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Instead of Damage Dealt to Champions, I've been using this stat to track how well I did as a Tank

Amasa Delano·2/4/2017, 8:02:41 PM·22 votes·2,544 views

The Stat:

Damage Taken / Deaths = How awesome you were as a Tank

My explanation:

As a Tank (not a Juggernaut), more often than not I do nowhere near the most damage on my team. My job, in fact, is to absorb damage so that my teammates don't have to. So how can I tell how much damage I've successfully absorbed? I could just use the Damage Taken stat, but if I died a lot that's going to be very high no matter what (often teammates who fed a lot will have super high Damage Taken). So, dividing how much damage I took by how many times I died gives me the average amount of damage it took to finally bring me down one time, which seems like a pretty good measure of a Tank to me.

For example: One game I got 8 deaths and took 32k damage. So, on average, it took 4k damage to bring me down once. Not bad, but not great.

Another game: I died twice and took 30k damage. This time, on average, it took 15k damage to bring me down just once. That's a lot! That was a good game for me.

Just wanted to share this. I would like to hear others' opinions on this stat, and would be excited if other people/websites/apps would start using this stat (or something like it) to recognize one of the key talents of a good Tank: soaking damage for your team!

53 Comments

Death and Doom2/5/2017, 2:06:39 AM11 votes

no offense but that doesnt make much sense. if you laned against a pantheon and he threw spears at you the whole lane, your version of measuring would make you seem like a god, while in reality you were just backing over and over, and losing tons of cs and possibly turrets. it is very situational.

basically, you will look good whenever you fight a poke teamcomp.

Stray Kat2/4/2017, 9:41:56 PM10 votes

I like to count my healing done as Soraka. If I heal 50k and their ADC+Top dealt 55k combined, I basically made those two champions worth of damage not exist. That feels like a big deal to me.

CancerBasedGod2/4/2017, 8:39:12 PM6 votes

It would be best to measure performance by CC done honestly, but that's not a thing in stats somehow...

DrCyanide2/4/2017, 8:49:29 PM3 votes

I've been building a stats website (it's slow, but you can check it out if you want. pentasteal.lol Look up yourself then click "Update Details" to make the other tabs do anything interesting) and this is one of the stats I track (under Damage Taken). Like you, I think it's a great way to reward Tanks for doing good things.

The other stat that might be interesting is % Damage Taken. For a team where everyone's attacked the same amount you would take 20%, so Tanks want to increase that number while squishes want to minimize that number.

Sire Hippington2/5/2017, 4:17:08 AM3 votes

Damage taken/deaths has a couple of issues aswell:

Damge taken sadly is post mitigation, not pre, and doesn't take into account shields. That means it doesn't show the actuall damage you soaked up for your team, but just what was removed from your healthbar in the end, which means someone with 100 armor and 2000 health has 2000 damage taken while some one with 0 aromr and 4000 health has 4000 damge taken even though both need 4000 physical damage to die. It also means that morde always has pittyfull damge taken stats because all the damage vs his shield doesn't go into the stats.
Deaths not always are a 'bad' thing. Sometimes sacrificeing yourself is beneficial for the team and a better option than running away with lowhealth, so less deaths doesn't neccesarily mean you did better.
Soaking damage is by far not enough for a tank. Even though they are not the primary damge source, dealing some damage, especially in treamfights, is important, and useing your cc well is even more important, just like controlling minon waves and so on.

The stats overall are bad for really measuring how well someone played, there are to many important things that you can't see on it, and if you want't to get a somewhat decen idea of how well you did, you need to look at ALL THE STATS in comparision to other players of the same match, and even then you just get a very rough picture of it.

Sohleks2/8/2017, 6:05:34 AM2 votes

Damage taken should be changed to record from premitigated resisted damage. Tanks would be exponentially higher on that chart and the performance between hp sponges with lots of sustain and high resistance tanks would be more accurately measured.

BluePolarizer2/4/2017, 8:41:39 PM2 votes

Damage taken/death count is actually extremely high for ADCs that get early lifesteal though. They can tank alot of sustained damage once they get BT. Also, they TAKE more damage because they don't build resists. Going by this metric you might get ridiculous conclusions like Draven is a better tank than Nautilus Poppy Rammus .

hsumis1ove2/5/2017, 3:32:00 AM2 votes

The thing that bothers me when I play BORK, rageblade bruiser Yi is that I often deal most damage, and tank most damage. If I get focused so hard and deal so much damage, can't my team clean up?

Thresh Outta Fux2/5/2017, 3:58:45 AM2 votes

The other thing I'd like to see is a time-based graph of how much time you CCed the opposing team.

Have one for hard CC, like Roots/snares/stuns/knockups, and one for soft CC, like Silence/Slow/etc.

Been suggesting it for a good 3 seasons now.

Spaceman5pff2/5/2017, 6:13:50 AM2 votes

Would really love a Damage Mitigated graph, showing anything you blocked with shields, windwalls, braum doors, %dmg reduction etc, and even through in combat sustain.

Arkilusal2/5/2017, 4:43:07 PM2 votes

Soo...Here's my thoughts. As others have mentioned, the problem with this method is one can 'inflate' their damage taken without being killed by being cowardly-I don't mean cautious, but cowardly, things like running out a team fight going badly could technically inflate this without actually doing the job of properly tanking (especially if your team getting killed is because you weren't there to soak the damage!) But on the flipside...There's something to this idea-a GOOD tank would understand the difference between taking focus just long enough for your damage dealers to kill the enemy, and just initiating right into the Blood Brother (Darius&Draven) Without any backup whatsoever.

ModKnightsKemplar2/5/2017, 5:14:34 PM2 votes

I mean, there isn't any stat that gives a complete picture. There's flaws looking at any one stat or ratio (that includes KDA). So I'd say it's as good as anything.

ZT Xperimentor2/5/2017, 5:07:31 PM1 votes

A timeframe between deaths would significantly help, I'd think.

Aptest2/5/2017, 6:31:47 AM1 votes

As a tank, much of your work should be zoning and herding the other team. Not necessarily taking damage while doing it. so the amount of damage you took isn't really that important there.

Spoofghoul2/5/2017, 12:22:57 PM1 votes

i just look at all stats and try to score good in all of them which is difficult for damage or turrets taken etc but i always try to score better at any of those stats then at least 1 of the more carry oriented champs in the game

like if there are 4 carries in the game i want to be in the top 4 damage, top 4 objectives, etc etc

Ofc damage tanked is nice but a skewed stat for tanks, you have 300 armor so you take less damage, even so you probably end up highest anyway if for nothing else then having more health then everyone else.

So for me as a tank it's not the most important stat in endgame lobby

I do want least time spend death vs high stats everywhere else, like many assists/kills many structures many wards, high gold etc

thats my measure of succes

Earl Eulrich2/5/2017, 4:13:04 PM1 votes

not really, it´s a stat that gets heavily boosted by snowballing and just becomes useless if you fall behind - as most times you need to go in very hard and die to force an engage that can maybe bring you a comeback, whilst people that mostly care on not dieing will never make a comeback out of their own power, but just relay on opponents mistakes or slowly but surly lose the game (a reason i really don´t like what koreans did with lol proplay, most of the times it´s just not take risks and lose the game of a single mistake that way with them).

WoonStruck2/5/2017, 4:00:47 AM1 votes

You have to factor in k/a as well. I wish there were a 'tower assist' statistic to factor in too.

As a tank, if you're taking damage for no reason, its hard to claim you're doing your job, despite making your numbers look good in the case you describe.

Another flaw: If you have absurdly high resists vs the team you're facing, your 'damage taken' is going to be significantly lower than the amount you actually took relative to your team.

h5LYF41Lam2/5/2017, 4:57:37 PM1 votes

damage taken is a biased statistic,junglers usualy take more damage because they are tanking the camps.

Ariel the Cruel2/5/2017, 4:49:52 AM1 votes

Plot twist! Damage taken measures health lost. So resists lower the number and shields aren't counted at all.

For this reason, you can always expect a glass-cannon Vlad to have a better number than... say... Leona or Sion.

junglerboy162/5/2017, 5:11:28 AM1 votes

I've been doing the same for a long time actually, because a lot of the time as a pure tank you just don't do much other than lock down enemies and peel for your team (both requiring a lot of survivability). I started doing it when I realized that my best games (the ones where I had the greatest impact on my team) usually correlated with the games I dealt the least damage (mainly because I was focusing better on the team's success rather than my personal KD ratio).

agbudar2/5/2017, 5:58:18 AM1 votes

you kinda get that with kda ratio.

your assists count towards it as well

for example if your ratio is 8.00 they died 8 times before they finally managed to kill you 0/4/32