Which provides more mitigation — Dodge or Armor?

Question

I finally hit level 20, meaning I can start buying nice shiny new runes. But one question I have only found discussion (but no numbers/calculations) about is the potential damage mitigation of dodge vs armor.

Leaving out Quints for the moment, if I got a full set of armor Seals, I'd have 12.69 extra armor.

If I got a full set of dodge Seals, I'd have 6.75% chance of dodging.

Is there any math anywhere to support which will reduce damage more over time? I'm just trying to figure it out for the sake of knowledge.

I don't just want opinions of which you think is better, although you're welcome to include your opinion in your answer. I simply want some sort of reference to which absorbs more over a period of time, based on which I could make decisions for my rune page.

Answer

The usefulness of dodge is that it is only present on a single item - if you use dodge runes, you have a chance to dodge auto attacks, while other champions without dodge runes of their own (or without a ninja tabi) will not.

Dodge is an HP multiplier -- it works better when used with armor and health bonuses than when just used as a defensive stat alone. Ultimately, dodge works best (and is most noticeable) in the early game, both since there is no scaling dodge / level runes, and because at low levels, attack speeds are low enough that a single dodged attack is highly relevant. Armor retains a similar effectiveness throughout the game.

One last thing to consider is that some champions want to get hit, and so armor runes are a better choice on a per champion basis. Shen, for example, has a passive that triggers more often when he gets hit. Rammus too would rather take the armor (as it both directly feeds his passive and allows his taunt / defensive curl combo to deal more self-inflicted damage). Jax, on the otherhand, makes good use of dodging, and it might be worth it to take dodge runes on him.

Ultimately, I find armor to be a little bit better stat defensively, but you're much more likely to note a survival due to a lucky dodge than to static armor reduction.

Check more discussion of this question.

loading..