TFT Set 18.4 Levers for getting through a heavy frontline. The first three sections link to mechanic pages where every Set 18 source is enumerated; the last four are curated lists of specific items, champions, and augments whose anti-tank angle isn't captured by an existing mechanic.
Damage that ignores Armor, Magic Resist, and Shield outright — or removes the target without going through the damage formula at all.
True Damage is damage that bypasses both Armor and Magic Resist.
The damage number on the source is applied directly to the target's current Health.
Note: Shields still absorb true damage like any other damage type.
Execute instantly kills a target whose Health is below a threshold.
The threshold is typically a percent of max Health.
It resolves as true damage equal to the target's current Health. So it ignores all of these:
Note: Unlike ordinary true damage, an execute destroys any active Shield before it applies the kill. A shielded unit at low Health (HP) is still executed once the threshold check passes. The Shield does not save it.
Reduces the target's defensive stats so the rest of your board hits harder. Sunder eats Armor (helps AD); Shred eats Magic Resist (helps AP); Stat Steal pulls Armor or Magic Resist off the enemy and onto the holder. Sunder and Shred each cover two kinds of source: the named keyword takes a percentage and does not stack, while unnamed sources subtract flat points per hit or on a timer and keep adding up toward the 0 floor — so a flat source is worth pairing with a keyword one.
Sunder is a debuff that reduces the target's Armor.
The named Sunder keyword works like this.
Other sources instead subtract a flat number of Armor. Those work differently.
Shred is a debuff that reduces the target's Magic Resist.
The named Shred keyword works like this.
Other sources instead subtract a flat number of Magic Resist. Those work differently.
Stat Steal drains a stat from enemies and gives it to the source or an ally.
It can steal one of four stats:
Note: It is not the same as Shred or Sunder. Those are one-way debuffs that only reduce the enemy stat. With Stat Steal, the holder gains what the enemy loses.
The canonical anti-tank package: Burn deals % max-HP true damage over time, Wound cuts incoming healing — including Health Regen, lifesteal, and omnivamp. Stack them when the enemy frontline out-sustains your damage.
Burn is a debuff that deals true damage every second.
Each second it deals a percent of the target's maximum Health.
Most burn sources also apply Wound. Wound reduces healing received. Together, Burn and Wound are the standard answer to high-Health frontlines.
Wound is a debuff that reduces the healing its target receives by 33%.
The effect lasts for a duration.
Effects whose text explicitly amps damage against tanky units or against high-Health enemies — direct counters to a heavy frontline.
Gain 15% additional Damage Amp against Tanks.
Gain 30% additional Damage Amp against Tanks.
One-shot damage that scales with the target's maximum Health, so the bigger the tank, the bigger the chunk. Distinct from Burn (which is over-time).
Stunning an enemy causes lightning to strike them, dealing 30% of their max Health as magic damage.
Gain a giant Training Dummy. Every 4 seconds, it zaps the 3 nearest enemies dealing 5% max Health true damage.
Drain Armor or Magic Resist off the enemy and convert the stolen stat into damage or healing — the swing is double-sided.
Every 2.5 seconds, steal 3 Magic Resist from enemies within 1-hex and deal 18% of the holder's Magic Resist as magic damage. If Aegis of Dawn is also equipped, trigger this item's effect every 1.25 seconds instead. Damage increases based on Stage.
Every 2.5 seconds, steal 3 Armor from enemies within 1-hex and heal a Stage-scaled amount of the holder's Armor. If Aegis of Dusk is also equipped, trigger this item's effect every 1.25 seconds instead. Healing increases based on Stage.
Penetration: damage is calculated as if the target had less Armor / MR, but the stat itself is untouched. Stacks alongside Sunder / Shred rather than competing with it.
1 champion · paste in the game's Team Planner
Crimson Fury Passive: When the target dies, leap at the next target, dealing 135 / 205 / 1000 physical damage. Active: Gain 100 / 100 / 300% Attack Damage for 8 seconds. During this time ignore 45 / 45 / 90% Armor. Red Buff: Attacks 1% Burn enemies and heal Brambleback for 4% max Health.
Armor and Health Regen are two separate problems, so you need two levers.
Against Armor you either strip it or skip the resist formula entirely.
Two more levers sit between those two.
Against Health Regen the lever is anti-heal. Wound (Grievous Wounds) reduces health regeneration as well as direct heals, lifesteal and omnivamp. So a regen-reliant frontline stops replacing the Health you chip off it.
Note: The game floors resistances at 0. Once a target is stripped to 0 Armor, any further reduction is wasted, so switch to bypass damage.
Sources
Yes. Anti-heal stops Health Regen too.
The in-game Grievous Wounds tooltip only names "self-healing and incoming healing". The engine-side definition explicitly includes health regeneration. So regen ticks are shaved like any other heal.
Lifesteal and omnivamp are cut as well, since both arrive as normal heal events.
The size of the cut depends on the source.
Note: Multiple applications refresh the duration rather than adding their percentages. One anti-heal source on a unit that reaches the right target is enough. A second is wasted.
Sources
It depends on which kind you are stacking.
The named keyword does not stack. When two Sunder sources hit the same target, only one is active at a time. Item tooltips state "This effect does not stack" outright. Shred behaves identically on the Magic Resist side. So doubling up the keyword on one carry buys nothing.
Plenty of sources cut a resistance without naming the keyword, though. They subtract a flat number of points, re-applied per hit or on a timer. Those do add together. A flat source next to a keyword one, or next to another flat one, really is removing more Armor.
The tooltip is the tell.
Resistances floor at 0 either way. Once a target is stripped, the next slot should be a different lever entirely.
On a mixed-damage board one Sunder and one Shred is the standard split, since each only touches its own resistance.
Note: Penetration is worth calling out here because it is not the same keyword. It lowers what the damage formula sees rather than removing Armor from the target. So the "does not stack" clause printed on the Sunder items is not a statement about it.
Sources
