I think that Negative Armour is real
Is there such a thing as negative armour any more? (Do read the whole post before replying!)
There's a common held belief that negative armour doesn't exist any more, post-12.0; and I think that actually it does.
Yes, I know a mod did say something along those lines back around 12.0 (I was around then, too!); but version 12.0 was also supposed to introduce Armour Penetration, Block Penetration, and Critical Resistance. Those were rolled back. I think negative armour was too; it just wasn't really noticed by the gamers; and wasn't made clear in the announcement reversing the planned changes.
Don't believe me?
4* 3/30 Netflix Daredevil vs Iron Fist
(A champ who stacks armour break against one with zero base armour)
In the arena, in the same game. Health >50% throughout, so Attack not increased by Courage. No boosts or suicides.
Damage inflicted by DDNF on critical Medium hits:
0 Armour Breaks = 473 damage
3 Armour Breaks = 551 damage
5 Armour Breaks = 592 damage
As Iron Fist starts at zero armour, and DDNF has no other mechanism to increase his damage, it must be possible to take your opponent into negative armour. Or alternately, Iron Fist has invisible armour we just didn't know about.
However, I also note that three armour breaks increases the damage by 68 (approx 23 each), whilst a further two stacks increases it by 41 (approx 20.5 each).
My hypothesis is that - whilst a floor of zero was planned for 12.0 - this decision was reversed when it was decided not to implement those additional stats (armour/block penetration, crit resistance). However, they did make negative armour less effective by making it subjective to Diminishing Returns (DR) in the same way that positive armour is.
As critical rate, and critical damage rating are also subject to DR, Iron Fist (for example) therefore got substantially less effective with 12.0. However, the fact that recent champs like Emma Frost, Ghost, IMIW and Killmonger have all had specific built-in vulnerability to armour break suggests his day isn't quite done yet.
Personally, I'm convinced that negative armour still exists. And if anyone wants to recommend a good video capture App for Android I'll try making a video demonstrating it.
However, as a scientist, I'll be perfectly happy for someone to prove me wrong. But please don't just quote a vague memory of the same statement I've already acknowledged: show us some evidence - play the game with an Armour Break champ against a zero armour champ and show us your damage not increasing.
Looking forwards to your comments, both gamers and (hopefully) mods.
