This article or section is substantially or structurally incomplete. You can help the League of Legends Wiki by expanding it. For more projects, see the Community To Do List.
Additional information:
This article and the Damage types section in particular contain confusing or outdated information that is presently subject to a complete overhaul. |
- Note: Not to be confused with attack damage, a champion statistic, nor health costs.
Damage is the deduction of a unit's current health as a result of an offensive interaction referred to as a damage instance or damage event.
Damage type classifications[]
Damage events in League of Legends can be assigned different types, tags and properties to manage interactions, such as mitigation by the respective type of resistances or additional effects to be triggered by the damage event based on tags.
Damage types[]
Any instance of damage can have only one of the following types:
- Physical damage
- Mitigated by armor. Almost all units' basic attacks deal exclusively physical damage.
- Magic damage
- Mitigated by magic resistance. The powerful ability casts of Mages deal magic damage.
- True damage
- Not reduced by resistances nor almost all damage reduction effects. Reserved for powerful effects or those that for gameplay or technical reasons are not supposed to interact with resistances or reduction effects. True damage still respects shields and invulnerability.
Damage tags[]
Any instance of damage can have none or multiple of the following tags:
- BasicAttack
- A tag found on the primary damage instance of basic attacks including empowered forms of basic attacks (e.g. , ), attack-like spells (e.g. , ) and automatic effects behaving like attacks (e.g. , , , ). Damage with this tag will interact with .
- ActiveSpell
- A tag found on damage instances of most abilities and some systemic effects that makes them trigger spell effects, including most empowered basic attacks. Often associated with the user spending mana and/or a cooldown to deal the damage.
- AOE
- A tag that lets the game recognize an instance of damage as coming from an area of effect source. Certain pets are more resilient against damage with this tag in order to make them less susceptible against champions with strong area-of-effect abilities. Often accompanies the ActiveSpell tag.
- Periodic
- A tag that lets the game recognize an instance of damage as a repetitive kind. Found on Damage debuffs (e.g. sleep. , , ), most non-targeted spells that deal damage repeatedly (e.g. , ). Damage with the periodic tag does not interrupt
- Item
- A tag that lets the game recognize an instance of damage as coming from a non-champion source, such as an item or summoner spell. This allows effects that are supposed to only trigger on champion abilities (e.g. Cleave, Torment) to ignore damage instances with this tag.
- Proc
- A tag that lets the game recognise an instance of damage as being applied as a secondary effect. This is commonly used for on-hit effects or other instances of damage that shouldn't interact with anything else. This tag is normally reserved for automatic applications of on-hit effects (e.g. , , ).
- Pet
- NonRedirectable
- Indirect
Damage properties[]
Any instance of damage can have none or multiple of the following properties:
- ApplyLifesteal
- A tag that forces a damage instance to apply life steal. Unless otherwise specified it applies at 100% effectiveness, with no penalty for AoE damage. Found on certain auto-attack-like abilities (e.g. , , ).
- EnableCallForHelp
- RespectImmunity
- RespectDodge
- A tag that forces a damage instance to respect dodges (e.g. , ). This is the default for basic damage, as well as some abilities.
- TriggerOnHitEvents
- TriggerDamageEvents
- ApplyOmnivamp
- Nameless property
Damage values[]
Base values and character statistics ratios[]
Critical strike[]
A damage instance can critically strike when it is implemented as such on an active attack or ability. Damage that critically strikes has been modified by a percentage above 100%, thus deals increased damage. Critical strikes interact exclusively with critical strike chance, critical strike damage, and Critical Resilience. The highest critical strike damage instance is also tracked in the post-game statistics.
Physical damage critical strike |
Magic damage critical strike |
True damage critical strike |
A basic attack that critically strikes is modified by the attacker's critical strike damage, which is by default 175%. Most on-hit effects will not be affected, unless specified (e.g. ).
Critical strike chance above 100% does not affect critical strikes.
- Average damage calculations
- Assuming:
- All amounts are in decimal form.
- DamageBase = the normal damage amount (before any modifiers)
- CritChance = critical strike chance
- CritMod = critical strike modifier/ratio
Then the average damage per attack when continously attacking can be calculated with the formula:
- For example:
- 100 DamageBase, 40% CritChance, 175% CritMod
- average damage per attack
- 100 DamageBase, 100% CritChance, 175% CritMod
- average damage per attack
- 100 DamageBase, 80% CritChance, 215% CritMod
- average damage per attack
- 100 DamageBase, 100% CritChance, 120% CritMod
- average damage per attack
Successful ability casts[]
Certain abilities have unique impact text that triggers when they deal increased damage due to the player successfully passing the ability's condition (e.g. to denote cosmetic critical strikes (not to be confused with actual critical strikes). A list of all abilities that use this impact effect can be found below.
hitting a single target). On the LoL Wiki, these are referred to asPhysical damage "successfully enhanced" |
Magic damage "successfully enhanced" |
True damage "successfully enhanced" |
- Sweetspot. against enemies hit by each cast's
- against enemies recently hit by or a fully formed
- against bursted enemies and against enemies hit
- against champions with her attacks
- against enemies that hit a wall
- against enemies hit beyond the first if they were revealed by
- against the target and against enemies under the health threshold
- against the target if they were recently feared by the ability
- against enemies that collide with terrain
- against enemies hit after the barrel has fully fermented
- against enemies hit in the center of the cone
- against immobilized or isolated targets
- against an isolated enemy
- against enemies under the health threshold
- , , and against enemies marked by
- against enemy champions and monsters hit in the center of the area
- against enemies hit by both bolts
- against the target hit by the first attack
- against a single target
- against the target if they are already bleeding
- against the target if they were
- against enemies under the health threshold
- against executed enemy champions
- against enemies under the health threshold
- at maximum Fury
- against enemies marked by
- against the enemy hit
- against enemies under the health threshold
- against enemies that take increased damage
- and both against enemies hit in the center of the area
- against enemies in the center
- Worked Ground when casting on
- on awakened cast, against both the target and enemies hit by the lightning
- against the executed target
- against enemies hit if the ability was fully charged (includes bonus damage)
- against the target if they collide with terrain
- against targets marked wtih Gloom
- against the target if the ability was empowered by
- against the target if they are Wounded and against enemies hit in the center of the area
- upon leaping to enemies marked by
- against executed targets
- against turrets below the health threshold
- charge against turrets
- Shield Reaver against shields
Capped damage[]
Damage value modifiers[]
See also: Damage modifier
Invulnerability[]
See also: Invulnerability
Calculating mitigation[]
See also: Armor and Magic Resistance
Calculating applied damage[]
See also: Shields
The information below describes an outdated model of damage classification, but will continue to exist until the section and cross-wiki references are fully overhauled.
There are two systems for classifying damages: an engine-level system and a script-level system. As the name suggests, the engine-level system is integrated into the game's engine; while the script-level system is a relatively modern addition that allows Riot more flexibility.
Damage classifications modify what effects are triggered when damage is dealt or received - e.g. on-hit effects (such as ) are triggered whenever your champion deals a source of basic damage.
Engine level[]
Wiki Name | API name | Description | Example(s) |
---|---|---|---|
Raw damage e | raw | Damage that ignores shields. It is hard-coded to ignore resurrection, but specific instances are then special-cased to be un-ignored. | Nexus Obelisk (to non-champions) | , and
N/A | internalraw | As above, but also ignores invulnerability. Resurrection and are ignored. | Nexus Obelisk (to champions), self-damage, redirected damage, and grove freeing to monsters |
Default damage e | periodic[s 1] | Ability-based procs with no interactions. Effects without a proper damage type default to this category, including most splash damage. | , , , , |
Proc damage e | proc[s 2] | Attack-based procs with no interactions. Proc effects are triggered whenever you deal basic damage. | |
Reactive damage e | reactive | Damage type dealt by Thorns. Similar reflection effects (e.g. Annie and Rammus) are classified as area damage. | Only | and
Basic damage e | attack[s 3] | Damage dealt by any unit(s), which includes turrets, neutral monsters, and minions basic attack and some champion abilities. | , , |
Spell damage e | spell[s 4] | Damage used for single target abilities and some basic attacks. | , , , |
Area damage e | spellaoe | Damage dealt by most abilities capable of damaging multiple units. | , , |
Persistent damage e | spellpersist | Damage dealt through DoTs | , |
Pet damage e | pet | Damage dealt by most pet basic attacks. Other pet damage is classified as Spell/SpellPersist. | , , |
- ↑ The League of Legends Wiki decided that the word "periodic" would be too easily misunderstood due to the implication of 'bleed' or 'over-time' behaviour.
- ↑ The term 'proc' refers to a mechanic that has a chance of triggering, which is common in games such as World of Warcraft (e.g., "Your attacks have an x % chance to cause [...]" effects). League of Legends originally featured 'true' proc effects (e.g., "your attacks have a chance to slow.") However, the design philosophy of Riot Games' over-time grew more towards preferring 'on-hit' or "every nth attack" to purely random mechanics. Despite this: the engine-level label persisted. The term 'proc' now describes all additional effect triggers even if they are not guaranteed, 'proc' is used as a verb when triggering such an effect.
- ↑ The League of Legends Wiki elected to use the 'basic' portion of basic attack to refer to this damage type to avoid confusion between 'attack damage' the damage type and attack damage the statistic.
- ↑ Some abilities such as Karthus' Lay Waste are capable of dealing either spell damage or area damage depending on the number of targets hit.
Before our editors determined the above damage types from the game files, the wiki's damage type documentation was based on observation. The wiki previously grouped spell, spellaoe and spellpersist as a single 'ability damage' type, with 'single target,' 'aoe' and 'dot' being noted as subtypes. The wiki also used pure damage as a conjectural placeholder for the now-termed raw damage. While the described functionality was usually correct, the previous documentation included many 'special cases' for abilities that did not behave consistently with the observed rules.
Despite having distinct use-cases, proc damage and default damage are almost indistinguishable in terms of their gameplay functionality. Differentiating the two damage types without accessing the game files is extremely difficult for some effects. One of the only known ways to distinguish the two types involves : Instances of default damage do not disable passive movement speed, while instances of proc damage will. This distinction does not apply to other "out of combat" effects.
Script level[]
The following are the currently known script-tags:
- AOE
- Periodic
- Indirect
- BasicAttack
- ActiveSpell
- Proc
- Pet
- NonRedirectable
- Item
For the most part, the two systems correlate and so the League of Legends Wiki has elected to not to document the script-level system separately across all articles. Instances where script-level tags create deviations from engine-level rules will be noted on a case-by-case basis in the ability-details. A notable but consistent deviation is persistent area damage, as documented below:
Wiki Name | API name | Description | Example(s) |
---|---|---|---|
Persistent area damage e | N/A | Abilities classified as area damage on an engine-level, but periodic on a script level. This means that engine-level effects (such as spell vamp) trigger the reduced healing, while script-level effects (such as ) trigger the damage-over-time cooldown reduction. | , , |
Subtypes[]
Resistance subtypes[]
See also: Armor and Magic Resistance
Resistance subtypes are a secondary typing system that exists to promote champion classes by diversifying the effectiveness of items and champion match-ups. There is a small selection of effects that are triggered by specific subtypes rather than the above archetypes - e.g. will trigger on anything with the magic damage subtype, including abilities, basic attacks and on-hit effects (i.e. will trigger Morellonomicon on a champion with no other source of magic damage). These are the damage types visible to players in-game.
Name | Description | Example |
---|---|---|
Physical damage | A damage type thematically associated with making physical contact, such as fists, swords and the physical projectiles of bows and guns. Armor reduces incoming physical damage. | Most basic attacks; most AD-scaling abilities; some item effects. |
Magic damage | A damage type thematically associated with non-physical, such as magic or the supernatural. Magic resistance reduces incoming magic damage. | Most AP-scaling abilities; some item effects. |
True damage | A damage type thematically associated with bypassing the target's defenses. Not to be confused with raw damage. | A select few sources, such as | , , and .
Calculating Damage[]
- Also see: Damage modifier.
The following effects influence damage as non-zero values, in no particular order of calculation. They may originate from the attacker or the target.
- Percentage damage amplification
- Percentage damage reduction
- Flat damage reduction
- Resistances, meaning armor and magic resistance, against physical damage and magic damage, respectively
- Resistances reduction
- Resistances penetration, meaning armor penetration and magic penetration
Resistances effectively reduce the respective damage subtype (physical or magic) by a percentage. However, "percent damage reduction" is a different, independent effect: abilities such as debuff. Percent damage modifiers stack multiplicatively with the damage reduction achieved through resistances.
and item effects such as Plating may grant it as a beneficial effect while effects such as may apply it as aAfter the physical and magic damage is affected by the various reductions, it is applied to the target in health amount. This amount received by the target is called post-mitigation damage.
Capped Damage[]
Some abilities, scaling with target's health, have a capped amount of damage they can deal to a target. This is made to avoid dealing massive damage to targets with a lot of health, most often against only minions and/or monsters.
- If the ability deals enough damage (before damage reductions) to reach the cap, the ability's damage is reduced to the cap and damage reductions are then applied. This means that against a target that has negative armor or magic resistance the ability's post-mitigation damage can be higher than the cap.
Misconceptions[]
The resistance types—physical, magic and true—are often regarded by players to be the archetypal damage types, which leads to a lot of misconceptions.
For example, some players believe that magic damage, ability damage and AP are all interchangeable terms, with even prominent streamers referring to abilities as dealing "AP damage" and "AD damage". This is incorrect. It is possible for basic attacks to deal magic damage (e.g.
with a point in ); it is possible for abilities to deal physical damage (e.g. ); it is possible for AD-scaling abilities to deal magic damage (e.g. ); and it is possible for non-magic damage to apply spell effects (e.g. would trigger on Riven if she chose to buy it, although she's discouraged due to her having no AP scalings).Similarly, many players believe that life steal and spell vamp are specific to physical and magic damage, respectively. Life steal will apply to anything classified as basic damage (including the magic damage from
and and true damage from ), and spell vamp will apply to anything classified as ability damage (including the physical damage from and true damage from ).