3

I always thought: "Physical damage is only based on attack damage (like autoattack)", but today I notice something very weird.

When I used Whimsy on myself I caused more damage in units, like Turrets.

So the wild question appears:

  • "How does physical damage really scale?"

Whimsy (Active) – On ally cast: Target ally gains 35% movement speed and bonus ability power for 5 seconds.

(Active) – On enemy cast: Polymorphs an enemy champion for a short duration, disabling their ability to attack or cast spells and reducing their base movement speed by 60.

1
  • Whimsy should have no affect upon your physical damage. AP also does not seem to scale Pix's damage (does 110 at level 18) and is not able to attack buildings. Something else besides this must have been going on. Do you have an item that converts AP into Physical damage? Or those items that on-cast next hit does X amount of damage based on AP? (Cant remember the name but its not Lich Bane :))
    – James
    Mar 22, 2012 at 17:21

3 Answers 3

4

It's impossible for Whimsy to add damage to turrets UNLESS you were playing an AP character: From the League of Legends wiki:

Damage to a tower is based on your base damage plus the higher of your bonus attack damage or 40% of your ability power

When you were doing more damage, it was likely that someone had the Siege Commander mastery OR you had Demolition (+10 damage to turrets).

Attack damage scales at a 1:1 ratio with auto attacks of all characters. Per auto attack physical damage dealt is based on the total armor of the target, also factoring in how much armor penetration you have. You can read more about how much armor reduces physical damage here.

1
  • 1
    The case was the first one. I was playing AP character. =) Good answer
    – Michel
    Mar 22, 2012 at 20:50
2

The tower took a higher amount of damage than you would have expected from your physical damage not because of Whimsy but because of the damage calculation when champions who have AP attack turrets.

Damage to a tower is based on your base damage plus the higher of your bonus attack damage or 40% of your ability power

Since you most likely were not building any attack damage and were building some AP on Lulu, your additional damage on the turret is due to the additional damage from the 40% AP.

Source: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Turret

2

When attacking turrets, your damage done is calculated differently than it is against champions and minions.

It is base damage plus 40% of your attack damage or ability power. On Lulu, your ability power is higher, so when giving yourself bonus ability power, you deal more damage to the turret. It is, however, still dealing physical damage, as far as I am aware.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .