Luden’s Tempest Artifact

I just recently started interacting with this Subreddit and it has been an extremely helpful experience. Since my last 2 posts garnered a lot of discussion, I feel even more motivated to ask about questions that have always bothered me since this community showed it’s really keen on sharing its knowledge.

So, that being said, today’s topic is: Luden’s Tempest — the Ornn Artifact. In contrast to my last post, I will keep this short; I quite literally have no idea what this item does.

It got released right after I quit the game and when I came back, it was the only Artifact among the new ones that I hadn’t seen before that confused me (and continues to confuse me to this very day). The other ones were always self-explanatory to me, but for some reason Luden’s description eludes me.

“100% of overkill damage plus 100 is dealt as magic damage to the three enemies nearest the target.” sounds like gibberish to me. I guess I could see it as a generic damage item on carries, but the stats don’t support this sentiment at all? Because it’s apparently terrible on certain units and OP on others? So you can’t just throw it on any unit.

And I know one of you is about to tell me “just look at the stats and choose the lowest delta, no biggie” in the comments… I know how to use stats. The point of this post is for me to actually understand the WHYs behind my actions. I want to understand the mechanic of this item. With an artifact like Unending Despair or Horizon Focus, I instantly know how to reason; I immediately start thinking of units with big shields or big stuns respectively. With Luden’s Tempest however, not a single unit comes to mind after I read its description.

So if anyone cares to explain what its effect actually does and what its design was intended for I’d appreciate it. Then, I’d love to know which units interact well with it this set in particular and why (I think the primary user last set was Varus but I never understood why back then, I just blindly followed people’s advice…) Explain it to me like I’m 5 basically! As always, thank you in advance to anyone who takes time to participate!

I just recently started interacting with this Subreddit and it has been an extremely helpful experience. Since my last 2 posts garnered a lot of discussion, I feel even more motivated to ask about questions that have always bothered me since this community showed it’s really keen on sharing its knowledge.

So, that being said, today’s topic is: Luden’s Tempest — the Ornn Artifact. In contrast to my last post, I will keep this short; I quite literally have no idea what this item does.

It got released right after I quit the game and when I came back, it was the only Artifact among the new ones that I hadn’t seen before that confused me (and continues to confuse me to this very day). The other ones were always self-explanatory to me, but for some reason Luden’s description eludes me.

“100% of overkill damage plus 100 is dealt as magic damage to the three enemies nearest the target.” sounds like gibberish to me. I guess I could see it as a generic damage item on carries, but the stats don’t support this sentiment at all? Because it’s apparently terrible on certain units and OP on others? So you can’t just throw it on any unit.

And I know one of you is about to tell me “just look at the stats and choose the lowest delta, no biggie” in the comments… I know how to use stats. The point of this post is for me to actually understand the WHYs behind my actions. I want to understand the mechanic of this item. With an artifact like Unending Despair or Horizon Focus, I instantly know how to reason; I immediately start thinking of units with big shields or big stuns respectively. With Luden’s Tempest however, not a single unit comes to mind after I read its description.

So if anyone cares to explain what its effect actually does and what its design was intended for I’d appreciate it. Then, I’d love to know which units interact well with it this set in particular and why (I think the primary user last set was Varus but I never understood why back then, I just blindly followed people’s advice…) Explain it to me like I’m 5 basically! As always, thank you in advance to anyone who takes time to participate!