What Is Lethality In League Of Legends?

League of Legends Lethality is a relatively new feature and is a stat that affects how you build your character. League of Legends gives players a lot of freedom to buy items and build their Champions in the ways they want. Lethality can be increased with items, and it interacts with Armour in a way players need to be aware of. So here is everything you need to know about Lethality in League of Legends.

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League Of Legends Lethality: What Does It Mean?

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It seems there has been some confusion about Lethality, stemming from the explanations given by Riot. Originally, Lethality was explained as "flat armour penetration", which is confusing not in the least because League of Legends already has an Armour Penetration mechanic. While Lethality is very relevant to the Armour stat, it is a separate idea from Armour Penetration.

Lethality is better described as Armour negation. For example, if you hit an enemy with no Armour, you will hit them with your maximum damage. If that enemy has 10 Armour, they would negate a chunk of the damage you do. However, if you have 10 Lethality, you negate the enemy's 10 Armour and you hit them with max damage.

Lethality negates enemy Armour stats one for one; 20 Lethality negates 20 Armour, 10 Lethality reduces 20 Armour down to 10, and so on.

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League Of Legends Lethality: How To Use It

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Conceptually, Lethality sounds very powerful. However, due to factors like cost, and the amount of Armour your enemies can and should acquire, it winds up not being quite so potent. It can be very useful, but it is not a means to circumvent Armour altogether.

The primary use for Lethality is to punish opponents who do not purchase enough Armour. It is especially useful for Assassin Champions, appearing out of nowhere and decimating mid-laners or ADCs who don't have the Armour required to prevent it.

Lethality is by no means a quick and easy solution to your problems. A typical item to buy when starting to build into Lethality is the Serrated Dirk, which costs 1100 Gold and grants 10 Lethality.

When you consider that Cloth Armour costs 300 Gold and grants 15 Armour, completely negating the 1100 Gold spent on Serrated Dirk, you can see how easily Lethality is countered.

That is it for our League of Legends Lethality explainer. For more on the game, check out our rundown of the League of Legends Patch 13.3.