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Some thoughts on tank itemization

Durfain·7/25/2019, 6:41:15 PM·14 votes·8,504 views

It's pretty well known that tank items are horribly inefficient. This is... perplexing given the amount of percentage penetration around item 3135 item 3036 item 3071 which makes them even more inefficient in practise. Another problem for tanks is that they are the only class who really struggle to get to 40% CDR without having to make sacrifices elsewhere in their build which I'll talk about in a minute. Firstly, just how inefficient are resistance items? Here is a list by gold efficiency

Armor

item 3143 : 85.06% item 3075 : 74.71% item 3068 : 84.85% item 3742 : 80.46% item 3800 : 100.13% item 3110 : 114.57% item 3025 : 93.83% item 3109 : 78.79% (96.97% when near partner) item 3157 : 96.48% item 3026 : 84.82%

Averages

Here, I counted item 3109 as a support item and item 3800 as a tank item. The average gold efficiencies are given as: Tank: 90.51% (7); Tank (excluding item 3110 item 3025 ): 85.042% (5); AD: 84.82% (1); AP: 96.48% (1); Support: 96.97% (best case scenario)

So the first thing to note is that two of the most efficient armor items item 3110 item 3025 have a huge amount of their gold efficiency in mana. If the mana is excluded, i.e., we just consider the value of the defensive/utility stats that they offer (armor + CDR) then this puts them on an approximately even efficiency footing with the remaining tank items. However, that's not why I think they should be excluded from the analysis. The truth is that these items are rarely built because the only defensive stat they have is armor. Armor alone makes for a very bad defensive item because of the existence of item 3036 item 3071 which, together, can end up halving the gold efficiency of any armor you buy. This more or less makes the consideration of the mana-armor items redundant and means if you want to be tanky you have to focus on the hp-armor items. Now, none of these most commonly built tank armor items item 3068 item 3742 item 3075 item 3143 are efficient and none of them have CDR. This is a huge problem because it means if you're a tank and you want armor and CDR you have to opt into either item 3110 item 3025 - this significantly reduces your ability to tank enemy AD champions and is a tradeoff that no other class has to make with other classes either not needing CDR in general (Marksmen) or having CDR as part of their major rush items (Mages, Bruisers, Supports).

Magic Resistance

item 3091 : 93.88% item 3139 : 81.03% item 3102 : 99.26% item 3065 : 104.88% item 3194 : 88.93% item 3156 : 89.74% item 3222 : 139.05% (with own passive) item 3001 : 87% item 3174 : 114.01% (with own passive)

Averages

Tank: 93.6% (3); AD: 88.22% (3); AP: 99.26% (1); Support: 126.53% (2)

The situation for MR items looks slightly better, the cost efficiency is certainly much more improved on average but for MR tank items, there is a huge amount of the item budget that, for the more efficient items, goes into a not especially useful stat - health resistance. This stat is completely useless outside of lane unless you're Maokai DrMundo so the items are far less useful for tanking than they initially appear. Additionally, there is only 3 options compared to the choice of at least 5 for armor, 7 if you include item 3110 item 3025. On the plus side, most of these items have CDR on them so at least if you're itemizing against AP champions you get a bit of CDR. In general, I think the current MR items are in an okay state (maybe could use a slightly cost reduction on item 3194 item 3001 ) but WE NEED MORE OPTIONS!

What needs to be done?

In my opinion, Riot needs to look again at tank items but especially armor items. We could use at least one more MR item for tanks so that we at least have some options! Some of the health + armor items, especially item 3068, should be given 10% CDR. and, if not, the cost should be reduced. Riot should also consider reverting the hp-resistance ratios on these items back to how they were in the past so that tanks are better able to tank.

13 Comments

The Kombinator7/26/2019, 10:30:46 AM3 votes

The problem with tanks lies in the way the game works. Tank got big survival. Ok. But what reason we give to focus them? Without it that survival is irrevelant.

In other multiplayer games where tanks present the answer is simple. Because they position themselves between you, and your other foes. In Overwatch, and Smite you can't shoot through the tank. At least not with many things. So my idea is this:

  1. Make tanks actually TANKS. It's sad, that a goddamn Fizz has better survival, than a Rammus.
  2. Make all projectiles blockable by tanks. Simply standing in front of the carry prevents him from basic attacking those who are behind you.

Now that i think about it this also could work on minions. Use them as meatshield for harder poke in early game, and easier farm for melee champs against ranged.

Diävolo7/26/2019, 12:33:55 AM2 votes

Community : Tanks should be weak early but strong late. Riot : Well, Yes but actually no

PopcornBunni7/26/2019, 11:04:55 AM2 votes

Make item 3102 a tank item again. Weird that they changed item 3065 to have less health and more MR to give tanks that build it more specialized protection against AP damage when Banshee's already did exactly that with its much higher MR and anti-burst spellshield.

Increase the completion cost of item 3068 item 3143 item 3110 item 3742 and raise the statlines of them to match the late game AD options.

Compare item 3110 to the raw AD equivalent of item 3031 and the issue becomes apparent. 100 AR vs ((80 x 1.25) x 1.25 + (minimum (40x0.25)x1.25) x 0.85 from FH aura = 116 effective AD minimum, on the lowest AD champion, a level 1 Orianna . In order for armor to match the amount of damage added per point, the value needs to be 1.5x that of the AD. Not only is the most armor you can get from an item worse than the ratio against the item with the most AD, it's fucking LESS than the highest AD item. The CDR partially compensates for this, especially in a transcendence build where it grants up to 24 AD or 40 AP, but tanks being able to answer damage only with more damage of their own is not what should be happening.

item 3110 does not need to match the 1.5x value outlined, but it is funny to note that for the biggest armor item to match the biggest AD item even on the weakest champion in the game, it would need 174 god damn armor. No, instead it should get raised probably to 125 with the rest of the armor items picking up the slack with a 50/50 split buffing their health and armor in gold cost.

Hell if item 3751 had its health set to the same as a item 1028 and all of its gold value funneled into a better wave clear passive, like dealing extra on-hit damage to immolated targets, item 3068 could be costed up to match the AD wave clear items item 3074 item 3748 with significant improvements with the extra 750g (+400 or so g to get it to 100% efficiency) of stats to play with. Getting it to match the 100% efficient hydras at the same price would give it something in the ballpark of 625 health and 90 Armor.

And yes that's really how bad these items are at the moment, that sunfire would need 200 extra health and 30 extra armor to match the equivalent wave clear item of bruisers.

Wicked FlamezZ7/25/2019, 7:07:34 PM1 votes

I don't want tanks to be be meta because riot always throws them top lane and tanks are horrid to lane against. It's the slowest most boring time you'll ever see. I remember when things like mao and mundo were pick ban at the beginning of the season and every game was just CS for 30m and see who outscales who....imo tanks should go jungle and supp.

kμrayami7/26/2019, 1:16:46 PM1 votes

item 3157 best active in the game also item 3191 150%gold ef. btw tanks have really good base stats they do a lot of dmg early on and they are super usefull and i really think they have a way worse time vs ap champs atm