Damage

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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.

Subtypes

Damage types

There are three types of damage in League of Legends.

• Physical damage: associated with auto-attacks and attack damage. Armor reduces incoming physical damage.
• Magic damage: associated with champion abilities and ability power. Magic resistance reduces incoming magic damage.
• True damage: damage that ignores resistances. This damage cannot be reduced and always does exactly the value stated, although can be blocked by invulnerabilities and health shields. Health costs are true damage but cannot be blocked by health shields. The Nexus Turret and Sion's Glory in Death's self-inflicted damage additionally cannot be blocked by invulnerabilities.

Critical damage

Critical damage is an additional tag applied to critical strikes and some abilities (note that some abilities that use the  impact text only do so with a gameplay clarity intention (usually to signify the enhanced damage of an ability) and aren't actually critical strikes). Critical damage will be reduced by Randuin's Omen, triggers  impact text, as well as the highest instance of critical damage being tracked in the post-game stats.

Pet damage

Pet damage is an additional tag applied to the damage inflicted by champion summoned units. This is in addition to any other classifications. For example, the damage dealt by Tibbers' basic attacks and aura are both classified as "pet damage" in addition to basic attack damage and ability damage, respectively. This classification is currently only used by Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

Archetypes

Ability damage

Ability damage is the damage type inflicted by almost all abilities. Fizz's Urchin Strike is noteworthy for applying both basic attack damage and ability damage.

• Ability damage will apply spell effects, including spell vamp.
• Some abilities grant the champion bonus ability damage on their attacks. As a standard, however, most effects that trigger on a champion's basic attacks (including those sourced from an ability) deal on-hit damage.
• Some abilities modify the champion's attacks to deal ability damage.
• Most spell effects inflict ability damage, allowing them to trigger other spell effects (excluding itself).

Basic attack damage

Basic attack damage is the classification for the damage dealt by almost all basic attacks with the notable exceptions being a handful of champion summoned units.

• Basic attacks will trigger on-hit effects once. Some abilities and items can increase this.
• Physical basic attack damage will apply life steal. This means modified basic attacks that deal magic or true damage will not life steal from that damage, except for Corki, who will also life steal from magic damage.
• Some abilities modify the amount of basic attack damage dealt, such as Corki's Hextech Munitions.

Bleed damage

Bleed damage, or damage over time (DoT), is the classification for many of the game's lesser damage over times, which are in most cases attached to a basic attack but is also applied by some spell effects.

• Bleed damage applies neither on-hit effects, life steal nor spell effects.

On-hit damage

On-hit damage is the classification for the damage dealt by on-hit effects, which are effects that trigger when a basic attack hits.

• On-hit damage applies neither on-hit effects, life steal nor spell effects.

Splash damage

Splash damage, or area of effect damage (AoE), is the damage type applied by some area of effects that deals damage in a defined area, either around the target or in a chosen place.

• Note that not all area of effects that occur on basic attacks are classified as splash damage.
• Splash damage applies neither on-hit effects, life steal nor spell effects.

Damage Calculation

Physical and magic damage are first reduced (or amplified) by armor and magic resistance respectively before being applied to target, which is referred to as post-mitigation damage. This can be calculated through a damage multiplier.

• Physical damage's damage multiplier:

$ \pagecolor{Black}\color{White}{\rm Damage\ multiplier}=\begin{cases}{100 \over 100+{\it Armor}}, & {\rm if\ }{\it Armor} \geq 0\\2 - {100 \over 100 - {\it Armor}}, & {\rm otherwise}\end{cases} $

• Magic damage's damage multiplier:

$ \pagecolor{Black}\color{White}{\rm Damage\ multiplier}=\begin{cases} {100 \over 100+{\it MR}}, & {\rm if\ }{\it MR} \geq 0\\ 2 - {100 \over 100 - {\it MR}}, & {\rm otherwise} \end{cases} $

Actual damage types

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.	Fear Beyond Death and Death from Below
N/A	internalraw	As above, but also ignores  invulnerability.  resurrection is ignored.	Only  Nexus Obelisk
Default damage e	periodic	Ability-based procs with no interactions. Effects without a proper damage type default to this category, including most splash damage.	Umbra Blades, Liandry's Torment and Tiamat
Proc damage e	proc	Attack-based procs with no interactions. Proc effects are triggered whenever you deal basic damage.	Wit's End and Blade of the Ruined King
Reactive damage e	reactive	Damage type dealt by Thornmail. Similar reflection effects (e.g. Annie and Rammus) are classified as spell damage.	Only Thornmail and Bramble Vest .
Basic damage e	attack	Damage for basic attacks and some abilities.	Mystic Shot, Lunge, Steel Tempest
Spell damage e	spell	Damage used for most, or almost all abilities.	Disintegrate, Ace in the Hole, Noxian Diplomacy
Area damage e	spellaoe	As above, but with some diminished interactions. We currently group as "ability damage".	Incinerate, Spirit Fire, Eye of Destruction
Persistent damage e	spellpersist	As above, but with some diminished interactions. We currently group as "ability damage".	Drain, Flamespitter, Ignite
Persistent area damage e	aoedot	Combination of persistent damage and area damage.	Darkness Rise, Tormented Shadow, The Equalizer
Pet damage e	pet	Damage dealt by most pet basic attacks. Other pet damage is classified as Spell/SpellPersist.	Tibbers, Daisy, Eulogy of the Isles

Physical, Magical and True are secondary types that are added to the aforementioned types to modify their interaction with resistances.

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.

• 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 an ability can deal damage over the cap.

Notes

• Contrary to popular belief, life steal and spell vamp are not specific to physical and magic damage, respectively. Life steal will apply to anything classified as basic attack damage (including the magic damage from Takedown, Hextech Munitions and Infinite Duress), and spell vamp will apply to anything classified as ability damage (including the physical damage from Comet Spear and true damage from Reckless Swing).

See also

• Damage modifier
• Magic damage
• Physical damage
• True damage