Description
Damage that bypasses Armor and Magic Resist — the damage number on the source is applied directly to current Health. Shields still absorb true damage like any other damage type.
Listed in: Anti-tank
Items (12)
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- +150 HP
- +20 AP
- +1 Mana Regen
Attacks and Abilities deal 1% Burn and 33% Wound to enemies for 10 seconds. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: Reduces healing received
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- +45% AS
Attacks and Abilities 1% Burn and 33% Wound enemies for 5 seconds. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: Reduces healing received
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- +150 HP
- +20 Armor
Gain 8% max Health. Every 2 seconds, deal 1% Burn and 33% Wound to an enemy within 2 hexes for 10 seconds. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: Reduces healing received
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- +300 HP
- +35 AP
- +2 Mana Regen
Attacks and Abilities deal 2% Burn and 33% Wound to enemies for 10 seconds. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: Reduces healing received
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- +80% AS
Attacks and Abilities 2% Burn and 33% Wound enemies for 5 seconds. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: Reduces healing received
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- +300 HP
- +40 Armor
Gain 16% max Health. Every 2 seconds, deal 2% Burn and 33% Wound to an enemy within 2 hexes for 10 seconds. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: reduces healing received
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- +30% AD
- +30 AP
- +5 Mana Regen
Store 20% of damage dealt. Every 6 seconds and on death, deal the stored damage as true damage to all enemies, reduced by 5% for each hex they are from the epicenter. Recommended Roles: Attack or Magic Caster
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- +40% AD
- +45 AP
- +5 Mana Regen
For every 15 mana spent, fire a projectile at a nearby enemy dealing ? + 50% of the holder's Ability Power magic damage, and applying 1% Burn and 33% Wound to enemies for 10 seconds. Each projectile leaves a lingering field that deals ? magic damage to enemies each second. Damage increases based on Stage. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: Reduces healing received Recommended Roles: Magic Caster
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- +15% AD
- +45 AP
- +4 Mana Regen
For every 20 mana spent, fire a projectile at a nearby enemy, dealing ? + 75% of the holder's Ability Power magic damage and applying 1% Burn and 33% Wound to enemies for 3 seconds. Damage increases based on Stage. Burn: Deals a percent of the target's max Health as true damage every second Wound: Reduces healing received Recommended Role: Magic Caster
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- +20% AD
- +30 AP
- +5 Mana Regen
Store 25% of damage dealt. On death or after 16 seconds in combat, deal the stored damage as true damage to all enemies, reduced by 15% for each hex they are away from the epicenter. Recommended Roles: Attack or Magic Caster
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- +40 Armor
- +40 MR
- +30% AD
- +30 AP
Gain 6 orbiting razors. Razors deal ? true damage, and 30% Shred and Sunder enemies for the rest of combat. Deal 30% increased damage to Shredded or Sundered enemies. Damage increases based on Stage. Recommended Roles: Attack or Magic Fighter
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- +20% AS
- +10% Damage Amp
- +3 Mana Regen
Every 5 seconds, gain: Magic Champions: 1 Mana Regen. Attack Champions: 15% Attack Speed. At (4): If the holder is Psionic, their abilities deal 25% of their ability damage as true damage instead. Recommended users: Sona and Viktor.
Augments (3)
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Soul Awakening Prismatic Combat start: Your team gains 1.5% Attack Damage and Ability Power per second for 10 seconds. At max stacks, deal 12% bonus true damage.
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Kahunahuna Gold Every 5th attack deals bonus true damage equal to 100% Basic Attack Damage.
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The Tower Silver Gain a giant Training Dummy with increased Health (increases with Stage). Every 4 seconds, it zaps the 3 nearest enemies dealing 5% max Health true damage.
Champions (3)
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Hopped-Up Hacks Open a 2 hex rift containing the target, Hacking enemies within for 4 seconds and dealing 80 / 120 / 190 magic damage to each, plus 400 / 600 / 960 magic damage split between all enemies hit. Hacked enemies store 10% of all damage they take. When the Hack ends, they take true damage equal to the stored damage. The Hack ends early if it would kill the target.
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Perfect Bladework Passive: Every 2 attacks, reveal a Vital on the target. If a Vital exists, dash to attack it dealing 37 / 56 bonus true damage and heal for 15% of the damage dealt. Active: Reveal 6 Vitals on the target and quickly attack them all. If the target dies, remaining Vitals transfer to the nearest enemy. Upon striking the final Vital, create a two hex aura that heals allies within for over 5 seconds. -
Reality Tear Passive: On cast, attacks gain stacking bonus magic damage. Starting from the third cast, gain true damage instead. Active: Gain 200 / 250 / 3456 Shield for 3 seconds, then slice open a rift on the largest group of champions dealing the Passive's bonus damage to all enemies within. Enemies have their Attack Speed slowed by 50 / 50 / 99% while allies within gain 80 / 80 / 999% Attack Speed, both rapidly decaying over 3 seconds. Shen always gains his rift's full bonus for this duration.
Traits (1)
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Aatrox: Ally Damage 30% Shred and Sunders enemies Caitlyn: Grant allies 20% Attack Speed Akali: Allies gain Precision Maokai: Allies heal 12% max Health Kindred: Shield the strongest Tank for 800 Emblem: Allies deal 10% stacking bonus true damage
Frequently asked questions
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What is true damage in TFT, and what does it ignore?
True damage is one of the three basic damage types in TFT, alongside physical (AD) and magic (AP). The TFT-namespaced wiki defines it as damage that ignores resistances (Armor and Magic Resist), damage reduction, and damage amplification — so the number on the source goes through as written, regardless of what defensive stats the target has stacked. That makes it the only damage type whose tooltip value is also its delivered value before considering shields and other special effects.
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Do shields absorb true damage, or does true damage bypass them too?
Normal shields absorb true damage. The shield pool is consumed first regardless of damage type — physical, magic, or true — and only damage that overflows the shield reaches Health. True damage's bypass clause only covers Armor, Magic Resist, damage reduction, and damage amplification; shields are a separate layer with their own rules. So a unit sitting under a shield is fully protected against true-damage ticks until the shield is consumed. The League-wide exception (the Nexus Obelisk's special true damage that pierces shields) does not exist in TFT.
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If Armor and Magic Resist don't reduce it, how do you defend against true damage?
There are three main levers. First, raw max Health: against flat true damage, more HP means each hit removes a smaller percentage of the bar. Second, shields, which absorb true damage at face value until consumed. Third, untargetability or invulnerability windows that block all damage types. Notably, max-HP stacking does not help against percent-max-HP true damage like Burn — those scale up with your HP pool, so the time-to-kill stays roughly constant. Armor, MR, and generic damage-reduction percentages do nothing against true damage.
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Does damage amplification ("+X% damage") boost true damage in TFT?
No — and this is one of TFT's quiet divergences from base League. The TFT-namespaced true-damage page explicitly lists damage amplification among the things true damage ignores, alongside resistances and damage reduction. So a buff that reads "deal X% more damage" applies to physical and magic outputs but not to the true-damage portion of the same source. (In base League, true damage is amplified by most amp effects — TFT changed this rule on purpose, and it's been stable across recent sets.) This is why true-damage trait bonuses and burn ticks feel "locked" at their tooltip values.
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Can true damage from abilities critically strike?
By default abilities don't crit on their own — only basic attacks do. A small class of items unlocks ability crits, and those items explicitly cover true damage as well as magic damage: the official wording is that critical strikes from abilities trigger from magic and true damage instead of all damage. With one of those enabling items plus crit chance, the true-damage portion of a spell can land critical hits. Without that, or without an ability that natively states it can crit, the true-damage tick stays at flat tooltip value.
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Does Omnivamp (or lifesteal) heal the dealer when they deal true damage?
Omnivamp does — it converts a percentage of all post-mitigation damage into healing, regardless of whether the damage was physical, magic, or true. Lifesteal is the narrower stat: it only heals from basic-attack damage, not from ability damage or DoT effects, and many true-damage sources are abilities or burn ticks rather than basic attacks. Both stats heal at reduced effectiveness against non-champion targets and on AoE. Heal-and-shield-power amplifies most heals but does not multiply Omnivamp's conversion rate.
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What's the difference between true damage and physical damage when Armor has been reduced to 0?
They feel identical in the moment, but only one is locked-in. Resistances in TFT are floored at 0 — Sunder, Shred, and other reductions can take Armor or MR to zero but not below — so once a target is at 0 Armor, incoming physical damage is unmitigated, which the community shorthand calls "effectively true damage." The difference is that physical damage still respects damage reduction and damage amplification, can be re-mitigated the moment any Armor is restored, and reads as physical for on-hit triggers. Tooltipped true damage permanently bypasses all of that, regardless of the target's current resistance values.
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Does anti-heal (Wound / Grievous Wounds) interact with true damage at all?
Not on the dealing side. Wound and Grievous Wounds are healing-side debuffs — they reduce healing the affected unit receives, with no mention of damage type. So applying anti-heal to a target does not change how much true damage that target takes. The relevant interaction runs the other way: many anti-heal sources are bundled with Burn, which itself ticks as percent-max-HP true damage, so the target ends up taking unmitigated DoT and healing less to compensate. The two effects sit side by side in the same tooltip but operate on different stats.