Please? Why is it even a thing? You're either a tank, or an assassin. They are almost completely opposite things but are currently allowed to exist within the same champion. (Fizz, Ekko, Yi, Akali, etc.)
Please put an end to it riot.
redniwediS39 votesThey are assassins. If they build offensively they are assassins, and if they build defensively they are still assassins. Just because they have high defensive stats does not mean they are a Tank.
Don't get me wrong, one or two of them actually have kits that allow them to fill the Tank role, but the rest don't. Please don't mix up the Tank role with being tanky due to stats, because mixing them up would mean a marksman who builds full defense would be considered a tank, which is completely ridiculous.
Ralanr1 votes[insert THANK YOU gif].
Mandang010 votesFinally someone who gets it instead of the usual:
"Oh, but Brand lanes bottom, so he's a support"
... or the poor excuse "they're a mage support" - sure, because if I build warmog's on caitlyn, she's suddenly a marksman variety of tank, right?
Spoofghoul2 votesExactly!
It's annoying when people do that, its awkward and it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of gameknowledge.
Eeyore2 votesThat's not a clean argument, because there's two types of situation.
There's people who call Brand bot lane a "support" even when he's playing as a mage - they are wrong.
But there are people who play Brand bot lane with Locket of the Iron Solari, Talisman of Ascension and Zeke's Harbinger - people who call him a support are not wrong.
If Caitlyn can still build 6 Warmogs and be a viable marksman while being unkillable, then either Caitlyn's core marksman functionality is overpowered since it's not item dependant or Warmogs is too strong.
With most Assassins - the issue is their baseline capabilities are too strong and they can deal with just buying durability.
Penns31 votesBut the thing is that no one really cares about classifications ingame. People call it "tank Fizz" or "tank Ekko" because they build 5-6 items made for tanks.
If I see a Vayne build 
, Ill call it "tank Vayne" as well.
redniwediS20 votesThat's not actually what I'm talking about. It's fine to call a Fizz who has built defensive items "Tank Fizz" because he is building tanky. It's the people who say tanks need to be nerfed because of "Tank Fizz" and "Tank Ekko" that have it wrong.
It's honestly a mess of terms, because the word tank has about six different meanings depending on context, but I specifically made my post for the people who group Ekko and Fizz in with Malphite, Rammus, and Nautlilus simply because of the items they build.
BewareTheDepths1 votesNautlilus? Cmon people, its not that hard to type his name..
redniwediS5 votesEh, everyone types too fast from tiem to time. :^)
XJ9lol6 voteshttp://i.imgur.com/ZryJ2oZ.jpg
I am reminded of this.
MonkeyMadness10 votesI see no mess of terms here...
Ekko is perfect example, so I'll start there: he has ridiculous base damage and mobility AND the most overpowered "o shit i need to gtfo" ability in the game. Bar none. Ergo, he's an assassin.
But, when he can still apply reasonable burst damage (as do all assassins) while building tank items (sunfire, ibg, etc) this is just broken to shit.
I'm not really sure what you mean by a "mess of terms". We are talking about any champ that is categorized as an assassin (or assassin-esque) that does a shitload of damage AND takes a shitload of damage (the primary role of a tank).
redniwediS5 votesThe mess of terms refers to the role tank, the action of tanking, and having a tanky build. None of those actually have to go along with one another. You can have a tanky build while not filling the role or actively tanking damage, just as you can tank damage as a squishy champion.
I'm not quite sure how you went from reading me talk about how the word tank is a mess to thinking I was talking about the state of balance of assassins, but oh well. I'm sure it was an honest misunderstanding.
MonkeyMadness5 votesThey are all one and the same. A tank is defined in a game like this as any character that soaks up damage. Tanky build soaks up damage. Action of tanking is soaking up damage. Role of tank is the person designated to soak up damage. If you are a "tank" in any capacity (which the tank assassin meta obviously is) you are damage sponge that can also assassinate. No need to make this any more complicated.
DeathBurst9 votesA tank is defined in a game like this as any character that soaks up damage.
No. Garen, Mordekaiser, Nasus aren't Tank. If your team tells you "we need a Tank" and you pick Garen, you'll be sorely disappointed. A Tank is certainly a durable character, but more importantly it's a character who can control the flow of a fight, through peel/initiation/taunt/CC/etc.
There are tons of characters that are very durable but can do none of that. They are not Tanks.
MonkeyMadness1 votesWhat you said is false. There are tons of scenarios when I wouldn't mind having Garen or Nasus as a tank (Mord is different because he's in a very broken state right now, so I would hesitate to have him on my team at all). Peel/initiation/CC are traits that are good to have on tanks but not a necessity. All a tank has to do is soak up damage. That is the definition of a tank. And for all of you people that say that "riot defines a tank as...", Riot does not get to redefine established words. The term "tank" has existed long before LoL, and it means a class that soaks damage and/or holds aggro (ie taunt).
DeathBurst2 votesAnd in a PvP game where you play against other humans with a brain, and not just stupid computer following pre-established rules, how do you "hold aggro" with Garen or Nasus? Well, you just can't, and that's why they are not Tanks, even according to your definition.
Their durability is not here to soak damage per se, it's here to let them survive long enough to deal their own damage. Their primary output, their main contribution to their team, IS their damage, not the fact that they soak up enemy damage or protect their carries. And that why they are not Tanks, even according to your own definition.
MonkeyMadness1 votesReally? First, I said "ie taunt". There's one example of "holding aggro". Another would be to simply stand in front of the enemy marksmen and push them around. Let's use mundo as an example. If you are the adc and a mundo ults, turns on his flames, and starts charging in at you, what are you going to do? Are you going to ignore him and just try to pew pew away at the backline? Good luck with that. No, you are going to try to either avoid the mundo, or help to burn him down. Or perhaps, the rest of your team will focus the mundo while you expend your mobility skills to get around him and attack higher priority targets. Either way, mundo has held the aggro of multiple players, therefore abilities that might've been used to damage or cc other members of his team are being expended on him to either burn him down or keep him off of the adc. While this is not as concrete as true aggro, it functions in an identical way.
DeathBurst2 votesReally? First, I said "ie taunt". There's one example of "holding aggro".
And -I- said, "as Nasus or Garen". Last I checked, they don't have taunts...
Mundo works just the same way as Garen and Nasus. His main output is still damage. The zoning you described is a very underwhelming form of "holding aggro", and it stills does not let you control the flow of the fight. If an Assassin jumps on your carries, as Mundo (or Garen, or Nasus) you can't do anything about it. If a Malphite initiate on your carries, you can't do anything to stop their carries following up. If they sent one of them on a side lane to depush the lane and you are 5v4 mid, you can't do anything to engage and force the fight. You can't do anything that a true Tank should be able to do. You are not a Tank.
MonkeyMadness1 votesClearly you do not understand the meaning of "ie", so I'll link you a definition here http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/i-e
In case you don't read that read that, I'll explain the meaning here. "ie" is used to introduce specific examples, in this case taunt. "ie" does NOT provide an all inclusive list, and actually was only used to follow up your own statement
peel/initiation/taunt/CC/etc
You are also operating under your own assumptions and not actually participating in a real debate. You continue to imply that tanks are required to be primary initiators, even though I have given specific examples of how this is not strictly true. Let's say you have a morgana or some other champ with ranged lockdown. No one would call morg a tank, but if she snares a priority target, a tank like mundo or garen can pop their speed boosts and charge in to follow up. They still serve as the damage sponge and zone out enemy damage dealers from the fight. It is true that some tanks do deal good damage (garen and nasus are good examples). Instead of the initiation and crowd control that you are requiring to be considered a tank, they have damage. It's not that they aren't tanks, they are just different kinds of tanks.
Also, and more importantly, you are digressing from the main point here. There is an inherent problem when a champion can build full "tank" and still 100 to 0 the enemy squishies with a single combo. It really doesn't matter what you want to call them, but "tank assassins" present an incredibly unhealthy playstyle. Don't get bogged down in the definitions when the real debate lies in the principle.
DeathBurst2 votesSo first, you're mixing it up with "e.g.", but that's not really important. It doesn't matter if "taunt" was just an example, it's still true that Nasus, Garen and Mundo have pretty much nothing --neither taunt nor anything else-- to hold aggro.
Second, I'm not "operating under my own assumptions", and I never said that "tanks are required to be primary initiators". Even in the post just above, I also mentioned peeling against an Assassin and disrupting the enemy carries after THEIR initiation. What I did say was that Tanks are required to provide control over the flow of a fight, and that's not my own assumption, that's the definition used by Riot, which is a very logical adaptation to a PvP game from the original definition coined for PvE RPG games. Never have a Tank dealt large amount of damages, that was never their purpose, and what follows from that is that a champ who primarily provides damage is not a Tank at all, not "a different kind of Tank", even if it is a durable character.
Finally, I'm not digressing from the point where I started participating in the conversation, which was already 6 comments down the tree. I obviously agree with the original topic about "Tank Assassins", and I just made a shot reply to correct a factual error. So yeah, you can say that I'm not participating in a debate, because I am not. There is nothing open to debate here, I'm not providing my own opinion, and it was never intended to turn into a debate.
P.S.: regarding i.e. versus e.g. you can have a look here http://grammarist.com/usage/ie-eg/ or check another dictionary http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ie_1#ie_1__8 Even in your own link, if you read the real definitions (the part in pink) it says the same thing. There is simply an error in the "Note" part under the first definition, which is not consistent with the rest of the article, not even with the examples given at the end that really are "all inclusive lists".
Ralanr2 votesThere may be a generalized definition for tanks across games, but how tanks do their job and become effective differs from game to game.
Nasus is a poor example of a tank because even if he's a damage sponge, it is counterintuitive for him to go help his team without having a lot of stacks. Nasus likes to farm a long time, while tanks are most effective in teamfights.
Juggernauts also lack the utility of a tank. Sure they can be tanky, but the lack the tools to really engage into a fight (Garen's Q isn't that great of a engage tool outside of 1v1) and/or (more importantly) the tools to draw focus on them or off their carries.
They can hurt people, but sometimes hurting the enemy won't stop them or slow them down enough to save your carry. Sometimes you need good hard CC to save them.
Kairya2 votesI think the problem is that Riot specifically coined a term "tank" and attributed it to certain champions. This is mostly what causes the mess, because you always have Riots definition of a tank and the general idea of tankiness (this is what you described) conflicting with each other. So Riot called Fizz an Assasin. At some point Fizz started building tanky and fulfilling the general role of a tank. But Fizz can never ever be a true "Riot Tank", because they will never define him as such. So we suddendly have a champion, who tanks and therefore must be a tank, but is not and never will be a "Tank".
DeathBot6669 votesI'd probably call it "report Vayne".
3ofGot40ve2 votes:^)
TheOvermind1 votesI dunno what game you play but in league tank translates to durable. Regardless of class. Now the champions intended to build tank are juggernauts vanguards and wardens. Some have peel, some don't some have insane lockdown some have none, some have ridiculous damage. Now whether you like it or not a vayne or a fizz or a bloody teemo can go full tank in items and they will be considered the teams tank in that game. Tank is a term associated with stats and not given by riot and their kit design. Now it's more appealing to build tank on some champions than others. These champs are expected to build tank. That doesn't mean they have to. But you might call them tank regardless because you are so used to calling them that. I've had a malphite in a ranked go full ap. was he a tank? Obviously not. Even if the specific champion is expected to build tank
redniwediS2 votesTank is a term that has been watered down by people constantly using it wrong. Every game uses it's terms slightly different than other games, and so you can't really apply the blanket terms from other games to League.
League has always clearly defined what it considers a Tank to be. I'm going to go by that definition.
There's a reason people specifically say "Tank Ekko" and "AP Malphite". It's because they are not building as they are meant to. If Malphite starts building heavy AP regularly it won't make him magically turn into a mage or assassin, just as building defensively won't make Ekko or Fizz turn into a tank.
You can build a champion to fit a different role from what they were designed to fill. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The build commonly used for the champion, however, does not change the champion and the role they were designed for.
Malphite will always be a tank, regardless of how he is used. Likewise assassins will always be assassins.
warpenguin55513 votesNocturne actually does need a defensive item or 2 because even if he get the kill he looking for hes still dead in the water after if he builds full damage. Normally i get steraks and call it good enough
iisabrina7 votesSteraks is really good on nocturne because of the bonus AD and nocturnes Q. I actually hate nocturne as an assasin though because his ult, can be completely countered by a vayne role. Caitt E or W, lucian slide, graves slide (who the fuck would try to assassinate this tank anyway though), Idk I just hate nocturne. I thought he was really cool for low elo but I hate him now. He is severely underpowered.
3ofGot40ve1 votesWell I had one going a similar build to the old tank yi and he was 4 shotting my tanky pantheon while being insanely tanky.
Narasimha2 votesYeah, I'm gonna call bull on that. I know Nocturne. He's not killing anything quickly if he's building bulky, and he's not surviving for long if he goes pure damage.
Only Play Darius8 votes"aloud"
3ofGot40ve2 votesFixed.
Eevee In A Jar7 votesIt's a thing because Riot team are fucking morons and don't know how to balance. The fact of the matter is assassins used to be balanced with a thing called Feast or Famine. They sucked at last hitting and if you pushed your wave against them, they would have to choose between losing gold or roaming with you. They snowball hard but again since hard to farm, you primarily gain gold by kills which coined the term "Feast or famine." This was a legitimate strat to beating assassins. After all, assassin's don't really take that much skill to play especially champs like Fizz/Ekko/Yi/Akali and even Zed. Zed TBH is easy. Just because they can make cool, hard plays doesn't mean they are hard to play (like LeBlanc is fucking easy to play, tell me why you reward someone for point n clicking two buttons and allow them to burst down like 50% of hp? because you can juke with her clone?).
Champs like Zed and Fizz, who are among the safest assassin's were the bane. Zed primarily. Think about it. Is playing champs like Talon really hard? No. Shit is so simple. There's barely any mechanical skill involved and learning the game knowledge behind the champ kit and match ups and builds is easy. But nah since 90% of the community is basically silver or below with horrid mechanics everyone believes they are hard to play. In pro games, it's about who makes the least amount of mistakes. Trust me... our games are NOWHERE the same even if it's the same exact champs/items/runes/masteries.
So why was it removed? F&F? When assassin's were already being balanced, why would they do this? Well Riot felt it was too one-dimensional way to counter assassins. IMO it wasn't. PLAYING assassins is one dimensional. I mean hell if you pick assassin every goddamn game with no regards to consequences, you shouldn't be rewarded simply for picking a champ. You still required mechanics and game knowledge to counter against assassins. It was still a skill lane.
TLl;DR Riot thought well if we lower scaling and increase base damage, they might snowball a lot softer and not as fast. And so assassin's should be balanced... but wait. Why are the assassins now building tanky? Oh wait wtf? Now it's even more broken than before.
This is basically why tank assassin's are a thing. Because Riot is actually physically dumb. I'm not just being salty. This is literally equivalent to keeping ADC's OP during that short period only most assassin's got to keep how safe they played while having such huge burst for literally doing nothing.
Feast or famine balanced out other champs beyond simply assassin's.
JerulEon2 votesLOL insightful words. I feel like a handful of assassins actually feel balanced and rewarding to play like 
and 
cuz they get an escape option if they succeed but die if they fail to kill the target.
MLDzXnRRR1 votesLOL insightful words. I feel like a handful of assassins actually feel balanced and rewarding to play like
Kha has 2 escape moves, one of them is often used for engage... I don't know how someone that can 100 to 0 you in less than a second, if you are alone, while being useless in teamfights, is a healthy balance. How often do you see Kha invading the enemy jungler, getting first blood, then camping the enemy jungle untill he is super fed, only to lose the game, because the bug just dies in teamfights later without doing anything useful? I've seen this too often to consider Kha balanced. He is completely broken, if the enemy team is not organized or completely useless.
GULAG 4 U2 votesIf you stopped complaining and took a moment to realize that Khazix can't kill overextended carries of they're not 425 units away from a minion or ally, maybe you would be stomping him pas laning phase.
3ofGot40ve2 votesAs a kat main, I believe she is one of the best representations of what an assassin should be. Even if she gets ahead she has obvious and heavy counters that arent hard to execute. On the other hand, well... 
LH Hutchy2 votesAP Ekko and Zed are very easy to counter, all you have to do is know how to play against them. Fizz on the other hand... Well it's Fizz.
KGDisasta1 votes[{quoted}](name=I Heart Katarina,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3aEbO5A3,comment-id=001b00010001,timestamp=2016-06-29T13:33:18.673+0000)
As a kat main, I believe she is one of the best representations of what an assassin should be. Even if she gets ahead she has obvious and heavy counters that arent hard to execute. On the other hand, well...
Except she has a highly broken kit. No champion should be able to dive in and get out with no risk, which is exactly what her passive lets her do. modifying her passive to, at best, leave a 1s delay between shunpos. flat reset gives her way too much power without any risk. she has one of the best scaling ults in the game, she should definatly not have the best passive in the game as well.
3ofGot40ve2 votesExcept she has a highly broken kit. No champion should be able to dive in and get out with no risk, which is exactly what her passive lets her do.
Unless she is EXTREMEELY fed, she can not simply "dive in" to a team and make it out without any risks.
You act like her playstyle is freelo. Its not. You have to time initiation properly or you mine as well be dead.
Very Hard Engage5 votesits just the sheer excess of damage, its either you do enough to kill someone instantly, or you aren't picked. its just that when an assassin builds tanky, he still has enough damage to kill your ADC, and live.
MuyAstuto5 votesWhat trash elo do you play in?
fizz just got nerfed and it hurt him a lot. ekko got nerfed and it hurt him a lot. yi is actual garbage right now. akali has always sucked and I bet you don't even buy pink wards.
The high damage tanks right now are hecarim skarner and voli.
3ofGot40ve1 votesWhat trash elo do you play in?
Currently in Silver, 1 division under you, with around 60% win rate. If you can't tell by my name, I main Kat. I Have no regrets.
fizz just got nerfed and it hurt him a lot
sure he did
ekko got nerfed and it hurt him a lot.
sure he did
The thing is, although they got nerfs, their tankier state is still viable, and it should NOT be viable in any form. A tank is a tank, an assassin is an assassin, they shouldn't mix as one.
yi is actual garbage right now.
Is he though?
akali has always sucked and I bet you don't even buy pink wards.
Not sure if you took a break form the game but akali has been a fairly decent pick, and for quite a while was more often then not picked top as a tank.
The high damage tanks right now are hecarim skarner and voli.
That's not what this board is about.
You should try and be a little more mature, if you don't agree with my thoughts you can just discuss it rather than calling me out on rank.
MuyAstuto2 votesHow about you link some of the ranked games you have played where one of the champions you mentioned carried their team to victory. Since these are "viable builds" you must be seeing them all the time in your ranked games.
I personally hope I see these champions in all my games because they are garbage tier compared to what is actually strong right now and it is freelo to play against them. I'd link games where I stomped these champions, but I can't remember the last time I saw any of them building tank and doing anything other than getting carried by me.
ps. 77% winrate on my main champ and I'm in gold III. I get 30LP per win and I skip divisions when I win promos because my MMR is that high, but I bet if I were challenger you would still make some excuse to try and defend your point.
3ofGot40ve4 votesHow about you link some of the ranked games you have played where one of the champions you mentioned carried their team to victory. Since these are "viable builds" you must be seeing them all the time in your ranked games.
Honestly, its 7 in the morning for me right now, I don't really feel like going through each one of my games and checking, and even if I did you would probably just deny anything I say, so. I'm going to be honest, they aren't in every game, but I can recall at least 5/20 games in my current match history with either tank ekko, tank fizz, or tank yasuo.
I personally hope I see these champions in all my games because they are garbage tier compared to what is actually strong right now and it is freelo to play against them. I'd link games where I stomped these champions, but I can't remember the last time I saw any of them building tank and doing anything other than getting carried by me.
You have a very high EGO. But that's besides the point, your games alone do not represent the entire playerbase, and neither do mine. Considering we are seeing opposite sides of the spectrum, Its hard to say for sure. But the fact that it is being built in the first place is an issue in my opinion.
ps. 77% winrate on my main champ and I'm in gold III. I get 30LP per win and I skip divisions when I win promos because my MMR is that high, but I bet if I were challenger you would still make some excuse to try and defend your point.
You have around 15 games on fiddle sticks. You really think that's an accurate representation of your win rate? Ide say around 50+ games is understandable. Also, I know the difference between someone in gold and someone in challenger. Don't tell me I don't. I respect people in diamond+, or anyone in a higher division than me. I would have respected you to but your huge ego and immaturity isn't really a value I appreciate in someone.
51653971DEL11 votesStill not as bad as the juggernaut meta.
