Drain Tanks and Regen Tanks

A lot of people are telling me that drain tanks are just impossible to balance and that they're inherently toxic, but with the way League's been progressing towards more dynamic kits, I think that they can be made more interactive and interesting for all parties involved. Currently their only real counter is Grievous Wounds, a mechanic that most people don't like but they hate the game even more without it, thanks to these heal monsters.

The list of drain tanks, I think, is , let me know if I missed anyone. And as far as regen monsters go you just have and I suppose too

So, immediately, what I notice from all of these champions, besides being made tanky through their sustain, is that they have reliable healing and reliable damage. In the case of the draintanks, they don't need to work very hard for their sustain and it's all targeted, low cooldown stuff, and the latter group GAINS health back, either passively or by pressing R. I think that reliability is the stem of the problems; that they have both reliable sustain and reliable damage, instead of one or neither. Basically, you can't really fuck up with these champions as far as their primary trait is concerned, and I think that's a big problem and is why Grievous Wounds is a necessity right now. It almost always boils down to: either they can handle the initial focus fire and then immediately win the fight through their sustain, or they can't and they'll fall completely flat. Of the list, Warwick is probably the healthiest example, since his passive sustain doesn't kick in until he's half health and doesn't become significant unless he's below 20%, meaning he becomes very vulnerable to burst at a point when his healing is at its strongest.

For comparison, look at and , who both depend on their bursts of sustain to survive but aren't defined by it to the extreme that the above champions are. Their healing spells are unreliable; in addition to being restricted to champions only, they can be outplayed. They can fuck it up, and their ability to dominate long fights hinges on them being able to land their healing spells. I think that draintanks should mimic these two more; they need to have that capacity to make a mistake and be killed for it, or to outplay you and be given a strong moment of healing.

From what we know right now, are high priority VGU targets and will still be getting reworked later this year. I think that Riot can very much keep their core playstyle of soaking up damage and constantly healing their wounds intact; they just need to make it so that it is not an 'always on' thing or a 'passive' feature like Volibear's passive. A degree of unreliability either with their sustain or damage would make them much healthier for the game and easier to balance, as Riot now has more variables to tune their kit around and to make it feel deserved when they recover their health back and carry the fight.