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Lethality in LoL: a deep dive

James Leeland

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Editor

Publish Date: 22/08/2024

Fact checked by: Mike McKean

Key Points

Lethality replaces flat armour penetration
Certain items have higher lethality
Some champions maximise their potential with lethality

If you’re looking to upgrade your League of Legends (LoL) game, then I recommend gaining a strong understanding of how all of the different components of LoL work, and, more importantly, how they influence gameplay.So, today I am going to answer the question of ‘what is lethality in League of Legends’ and gives you some expert tips on how you can maximise its effectiveness in your next match.

Lethality features in LoL

What exactly is lethality in League of Legends?

If you have been playing League for any amount of time then you’re probably familiar with flat armour penetration. Lethality is the new term for flat armour penetration, and it’s not just the name that has changed. Before, flat armour penetration reduced an enemy’s armour value by a specific amount, but now lethality takes into account the champion’s level when it reduces the enemy’s armour.

If you want to calculate the lethality number back into flat armour penetration, then you can use the following formula:

Flat armour n penetration = Lethality × (0.6 + 0.4 × level ÷ 18)

What this effectively means is that your lethality is more effective when you come up against lower-level opponents, which makes being a higher level much more rewarding. I personally am a huge fan of the change up, but it did take a bit of getting used to.

Items with high lethality

If you’re sitting there thinking that playing with increased lethality will help your gameplay, then it’s a good idea to have a look at which items have a lot of it. Here’s a list of some of the most popular lethality items in the game.

Duskblade of Draktharr

Lethality: 18

Additional Effects: Grants invisibility after a takedown, increased burst damage

The Duskblade of Draktharr

Youmuu's Ghostblade

Lethality: 18

Additional Effects: Grants movement speed and out-of-combat mobility

Youmuu's Ghostblade in LoL

Edge of Night

Lethality: 10

Additional Effects: Provides a spell shield that blocks the next enemy ability

Edge of Night in LoL

Serylda's Grudge

Lethality: 10

Additional Effects: Reduces enemy movement speed when dealing physical damage

Serylda's Grudge in LoL

Prowler's Claw

Lethality: 18

Additional Effects: Grants a dash and increased damage to a target hit by the dash

Prowler's Claw in LoL

The best champions for lethality

Lethality can be useful for a lot of the different champions, but there are certain ones that will be able to maximise their potential with lethality. Here are some of the champions that I recommend using if you have a gameplay style that favours lethality.

The assassins like Rengar, Kha'Zix and Zed
The AD carries like Miss Fortune, Draven and Jhin
One of the Bruiser champions like Talon or Pantheon

You’ll find that one thing that the top level players do better than anyone else is choose their champions according to how they play. Watching major LoL competitions is a great way to understand how they do this, so I would recommend checking it out. You’ll also find you can often live stream League of Legends events at Fortnite betting sites so that’s definitely worth checking out.

How lethal will you become?

Like I said earlier, having a strong understanding of how lethality works is a sure way to improve your skills as a LoL player. Now you know that lethality suits players with an aggressive gameplay style and you know what items and champions are the best to get the most out of this feature, you can go and try it out for yourself.