of damage (physical, magic, true). Purchasing 100 armor does nothing to protect you from an ap carry, so building out a solid base of hp is a great way to soak damage from both sides and adding mitigation contextually.

To demonstrate the principles that effect your build order, I'll discuss jungle Amumu and cover two scenarios. The enemy team has a balanced comp so I will account for both types of incoming damage. I always start with Philosopher's Stone and Heart of Gold. The passive gold helps my late game itemization, the Philo allows me to give blue to the ap, and the HoG establishes early health for tanking. I use 0-21-9 masteries, armor yellows, and mr/level blues, move speed quints and magic pen reds.

Ad carry is doing awesome, ap is meh:

• Randuins or Frozen Heart. The Frozen Heart is very popular right now, mana, cooldown reduction, armor, and a debuff aura are very compelling. Note however that these stats will do nothing to protect me from the enemy ap. If I expect incoming magic damage, the Randuins will protect me from both sides and give me the aoe slow.

Ap carry is doing well:

• Aegis/Negatron. The aegis gives me everything a tanks need and is extremely cost efficient. With  health from the HoG and Aegis, a Negatron will substantially mitigate incoming magic damage. I would likely go back to buying armor at this point because the utility of the big armor items tends to beat out the negatron items. 

I've found it very challenging to succinctly describe the driving forces that optimize your itemization because there are so many variables at play. Watching pros is a good way to start building a body of knowledge around when to build what. Pay attention to what's happening in the game, watch the order in which items are picked up, and actually talk through the decisions with yourself (or a buddy) to determine how wise the choice was. It's worth noting that the mathematically you can calculate the maximum effective health for a given amount of gold, however this is of limited value because in reality you are limited to six item slots and items give you specific stats that may not follow this curve. Additionally for legendary items you are paying for things other than the base health and mitigation stats so it's difficult to say what item will treat you best based on simple models.

I.10d - Method and Discipline - military expenditure

10. By METHOD AND DISCIPLINE are to be understood the control of military expenditure


Spending your gold wisely is probably the most discussed topic in League of Legends. Guide quality has improved drastically because the pros have gotten involved. This post will discuss the mindset behind making the most out of your builds rather than answering specific questions about what to build in a particular role. While some champions have fairly stable build paths, builds should always be adjusted according to the context of your current game. On the flip side, there are core principles that should inform your decisions and not be compromised, regardless of the situation you are in.


Guides have been improving in quality and the greatest improvement is that builds often consist of core items as well as situational items. One topic that gets less attention however is what order you buy items, even while trying to finish the same core build.


Tanks need health and mitigation to be effective. The most common mistakes players make is to build mitigation before health. As a quick disclaimer, while I am a numbers guy, I am not a huge fan of number crunching in LoL because so many factors are related to human behavior, which is very hard to quantify. 

Now I'll illustrate how you can maximize the value of your build even when building the same core items. 
[edit] This portion of the post has been rewritten because it was too long and I had some bad data. The followup is linked below.


A few core principles that you should consider while you adjust your build.

Ad Carry: You need carry damage, finish two damage items (iedge + pd) before building an expensive mitigation item (banshee's). If you are struggling, go dorans blades and wriggles to add some damage as well as survive.
Ap Carry: You need carry damage, if you're forced to buy mitigation consider an early Null Mantle. Go for RoA or Rylai's rather than doing something crazy like building a Banshee's before you get damage. A Catalyst and Negatron would be the absolute tankiest I would ever go, this still allows you to finish a RoA and keep working towards real damage.
Tank: Health is king, a 1000hp singed with FoN isn't really doing that much for you, really.
Tanky DPS: Aim for items that give you damage and mitigation, Wriggles, Wit's End, Frozen Mallet and Atma's are excellent at giving you great value for tanking and dps'ing.
Support: gp/10 is critical, always. Shurelya's, Aegis, and other aura items are legit.


Maximizing the value of your build is complicated. Experiment, study, watch the pros, and you'll increase your itemization efficiency in no time. For the follow up on this post, check out Method And Discipline Take Two.