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Riot can you do something about tanks this year? They're way overdue for help

Trash MammaI··35 votes·2,140 views

It's pathetic how useless they are outside of that one huge cc they offer.

You have to build 3-4 armor items just to be safe from a last whisper This is without adding the fact that some of the armor items give hp. Which gets completely stomped by ruined king, that brings me to my next point.

HP stacking is probably one of the most useless things you can do now UNLESS you're super ahead of the enemy team. Some champs like shen/voli/braum etc. rely on their hp stacking for certain things. Ruined king makes hp stacking such a crime to do it's silly.

It's insanely stupid how two stats that a role DEPENDS on to even be playable.

The way the game is now you have to use 5/6 of your slots (sometimes all 6) on defensive items for it to even matter.

At this point you might as well start releasing champs like jax who can 1v3 with ease. Or someone like rek'sai who can build tank items and still burst and completely delete the tank roll as a whole.

Not to mention the tanks without any type of mobillity. (Mundo/Cho'gath/Amumu/Darius/Nasus/Malphite) I think you get the point. Late game tanks are suppose to be damage soakers. Taking all the hits and ccing the enemy to let your team do the damage. Right now tanks use their main cc (Malphite ult/Nasus wither/Cho'gath Q/mundo..Q?) before being completely shreded to bits all because the enemy built 2 items to nullify any defence they have.

If i'm playing Jinx(for example) and there's a 800+ stack nasus on the enemy team. Would I be scared of him? Hell no. I'd build ruined king and lw and watch his hp vanish.

You can say (oh but if you're focusing him then his team can blah blah) it takes all of 4 seconds to kill that nasus. My team would have peeled the rest of the people away by then. Especially if I had a bruiser on my team rather than a tank.

Tl;Dr Anti-tank items need a huge nerf or tanks need huge buffs. As of now it's completely pointless to build tank and they're outclassed by bruisers in every way.(except maybe cc)

20 Comments

Messaiga9 votes

It will probably become a big point of balance for Riot after Season 5 begins, considering how many people keep bringing it up on boards (and rightfully so). I think the biggest issue is that they are having difficulty coming up with defensive items that benefit tanks more than they do bruisers. Also, if they do decide to help out bruiser itemization, there will always arise the issue of one bruiser being the best (Because they are all too similar).

Pyro1 votes

I think the biggest issue is that they are having difficulty coming up with defensive items that benefit tanks more than they do bruisers.

That's because bruisers can get tanky with one-item wonders like Randuin's Omen and Sunfire Cape. It's simple as that; tan kitems should be less effective on their own, but more powerful in a full tank build. The best way to do this would be introducing effects scaling off defensive stats or calculated after reduction from resists.

Example batch of suggested changes: The Tank Project

And Rioters have already stated that the legendary Fighter Project is going to change all fighter champions, because you can't just balance them out with items:

{quoted}

While not directly related to preseason there is some work we still want to do with Fighters but the project has undergone a number of iterations and a lot of the lessons we've learned from investigations there led us to view it as a bigger issue beyond a "fighter" specific problem. Changes we want to make in regard to homogenization (champions feeling the same), lack of strategic identity (what does this champion do that is unique?), and unique play experiences (how do I play or interact with this champion differently) are not unique to fighters. These are problems that are often most prevalent on fighters but they impact all roles. When or how these changes will manifest is still under discussion. Changes here will most likely be done on a champion by champion basis rather than a massive "fighter patch" though that's still a possibility.

The Whamboozler9 votes

{quoted}

It's pathetic how useless they are outside of that one huge cc they offer.

And here is your issue. It's not with items. It's not with adc's. It's with the design of "tank" champions who can only affect the fight in one big burst of CC. We don't need more or better items to make champions unkillable. Those items will still be scarier on bruisers than legit tanks anyway, and wet-noodle fights against unkillable characters are kinda boring. A tank's job isn't to not die ever. It's to draw enemy fire away from his squishy teammates and there are three ways to do this.

A: Have enough damage to be a threat to their team if they DON'T focus you. AKA: Bruisers. B: Leap into the team headfirst, hoping they all panic and waste cooldowns on you or that at being the one to pick the fight AND the disruption you sew in their ranks gives your team the edge in the resulting fight. C: Provide some sort of useful non-damaging ability that makes removing you from the fight a worthwhile endeavor. Like auras granting buffs, constant heals, or the ability to peel or invalidate at least one of the enemy champs. (Usually the one going for your squishies)

There isn't really a use for a champion who doesn't do one of those three things, no matter how hard they are to kill. The enemy needs a REASON to focus you. This isn't an MMO where the AI can be forced to fight the giant, unkillable tank via aggro mechanics. Players are smarter than that. People keep whining on about how "tanks need a buff, they die too quick". That's not true. Tanks need a buff to ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING before they die. Teamfights are short. A tank who is more durable but offers nothing else just means that every teamfight will see his team wrecked and it will take slightly longer to dogpile and kill the tanky SOB.

What the "tank" champs need is a boost in their ability to be useful to a team BEYOND just being tough to kill. They need more utility in their kits. More auras. More buffs. More damage. More SOMETHING to make them relevant to the fight. But all these tank threads seem to miss the point and complain about how "omg, I can still be killed despite being a tank". Tanks don't need more durability. They need more things to help out their teams in other ways. The game is about killing the enemy and stomping their nexus, after all.

SecretAgentHulk3 votes

Never heard this before, but it's true. The only reason I'm able to tank effectively when playing e.g. Malphite is because I rush Sunfire Cape, making my damage output non-trivial, and armor, making even one point each in W and E non-trivial. The only reason I'm able to tank effectively with Braum is because of the shield.

Kuroi865 votes

Try doing some math, you'd see that Bork and LW aren't quite as big of a problem as you think.

Also, part of being a tank is that you build almost entirely defensive. So if you're wanting a champ you can build a lot of offense on, play a mage or bruiser, not a tank.

Subject 57 votes

Let us do some maths!

Lets say, a full tank is building straight defensive items for armor.

LW = ignores 35% of all armor, most tanks have a percentage of around 70-80% defensive percentages for armor. This means you will be ignoring 35% of that armor, now let us include penetration items that highly effect tanks and punish them for building HP that champions rely on so heavily. This obscene amount of penetration is now translated into magical damage based on how much HP a tank has built, making champions such as Nautilus or perhaps Mundo unwise picks for the meta. Now take a look at adc builds that vary in attack speed as well as attack damage, lets just consider two auto attacks every 1 seconds for basic sake. You have a basic attack that nullifies 35% of the tanks armor, an item that punishes the tank for building . . . tank and even AD items that nullifies the tanks duty, Crowd Control.

Now this is not even magic resist! Let me get started on this, oh man this is such a terrible system they have going on. I'll just list all of the items for you, and give you how much magic resist an average tank that i usually see, usually around 65% or 70% magic resist. item 3020 item 3151 item 3135 item 3001 ((I may have missed some!))

-20, -15, -15, plus ignoring 35% before magic pen. Did you know tanks are capable of building two realistic items for tanks? Both of which offer 55 magic resist, 55 + 55 = 110 -20 = 90 - 15 = 75 - 15 = 60. 35% of 60 is 21, you have 21 magic resist remaining from your core build, from TWO FULL ITEMS. What the hell is that crap?

And why do we have AD and AP items that fulfill jobs that TANKS are suppose to have? Tanks don't have no item 3140 or item 3222, hell tanks get punished for building items like item 3800 because it gives us HP and no armor or MR.

What would i suggest to build tanks?

I would amplify the CC they offer to more extreme forms, but the items they buy give debuffs with buffs as well. Can you imagine Nautilus walking around with his shield on, and applying a super slow with each basic attack? The enemy team would be forced to do something about who ever that tank is locking down, and this will take time considering what i would apply is extremely tank stats. Tanks are suppose to be a problem, but they are not suppose to have too much damage either. Take for example, item 3083. Increase the percentage to 2% but also give the item a debuff of . . . -9% deduction to AP and AD? item 3022 Frozen Mallet is another great example, in my opinion it should be more of a tank item that offers armor as well as the buff and HP, but it also offers a debuff of . . . oh i don't know, -9% of AD? Now people may say "This will make tanks even more useless and not even a threat at all!" Well i would beg to differ, can you imagine Nautilus on steroids with mega slows and additional CDs on items that ONLY belong to tanks? The items i suggest are made to specifically punish bruisers for building tank on them, which solves the bruiser issue. Now i am NOT saying get rid of bruisers, or anything of the sort-hey those are very nice roles to have and should NEVER be removed. But having a few defensive items for those bruisers like Vi should still remain, but those special flashy items with debuffs and mega buffs should only be for the tanks!

Items i would say go for mega tanks only? Of course, these items would be pumped full of steroids haha-just remember these items would make the champion extremely tanky, but do less damage. item 3800 item 3022 item 3083 item 3023 ((MAJOR REWORK)) item 3599 ((Worked into tanks?)) {{INSERT TANK SCALING ITEM OF DOOM HERE}} item 2045 item 3056 item 3065 item 3075 item 3041 ((Kills and assists reward the tank for increase in size, and MR/ARMOR/HP)) item 3025 ((This item should remain where it is! But i would enjoy a tank version with a debuff as well.)) item 3190 ((This item should have a major debuff, as well as the cost))

What do you all think? Is this idea dumb, amazing, only parts of it is correct or am i on to something? Preferably i would like to remain intact :3

Kuroi862 votes

Bork deals bonus physical damage, not magical damage. If it die, oy, that would just be ridiculous. A post I made in another thread, feel free to correct me if my numbers are off.

Not going to count runes/masteries. 100 armor 25 armor and -10% damage from basic attacks 800 health 500 health 70 armor

lvl 18 has 1934 health and 88.4 armor full stacks means 900 health

Total of 4134 health and 283.4 armor.

25 AD and 8% current health in physical damage 40 AD and ignores 35% of targets armor 80 AD no AD Obviously this is a discussion of %damage and % pen so not calculating crit.

lvl 18 has 100 AD

Total of 245 AD + 8% of current health and ignores 35% of armor

283.4 armor with 35% negated comes out to 184.21

Giving cho an EHP of 7615.2414 for a grant total of 11749.2414

Meaning first strike would deal 245+ 939.939312 Or 1185 damage (rounding up from here, the decimals are getting a bit big.)

Health-Damage 11749-1185 10564-1090 9474-1003 8471-923 7548-849 6699-780 5919-719 5200-661 4539-608 3931-559 3372-515 2857-474 At this point ^ AD is now higher than %damage 2383-436 1947-401 1546-369 1177-339 838-312 526-287 239...

And with crits Mk, calculating crits at 613 damage, this is what it would look like if every hit was a crit.

11749-1553 10596-1461 9135-1344 7791-1236 AD>% 6555-1137 5418-1046 4372-963 3409-886 2523-815 1708-750 958-690 268...

SecretAgentHulk1 votes

Bro do you even tank?

Kuroi862 votes

Nautilus Favorite champ in the game. Tanks do need a little help. But the situation isn't so dire as people like to make it out to be.

Pocketbomb3 votes

I read this in Tom Haverfords voice and as always i was nodding in agreement the whole time.

I'd just like to add tank itemization was Xypherous' glaring oversight when he redid items for season 3. Xyph wanted to insure that buying a tank item to help you deal with an overbearing lane opponent was worth less than if you had bought an offensive item. However because Armor and Magic Resist are worth less every additional point you have, and offensive stats like AD AS and Crit are worth more the more you have to complement each other; tanks fall off super hard while adcs ramp up super hard. It literally seems like the entire item system was balanced for top lane fighters with very little thought put in to how adcs and tanks would interact with these items, or what his changes would mean after the laning phase.

Basically the first item a tank buys is only worth 3/4 of the first offensive item an adc buys, the second item worth about 1/2 and the third item just 1/4 of an adcs third item. It's no wonder Assassins have become meta again, they are usually able survive much longer than tanks, because they rely on abilities (mechanics) and not items (stats) to keep them safe.

MakersF1 votes

It has been explained multiple times, +100 armour is as effective as 0 armour as it is at 500. Every 100 armour your EHP against physical damage increases by the value of your HP. (So, if you have 1k HP e 100 amour, your EHP is 2k. If you had another 100 armour, your EHP becomes 3k).

But as you said, AD AD and crit scale multiplicatively, thus outscaling hard the resistance. Not to mention that the LW nullify it. And moreover to get AA dmg reduction you need to commit to a specific kind of shoes, preventing often to build Merc. And AS scales with On-hit effects like BotRK.

It's a hard life for tanks

ProfDrDeath1 votes

It has been explained multiple times, +100 armour is as effective as 0 armour as it is at 500. Every 100 armour your EHP against physical damage increases by the value of your HP. (So, if you have 1k HP e 100 amour, your EHP is 2k. If you had another 100 armour, your EHP becomes 3k).

True.

However, the thing is that EHP contains two components: EHP = HP times (1 + Resist/100) times additional modifiers (i.e. Ninja Tabi passive)

That means that, if you have high resistance, buying HP is more effective at increasing EHP than buying further resistances.

MakersF1 votes

That's for sure. Unfortunately with all the %HP dmg there is in league now (which often is magic dmg even on physical champs) building HP can backfire really hard.

Junkο3 votes

Not to mention the tanks without any type of mobillity. ** Mundo**/Cho'gath/Amumu/Darius/Nasus/Malphite

AHAHAHA

Hellish Prophecy1 votes

Mundo needs his ult for any mobility. And he's too busy using it to stay alive in big teammfights. Amumu only has his Q. But that doesn't give him mobility. It puts him straight in a fight and stops even him from moving for a crucial second. Malphite once again only has ult as closest thing to mobility. AND LIKE MUNDO HE USED IT FOR THE TEAMMFIGHT.

Junkο1 votes

Mundo ult is on such a patheticly low cooldown that you can waste it and it will be up by the time you need it. Amumu Q IS mobility. It's the same way Lee Sin is mobile because of his Q. It doesn't move him straight into the fight, you can use it to escape over walls in the jungle, you can use it to catch a fleeing enemy. IT IS mobility. Malphite has his Q which not only gives him MS, it STEALS it from the opponent. And it's on a really low CD too. You know that SInged that used Ghost? RIP

Captain Aishi1 votes

Story time. Recently I was playing nasus, I had a frozen heart, a spirit visage and a randuins omen, my wither was at rank 5, I used it on the enemy Graves at the start of the fight, I could not land more than one Q before dying, he had infinity edge, ghostblade, guardian angel and berzerker's greaves at the time

Drogmyre1 votes

Honestly Last Whisper and Void Staff are fucking horrible design. They're not just anti-tank, they're anti EVERYONE. Not to mention obscenely cheap for what they actually do.

Learnding1 votes

The game is eventually going to turn into who can kill each other faster. There will be absolutely 0 effort or teamwork in the future if this is the path Riot continues to go down. Without tanks, it takes out the crucial role of someone to either to peel or initiate. Can't wait for an entire team of ADC's to actually be relevant in the future, that will be the day.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

Tanks are feeling pretty bad as a class, and have since the early season 4 brought us nerfs to tanks in the name of controlling Mundo/Shyvana. I don't think Riot knows how to make tanks feel good without making bruisers too strong; fundamentally I think many tanks just need straight up buffs.

You have to build 3-4 armor items just to be safe from a last whisper

You aren't supposed to be safe from item 3035 as a tank. That is the point of the item.

This is without adding the fact that some of the armor items give hp. Which gets completely stomped by ruined king, that brings me to my next point.

item 3153 actually is a weak tank killing item if your tank is built properly. Lots of choices that kill tanks faster than it.

The way the game is now you have to use 5/6 of your slots (sometimes all 6) on defensive items for it to even matter.

Tanks should build tank items. This is obvious, no? We shouldn't be asking for them to make it so tanks can buy item 3071 and wreck faces.

Tl;Dr Anti-tank items need a huge nerf or tanks need huge buffs. As of now it's completely pointless to build tank and they're outclassed by bruisers in every way.(except maybe cc) ... At this point you might as well start releasing champs like jax who can 1v3 with ease. Or someone like rek'sai who can build tank items and still burst and completely delete the tank roll as a whole.

Bruisers have been the problem with tanks for a while. The utility stuff tanks offer is generally worth less than the damage bruisers offer.

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