What Does Lethality do in League of Legends?

Lethality is a very popular statistic that a lot of attack damage champions build towards and itemize for, but not many people actually know what it does, or how it works. Well, we are here to tell you exactly that.

This article will give you the rundown on how lethality works, how much it penetrates the armor of enemy champions, and what the difference is between lethality and armor penetration, including when you should build it on your champions!

What does Lethality do in League of Legends?
 

Lethality was introduced into League of Legends at the end of Season 6 in Patch 6.22, which was preseason for Season 7. This replaced flat armor penetration that certain items would give you, but it essentially does the same thing, just with a new, and cooler name.

Lethality provides flat armor penetration that scales with your champion's level. The formula is: Flat Armor Penetration = Lethality × (0.6 + 0.4 × (Level ÷ 18)).

For example, at level 18, 30 lethality converts to 30 flat armor penetration. If the enemy has 40 armor, they will effectively have 10 armor against your attacks.

This is why assassins such as Zed, Qiyana, and Shadow Assassin Kayn stack a lot of lethality, building items such as Duskblade of Draktharr, Edge of Night, and Serpent’s Fang, as the more lethality they itemize for, the easier targets are to kill.

Hence why lethality users are so good at one-shotting and bursting down low health targets who don’t often build armor - they are essentially doing true damage!

Every Lethality Item in League of Legends
 

Lethality is a stat that isn’t on too many items in the game, as it is one of the B tier stats, similar to ability haste. These are stats which are almost never the primary focus for building an item, unlike attack damage, ability power, armor, magic resistance and health.

Lethality items are very great to build together, however, so below we have listed every item in League of Legends that gives you lethality:

• Axiom Arc
• Duskblade of Draktharr
• Eclipse
• Edge of night
• Hellfire Hatchet (Arena only)
• Lifeline (Nexus Blitz only)
• Prowler’s Claw
• Serpent’s Fang
• Serrated Dirk
• Spectral Cutlass(Nexus Blitz only)
• Sword of the Divine (Nexus Blitz only)
• The Collector
• Umbral Glaive
• Youmuu’s Ghostblade

How does Lethality differ from Armor Penetration in League of Legends?
 

Lethality and armor penetration might seem as if they are doing the same thing, but they are actually slightly different stats, which means that you can itemize in a certain way, based on what is needed in that one specific game or scenario.

Armor penetration reduces a percentage of an enemy champion’s armor, rather than the flat amount of armor penetration that lethality provides.

Black Cleaver applies a stack of 6% armor reduction per instance of physical damage dealt to an enemy champion, stacking up to 5 times for a maximum of 30% armor reduction. This means that a target with 100 armor, essentially loses 30 of that armor, whilst an enemy champion with 400 armor, loses what essentially is 120 of that armor.

When should you build Lethality over Armor Penetration?
 

Lethality and armor penetration items are very different in when you build them. For instance, armor penentration items penetrate through a percentage of the target’s armor, making it ideal for taking on champions that stack armor.

This is more often than not the tankier champions, whether it be through them building tanky items, such as Thornmail or Iceborn Gauntlet, or even naturally stacking armor at an increased rate from their kit, such as Malphite’s Passive or Sejuani’s Passive.

Lethality is a lot more effective when targets have very little armor, as anything past the armor they have becomes true damage, removing a flat amount.

This means you want to build lethality against squisher targets primarily, and armor penetration against tankier targets.

After all, the max of 18 lethality on Duskblade of Draktharr is not going to affect an Ornn with 120 armor all that much, but a Lord Dominik’s Regards that bypasses 40% of his armor will do a lot more.

On the other hand, 30% armor penetration against a target who has 50 armor is nothing, but 18 lethality is huge against them.

We recommend itemizing with a lethality priority, often building Duskblade of Draktharr, Youmuu’s Ghostblade, or Eclipse as your Mythic item, and then building Edge of Night or Serpent’s Fang, before finally purchasing an armor penetration item, such as Lord Dominik’s regards.

Is Lethality better than AD?

Lethality and Attack Damage (AD) help in different ways. Lethality lowers a flat amount of your enemy’s armor. This makes it easier to deal more damage with abilities. It works best on champions like Zed or Talon, who rely on fast combos to defeat enemies. AD increases the base damage of auto-attacks and skills that scale with AD. Champions like Jinx or Yasuo gain more from AD because they hit often and need strong base damage. If you face low-armor targets, Lethality is more effective. If you need steady damage over time, AD is the better choice.