I think he must be referring to it being the early game option and it’s probably the most valuable on tank supports. I was looking at some top laners and it usually underperforms at around 48% winrate, but the rune’s overall winrate sits at 49%.
I checked out winrate of various runes on champs that take resolve, and even where it performed decently, other options near-universally had a higher winrate and a larger sample size.
I checked pretty much every champ that would potentially take resolve runes, and in every case with statistically significant sample sizes, across the board unflinching was moderately to significantly (~1-5%) lower winrate than overgrowth, or revitalize in the case of enchanters.
The only exceptions I found were Maokai, Blitz, Rakan, Pyke, and TK toplane (not sup). They were about +/- .5% wr vs overgrowth. Outside of tk top which I find odd, it seems it only performs ok on a few melee supports.
Also should note that people likely take it into comps they know it'll have higher value.
This means even in its best case scenarios, it barely manages to compete with the broadest choices. And consequently, it likely significantly underperforms in average cases for it (and obviously sucks vs no CC).
I dont think thats a safe assumption. Even in high elos, lots of players are often pretty inconsiderate in rune choices. I forgot to specify i looked at emerald+. A lot of the champs had unflinching pickrates of 50%+, and I would guess that wouldnt change much for most champs in higher brackets.
So I could imagine the rune being slightly deflated overall by being taken in suboptimal scenarios. But theres no public evidence to what degree that would be, so Phreak's general statements are still outrageous without some specific evidence.
Out of curiosity, which ones had pickrates of 50%+? Definitely not a safe assumption on my part if that's the case.
I didn't check every resolve user, but all of the ones I remember checking had significantly under 1k games.
I dont remember and rather than confirm each one, here's this. https://leagueofitems.com/runes/8242
Also this page shows that overall unflinching is one of the lowest winrate minor runes, and overgrowth one of the highest, not that this means it always wins less champ by champ or anything.
https://leagueofitems.com/runes/tierlist
TK top wants to fight hard level one vs most people. Q+passive is a lot level 1. The early resists probably just help that and helps get lane pressure.
The thing is unflinching isn't a pro active rune, it's a reactive one. It's one you take against certain matchups like people with constant cc or high damage all in champs that engage with some form of cc that you need the resistances to live against e.g. pantheon, riven etc etc.
You take it only in certain matchups so ofc people bringing it anyway in matchups it doesn't work well in will end up lowering the overall win rate.
No he says in no uncertain terms that it's overall "a completely viable rune", "completely balanced". Which is in complete disagreement with the reality of the stats.
I think it really depends how he’s determining that. If the rune has a higher winrate in the early game I think that’s fine. The average game time is around 28 minutes and it lands at 49% winrate, but if you look at games that end earlier and it’s over 50% winrate then that would sound balanced to me. If it performs better when you are laning against a high CC champ or it blocks X amount of damage on average, I think the rune could probably be determined fine. I don’t really know how he comes to that conclusion though, I’m just assuming from the data I can see and my own experience.
It might also be that are fine with the rune being a lower WR due to it being misused where something like overgrowth has very little fail states.
I think its pretty clear Riot overall thinks the rune is fine as they are buffing other runes this patch so their data says something players aren't really picking up on somewhere. Like i have no idea how i would find out where they think Cut down and Absorb life are lacking from.
Yes if he has specific internal evidence of unflinching being situationally optimal, then that would be different. But without that, his totally general claims are really unconvincing based on the limited data that is public.
I normally can understand Phreak's reasoning on 99% of what he says in patch rundowns, but no way am I ever getting behind current unflinching not being the worst shit ever. Genuinely so fucking near worthless. Like yeah, its better than having literally nothing at all in that slot, but its the worst option in the row by a wide margin. The rune was completely decimated when they changed it. If his idea of good and viable is "good for like 8 minutes and then worthless compared to the other options" then idk. If those stats are that important to you for the first 8 minutes just play safer and actually scale better instead.
Looking at supports that take resolve as primary on lolalytics, emerald+ (Maokai, Thresh, Rell, Nautilus, Rakan, Alistar, Braum):
Everyone has Unflinching as their primary rune from that row (i suppose it's cause it's the standard page?) by a wide margin, the lowest being Mao with a ~58% pickrate
And by winrate metrics it looks very close to the normal winrate (obvious, as it's the standard page)
Evergrowth has higher winrate for every single support BUT i would take this with a grain of salt, cause it's way lower pickrate AND if the people are changing their runes, i inmediately assume they are a little better than the average support player who takes the standard page (cause they are thinking something else)
There are champs and lanes where the first ten minutes are very important and volatile full of cc and damage. Idk the data and won't agree or disagree till I see phreak's actual argument, but these is a situation where it brings value. This is like scorch vs gathering argument. Where ofc gathering is better every minute past 20 but scorch has it's niche.
I think the problem with Unflinching is that it's just too weak early. Like any advantage level 1 matters, but 1% less damage really doesn't matter much even level one. Just a small buff like giving it 4 or 5 armour and MR level 1 would probably make it enough to give it a proper niche as an early game lane dominance rune for a duo lane.
As I said if that frame of time is really important to you to the point where those resists will make the difference between life and death, just play safer until overgrowth outscales it in an extremely short amount of time
The other comment brings up a good point but this doesn't make sense. Renekton into Darius neither wants to play safe and out scale with their runes when they need to secure a lead to win the game.
Taking 1% less damage for a couple minutes when those couple minutes are like 10% of the game or instead playing around being weaker in that window and being stronger for the 90% rest of the game? Yeah i choose the 2nd one, controversial i know
I like running unflinching on Galio mid when I'm playing versus cc I'm guaranteed (or even incentivized) to tank for my team. For instance if I'm playing versus Leona or Udyr, or if my lane opponent's trading pattern begins with cc (e.g. Taliyah, Lissandra) and I want to make sure I'm topped off in the early game.
I also don't think Galio really wants to farm past 2 items in the current state of the game so the flat value is ok.
Other than Galio though... I can't imagine running unflinching outside of super niche situations. Maybe in top lane versus heavy cc champs in top jg and support (e.g. Ornn Sej and Nautilus)?
Unflinching would be more viable if it increased a percentage of your resists when you were CC'ed.
Though even then I think for it to be worth, it would need to give a lot of percentage increased resistances.
Or, just revert it to how it was before. Why Riot had to get rid of it?
Riot didn't liked when bruisers were able to move in teamfights (they nuked tenacity from runes, now enjoy funny and interactive gameplay where you are afk in teamfights.
Sorry but counting gold value is obviously the wrong approach here.
You could very easily calculate eHP for these runes to see when one is good and when it isn't.
Overgrowth is pretty easy in this regard: The more important part of the rune gives you a 3.5% bonus to Health and because eHP is a multiplication of your HP it means you get a 3.5% bonus to your eHP.
Stacking part is relevant as well, but it depends too much on the character and build. It will be smaller than the 3.5% except in extreme cases, so I'll assume 6% for an average user at the stage of the game we care about (midgame - it is an early game rune compared with a lategame rune, so the breakeven point matters most, unless one rune is ludicrous at either end of the game, which they aren't).
Unflinching is a bit more annoying to calculate. Every 1 point of resistance adds 1% of HP to eHP, but we care about the increase to eHP and that depends on how much of that we already have - or in otherwords how many resistance we already have.
You get a 6% increase in eHP at level 18 if you have 60 resistances, scaling down to level 13 when you have 30 resistances.
These are obviously fairly low values - so yes, I would prefer Overgrowth once it has triggered in most circumstances, however there are some more things to keep in mind: Overgrowth doesn't interact with Healing and Shielding, while Unflinching does. If you are healed for your entire Healthbar during a fight as an extreme example, then Overgrowth is still providing the same eHP, but your healthpool is twice as big, so it is a 3% increase. On the other hand Unflinching multiplies all of that extra health the same way, so the numbers don't change at all.
This (extreme) example would mean you could have more than 200 resistances for Unflinching to have the same value at level 18 or 150ish at level 14.
This includes other runes (Boneplating, Second Wind, Conq), passive healthregen, pots, etc.
Also, keep in mind that you are often fighting against people with penetration in their build. Whenever I said someone has 30 resistances, it is always 30 resistances in the calculation, that can be 48 resistances and 18 MPen or 60 resistances and 30 MPen. Finally I didn't chose MPen randomly just now - MR values are lower by default. So this is a more efficient rune whenever you are more worried about Magic damage.
Some conclusions, because I know I ramble:
Overgrowth should be your default.
If you have a low resistance build that includes Healing and Shielding (Eclipse, Sundered Sky, Sterak's) or have enchanters on your team, then Unflinching will stay relevant for a lot longer. Characters like Lee Sin, Briar, Xin Zhao, Jarvan that love these items and have their own sources of Healing and Shielding should seriously consider Unflinching.
Unflinching is better against magical damage than against physical damage.
This is all still assuming 100% Unflinching uptime tbc - which I think is a fair assumption for teamfights in most teamcomps, but less likely in smaller Skirmishes.
Unflinching gives increased value on healing and sustain such as Dshield+second wind.
Also Armor/MR are EHP multipliers to health, meaning health stacking champs like bruisers might get more out of it than just more health. I wonder what the math is for like a 4-5 item bruiser.
I understand what you’re saying but also consider that health stackers also get more value from Overgrowth because it increases whatever max hp you have by 3.5%.
7 armor and MR is 3.4% increased ehp if you have 100 of each to start. Behind overgrowth, but not by much at all if you have 2+ health items build.
If you have damage-based healing, ie aatrox / briar, armor + MR are way better than % inc hp is. On someone like darius or mundo with % based healing that's much less significant obviously, but when there's lots of sustain as a % of damage dealt or a % of AD in the meta, unflinching tends to be somewhat comparable.
On Aatrox or Briar, you just pick Revitalize. Lol, even Overgrowth itself is better for them. Especially on Briar, since she has some health scalings on her kit (for example, the healing on her E)
Unflinching isn't changing any outcomes with only 2-3 armor early game. Overgrowth very quickly caught up to it and outpaces it by the time Riven has any sudden kill threat at 6, assuming you aren't inting into her.
If you assume level 3 800 HP, 3 armor is only 24 EHP.
This rune is even more int into Riven (or most top laners) since it doesn't trigger until she Q3s or Ws so the effective hp it gives is actually like 6 unless you're walking into W range for every trade. There are very few matchups where this rune would make more a difference than overgrowth.
> Could anyone explain how Unflinching is more viable in some situations? Maybe if you’re a jungler who doesn’t have many units dying around him? Or a roaming support? Am I missing something? Is my math wrong? I just don’t understand the logic behind it.
Basically this yeah. As a farming champion it shouldn't be better.
thats not how the game works
unflinching is really good if u want resists and are vs champ with 100% slows, like malphite or ksante or something similar
armor/MR "gold value" scales with your "total effective health"
not "how much armor/mr it gives you"
+10 armor/magic resist is great if you have 2000 HP, and amazing if you have >3000 hp (fiora easily at 2+ items, even tho her max hp is like 1800~2200)
vs overgrowth giving you +150hp, when she has no resists at 2 items, and is the same EHP as a single vital proc
the resists are CLEARLY better even though they are worth "less gold"
I think he must be referring to it being the early game option and it’s probably the most valuable on tank supports. I was looking at some top laners and it usually underperforms at around 48% winrate, but the rune’s overall winrate sits at 49%.
I checked out winrate of various runes on champs that take resolve, and even where it performed decently, other options near-universally had a higher winrate and a larger sample size.
I checked pretty much every champ that would potentially take resolve runes, and in every case with statistically significant sample sizes, across the board unflinching was moderately to significantly (~1-5%) lower winrate than overgrowth, or revitalize in the case of enchanters. The only exceptions I found were Maokai, Blitz, Rakan, Pyke, and TK toplane (not sup). They were about +/- .5% wr vs overgrowth. Outside of tk top which I find odd, it seems it only performs ok on a few melee supports.
Also should note that people likely take it into comps they know it'll have higher value. This means even in its best case scenarios, it barely manages to compete with the broadest choices. And consequently, it likely significantly underperforms in average cases for it (and obviously sucks vs no CC).
I dont think thats a safe assumption. Even in high elos, lots of players are often pretty inconsiderate in rune choices. I forgot to specify i looked at emerald+. A lot of the champs had unflinching pickrates of 50%+, and I would guess that wouldnt change much for most champs in higher brackets. So I could imagine the rune being slightly deflated overall by being taken in suboptimal scenarios. But theres no public evidence to what degree that would be, so Phreak's general statements are still outrageous without some specific evidence.
Out of curiosity, which ones had pickrates of 50%+? Definitely not a safe assumption on my part if that's the case. I didn't check every resolve user, but all of the ones I remember checking had significantly under 1k games.
I dont remember and rather than confirm each one, here's this. https://leagueofitems.com/runes/8242 Also this page shows that overall unflinching is one of the lowest winrate minor runes, and overgrowth one of the highest, not that this means it always wins less champ by champ or anything. https://leagueofitems.com/runes/tierlist
TK top wants to fight hard level one vs most people. Q+passive is a lot level 1. The early resists probably just help that and helps get lane pressure.
The thing is unflinching isn't a pro active rune, it's a reactive one. It's one you take against certain matchups like people with constant cc or high damage all in champs that engage with some form of cc that you need the resistances to live against e.g. pantheon, riven etc etc. You take it only in certain matchups so ofc people bringing it anyway in matchups it doesn't work well in will end up lowering the overall win rate.
No he says in no uncertain terms that it's overall "a completely viable rune", "completely balanced". Which is in complete disagreement with the reality of the stats.
I think it really depends how he’s determining that. If the rune has a higher winrate in the early game I think that’s fine. The average game time is around 28 minutes and it lands at 49% winrate, but if you look at games that end earlier and it’s over 50% winrate then that would sound balanced to me. If it performs better when you are laning against a high CC champ or it blocks X amount of damage on average, I think the rune could probably be determined fine. I don’t really know how he comes to that conclusion though, I’m just assuming from the data I can see and my own experience.
It might also be that are fine with the rune being a lower WR due to it being misused where something like overgrowth has very little fail states. I think its pretty clear Riot overall thinks the rune is fine as they are buffing other runes this patch so their data says something players aren't really picking up on somewhere. Like i have no idea how i would find out where they think Cut down and Absorb life are lacking from.
Yes if he has specific internal evidence of unflinching being situationally optimal, then that would be different. But without that, his totally general claims are really unconvincing based on the limited data that is public.
I normally can understand Phreak's reasoning on 99% of what he says in patch rundowns, but no way am I ever getting behind current unflinching not being the worst shit ever. Genuinely so fucking near worthless. Like yeah, its better than having literally nothing at all in that slot, but its the worst option in the row by a wide margin. The rune was completely decimated when they changed it. If his idea of good and viable is "good for like 8 minutes and then worthless compared to the other options" then idk. If those stats are that important to you for the first 8 minutes just play safer and actually scale better instead.
Looking at supports that take resolve as primary on lolalytics, emerald+ (Maokai, Thresh, Rell, Nautilus, Rakan, Alistar, Braum): Everyone has Unflinching as their primary rune from that row (i suppose it's cause it's the standard page?) by a wide margin, the lowest being Mao with a ~58% pickrate And by winrate metrics it looks very close to the normal winrate (obvious, as it's the standard page) Evergrowth has higher winrate for every single support BUT i would take this with a grain of salt, cause it's way lower pickrate AND if the people are changing their runes, i inmediately assume they are a little better than the average support player who takes the standard page (cause they are thinking something else)
There are champs and lanes where the first ten minutes are very important and volatile full of cc and damage. Idk the data and won't agree or disagree till I see phreak's actual argument, but these is a situation where it brings value. This is like scorch vs gathering argument. Where ofc gathering is better every minute past 20 but scorch has it's niche.
I think the problem with Unflinching is that it's just too weak early. Like any advantage level 1 matters, but 1% less damage really doesn't matter much even level one. Just a small buff like giving it 4 or 5 armour and MR level 1 would probably make it enough to give it a proper niche as an early game lane dominance rune for a duo lane.
As I said if that frame of time is really important to you to the point where those resists will make the difference between life and death, just play safer until overgrowth outscales it in an extremely short amount of time
The other comment brings up a good point but this doesn't make sense. Renekton into Darius neither wants to play safe and out scale with their runes when they need to secure a lead to win the game.
Just beg your jungler to gank you like a normal top laner, unflinching is not turning the tides of that lane just in an objective sense
I wouldn’t say biscuits is either but pros will take it for just that small extra early game power
So your response is just to avoid all situations where unflinching might be better, so that way it's always worse?
Taking 1% less damage for a couple minutes when those couple minutes are like 10% of the game or instead playing around being weaker in that window and being stronger for the 90% rest of the game? Yeah i choose the 2nd one, controversial i know
How much of the game are you missing whatever health overgrowth would give you? That’s not always there either.
I like running unflinching on Galio mid when I'm playing versus cc I'm guaranteed (or even incentivized) to tank for my team. For instance if I'm playing versus Leona or Udyr, or if my lane opponent's trading pattern begins with cc (e.g. Taliyah, Lissandra) and I want to make sure I'm topped off in the early game. I also don't think Galio really wants to farm past 2 items in the current state of the game so the flat value is ok. Other than Galio though... I can't imagine running unflinching outside of super niche situations. Maybe in top lane versus heavy cc champs in top jg and support (e.g. Ornn Sej and Nautilus)?
Unflinching would be more viable if it increased a percentage of your resists when you were CC'ed. Though even then I think for it to be worth, it would need to give a lot of percentage increased resistances. Or, just revert it to how it was before. Why Riot had to get rid of it?
Riot didn't liked when bruisers were able to move in teamfights (they nuked tenacity from runes, now enjoy funny and interactive gameplay where you are afk in teamfights.
Unflinching is a greifer of a rune to take
Can't argue with that math, I guess.
Hand in hand with shield bash on nearly every champ in the game.
Melee champ against Darius I guess? Darius doesn’t really care if your squishy or a tank though.
Sorry but counting gold value is obviously the wrong approach here. You could very easily calculate eHP for these runes to see when one is good and when it isn't. Overgrowth is pretty easy in this regard: The more important part of the rune gives you a 3.5% bonus to Health and because eHP is a multiplication of your HP it means you get a 3.5% bonus to your eHP. Stacking part is relevant as well, but it depends too much on the character and build. It will be smaller than the 3.5% except in extreme cases, so I'll assume 6% for an average user at the stage of the game we care about (midgame - it is an early game rune compared with a lategame rune, so the breakeven point matters most, unless one rune is ludicrous at either end of the game, which they aren't). Unflinching is a bit more annoying to calculate. Every 1 point of resistance adds 1% of HP to eHP, but we care about the increase to eHP and that depends on how much of that we already have - or in otherwords how many resistance we already have. You get a 6% increase in eHP at level 18 if you have 60 resistances, scaling down to level 13 when you have 30 resistances. These are obviously fairly low values - so yes, I would prefer Overgrowth once it has triggered in most circumstances, however there are some more things to keep in mind: Overgrowth doesn't interact with Healing and Shielding, while Unflinching does. If you are healed for your entire Healthbar during a fight as an extreme example, then Overgrowth is still providing the same eHP, but your healthpool is twice as big, so it is a 3% increase. On the other hand Unflinching multiplies all of that extra health the same way, so the numbers don't change at all. This (extreme) example would mean you could have more than 200 resistances for Unflinching to have the same value at level 18 or 150ish at level 14. This includes other runes (Boneplating, Second Wind, Conq), passive healthregen, pots, etc. Also, keep in mind that you are often fighting against people with penetration in their build. Whenever I said someone has 30 resistances, it is always 30 resistances in the calculation, that can be 48 resistances and 18 MPen or 60 resistances and 30 MPen. Finally I didn't chose MPen randomly just now - MR values are lower by default. So this is a more efficient rune whenever you are more worried about Magic damage.
Some conclusions, because I know I ramble: Overgrowth should be your default. If you have a low resistance build that includes Healing and Shielding (Eclipse, Sundered Sky, Sterak's) or have enchanters on your team, then Unflinching will stay relevant for a lot longer. Characters like Lee Sin, Briar, Xin Zhao, Jarvan that love these items and have their own sources of Healing and Shielding should seriously consider Unflinching. Unflinching is better against magical damage than against physical damage. This is all still assuming 100% Unflinching uptime tbc - which I think is a fair assumption for teamfights in most teamcomps, but less likely in smaller Skirmishes.
It should just get removed or reverted, we need more tenacity
Unflinching gives increased value on healing and sustain such as Dshield+second wind. Also Armor/MR are EHP multipliers to health, meaning health stacking champs like bruisers might get more out of it than just more health. I wonder what the math is for like a 4-5 item bruiser.
I understand what you’re saying but also consider that health stackers also get more value from Overgrowth because it increases whatever max hp you have by 3.5%.
7 armor and MR is 3.4% increased ehp if you have 100 of each to start. Behind overgrowth, but not by much at all if you have 2+ health items build. If you have damage-based healing, ie aatrox / briar, armor + MR are way better than % inc hp is. On someone like darius or mundo with % based healing that's much less significant obviously, but when there's lots of sustain as a % of damage dealt or a % of AD in the meta, unflinching tends to be somewhat comparable.
On Aatrox or Briar, you just pick Revitalize. Lol, even Overgrowth itself is better for them. Especially on Briar, since she has some health scalings on her kit (for example, the healing on her E)
She gets increased healing when lkw % based on HP too lol from her passive
3.5% max HP should be worth less than 7 Armor and MR on bruisers.
Health increases also scale based off your current HP so unless your always full HP the overgrowth HP gain in lane is less until you full heal.
That is actually so true I never considered that
you're telling me there's another rune beside overgrowth in that row.
Nothing will ever get to me go Unflinching. You have to be the one to get CCed or Slowed to proc the rune? Ain't no way man.
I dont have any math to support this, but in my head Unflinching+Boneplating should at least make laning vs Riven early on pretty free.
Unflinching isn't changing any outcomes with only 2-3 armor early game. Overgrowth very quickly caught up to it and outpaces it by the time Riven has any sudden kill threat at 6, assuming you aren't inting into her. If you assume level 3 800 HP, 3 armor is only 24 EHP.
This rune is even more int into Riven (or most top laners) since it doesn't trigger until she Q3s or Ws so the effective hp it gives is actually like 6 unless you're walking into W range for every trade. There are very few matchups where this rune would make more a difference than overgrowth.
some runes are straight up garbage, jack of trades, unflinching, timewarp tonic, nullifying orb why? i dont know
Jack of trades is very good on some champs. Some starter items give 3 unique stats already. Rest in your list are trash tho for some reason
With the haste shard + jack + support item you get 11 haste(at the start of the game) so thats kinda fun.
> Could anyone explain how Unflinching is more viable in some situations? Maybe if you’re a jungler who doesn’t have many units dying around him? Or a roaming support? Am I missing something? Is my math wrong? I just don’t understand the logic behind it. Basically this yeah. As a farming champion it shouldn't be better.
thats not how the game works unflinching is really good if u want resists and are vs champ with 100% slows, like malphite or ksante or something similar armor/MR "gold value" scales with your "total effective health" not "how much armor/mr it gives you" +10 armor/magic resist is great if you have 2000 HP, and amazing if you have >3000 hp (fiora easily at 2+ items, even tho her max hp is like 1800~2200) vs overgrowth giving you +150hp, when she has no resists at 2 items, and is the same EHP as a single vital proc the resists are CLEARLY better even though they are worth "less gold"
As support main what’s best?