League of Legends: Lethality and How to Counter 

Lethality in League of Legends grants the players that build lethality items a specified amount of armor removal from the opponent. As an example: If you are to have 30 Lethality, against an opponent with 50 armor; The abilities and auto attacks of yours that deal damage will work as if your opponent has 20 armor. With that said, there is more than one way to counter lethality, let's speak of those:

How to Counter Lethality in League of Legends

Lethality is difficult to handle for many champions that deal the most of the damage, the reason for that is Riot has a balance system that puts the Higher Damage Output champions with fewer stats on other factors, let's speak of ways to play against lethality:

Armor

Against champions that build lethality, armor is the best option to counter by far. Cloth armor for a 300 Gold Value purchase, grants the player 15 Armor. While  Serrated Dirk grants the player 10 Lethality with 1000 Gold as the price. 

• By purchasing a Cloth Armor against a champion that builds Serrated Dirk, you put them in a -700 Gold status (Which gets neutralized as they also gain 20 AD, which is worth 700 Gold) and counter the extra damage they obtain from it, at an instant!

Health Items

Although HP items don't grant the same statistical advantage that building armor grants, it’s still an amazing option to have higher sustain against lethality. 

• Let's break it down, if you have 600 Base Health and 30 Armor, an enemy with a Serrated Dirk and 300 Base Damage Q skill would deal approximately 250 damage to you. If you were to have an extra Ruby Crystal, you would end up with 500 HP instead of 350HP!  

Positioning

The best way to counter lethality damage is to avoid it. Many champions and especially carries often are unable to build armor and HP due to their high scaling potential with damage-based items.

• If your champion is unable to buy the required items to counter Lethality Damage, the most valuable decision to make is to position behind crowd control and disengage tools to keep yourself secure from potential assassinations.

Difference of Lethality and Armor Penetration

Lethality can be named as flat armor penetration. The difference between armor penetration and lethality is that lethality grants the player a specified amount of armor removal, while armor penetration items provide a percentage of armor removal.

• If you are facing an opponent with 200 armor, 50 Lethality means they have 150 Armor, while %30 Armor Penetration would mean they would have 140 Armor, making penetration a higher value.
• If you are facing an opponent with 70 armor, on the other hand, having 50 Lethality would cause them to take damage like they have 20 armor. While %30 armor penetration would cause them to take damage as 49 armor, making lethality a higher value in this scenario.

What Champions Build Lethality

In the previous seasons, lethality items were specifically for the assassins, yet since the beginning of Season 14 in League of Legends, with the Profane Hydra and Armor Penetration items having lethality; Lethality items became viable for any champion that deals Attack Damage.

Conclusion

Throughout Split 1 of the 2024 Season of LoL, even after many nerfs to lethality items, they still are valuable to have and core items of many Meta champions. To counter lethality, the best option is to build armor, and if not: Position yourself beyond enemy reach. For the highest success in your games, the importance of itemization and understanding the key aspects that define Lethality and Armor Penetration both is critical.