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Flat armor penetration’s name was changed to Lethality in patch 6.22 (pre-season 7) because Riot wanted to attempt to make AD Assassins less oppressive when ahead. Lethality was the same as Armor Pen, except that 1 lethality gave 0.43-1 armor pen depending on the target’s level instead of giving a flat 1 armor pen. The name was changed to Lethality to make it clear that we are not getting flat stats.

Since all of that has been removed, and AD assassins are once again getting flat stats, shouldn’t the name be reverted as well for clarity’s sake? It’s important to keep things as intuitive as possible for new players, and “Lethality” does not communicate as effectively what the stat does for your champion as “Armor penetration” for a new player.

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11 months ago - /u/RiotPhlox - Direct link

For newer players, Armor Penetration actually tends to message "good against armor" much more often than the reverse. People would buy into into armor stacking. This is particularly true when %arpen exists, so we have two different versions of armor penetration useful in very different cases.

Giving it a name like lethality makes it pretty clear it's good for murder (ingame), and that's just about as good as we can get for a stat name claritywise.

Honestly, it might be nice to do this for flat mpen in the future, but that stat is much less common and also systems/champions don't have explicit scaling with it

11 months ago - /u/RiotPhlox - Direct link

Originally posted by helloimapickle

murder (ingame)

how can I build lethality to murder people irl

Smith two longswords together at your local forge to get a serrated dirk and go to town, i guess

11 months ago - /u/RiotPhlox - Direct link

Originally posted by kn1ghtbyt3

i feel like a unique name for heal & shield power would be nice too, even if it's not a priority its just...such a long term for a stat

though of course coming up with a term that makes it clear that the stat works on heals and shields could be pretty tough

Oh I 100% agree, like Virtue or Spirit or smth. We should bake it into spell tooltips and the like if that happens

11 months ago - /u/RiotPhlox - Direct link

Originally posted by LongFluffyDragon

Instructions unclear; do they go end to end in opposite directions?

Follow your heart

11 months ago - /u/RiotPhlox - Direct link

Originally posted by seyandiz

As a developer myself I'm aware the real financial cost of having to remove all references to lethality and across localizations could be, which I would like to see mentioned too. Be honest with the player base.

I'm a bit sad that communication around the conscious decision to keep the name wasn't mentioned in the notes, as likely true this makes it seem a bit revisionist? I'm not sure that's the right term here but I think it gets the point across.

I'd make the argument that lethality also doesn't tell me it's weak against armor. If I'm 50 lethality I'd think I'm really good at killing. Couldn't the same thing be said by naming it something a bit more on the nose? Physical Burst?

I think the name lethality just has a focus group pull to it that the kids like and that's alright too. Maybe more stats should have names like that?

Instead of heal and shield power, why not Protector's Power?

My point here isn't to suggest changes, but rather highlight the conflicting recent decisions here.

Is Riot trying to name things to be honest and complete (flat armor penetration) or intuitively helpful (lethality must help me kill better I don't need to know why).

Other Naming Conventions

I think a lot of the naming conventions around stats could be modernized for newer players.

Ability power doesn't necessarily increase an ability's power.

Attack usually refers to basic attacks (or is it auto attacks)? But Attack Damage often makes your spells stronger too.

We have magic damage and magic resistance. But we have physical damage and armor.

Either way thanks for your time, u/RiotPhlox

I generally agree our names across the board for stats are not ideal or consistent. It's a lot of our oldest system names enshrined by years of service with a few new ones thrown in.

I do expect there'd be some pushback from players if we changed AP into something else, for example, but imo there's surely a better name out there. Is it worth it? No clue.

Not sure why you're bringing up financial cost here? It didn't factor into the conversation at all.

11 months ago - /u/RiotPhlox - Direct link

Originally posted by ZanesTheArgent

Honestly, Phlox, i find more believable the two actual reasons are just embracing community culture and the fact that Pyke exists.

Culture because we're factually in a point of time where saying 18 arpen will have tons of people implying a % when you really just said 18 and not 18%, so it more comfortable to keep them balbuciating the same way.

And Pyke because you dont want to go through the headache of explaining that his spells scales with Armor Penetration but only the flat part so no please stop asking why Seryldas aint increasing his execute threshold.

Yeah I was specifically replying to the clarity point (esp wrt new players). Social Inertia is def another reason to keep it as Lethality, as was it being a stat other things scale with (Pyke, Axiom, etc), as was it just being a cooler name.

11 months ago - /u/RiotPhlox - Direct link

Originally posted by Orisi

Is there now a note on your desk saying "new champ idea: flat MPen scaling assassin"?

The only note on my desk actually reads:

"Please wash before first use.

100% Cotton.

Machine wash with similar colors only.

Do not tumble dry.

Made in Ecuador."