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The Carry Complex: Solo Queue's Troubles and the Eternal Viability of Tanks

DJ Hatsune Miku··33 votes·4,112 views

This is an open discussion, I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on the points raised below.

In this day and age there are countless guides, videos, and forums posts on how to climb elo. They all tell various things that are all the same. "Just pick Lee Sin!" "Oh, Fizz is so OP, he's freelo" "Just play Tryn and never leave top" "Vayne or bust." Can anyone identify what's really being told here?

You, yes you, have to be the carry. You have to pick the assassins, the play makers, the big bads of the game and single handedly win every single ranked game presented to you otherwise you'll be stuck in elo hell. There is no middle ground. Forced to support? Pick Morgana, she can carry. Gotta top? Better pick riven. Stuck Jungling? Don't worry, Rengar can delete everyone! This, however, is possibly the biggest trap I've ever seen and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. As someone who has played a lot of ranked games and has since been playing a good amount of normals in the pre-season I finally came to realize why normals seem much easier to win than ranked games.

People set themselves up to lose by thinking they need to forsake their team. This idea that they have to carry is the main reason why support is so unpopular and champions like Sej, Nautilus, and Rammus have mediocre pick rates despite sporting far better winrates than people such as Lee Sin and Vayne. How many games have you lost when someone calls Support, especially when they aren't duo'd with the adc? I can say not many, personally.

When assassins or junglers are running rampant what's the main thing people say? "Just stun them!" Well.. Last I checked, Fizz, Akali, and pretty much all the other super carries solo queue players tend to regard as pick or ban tier don't have much CC, let alone hard CC. Most hard CC is found on tankier champs, or utility mages. Things that are not designed to delete people. When I first started back in season 2 I heard a saying that made me pick up the pool of champs I still play today.

"The team with the most CC wins" This, even today, holds true. When asked about how viable pure tanks are, most people claim they're not worth it. "Why not just pick Vi or J4." is a common response. True, these champions get tanky, and have high damage. But that's the key, they can deal large amounts of damage and it leads to players falling into the same trap as picking Akali or Fizz. They don't play for their team, they play for themselves.

Tanks are naturally team players. They trade damage for CC, for play potential, for set ups. I'll use Nautilus as an example, because I'll be entirely up front when I say I love him and have played him soooo much. I know him inside and out, so I figure I have the credentials to comment on him.

Nautilus is regarded as one of the weakest tanks in terms of damage, and he is. He also has the most amount of CC in the game. He's the epitome of a 'gank tank' an archetype of champs that have come and gone from the jungle meta. Despite being considered a weak pick I've stuck with him with rather large amounts of success. I've realized this is because of one key point.

Tanks counter carries. Not in the "Oh I pick Naut into Fizz and I auto win lane" sense but in the "If I pick Naut into their double assassin team we'll have a good chance of out teamfighting them" sense. This is because carries are squishy and if they're CC'd they can't use abilities or summoners to get away and stay safe. The counter to this is obviously picking bruisers or things that can survive a round of CC and burst, but not the topic at hand.

Ultimately, if you read this all or didn't and just scrolled to the bottom I want you to take away two things from this post. CC is always relevant and teams can rarely have too much, and carries don't do damage when they're stunned. Going 15-3 doesn't win you the game, but being able to stop the dude who is rampaging by having the tools to do more than burst someone and hope you kill him before he kills you certainly isn't going to make you lose.

Want to climb? Pick more tanks. Be a team player Thanks for your time.

71 Comments

AMYS GRAVE12 votes

I agree with the psychology here 100%. two points:

  1. i think when people hear carry they think i must have lots of kills, which is great but you can carry by making plays with cc too. when i hear people say you have to carry every game that can mean carry through good warding or good cc etc... carry != kills, carry == playmaking.

  2. tank itemization hasn't kept up with damage itemization. unfortunately one combo from an assassin will easily burst a tank of equal level just as easily as a squishy except maybe at the earliest stages of the game.

JJ H0G12 votes

2 is something that really does bug me. I saw in another thread a suggestion that giant's belt should be built out of two ruby crystals to streamline build paths for tank champs. If this could be implemented, and some new items added into the game to help out tanks (atma's passive plz), people would have a much better time getting into playing tanks.

DJ Hatsune Miku2 votes

{quoted}

I agree with the psychology here 100%. two points:

  1. i think when people hear carry they think i must have lots of kills, which is great but you can carry by making plays with cc too. when i hear people say you have to carry every game that can mean carry through good warding or good cc etc... carry != kills, carry == playmaking.

  2. tank itemization hasn't kept up with damage itemization. unfortunately one combo from an assassin will easily burst a tank of equal level just as easily as a squishy except maybe at the earliest stages of the game.

At point 2, I feel you're kinda right. I can buy randuin mogs but a zed with lw/youmuus will still probably delete me. I think Riot would prefer tank items not be overly strong as when they are bruisers get really dumb and tanks become immovable walls of CC. I have a feeling they prefer the faster, more twitchy teamfights to long slug fests.

Sire Hippington2 votes

1), beeing a tank does not mean you won't have lots of kills(http://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/EUW1/1885034210/21733237?tab=overview). on a more serious note, totally agree, you can carry the game on many different levels, most of them actually beeing more effective than getting alot kills 1v1 or due cleanup

  1. thats the main miss conception and a fail in terms of wording(and somewhat a fail of balance^^) You do not really have to tank as a tank!(unless you play a off-tank like mundo, in which case your simply screwed, as off tanks work with dps rather than burst+cc and thus do nothing if they get exploded) You need to bring the CC on the right target at the right time, and ideally add some nice burst to it(and preferable some good followup by your team...) Burst+CC>>rest(asuming you have an adc and with that more than enough dps) If you build fulltank as a 'tank' u mostlikly won't do well, unless the rest of your team already does well and only needs you to set up fights. If you get some damage mixed with tankiness, you will be alot more threatening and need a bit less followup to blow up a target during your cc. Most Tanks have high base damage, so magic-pen is pretty strong on them, especially since it also adds a bit defense.

However, I'm still a bit annoyed that building tanky on a tank isn't really effective, cause you get blown up way to fast anyways(unless you have good %damage-reduction like Alli or Mao)

also, don't forget utillity mages, a well played (toplane)Lulu can still carry a game by makeing her 'carry' more or less immortal...

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

1), beeing a tank does not mean you won't have lots of kills(http://matchhistory.euw.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/EUW1/1885034210/21733237?tab=overview).

nice :)

You do not really have to tank as a tank

well, if you have enough cc that your team can wombo them then i agree there is no need to tank the enemies damage. but once your cc is out if you are playing a malphite or a leona then you should probably be tanking pretty heavily in most teamfights.

also, don't forget utillity mages,

i love utility mages lulu, liss, etc... :)

Sire Hippington2 votes

well, if you have enough cc that your team can wombo them then i agree there is no need to tank the enemies damage. but once your cc is out if you are playing a malphite or a leona then you should probably be tanking pretty heavily in most teamfights.

from my experience, if you actually have to tank as a tank, you either didn't built enough damage(which should mean you have enugh tankiness to survive some time, or you are so behind that it doesn't matter at all) or you are already loosing the fight. If you initiate a fight with malph and not a single high-priority target dies, you failed the engage by either beeing to far from your team to followup, or hitting the wrong targets(well, more like missing the right targets^^), or your team lacked the damage to burst down a squishy target chought in 2 sec hard cc, a strong slow and already massive burst, which is a sign that your team is to far behind to win that fight anyway.

note that this mostly applys for sololane tanks and to some extend on junglers, most tanky supports neither have the damage-scaleings nor the gold to support a more damage-oriented built

AMYS GRAVE2 votes

and for optimal teamplay i agree with all of this.

quite often though your team fails to recognise the initiation and either ignores it and/or they then lack the focus to burst down the carry (our assassin went for their mage but didn't get the kill and our mage focused the tank etc...) meaning if you don't tank the damage then you are leaving your team to be focused once your cc wears off for the teamfight.

#talesfromlowelo

SmokingPuffin5 votes
  1. tank itemization hasn't kept up with damage itemization. unfortunately one combo from an assassin will easily burst a tank of equal level just as easily as a squishy except maybe at the earliest stages of the game.

Offense outscales defense over the course of a game. Tanks have a serious lategame fantasy problem as a result. It's difficult for Riot to give tank players the feeling of being immortal that they desire while also making an interesting game for everyone to play. The current compromise is that tanks get to feel immortal starting at one item and lasting until the opposing carry buys Last Whisper. It doesn't feel so great.

I think the bolded is obviously false. Have you seen a LeBlanc try to kill a Cho'Gath? Cho can literally ignore her silly attempts to kill him and just keep attacking the minions. To the extent that tanks have problems surviving against assassins at all, it's just one champion: Zed.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

Cho can literally ignore her silly attempts to kill him and just keep attacking the minions.

i don't feel like that's true but i've nevery played that matchup. i also didn't realize leblanc is listed as an assassin, i always thought of her as a mage but w/e.

Zed is of course the most egregious example but there are others for sure, Vayne Twitch Talon Riven Katarina Irelia Fiora Akali Ahri are all listed as assassins (for what that's worth) and can all crush tanks pretty effectively.

SmokingPuffin6 votes

Vayne Twitch are marksmen with secondary: assassin. They exist to kill tanks, no surprise they do it well.

Fiora Irelia Riven are fighters with secondary: assassin. None are a threat to kill a tank unless more fed than said tank, although obviously the tank can't 1v1 them either. Generally, these champions will out-trade a tank in lane and eventually force the tank out of lane.

Ahri is a mage with secondary: assassin and famously small damage output against tanks. No chance Ahri 100-0s equally fed Cho'Gath, even with a DFG and Void Staff.

Katarina Talon Akali are assassins. I have no idea how you're managing to die to any of these on a proper tank champion. In particular, Katarina probably can't get a tank to 75% health on her own.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

yeah, just to clarify i wouldn't classify them all as assassins outright, but i think they all have strong assassination potential once they get to the mid-late game. almost all of them need some items to get going.

i don't want to do the math for every one of these champs but i was interested in ahri (nerd-sniped - http://xkcd.com/356/ )

a dfg + her full combo does 15% target HP + (~1325+303%AP)*1.2 damage. a full build ahri (~530AP) against a chogath (4000HP) that's 600+(1325+1590)*1.2=4098 mixed magic and true damage. of course that probably will be mitigated by his MR but ahri has quite a bit of MP to go with that and chogath probably isn't going full health tank so it looks to be pretty close to 100-0 with her kit.

one more thing. i was queued up in aram as malphite and the enemy had a good balance of ad/ap so i started with a giants belt. got to lane and talon blinked out of the bush at me and 100-0 me in well under two seconds. my team couldn't even follow up on that. on my death screen he was the only one who did damage to me. there were enemy skillshots on the way for them trying to get cc and assists but i was already dead before they got to me. it was simultaneously hilarious and sickening to watch.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

yeah, just to clarify i wouldn't classify them all as assassins outright, but i think they all have strong assassination potential once they get to the mid-late game. almost all of them need some items to get going.

Offense outscales defense. It has to, or games don't end. It's still the main thing that makes playing a tank feel bad. One of those collisions between balance and feels.

a dfg + her full combo does 15% target HP + (~1325+303%AP)1.2 damage. a full build ahri (~530AP) against a chogath (4000HP) that's 600+(1325+1590)1.2=4098 mixed magic and true damage. of course that probably will be mitigated by his MR but ahri has quite a bit of MP to go with that and chogath probably isn't going full health tank so it looks to be pretty close to 100-0 with her kit.

A Cho'Gath with a weak MR item, let's say an Abyssal Scepter as it's common on Cho'Gath mid, will have about 100 MR. Assuming Ahri has Void Staff and Sorcerer's Shoes, she'll reduce that to about 50 MR. That brings the damage output of her full combo, with maximum realistic tank shred gear, down to 2750 ish. Let me remind you that this is 6 item Ahri versus one MR item tank.

In practice, Ahri will use at least one R charge for mobility rather than damage, and W doesn't like landing all three charges on the same target, so most of the time Ahri's all-in combo will bring one MR item Cho'Gath down to about 50%. If Cho'Gath adds a Banshee's Veil, Ahri might as well be autoattacking him for all he cares.

one more thing. i was queued up in aram as malphite and the enemy had a good balance of ad/ap so i started with a giants belt. got to lane and talon blinked out of the bush at me and 100-0 me in well under two seconds.

Level 6 Talon with a Brutalizer will do about 1250 damage on his combo if he gets two autoattacks (maths left as an exercise to the reader). It's enough to kill a naked Malphite that does nothing. It's not enough to kill a Malphite with a Giant's Belt that presses W (will get him to about 33%), let alone a Malphite that presses R. Now, if their Talon was higher level than you, or had finished a big item when you hadn't, then it's possible.

Now, in the ARAM case, level 3 Malphite has 707 health and 34 armor. Add a Giant's Belt and it's over 1k health. Talon's rank 1 QWE will not get anywhere close to that -- combined, they deal 100 + 250%bonusAD. No clue how you managed to explode in such a situation.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

I realize that i oversimplified the ahri math, but if the enemy team is mostly ad then a one MR item enemy tank isn't so unrealistic. also using cho as our example he probably isn't building full tank he probably has some armor some hp some AP etc... so he probably has 2500-3000 hp so her combo doing 2750ish damage is probably close to 100-0 him.

i've done the math on the talon case and i wish i knew how he did it. i can't make it work either but i saw it happen. i know there were at least a couple of AA in there and i'll bet a crit took place. :/

SmokingPuffin1 votes

I realize that i oversimplified the ahri math, but if the enemy team is mostly ad then a one MR item enemy tank isn't so unrealistic. also using cho as our example he probably isn't building full tank he probably has some armor some hp some AP etc... so he probably has 2500-3000 hp so her combo doing 2750ish damage is probably close to 100-0 him.

Just to level set your expectations here, a level 18 Cho'Gath with full stacks, no items, no runes, and no masteries has 2834 hp. I wouldn't expect a Cho to build more than one MR item in a normal game because he simply doesn't fear mages.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

i forgot about his feast stacks, that does add a lot...

Slushi Simcambi2 votes

To add to this:

I main Shaco, so if I enter the game with the mentality, more kills = carry, then I am really going to cost my team in the late game phase, where Shaco struggles.

acepil0t6 votes

This, one thousand times over. Except it's not just tanks, either. Utility mages are something I have picked up in the mid lane not because of their damage but because of their cc. Lissandra, for example, is one of my favorites. She doesn't deal insane damage in lane or have great AP ratios, but she has some great cc and I know I will be relevant in teamfights no matter how far behind I fall in lane. I've seen Janna work mid too, with her long knockup and ultimate that can decide teamfights if used in coordination with the team. CC is definitely more powerful than damage, wherever it comes from.

Poptart Evelynn5 votes

The problem with this is that you are hoping they can win the game with what you set up. You can't control how skilled a Kat is. You just hope by snowballing her lane 3-0 that she will win the game with the other lanes you set up. The problem is you're "hoping" they can win with what you give them.

You don't win games by relying on others unfortunately, which is entirely the reason I dropped Evelynn this season. I snowball every single lane with Evelynn, 5-7 kills before it even hits 10 min mark to the team. Yet, they throw their lead due to lacking skill.

Wheatloaf6 votes

You can't just give them kills and expect them to work together to push the advantage. My advice is this:

In champ select, don't just call your preferred role and leave it at that. Make sure everyone on your team calls out their preferred roles as well (some people just lock in without calling, as we all know). If somebody wants your role, and you can play another open position well, give up your spot willingly, regardless of pick order. Help everybody sort out role overlaps so that you get the least complaining about it. Throw out some jokes, point out what's good about their champion choices, point out what's bad with a "watch out for [insert weakness here]" rather than an insult (applicable to in-game mistakes as well), just keep the mood light. If someone just doesn't want to be part of your effort to organize champ select, leave them be. Make do with whoever you get on board. If you successfully do all of this, you now have a group of people that are reasonably happy, not even pissed, and ready to work together. This is how you carry soloqueue without being fed. You turn your solos into a team.

disclaimer: there are players this approach simply will not work on. ignore them.

manbearswine1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nya Poptart Cat,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9AGnc7zW,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2014-12-22T09:32:39.538+0000)

The problem with this is that you are hoping they can win the game with what you set up. You can't control how skilled a Kat is. You just hope by snowballing her lane 3-0 that she will win the game with the other lanes you set up. The problem is you're "hoping" they can win with what you give them.

You don't win games by relying on others unfortunately, which is entirely the reason I dropped Evelynn this season. I snowball every single lane with Evelynn, 5-7 kills before it even hits 10 min mark to the team. Yet, they throw their lead due to lacking skill.

You see,thing is at average your team should be as good as the enemy team,if you manage to snowball them,at average you should win and ergo should be climbing(I however disagree with the post).

Poptart Evelynn1 votes

{quoted}

You see,thing is at average your team should be as good as the enemy team,if you manage to snowball them,at average you should win and ergo should be climbing(I however disagree with the post).

Implying that solo que is properly rating people. I wish it were that way.

manbearswine1 votes

well,it's not even about rating,the idea is that on average your teammates are going to be as good/bad as your opponents,which is pretty much how it is.

AbodyHUN6661 votes

Actually I think you can slowly advance even if you do a little better than your average enemies in your position. Not only by getting more fed, but better shotcalling, helping your team snowball more. Sometimes your damage dealers won't budge even when you hit a 5 man malph ulti. Sometimes your team will win even the clumsiest initiation too.

Epilogue of Life3 votes

Sadly, teams don't always carry their own weight. And when you get upset, and YOU get banned for being toxic? "Just carry", "stop bitching/crying"

Rawrful3 votes

You have touched on the heart of solo queue philosophy. Everyone knows that working as a team/for their team is more effective that cowboying it up. But people are scared as hell that if they put any ounce of control in someone elses hands, that someone else will just drop it and make you lose.

I have found that at lower levels of ranked, it is way easy to pick a hard carry and murder your way to victory if you are better than your opponents. When I got placed Bronze and was actually high gold/low plat level, I could pick whoever I wanted that did damage and just roflstomp my way to victory. This also let me 'lead' better, because a Bronze or SIlver team is more willing to listen to the pings and chat of the 5/0/5 top laner who has ganked mid and bot more times than the jungler, yet has the most farm in the game.

Yet, as skill in my games went up, that stopped working as well. For one, it got harder to become stupidly fed. For two, other people on your team are better and less willing to listen to you even if you get fed. This is where playing for your team starts working way better. Tanks, TP tops, global ults, stuff like that becomes waaaay stronger when you can put a little more faith in your teammates to carry. You still run into the teams that just fail, but it is less common.

Then again, last time I played some ranked I just played Poppy. Strong roam, strong objective control, and if you need to turn on hyper-carry mode, you can just ult someone and delete their team.

healzsham3 votes

The main reason for this whole consensus on "you have to be the carry" can be summed up by "it's 35 minutes, why does ezreal only have brown boots, a triforce and a bfs?" or "why is cait taking the enemy wolves when all their tier 2s are up?"

Sure you can be a mile thick wall of meat, but if the game stretches past the 35 minute mark and your main damage source either doesn't have items or enjoys face checking every bush, there's little to be done.

Cavill3 votes

Thing is that being the CC tank or w/e means having to rely on your team.

You can't rely on your solo q team. Even if you land Naut's pull, passive snare, slow and ult, you still need someone to damage your CC'd target

Ugh, the thought of relying on my team makes me sick

DJ Hatsune Miku2 votes

[{quoted}](name=MiMi luvluv,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9AGnc7zW,comment-id=001b,timestamp=2014-12-23T10:44:35.876+0000)

Ugh, the thought of relying on my team makes me sick

This is the forefront of one of the biggest problems I see with solo queue. I don't know why everyone goes into games expecting their team to be bad. Unless you're smurfing or just tanked your MMR you're probably playing with people about as good as you are. If you get into a lobby and think "Man everyone here but me sucks" how can you possibly win with that mentality? There have been waaay too many times where my team rages at the 0-5 at 8 minute Xin and I just say "Don't worry Xin, I believe in you" and that guy gets his shit together and turns the entire game around.

Cavill2 votes

More unreliable than bad. Still bad tho.

And people need to stop with this "Be nice to feeders an you win the game" fantasy. I'm not justifying toxic behavior either so don't try to twist this like I'm saying that. I support decency. It's just that being nice to mates playing poorly won't magically turn the game around.

DJ Hatsune Miku2 votes

You're right, but keeping their morale up and them still mentally in the game improves your chances of a turn around. We have all had bad games, and we've also probably lost all the games we mentally check out in. Down, but not out, is better than being out.

MrSlowDie2 votes

Teamfight win the game, BD is a rare thing in yolo Q. That's why I pick

Orianna Leona Rammus Rumble Twitch

Rough and Hard2 votes

i agree 100% although im also guilty of the carry syndrome

i also feel like tanks are really limited

both items and meta. early game snowballing. where do u play a tank? top lane against an offtank with real damage u get wrecked. mid lane burst is hard. the only time i see a real tank is leona bot.

jungling has gotten harder to maybe they are pushing for more tanks. but idk the game is balanced by being unbalanced

DJ Hatsune Miku3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Rough and Hard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9AGnc7zW,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2014-12-22T06:43:50.387+0000)

i agree 100% although im also guilty of the carry syndrome

i also feel like tanks are really limited

both items and meta. early game snowballing. where do u play a tank? top lane against an offtank with real damage u get wrecked. mid lane burst is hard. the only time i see a real tank is leona bot.

jungling has gotten harder to maybe they are pushing for more tanks. but idk the game is balanced by being unbalanced

I pretty much only play tanks support or jungle. Snowballing as a tank leads into buying stuff like Glory's Call or w/e that offensive boost tank item is, or randuins or other big power items. Plus.. Most tanks have fairly solid base damages, Sej was (not sure about it anymore) one of the best examples of this and if she got little extra gold and a level or two she was bursting and tanking and initiating and generally just being everything in one. It was great. Even Naut can pack a punch when ahead.

I also don't think jungling has gotten THAT much harder. I was considering show casing some tips and tricks to maximize Naut, regarded as one of the champs hit hardest by the changes according to stonewall, and his ability to not be reduced to just buff>wolves>buff to back. It's really about knowing where to start, imo. I think tank itemization is pretty solid, but juggernaut still sucks :

Kingsgrave3 votes

[{quoted}](name=La Belle Monstre,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9AGnc7zW,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2014-12-22T09:26:08.642+0000)

I pretty much only play tanks support or jungle. Snowballing as a tank leads into buying stuff like Glory's Call or w/e that offensive boost tank item is, or randuins or other big power items. Plus.. Most tanks have fairly solid base damages, Sej was (not sure about it anymore) one of the best examples of this and if she got little extra gold and a level or two she was bursting and tanking and initiating and generally just being everything in one. It was great. Even Naut can pack a punch when ahead.

I also don't think jungling has gotten THAT much harder. I was considering show casing some tips and tricks to maximize Naut, regarded as one of the champs hit hardest by the changes according to stonewall, and his ability to not be reduced to just buff>wolves>buff to back. It's really about knowing where to start, imo. I think tank itemization is pretty solid, but juggernaut still sucks :

Getting kills or gold as a tank always feels bad. The only thing you can really buy is more tank items, and it feels like you are wasting your lead at that point.

SelflessTeammate2 votes

I think this can boil down pretty easily to one thing: about 15 minions = about 1 champ kill, obviously give or take. That's not that many. Further, some defensive items actually are useful against these assassins that are sadly almost universally banned. But in lower-ranked games like mine, you don't see a lot of people getting Randuin's on, say, Nocturne. Everyone goes right for offense, but then they start wandering and the lane snowballs, and...Well, it's not cool.

But yeah, CS, or more simply getting more gold than the other team to buy better items, is WAY more important than KDA. WAY.

I'm not sure how many times my team, down in kills significantly (40-50 score, not in our favor, was a recent win, just because we played a little smarter than they did near the end), has to win without having particularly fantastic KDA, to figure out that KDA is virtually meaningless. Even if kills were worth the exact same amount every time, it still doesn't matter anywhere near as much as simply getting the right items, and faster. That's what the most important thing is.

Well, that and Dragon Stacks, of course. You do need those if you're not leading in K's.

I've won games with zero kills and as non-support, with no deaths, but lots of dragon stacks and a baron buff. No one noticed until post-game that I had no kills whatsoever, just a few assists, but a stupid amount of gold, second-place in gold received total. Not that that's supposed to sound exemplary in any way, it's not like I was cowering in the jungle the whole time, but it's an illustration of the point that it annoys me when people troll you about that kind of thing when it's less important than just meeting the objectives and farming like crazy to prepare for the endgame.

All about the gold, man. Doesn't matter where on the map you get it, just get it.

Fiorinol2 votes

I'm sorry, but at this level of play (Gold), I don't think tanks win games as they rely on opportunity and on teammates. Opportunity usually means that your enemy screws up. Problem is, if your teammates don't follow up, even with pings, you are soaking damage/wasting CC for nothing.

And when the enemy team is fed, your tanking capabilities are not that great anymore, and you can only do so much damage. Sejuani's ultimate will still do 150/250/350 in most cases since you can't itemize full AP. I feel you are better off playing something that can make plays/force the enemy to make mistakes like Lee Sin. On top of that, you've got the Last Whisper problem and tank items not being very gold efficient versus damage items.

There are some tanks that bring an overall positive impact on the game like Rammus, and therefore get a positive win ratio.

Tin Tarantino2 votes

Also kiting, I've actually picked up Kalista as a utility mid, going Runaans and then getting items like youmuus, QSS and frozen mallet, you can soul bind any particular hypercarry you happen to have(Kog'maw, Jinx) and make them uncatchable since you can kite for them and your ult removes CC. The runaans allows for some solid harass in lane since you can get stacks on your enemy and the minions for the reset and mana refund, as well as increasing your mobility.

Before someone brings up the lack of crit keep in mind that this is a primarily utility build, any additional damage is just gravy.

BakugoBestBoy2 votes

I really, really, really want this to be the case. But it isn't. Not anymore.

Legitimate point: If a tank gets rolling due to the stupidity of the enemy team they can take over games and lead their teams to victory just like any other type of champion can carry.

Legitimate Counterpoint: If the enemy team/jungler doesn't suck you aren't EVER going to be on EVEN terms with them. You will/should be behind or feeding.

You can't farm as well in the jungle as a damage jungler, you can't gank as well unless the lane already has a winning matchup and you just hold them still for 1 second while your team kills them. There is literally NO SUCH THING AS A TANK before level 6 when your base values actually start to add up and you can throw some resistances on top of them. CC is meaningless if you die before you can use it and very few champions have enough CC on low enough cool downs to win a fight with their team if the team didn't already go even/win without you.

Nautilus as an example. You struggle through your early clear, you back instead of ganking or you gank while low and risk very certain death. After you recall, you're already behind. The enemy jungler has ganked twice or cleared his entire jungle. If not, he failed as a jungler, already. When you do gank, you're levels down on anyone except bot lane. The support probably has as much cc as you do and the ADC isn't mobile enough/doesn't do enough damage to follow you up that early in the game. Your spells are all on cd for at least another 8 seconds when the countergank arrives. You die, your bot lane dies, you're out of the game. Period.

Knight Devout2 votes

I remembar back before Rengar rework, when people picked E on him to win lanes, that one of the best Rengar NA (don't remember actually who he was ) once said this "Damn, they have visions, and I'm trapped, they literally fucked me". Then he ulted and killed the enemy carry. The following teamfight was a 4v4 with one team missing Rengar and the other missing Draven. You can guess who won. Now, switch Rengar with Zed and you will get why the master of shadow is so popular even if he has a subpar winrate.

Doesn't matter if you lack cc on the above mentioned champs, like Lee Sin and Fizz, etc. is that as long as you can istantly delete the worst threat their team poses, your chances of winning fights, and securing objectivs and all the yadda yadda, increases exponentially. "Hey, I stunned Zed" "....sure Bro, but He already did his whole combo on Ashe and now she's goi-"

Aaaaand now you are without adc. Sure, if Nautilus sticks close to your squishy he can istantly CC whoever dives, same for the support, but you are essentially grouping near and playing passive, it won't always work, especially when they will try to take objectives and you are forced to strand to go and take turret aggro, go at dragon, etc. And, after you cc the enemy , you still have to hope that the squishy you protected won't do something stupid. You are playing Nautilus, you stay underwater, so you aren't Jesus, and if your adc eats a Dark Binding into Soul Shackles, you either get in the fray with him (eating the stun) or you abandon him.

Angry Monster1 votes

Non CC comps can win just as much as a CC comp. You are wrong to say tank CC is just the answer to damage. Quite a few mid AP carries have damage with CC. Xerath Lux Ahri Annie Brand Cassiopeia Kennen Lissandra Malzahar Morgana Orianna Viktor Then there is yassou (AD) and a few werid champs like Ryze, who can go mid but go top.

Take a real tank and then go try 1v1 post 20 minutes. Or take a full game of tanks and see your comp fall off. Tanks are not the answer in themselves.

Tanks do have a place. But i think your to extreme in your messaging. CC can be a game decider if all things are equal, but CC can be outplayed and picked off.

DJ Hatsune Miku1 votes

I do recall mentioning utility mages in there as well. Problem is no one is saying "Lux is trash" or "Ori does no damage why pick her." There are people claiming anything without %health and steroids are worthless and cannot win games.

Not to mention it's analyzing the mentality of players who refuse anything but squish mega carries who are doing a disservice to their team by making selfish picks and selfish play habits.

I feel like you might have missed the point or are part of the carry syndrome demographic. Saying cc can be picked off is kind of a strange point and how do you out play someone stunning you? I guess i never got outplayed in the 300+ Naut games i have where my cc combos enable 100-0s on a target that could only watch their life bar get deleted... Or the countless Rivens and Jaxs who could barely scratch my adc. Could you give an example of outplaying cc?

Angry Monster1 votes

You missed all of season 4 then cause lux was pretty much considered non viable due to the assassin meta. CC mids were not as valued as the LCS big plays champs(super mobility).

Your Naut games either had to be in season 2 or if this season against bronze players. There is no way you 100 to 0 a squishy at this point and time. The kit just does not have the damage. at level 11 (this is your strongest spike point) your ult does 175 + your E does 220 + Q does 60 + what ever W empowered (100 per 2 sec tick)autos you can weave in while shield up. Assuming 3 autos you only do 735 without passive but before resistances. That is not enough to kill anything and your shield is going to quickly drop.

IF you cant think of how CC can be out played you should not be trying to hold a discussion. Flash, blinked, dashed ,spell shielded, ect. A lot of the hard CC in this game is not hard targeted. So build what ever hypothetical situation you want. CC can be out played.

Sure if the Rivan is an idiot and goes in first or even alone she is not going to get to the ADC. Teams these days should focus fire tanks and just drop them without using there ults.

Tank are not the end all be all, Nor is CC. CC does have a place but your claims are not absolutes.

DJ Hatsune Miku1 votes

I played Lux and Morg mid a fair bit in Season 4. I didn't have much problem vs the assassin meta because I learned and adapted my playstyle.

My Naut games were also mainly in season 3 and 4. Both times from silver to gold, however I'm speaking mostly from a gank/teamfight point of view. Naut has never had the ability to 100-0 someone by himself.

Also getting a flash for a stun is definitely a win for me in my book. Only about 5 champions have some way to actively avoid CC in a way that isn't dashing out of an indicator. Given the nature of some point and click CC even that isn't enough to avoid it. Hard CC is given to tanks/bruisers mostly due to the nature of it being exceptionally one sided for the person using it.

If a tank eats up damage/focus that means his own team is free to dive. If Jax, j4, and Vayne are all destroying an Amumu then who is going to protect Vayne from the Shyv and Zed going in? Fizz? Leona? Given that most good jungle tanks have some form of mass CC it's not hard to imagine hooking the front line to initiate, depth charging the back line so it knocks everyone up, then slowing everyone while still having a passive snare for people dashing towards your adc. Given that while all this CC is happening you've got 4 people behind you doing damage it's safe to say CC definitely trumped their damage because they were doing 0 while getting bounced around.

Tanks are not always the answer, I'll admit that. There are times where a carry pick is entirely correct; however, it's not a coincidence that the picks that have been showing up constantly on the top 10 win rates for the past two seasons are mostly champions with hard CC. I doubt Sej, Sona, and Wu are all stomping ranked this week because of their mad burst.

Angry Monster1 votes

Win rates are BS and you should understand that. Look this champ has a high win rate. His team had nothing to do with it? Also bronze silver ranked people make up 75% of the player base. Numbers can get warped by bad players, which is why riot refuses to look at win rates. The ability to use the full kit of a champ goes up as skill does.

Vayne can kill an ammu in under 2 sec by her self. Add her team and ammu can quickly be droped. Hence the term focus fire. The best anti crowd controal is to kill off the user.

Alternatives to dash, morg (shield), trist, siver, noc, fiz, elise, GP, fio(ult) ez, lisandra, yi(used to be able to drop spells q with q may still) Vi & maphiet (unstoppable ults can burn out the whole duration of a CC.), Vlad pool. Then you have zhonas on every mage. I left out the ward jumpers and since that is more conditional. I think the list is more than 5. What about yasou wind wall?

Q0hen Leth1 votes

I play a lot of Naut, he does a really decent amount of damage. Very unexpected for most people. That combined with his ability to lock people down, peel, make picks make him really good for my ranked games.

DeathByWaffle1 votes

Unless, of course, you are substantially better than the elo level you are in. In that case, you should be playing playmaking champions, as it is the easiest way to quickly rise up.

Angry Monster1 votes

Fight initiators are play making champions. Just cause someone else got the kill does not mean they made the play. You logic here is questionable at best. If everyone take what ever champ cause they think they are GOD, the team will not function. Sacrifices must be made (cough supports) to help others do what they imagine they can.

This "I" mentality is quite funny. I bet you say you have X kda, instead of i was part of X kills. Cause you solo killed every champ you faced. You were never ganked for. It was all YOU alone.

DeathByWaffle1 votes

Except now you are twisting my original premise. I did not say that everyone should take the champ they want because they **think ** they are god. I said that when you **ARE ** substantially better. There's a rather large difference between the two. Now, of course that requires a high amount of impartiality and the ability to honestly and accurately judge one's own skill level, something which a lot of people have a difficult time with.

Also, interesting you should mention the "I" mentality. As a matter of fact, back when I first seriously got into ranked, I did in fact have an "I" mentality of sorts. I actively told my jungler to never come top lane (when I played top, which i usually did) for two reasons. The first was that I was confident that I could win or at least tie the lane on my own. The second was that it was quite likely at those low elo levels for my jungler to mess up and feed my opponent.

And you know what? Because of that mentality, I actually had better teamwork than people who constantly asked for ganks because now the jungler could focus his ganks entirely on mid and bottom instead.

Don't get me wrong, teamwork is a hugely important part of the game, but only when the skill level between the teams is close enough where it becomes the deciding factor. If the skill level between the two teams is too far apart from each other (heavy emphasis on the "too"), then teamwork doesn't matter because the players on the inferior team simply don't have the skills necessary to carry out a winning plan. Which is why when diamond or higher players smurfs in silver and gold elo, it is ridiculously easy for them to carry the vast majority of games with only a middling amount of actual teamwork.

Raid Boss Shiba1 votes

While I agree with OP's analysis, I think a greater aspect is the skill and willingness to perform teamwork that plays a hand in winning. You can have an all tank and/or cc team that hate grouping more than your least favorite cousins, aunts, uncles, and nephews, and they would still lose to cancerous assassins when in theory they should have the upper hand.

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

People set themselves up to lose by thinking they need to forsake their team. This idea that they have to carry is the main reason why support is so unpopular and champions like Sej, Nautilus, and Rammus have mediocre pick rates despite sporting far better winrates than people such as Lee Sin and Vayne. How many games have you lost when someone calls Support, especially when they aren't duo'd with the adc? I can say not many, personally.

i dont agree with this point

most ppl probably feel like me that when they pick a supportive champion they dont have any real impact on the game, they boost the power of their allies but its your allies decisions that decides the outcome and on top of that in any confrontation even when you play correctly you usualy lose most of your options when facing adc as a tank or duo carry botlane as a suupport player (dmg proves to be the best utility unfortunately)

most of your point tries to show the case as "either you play for yourself and get the damage or you play for tyour team and pick a tank" but in reality tanks are just a walking meat that isnt having loads of iimpact, if an assasin kills the carry tanks wont do anything alone so teamworking assasins are a bigger asset to their team than teamworking tanks

also pls mind the fact that our tanks dont fill their role atm and the only working tank is braum i would need to write a wall of text to explain but let me say it like that... riot wasnt able to make tanks in the past so they made realy tanky fighters with epic cc, now they are going to fix this but it will happen soon tm

so atm i do agree with loads of ppl that tanks arent worth it because assasins and apc can eliminate their carries to easily but riot will change that and the meta will get rekt (all hail rito gams)

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