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 gives you an exact number for the armor of enemy champions that you will ignore. This is a flat amount of armor penetration that your attacks and abilities ignore.

This means, if you have 30 lethality, and the enemy champion has 40 armor, it will essentially act as if the enemy has 10 armor.

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.

For example, Black Cleaver can stack up to 6 times, increasing the armor penetration on the item by 5% each time, to a maximum of 30%. 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?