Infinity Edge vs Lord Dominik's Regards: When to Build Each

Patch 26.19

Buy Infinity Edge third into squishy teams. Once the champions you're shooting carry a few hundred bonus health, Lord Dominik's Regards does more damage, and that covers nearly every tank and about half the bruisers. Bonus health decides it far more than armor does.

What each item gives you on Patch 26.19

Both give the same crit chance, so you're trading 40 attack damage and bigger crits for armor penetration and Giant Slayer. Giant Slayer reads the target's bonus health (base health doesn't count), and the champions stacking bonus health are usually the ones stacking armor too, so both halves of LDR land on the same targets.

Where the answer flips

Each cell is how much more damage the better item does to that champion over the same stretch of a fight. Your marksman is level 13 and holds the two items of a standard build before this buy. Every enemy is level 13 with their own standard three-item build, and the table is sorted by the bonus health that build gives them.

Enemy	Bonus health	Armor	Jinx	Caitlyn	Yunara	Tristana	Jhin
Ahri	0	117	Even	Even	IE +4%	IE +5%	Even
Kai'Sa	0	121	Even	Even	IE +6%	IE +7%	Even
Zed	0	83	IE +4%	IE +3%	IE +7%	IE +9%	IE +3%
Yone	0	133	Even	IE +2%	IE +3%	Even	Even
Graves	0	108	Even	Even	IE +4%	IE +6%	Even
Lee Sin	0	85	IE +6%	IE +5%	IE +8%	IE +11%	IE +3%
Thresh	650	103	LDR +3%	LDR +4%	LDR +3%	Even	LDR +5%
Sylas	700	136	LDR +7%	LDR +7%	LDR +7%	Even	LDR +14%
Leona	700	216	LDR +10%	LDR +10%	LDR +8%	LDR +4%	LDR +12%
Ornn	750	290	LDR +14%	LDR +14%	LDR +9%	LDR +8%	LDR +18%
Malphite	750	244	LDR +13%	LDR +13%	LDR +10%	LDR +7%	LDR +17%
Hecarim	850	142	LDR +8%	LDR +8%	LDR +6%	Even	LDR +10%
K'Sante	1050	213	LDR +14%	LDR +14%	LDR +18%	LDR +11%	LDR +19%
Vi	1133	106	LDR +8%	LDR +8%	LDR +9%	LDR +2%	LDR +11%
Sett	1450	109	LDR +7%	LDR +6%	LDR +9%	LDR +5%	LDR +14%

Gaps under 2% are marked even. Every number comes from the Patch 26.19 game files.

Pick your champion

Bonus health is the line

For Jinx, Caitlyn and Yunara the answer flips somewhere under 450 bonus health, and that one number on the enemy's build sorts almost every matchup correctly. Armor alone gets it wrong more often, mostly on bruisers who pair Plated Steelcaps with a big health item. A three-item Sett or Xin Zhao is an LDR target even though his armor looks ordinary.

For Jinx that's 45 of the 46 tanks and 17 of the 34 bruisers. Into squishy carries IE's lead is real but modest, 3% for Jinx. Into a frontline, LDR's lead is bigger, 10%. So the question to ask in champion select isn't whether they have a tank. It's whether the champions you'll actually be hitting in fights carry a health item.

Tristana and Jhin sit at opposite ends

Tristana holds on to IE longest. Her standard Yun Tal and Hexoptics start already stacks crit chance, so IE's crit damage is worth more to her than to anyone else here, and IE stays ahead against 120 of the 171 champions. Her line sits near 500 bonus health.

Jhin goes the other way. Whisper [Passive] turns his crit chance and bonus attack speed into attack damage and cuts what his crits deal by a quarter, so IE's crit damage loses part of its value on him while LDR's penetration hits his abilities and his fourth shot at full strength. Against high-health targets he gains 15% from LDR on average, more than any other marksman here, and his best case is 39% into Skarner.

How these were worked out

Every item and champion number comes from the Patch 26.19 game files. Each matchup is a fight played out a fiftieth of a second at a time, with the enemy hitting back and healing, run from eight different starting points and averaged. Builds are standard builds for each champion, the same for every page on this site.