True damage

For the virtual band and associated content, see True Damage

True damage is one of the three types of basic damage in League of Legends. It ignores armor and magic resistance, as well as other forms of damage reduction such as Unbreakable Will, Unbreakable, Primal Howl, or Exhaust and forms of damage increase like Hemoplague, Charm, Press the Attack or Coup de Grace.

True damage can be dealt as a damage over time effect.

Blocking true damage

Abilities or summoner spells which deal true damage are still blocked by spell shield, unless otherwise noted.
Parries can block the true damage from basic attacks and on-hit effects.
Invulnerability will block all types of damage including true damage.

True damage cannot be mitigated or reduced, but there are ways to deal with it:

Stacking health causes sources of flat true damage (e.g. Ignite) to effectively deal a lesser percentage of total health.
Universal shields can absorb true damage at any amount.

Despite popular belief, champions whose abilities have health costs associated with them do not deal true damage to themselves when they use an ability which requires health to cast.
- This can be evidenced when they have an absorption shield on them, when they use their health-based ability, the cost of it penetrates the shield and directly drains the health of the user, in contrary to true damage that has to break any absorption shield on the target to reach their health.
The Nexus Obelisk deals an unique form of true damage^[1] that additionally bypasses every damage-event related effect in the game, including shields, damage transfers, death immunity, and invulnerability effects. Furthermore, since it doesn't register as a damage event, it will not flag the champion with 'in combat' status, with some exceptions. This is classified as raw damage,
As of patch V3.15, true damage is no longer amplified by abilities such Zed's Death Mark and Vladimir's Hemoplague.

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Gameplay Elements

Offensive	Ability power · Attack damage · Attack speed · Critical strike chance · Critical strike damage · Armor penetration · Magic penetration · Life steal · Spell vamp · True damage
Defensive	Heal and shield power · Health · Health regeneration · Armor · Magic resistance · Tenacity · Slow resist
Utility	Cooldown reduction · Energy · Energy regeneration · Mana · Mana regeneration
Other	Experience · Gold generation · Movement speed · Range

Targeting Types	Auto (Passive · Self) · Direction · Ground · Unit (Collision · Radius)
Unit types	Champion · Minion · Monster · Pets · Structures (Turret · Inhibitor · Nexus) · Terrain
Effect types	Ability effects · Attack effects (On-hit) · Area of effect · Damage over time · Heal · Multi-hit · Redirected damage · Shield · Single-targeted
Ability types	Aura · Blink · Buff · Combat status · Crowd control · Damage (Ability · Basic · Magic · Physical · True · Nexus Obelisk · Execution) · Dash · Debuff · Invulnerability · Pet · Sight · Spell shield · Untargetability · Ward