Thoughts/Rant on Tank Updates Pt 1.

Hello everyone, I thought I would write my thoughts on the tank updates since the PBE has been down at the time of writing this. These thoughts are not going to include any gameplay and are just going to be my thoughts on what we've seen of the kits so far. I'll likely make a follow-up post to this once I get enough testing in to state my final thoughts.

#Sejuani I never played much Sejuani, but the most I got out of her was that she was boring. She felt like a jankier version of Amumu with a weaker gapcloser and less reliance on skillshots. I don't know much about how to play her nor did I enjoy her, so I like the direction that they are taking with giving her much more of a unique theme. I was worried they were just going to give her some kind of charge move that inspired allies basically like a Kled ult, but I am relieved to find that her frost mechanic is much more unique and interesting than that. Her flail attack looks reminiscent of Rengar's new Q which I dislike but with a weapon the animation actually looks better and it looks more interesting than her old flail spinning move. I especially like her new perma-frost mechanic. One thing that most Sejuani mains talked about (although it was something that I never felt in game) was that Sejuani was supposed to be a high-damaging tank. With what I am seeing on the kit, it seems that Sej is still going to be able to hurt a lot with her perma-frost mechanic, but she isn't going to be able to cc you at the same time. You actually have to make a choice between damage and cc which I think is fairly solid design-wise. A lot of Sejuani mains might feels disappointed with her new weaker ultimate, and they are right in that it certainly isn't the teamfight ability it once was. I personally disagree with that criticism since there are many champions which essentially have the same ult, like Amumu and Malphite, just in a different form. All in all, I feel like this rework is a step in the right direction for Sejuani to make her feel different to other tanks and give her more of a skillcap than before.

#Zac I actually played quite a bit of Zac, and I really enjoyed his gameplay. His elastic slingshot was incredibly fun and satisfying to use, the blob pick up mechanic was cool, and the amount of chaos that your ultimate provided was incredible. I did realize, however, that his wasn't perfect. You had these awesome abilities like the passive, E , and R, but then you had lame abilities like the W and especially the Q. So I think Riot was right in changing what they did. The new Q looks much more interesting and fun to use than the old one, although I worry how they will be able to balance such an ability. Imagine a toplane Zac jumping into you from the brush, pulling you back towards the tower with his Q, and then having the enemy Lee Sin come up for a gank. All that does, however, depend on whether or not you can use it with minions. The one thing I don't like about the rework is the R. Now don't get me wrong, it is a cool idea and it sounds way better and more useful than the old R. Despite that, there was just something chaotic about the old R that this new R doesn't seem to replicate, at least from the preview we saw. The animation just looks stiff, like Zac really isn't having fun or bouncing around when he jumps out. It just looks like the poor lad really has to take a shit. The old R also had this massive disruption, but in a different way to the new R. The new R looks like an ability you use to drop the enemy adc into your team, but it doesn't look as good for making big teamwide plays. The old R could be used to disrupt almost the entire enemy team, and it even had a skill factor attached to it by positioning your elastic slingshot to make you land behind your opponent, so that you could knock them back with the R. New R just looks much more binary; I just can't see a time where you wouldn't simply knock the enemy back into your team or your tower. Not to mention doing so would leave you out of the fight, not in the center of the enemy team where you can use all your spells including that cool new disruption ability on your Q. The old R would leave your right in the middle of the fight, and would drop three bloblets for you to pick up as you jumped around and damaged enemies. There is also the problem of balance. This ability combined with the excellent backline pressure that Zac has with his E just seems insane. Basically jump onto the ADC with elastic slingshot and then ult them into your team and your done. Zac would become a better Blitzcrank or Lee Sin lategame. However, its very likely all this would play out drastically differently in game simply because of factors I may not know yet or have considered. Maybe the ultimate would only launch you far enough to land in the enemy frontline instead of your frontline. Or maybe you can actually move around when you are in the puddle form (which I thought that you could do when I saw the preview for this ability at first). I'm going to harbor my reservations about new Zac for now, he still seems like he'll be fun to play even with these changes, just because of elastic slingshot and how bullshit its going to be sending the entire backline into your team.

#Maokai This is probably the rework that I went back and forth on the most. I played very little Maokai, but I felt that he was a fairly fun champion to play as, just with some problems of course. Maybe a Maokai main will call me bullshit, ignorant, and wrong but I always felt that the Sapling felt completely useless on Tank Maokai top. Basically they were like mini Teemo shrooms that would run slowly towards you when approached, did no damage unless you were full AP Maokai with 8 saplings stacked in one place, and provided no vision. The only use I found for them was as shitty wards, a super delayed and shitty poke, or a shitty, super slow... slow. Basically I felt like this ability was shit and I was hoping for it to be reworked or removed. I also felt that Maokai was just too simple and straightforward of a champion, with very little counterplay attached to him. Maokai had to think very little about what he was doing. Either press R, dive the enemy carry, and spam all your spells, or press R, protect your carry, and spam all your spells on anyone that tries to get close. On top of that, he was a very generalist champion, with no real strengths as a tank but no real weaknesses either. This made him a decent pick in almost every situation, which caused him to either outshine other tanks (which he often did) or be completely useless when compared to others. So when riot announced they were going to rework him, I was both excited yet worried. They said they were going to expand his niche as an anti-caster tank, which was a part of his kit with his passive and R. This is good, as it means that Maokai was no longer going to be a simple generalist tank. But I was also worried because his rework was going to be a part of the Vanguard update, despite Maokai's classification as a Warden. I thought that since they were going to be changing his role, they were also going to be changing massive parts of his kit and make him almost unrecognizable. But that ended up not being the case.

His rework meant that his kit ended up staying nearly unchanged. He still had his point and click dash, his Q was the same, and his passive was almost unchanged. The few changes that they did do actually pushed him away from being an anti-caster tank, which surprised and disappointed me since I thought that Riot would keep their word about what his new niche would be. Despite that, they still managed to give Maokai a unique niche. I was very surprised when I read that his sapling were still going to be in his kit. I was fairly confused at first, but after seeing what the changes to them were, I feel like they might actually be good. Basically when the sapling is placed in a bush, it does extra damage over time after the first hit. The usefulness of this ability will come down to how much damage it will actually do. If it is strong, then Maokai will have a unique niche as a zone controlling tank, almost a disrupter tank as you will. This will become especially true with his new ultimate. When I saw the lane wide root, I thought that this ability was going to be pretty bad. The root stops at one champion hit, so everyone can hide behind one tank basically negating the ability. But the more I thought about it, the more this ability started to become a deep and challenging ability to use and master. For one thing, having all the enemies group up in a straight line may be exactly what Maokai wants. It leads to him being able to easily engage with a dive onto their backline and a strong Q knockback. It also puts the enemies in the perfect position to be hit by an AOE nuke like a GP barrel or a Karthus dive, or an engage from another tank or diver. The ultimate also gives Maokai more options about how he can be played and used. One thing I was worried about was how they were going to make Maokai into a Vanguard, and how much would have to be changed to make that true. This ultimate killed those worries, however, as it allows Maokai to be able to play the role of both a Vanguard and a Warden. It is a ranged engage, so Maokai can stay back and peel for his carries as a Warden and still use his ult as an effective engage. He can also use the ultimate defensively, as it is going to be nearly impossible for an assassin or diver to dodge the massive waves of hentai coming for you, while the tenticles can also move on and stun the team behind it. If an enemy tank, like Amumu engages and gets a strong ultimate, Maokai can use his ultimate to stop or delay the oncoming assault, or perhaps even use it to completely turn around the fight. There are just so many ways that Mao can use this ability that I believe it may be one of the best abilities that Riot has ever designed in one of these class reworks.

All in all, I think many of these changes are good but it will come down to numbers what my final scores will be for them. I'll be sure to make a follow up post to this when these changes hit the PBE so that I can give my final thoughts on each of the tanks.