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I feel like tanks as a whole lack creativity in their design

i cant move wtf··12 votes·5,662 views

A lot of tanks feel like a large portion of their power budget is spent on innate tank stats. From a player and opponent perspective I personally find this unsatisfying.

I'd like to see some interesting twists in the design of the next tank release/rework.

A few ideas off the top of my head:

  1. A champion with large amounts of innate tankiness but becomes vulnerable and much squishier whenever they use an ability.

  2. A champion that's very tanky to any opponents he's facing but is squishy when attacked from behind.

  3. A champion who's main gimmick is he has a medium-range skillshot that creates a wall that diminishes any enemy damage that passes through it.

Overall I'd like to see a more dramatic and creative interplay between a tank's tankiness and their points of vulnerability. Really none of the current tanks play around much with the idea of a significant achilles heal. Late game they all feel very similar and misplaying as a tank usually is caused by tanking 25 tower shots instead of just 20. I'd like to see a distinct and unique weakness that is carried throughout the game and that provides players with creative ways to play to the champions strength while dancing around their weakness. That would make a tank more rewarding to play, at least in my opinion.

37 Comments

Moody P11 votes

that's because league as a whole lacks creativity

champions are created for mass appeal and marketing which demands more generalist designs to be more profitable

GigglesO2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Moody P,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5zaEqxnn,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-11-06T13:25:06.237+0000)

that's because league as a whole lacks creativity

champions are created for mass appeal and marketing which demands more generalist designs to be more profitable

Part of it is the balance team keeping defense items weak so tanks need stronger base stats to compensate for shitty ratios and items.

Ralanr4 votes

And in all honestly if tanks had shitty base stats then they couldn't really compete with fighters in top or with most other junglers since they'd be too squishy to put up much of a fight early. Potentially they could get rolling mid game once they got their "good" tank items, but that all becomes fruitless once late game rolls around and everyone who can build them gets their shred/high DPS builds finished and cuts them down.

It's really no surprise that tanks have been getting better early games, much to the dismay of fighters.

GigglesO1 votes

{quoted}

And in all honestly if tanks had shitty base stats then they couldn't really compete with fighters in top or with most other junglers since they'd be too squishy to put up much of a fight early. Potentially they could get rolling mid game once they got their "good" tank items, but that all becomes fruitless once late game rolls around and everyone who can build them gets their shred/high DPS builds finished and cuts them down.

It's really no surprise that tanks have been getting better early games, much to the dismay of fighters.

I think that is a result of all around power creep. When Lol first started I would dare to argue that there wasn't such an extreme in power levels. (baring mostly newly released champs).

In its hay day League probably hurt itself expanding too quickly and making hasty balance decisions followed by a change in design philosophy towards flashy things.

FCJAAAAGOOOO1 votes

At first it wasn't

woodvsmurph6 votes

Chogath becomes tanky - zone control via aoe cc - ult is a nuke to threaten anyone DrMundo - not the tankiest tank in terms of raw stats, but has crazy stupid sustain and can run anyone down Malphite - an anti-ad champ that has great synergy with armor but is weaker to magic damage champs even if he builds some mr compared with other tanks Maokai - hyperscaling tank with decent cc and strong durability and sustain Ornn - buff your team's scaling, play like a rumble early game in toplane, turn into a decent tank that buffs your teammates' cc abilities, can shop from anywhere Sion - are you a bruiser or a tank? nobody is quite sure. Strong laning, good durabiliy once scaled up, and some strong zone control cc combined with good long range engage potential in narrow corridors

Ashe - med range adc with a waveclear/poke tool, an attack speed steroid, and a global ult Caitlyn - long range adc with a waveclear/poke tool, zone control/cc, and a long range ult Draven - short/med range adc with ad steroid, attack speed steroid, and a long range ult Ezreal - med/long range adc with several poke tools, mobility, and a global ult Jhin - long range adc with several waveclear tools, cc/zone control, and a long range ult Lucian - med/short range adc with waveclear/poke tool, mobility, and a long range ult Kaisa Vayne 90% the same champion - short range spammable q mobility+dmg buff, ult for movespeed and protection (stealth vs shield), %hp damage/%missing hp dmg

Yes... tanks are so unimaginative compared with other roles.

Bârd1 votes

I mean I feel like you're intentionally not differentiating the ADC's.

Ashe An immobile, long rangedsemi-carry with relatively low damage, but packed with utility in the form of slows, scouting, and a global 3.5 second stun. Caitlyn A low mobility, long raged zone control champion. Strong in the early and late game, but weak in the mid game. Corki Bursty hybrid damage caster carry with considerable engage potential when his passive is up. Draven Snowball reliant early game carry with tons of raw damage/stats but a sub-par end game. Has axes as a unique mechanic. Jhin A bursty carry with some considerable utility and engage potential. Great against squishies, but borderline useless against tanks until full build. etc. Most ADC's, despite having a general set of required skills that transfer easily between champions, are rather unique.

Except Kaisa Vayne. One is just a remake of the other that hasn't yet been nerfed into the ground.

Häxel1 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMuq4oSxOQg&t=1s&list=LLVFB3eIG1ZO7Mnr2IQOK2uw&index=204 starts at 1.36 you can take it with a satirical way as ofcourse it is a bit overstated ;)

Bârd1 votes

I don't think it's possible to take anything Hashinshin says as anything but satire.

Unless you're Hashinshin, of course. He seems to take that guy pretty seriously.

woodvsmurph1 votes

You are missing the entire point.[zombie-brand-facepalm]

i cant move wtf1 votes

I totally agree with you that Kaisa and Vayne are the same champion. And that's a fair point that marksmen mostly play the same. One distinction I would point out though is that marksmen are almost always in a state of vulnerability due to having low health and armor (support memes aside). And to me it's vulnerability that enables exciting gameplay.

I guess to further elaborate on the OP, I'd like to see a tank design that plays around with windows of vulnerability. I feel like at a certain point all tanks reach a state where they're invulnerable to all threats except large macro blunders. This isn't to say they're unbalanced and I think they should be nerfed. It's more that for me personally I'd like a tank with some exciting tradeoffs to their tankiness. That no matter how much health and armor I build, I still have to carefully consider my positioning and abilities to be able to not get one-shot like everyone else and get good value from that health and armor. Or even just a straight up "squishy" tank with low health and armor that relies on optimal use of their abilities to fulfill a tank role for their team.

woodvsmurph1 votes

The problem with that is... what's their tradeoff? Are they getting baron pit sized aoe when they're in their vulnerable state or getting 20 stack cho-ult level damage when they're in their window of weakness? I think people would be more upset and complain such a champ is broken because of something like this. Moreover, all it would take to keep said tank safe during such a timeframe is something like kayle, zilean, or taric ult. And then you've introduced a new boosting strat. Any duo can pick a combo of said tank plus one of the above champs and they are now unkillable due to tankiness while having an insane nuke when they're "vulnerable" (only they aren't vulnerable due to said duo partner's ability to protect them during that window of weakness).

As far as "squishy" tank with low hp and armor... we kinda have that. It's called pyke. And people got upset with how durable he was and how little lasting damage he took in trades. So riot had to nerf/change him to emphasize a need to build lethality and sacrifice some of that tankiness.

I get what you are saying. But that's not what tanks are meant to do. That's more like a bruiser or fighter. Such as fiora when she has riposte and ult, jax with his e and ult, renekton with his ult, darius when he has q up and can hit multiple enemies for healing, etc. I mean tanks have windows of vulnerability too (ornn after using his w, mundo after he's used ult, etc.), but never in the way a vayne that's just used her q does. Because they're not meant to.

TheSingularity2 votes

I do agree, but as a tank main I need to snuff out cases of people mistaking champions for tanks when they're really not.

Talking about cho and mundo. Yes they are tanky but mundo is a jugg and cho is this specialist mage jug. They lack the kit profile of a tank, usually 3-4 CC spells most of which is hard CC eg naut, sej, ornn, zac. Mundo has a single slow and cho has an unreliable knock up and his silence. While also dealing significantly more damage than a standard tank.

Apart from this little flaw everything is perfect

woodvsmurph1 votes

Classification is somewhat fluid depending on how detailed you want to get. I agree both mundo and cho can be classified as something other than a tank, but they aren't always. Also, it better illustrates the argument and would better fit within the reasoning of the person claiming all tanks are the exact same thing while other classes all have so much diversity.

PlsBuffMyMain1 votes

{quoted}

Chogath becomes tanky - zone control via aoe cc - ult is a nuke to threaten anyone DrMundo - not the tankiest tank in terms of raw stats, but has crazy stupid sustain and can run anyone down Malphite - an anti-ad champ that has great synergy with armor but is weaker to magic damage champs even if he builds some mr compared with other tanks Maokai - hyperscaling tank with decent cc and strong durability and sustain Ornn - buff your team's scaling, play like a rumble early game in toplane, turn into a decent tank that buffs your teammates' cc abilities, can shop from anywhere Sion - are you a bruiser or a tank? nobody is quite sure. Strong laning, good durabiliy once scaled up, and some strong zone control cc combined with good long range engage potential in narrow corridors

Ashe - med range adc with a waveclear/poke tool, an attack speed steroid, and a global ult Caitlyn - long range adc with a waveclear/poke tool, zone control/cc, and a long range ult Draven - short/med range adc with ad steroid, attack speed steroid, and a long range ult Ezreal - med/long range adc with several poke tools, mobility, and a global ult Jhin - long range adc with several waveclear tools, cc/zone control, and a long range ult Lucian - med/short range adc with waveclear/poke tool, mobility, and a long range ult Kaisa Vayne 90% the same champion - short range spammable q mobility+dmg buff, ult for movespeed and protection (stealth vs shield), %hp damage/%missing hp dmg

Yes... tanks are so unimaginative compared with other roles.

I mean the way you describe all the adcs, I could say tanks are all the same, they have cc, disruption and tankiness.

woodvsmurph1 votes

They become tanky in different scenarios and for different reasons. And they serve different purposes. Some are for hard engage, do one combo, and hope their team uses that to delete a key enemy or two (like malphite). Some have TONS of hard cc, are purely for soaking damage and keeping key enemies locked down... either peeling OR engaging (like maokai). Still others are more of zone control cc with meaningful damage if you don't respect their zone control (like cho o sion). Cho? Not actually tanky compared to other tanks except when he's fighting you in a minion wave to make use of his passive OR if he can leave combat to use warmogs (assuming he's built it). Maokai... tons of in-combat regen thanks to his passive. Malphite... not much regen unless he has warmogs and can leave combat to make use of it, but hella hard to cut down due to his armor synergy, and his passive. Mundo... not actually tanky compared to many others on the list, but... he makes you kill him basically twice. And if you don't focus him down until he's 100% dead, you will pay for it more than with perhaps any other tank due to how quickly he heals.

So yeah... you can take a very narrow-minded view of things and claim every tank is the same... just like you can claim every adc is the same. But they're not. That's my point with my original post here. There are similarities. They can serve much the same general function, but if you look at details and execution of that function they are different.

Beatrice falls3 votes

A champion that's very tanky to any opponents he's facing but is squishy when attacked from behind.

Braum And imo he's the best designed tank in the entire game, along with Rammus

i cant move wtf2 votes

Yeah the Braum concept is similar only I was thinking this would be implemented as the champion's passive and wouldn't truncate skillshots. The champion would basically be a top tier tank from the front but a legit squishy from behind. Or maybe go full Rift Herald and give them an eye that can be popped every 15 seconds or something.

JeaneGreene1 votes

So joule from Vainglory?

Ralanr3 votes

Honestly the problem with idea one is that it discourages the tank from actually doing anything in a teamfight beyond bodyblocking. If I lose a chunk of my tankiness in a fight as soon as I use an ability, then for the sake of being tanky I shouldn’t use abilities.

Granted we have a tank who kinda already does this: Sejuani. She loses her bonus armor after she takes damage and needs to go out of combat to get it back. This sort of hit and run playstyle doesn’t really fit a tank who should stay in.

Idea 2 could work, but it could be seen as too easy of a weakness that either needs it’s overall strengths massively compensate or the character won’t do well since kiting and DPS would still be very effective even without hitting their weakspot. As much as a player countrolled Herald would be interesting, I don’t think it’d be healthy.

Lastly, that ability doesn’t sound like a tank ability. It sounds more like a support. It’s not because of the debuff, but because it’s midrange. Tanks are primarily close ranged (and those with mid to long range abilities are generally used to get closer) so they can use their tankiness to their most effectiveness.

Tanks generally seem to have a diversity problem, especially Vanguards, but it’s not that hard to see why. Their jobs are either engaging or peeling, and engaging for tanks works better with AoE hard CC most of the time.

i cant move wtf1 votes

The ideas are just meant as inspiration for possible directions a tank design could go. I encourage you and anyone else to share your own if you have any! :)

Emo Twink3 votes

The moment a tank has a unique thing to them, it gets taken away and they lose a part of their identity. Am I talking about Ornn's W to dodge CC? Yes...

Ralanr2 votes

That's not Ornn's unique thing, at least not his sole unique thing. Ornn's unique things are his ability to build an item anywhere on the map, and to increase CC duration thanks to brittle.

Am I still annoyed that they removed unstoppable on W? Very much so. But it wasn't his sole identity. It was like removing the AA reset on Poppy's passive, it was an additional feature that they took out to better adjust the champions' power budget.

Bârd1 votes

Thing is, neither of those other things are integral to how he feels to play.

Remove Brittle's CC extension and nobody would even notice. Remove his smithing and sure, it'd hurt his laning pattern, but the way he fights would be identical. Removing unstoppable changes him drastically.

Unstoppable was to Ornn what animation cancelling is to Riven. Removing it fundamentally changed the champion, made him much worse in tons of matchups (Singed, for example, went from a skill matchup to a hard counter), and drove his skill ceiling into the floor, essentially turning him into an ult bot.

warpenguin5551 votes

Same for traps. The ones we have in league are pretty boring. Why not have a trap that creates a temporary wall? Or one that spawns monsters to attack the victim? Or one that acts like a Taliyah w when triggered? Or an exhaust trap? Anti-Mobility Trap? Teleport Trap? Pitfall traps?

A trap based support could be really cool, just load it up with traps like these, you could even give it a Twisted Fate W kind of cast so it's kit wouldn't be 3 traps and an ult. Maybe it's Q could be a skill shot that detonates traps it touches. All the abilities don't need to be actually traps either, just trap like. For example, maybe for it's E it throws out a Rengar E that knocks back up to a certain amount of enemies hit and stuns them if they hit a wall. The only limit on creating this kind of champ would be your imagination.

Blackii71 votes

Balance > Creativity

Sire Hippington1 votes

I can agree with the title, but not with much beyond that. Tanks dont really have all that much inate tank stats(especially compared to their counterparts in other mobas) What they have is solid inate damage( and definitly to much %hp damage), and CC, with some more CC and a little dash off CC on the side... Ever since the tank rework, all tanks have atleast 3 CC abillities with 2 or more hard CCs, and all exept for malph, nunu and rammus, have %hp damage.

The main issue for the lack of creativity is that riot dislikes any form of subtile power, which mostly concerns buffs and debuffs. After nuns rework(who also went from 0 to 2 hard CCs), Malph and Fiora are the only remaining champs with an AS-slow. We lack actuall tanks that can buff/shield/heal or debuff/weaken the opponents. Best we have is Tarik but he's support only.

Also, Tanks lake basline impact which is why they currently need either spamable CC or high basedamage to not get ignored after their first rotation.

If you look at another moba, HotS, they have tanks like Tyrael with nothing but a single slow, but therfor an aoe shield, invulnerabillity field, good mobillity and decent AA-dps to preassure squishys, but most off all he can soak damage and HotS has bodyblocking as a base mechanic. In HotS, champ vs champ hitboxes are a thing, terrain is often a bit more narrow, and just standing in the way is an effecitve wa off hindering enemy movement. Also, a higher %off the ranged damage can be bodyblocked overall, so Tanks can achive alot by just beeing tanky and haveing proper positioning.

I league right now, you can't bodyblock you opponents movement, and tankiness overall is so low that most of the time you don't even WANT to block skillshots as even tanks die to a single morgana binding if her team follows, so their positioning based contribution is near 0 most of the time, giveing them no kit-neutral baseline impact.

Hügö1 votes

The only problem tanks have are they are not tanki except for a limited few which are overbuffed cough sion cough

dontspinbutwin1 votes

A champion with large amounts of innate tankiness but becomes vulnerable and much squishier whenever they use an ability.

A champion that's very tanky to any opponents he's facing but is squishy when attacked from behind.

A champion who's main gimmick is he has a medium-range skillshot that creates a wall that diminishes any enemy damage that passes through it.

A. You mean kinda like gnar or shyvanna...? They fight, get tanky new forms, then become much squishier and weaker...? Or like kayn, who can choose to be an assassin or a bruiser? B.....like kled...? C. ....Like irelia's ult....?

Autrah Fang1 votes

[{quoted}](name=i cant move wtf,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=5zaEqxnn,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-11-06T13:17:41.974+0000)

  1. A champion that's very tanky to any opponents he's facing but is squishy when attacked from behind.

So, similar to a Braum in URF? :D

oortoomeebreesuu1 votes

There's like two kinds of tanks

Literally a mage GragasSionOrnnChogathAmumuMaokai Nautilus Galio Malphite

and

Wait this isn't a bruiser? DrMundo Nasus Singed TahmKench Poppy

Ornn could have been the best designed tank, if you ask me. His damage was just way overtuned. The ability to tech ignore CC(since removed) is a TANK CENTRIC IDEA. The ability to impede enemy movements through terrain and CC is supreme tank utility. A tenacity DEBUFF is insanely tank focused! So why does he have spammable (and %hp) ranged damage?

Ralanr1 votes

Mundo and Nasus are juggernauts, which is what a lot of bruisers evolved from.

FCJAAAAGOOOO1 votes

Nasus is actually squishy if he doesn't BOTH ignore his team midgame to AFK farm for 20 minutes for more healing from lifesteal thanks to his stacks' damage AND finish multiple HP items which he doesn't even want to touch until lategame.

He doesn't even have CC beyond a single-target one that does very little instantaneously, and it isn't even hard CC. On top of that, very little about non-AP Nasus has to do with multiple targets.

Nasus is the exact opposite of a tank, at least fundamentally, if not entirely.

Rıots Bad Client1 votes

-what about a champion the closer he is to nexuss (Either side) he gets bonus defenses.

-What about a champion that can pick off some stats from dead allies, so he can be really strong if last one dead? +

Personally I think Tanks are pretty good.

Its the enchanters are the lack creativity

Being Karma, Lulu, Janna, and nami.

I'd say nami is the most creative of all them.

BraveCapuccino1 votes

Zac Shen Poppy Illaoi Braum

nah they don't

XxxLumberJackxxX1 votes

Cool tank stats and abilities keep being put on assassins and dmg items. Windwall Phantom dancer passive. ...Camille... Steraks is bad on AP tanks

TheSingularity1 votes

The issue is tanks have a defined role they need to fulfill and there are very specific tools they need to achieve this:

1 and 2 jeopardize their beef, which is a necessity. Why doesn't fiora use a mechanic like 2? Because it would be too easily abused. How would this work with AOE? In both cases a tank is punished for doing his job, peeling or engaging.

Overall I'd like to see a more dramatic and creative interplay between a tank's tankiness and their points of vulnerability.

This is generally achieved through their defensive steroid, champions include: Alistar Braum Gnar Nautilus Ornn. Their cooldowns offer their moments of weakness early in the game which disappear as tanks get their CDR items.

Really none of the current tanks play around much with the idea of a significant achilles heal.

Because having one would make them useless. Tanks are relatively low damage, generally immobile bar a single spell, lack solo objective control and are extremely team dependent, more so than even the support. If they can't do their job and enable their teams due to a glaring weakness, then they may as well be deleted from the game.

I'd like to see a distinct and unique weakness that is carried throughout the game and that provides players with creative ways to play to the champions strength while dancing around their weakness. That would make a tank more rewarding to play, at least in my opinion.

Granting them something to aim towards is difficult. As by their nature their kits are relatively reliable and need to be in order to fulfill their function. The trade off is independence, as unless they're beyond stupidly fed it is unlikely a tank will solo carry (so it becomes a challenge to introduce a new, unreliable mechanic they must want to proc. Because why go to the effort if my kit does it's job without that mechanic?).

I do have a megathread that may pop up in GP+ that addresses the current problems with tanks as a whole. If it gets approved it may be worth the read

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