Thread the Needle ARAM Mayhem Augment Guide

Piercing Lens: Skills penetrate enemies, damaging all targets in a line, turning single-target abilities into AoE, a poke champion's tool.

"Piercing Needles: Core Effect: All your non-targeted skills pierce enemies, dealing full damage to all enemies in their path\nPierce limit: Can pierce up to 3 enemies\nDamage reduction: 20% damage reduction when piercing the second enemy, 40% when piercing the third\nApplies to all non-targeted skills\nTargeted skills are unaffected

Thread the Needle: All non-targeted skills Equipment skills (such as Luden's Echo) Non-targeted damage from runes Pets' non-targeted skills

Thread the Needle: Targeted abilities, Basic attacks, Tick damage from DoT abilities, Passive effects

Piercing Thread: More penetrated enemies = higher total damage Can penetrate minions and monsters Stacks with other skill effects: e.g., Runaan's Hurricane crits, Infernal Conduit burning Skill hitbox ranges unchanged

Needle and Thread: Poke champions (like Ziggs, Jayce, Jinx) Mages with many non-targeted skills Champions weak at waveclear Champions who need to fight multiple targets

Champions with many skill-shot abilities Melee champions ADC champions Champions who rely on single-target damage

Piercing Thread: Try to hit multiple enemies with skills: maximize total damage Use penetration to clear waves: one spell can clear a wave Aim for enemy clusters in team fights: pierce through multiple champions Use poke to damage multiple enemies at once

Thread the Needle + Jeweled Gauntlet: Thread the Needle provides 18% armor and magic penetration, causing all damage to hit significantly harder against resistant targets. Jeweled Gauntlet enables abilities to critically strike for 145% damage. The penetration applies to the amplified critical strike damage, creating devastating burst combos. This pairing excels on mages and assassins who rely on ability damage, turning them into lethal threats that shred through frontline tanks and squishy targets alike. Thread the Needle + Magic Missile: Thread the Needle's 18% dual penetration amplifies all damage sources, including the true damage from Magic Missile's Firecrackers. While true damage bypasses resistances entirely, the penetration ensures your primary abilities deal near-true damage to softened targets. Magic Missile provides consistent additional damage output on every ability hit, while the penetration from Thread the Needle ensures your core abilities remain impactful throughout extended ARAM teamfights. Thread the Needle + Executioner: Thread the Needle ensures consistent damage output against all targets regardless of their defensive builds. Executioner adds a 10% damage increase against low-health enemies and resets basic ability cooldowns on takedowns. The penetration helps execute targets faster, triggering the reset mechanic more reliably. This combination creates a snowballing pattern where penetration-boosted abilities eliminate targets, reset, and continue wreaking havoc in the narrow ARAM lane. Thread the Needle + Erosion: Thread the Needle provides flat 18% penetration while Erosion stacks up to 30% resistance reduction on targets. These effects multiply together, effectively stripping nearly half of enemy resistances on fully stacked targets. Erosion stacks rapidly in ARAM's constant teamfights, and the penetration from Thread the Needle ensures damage remains high even before reaching maximum stacks. This pairing devastates tanky compositions over extended engagements.

Avoid Thread the Needle + Erosion: Thread the Needle provides 18% flat armor and magic penetration, which reduces enemy resistances by a fixed percentage. Erosion shreds up to 30% of enemy resistances, but percentage penetration applies before percentage reduction, causing significant diminishing returns and making the penetration from Thread the Needle far less effective. Avoid Thread the Needle + Celestial Body: Thread the Needle is a damage-oriented augment that helps you deal more damage through penetration. Celestial Body reduces your damage output by 10%, which directly conflicts with the purpose of taking penetration. The penetration stats become less valuable when your base damage is reduced. Avoid Thread the Needle + Glass Cannon: Glass Cannon caps your health at 70% and deals 15% bonus true damage. Thread the Needle provides penetration for your damage, but true damage bypasses resistances entirely, making the penetration stats completely wasted on the bonus damage portion of this pairing.

Piercing Needle: Don't ignore damage reduction the more enemies pierced, the less damage each takes. Don't pick this on champions with many targeted skills the benefit is minimal. Don't forget the penetration effect on minions it significantly improves waveclear. Note the max penetration count it can pierce up to 3 enemies.