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Where did all the tanks go... (+item concept)

honorspell·12/12/2015, 5:25:54 PM·3 votes·386 views

note: much of this is opinion, I'm not an expert, but I am open to CONSTRUCTIVE criticism. meaning insults will just be ignored, but if you disagree, or have some experience which contradicts this post, feel free to share

It feels like recently tanks have become less viable.

"but Darius and Poppy and Illaoi and..."

let me stop you there. I they aren't tanks, they are fighters. the major difference is that tanks rely on CC and peeling/initiating to be useful. while fighters build damage. sometimes in addition to the cc. most of the "tanks" we see built nowadays build item 3748 item 3071 and worst of all item 3053 . this makes them both high damage and high tankiness.

but I don't want to have to build damage. frankly my dream build would probably be: item 1409 item 3083 item 3800 item 3111 item 3190 and item 3110 the only "damage" is the cinderhulks burning. but due to the fact that every new champ and rework seems to have %hp damage (TahmKench Kindred EkkoGnar even the new Poppy , to a small extent though) health does not help someone become tankier, not as much as it could. plus there is all kinds of armor ignoring going on with armor pen, item 3071 armor shred. so many things which punish tankiness. but surely there are items that punish damage right?

item 3075 and item 3110 .

thats it.

"so how do you suppose we fix it?!"

frankly I'm not sure how to fix it as a whole, I'm not an expert, but i have an idea for an item:

Name (technically not important): Vangaurds Oath Build: probably a higher cost item (3k-ish) that builds out of tanky items such as item 1011 item 3211 or item 2053 (that item needs love) Stats: decent tanky stats. but most importantly... Active: medium cooldown, upon activation reduce all incoming AND outgoing damage to this champion by a percent, gain move-speed towards enemies, slow yourself running away from them.

basically you become this hard to kill brick in the middle of the fight, at the cost of not doing damage. "but now your useless" you can still CC, and you still deal some damage. I mostly like to imagine it being built on Sejuani Rammus and Poppy (i know i said she was a fighter, but i think she can be a good tank too, i just see people building lots of damage on her.)

"but what about champs like Darius or Nasus using it and their heals to just stall the enemy in one location as they try to kill him, and once his team is there they proceeds to wrek"

the stall is fine, its one of the features of this item, but Darius is just....too strong. but you aren't immortal. your just difficult to kill. if there are 5 of them, sure it takes longer, but you are still dead.

So what do people think? am i wrong about everything? is the item broken or awful? are people who build no damage still strong outside of supports?

4 Comments

TehNACHO12/12/2015, 6:48:46 PM2 votes

Darius and Illaoi are Fighters (subclass Juggernauts), yes, but Poppy is pretty in line for a legitimate tank.

Furthermore, flat Health is a defensive stat often associated for Fighters, whereas resistances are a defensive stat associated best with Tanks. It's why its more common to see Health based Fighers and Health based Fighter items compared to more tried and true Tanks and Tank based items focusing on resistances. For example, notice how the three items you listed only give health. Notice that those items are most associated with primarily Fighers.

This also means that Tanks are actually (somewhat) better well off against HP damage, since their focus should be on mitigating it, not having the Health pool as a buffer like Fighters have to rely on.

Furthermore, %Armor Pen is mathematically weaker than it has ever been before except for, say, against a full armor opponent. If we're going to be complaining about resistances, that should be pointing at the Black Cleaver meta or at least before Season 5. Complaining now about that is silly.

And as for items countering damage, both item 3211 upgrades heavily mitigate AP Burst. item 3105 upgrades counter AP AOE effects. Finally, the three MR Swords item 3156 item 3139 item 3091 all come with unique niches for even offensively focused champions to counter AP Damage. To ignore those effects is dumb.

"But Nacho? All those are MR items? What about Armor Items?"

Well for a start, let's not ignore item 3143. But here's the thing, AD damage is supposed to counter tanks. Well, not really, actually it's specifically DPS damage that's designed to counter tanks, but since the majority of AD Champions delay their damage or spread it out over time, whereas AP Damage tends to almost always be upfront burst, you should be able to see why there's less Armor to counter ADs. It's because ADs are supposed to counter Armor, not the other way around.

You have some points but at best they're not relevant to the gamestate as it is today (especially the comment about Armor Pen, for example). Stop complaining, and especially don't give a reason for Juggernauts to only need to rush one defensive item and be suitably tanks for the remainder of the game.

ƒoes12/12/2015, 10:13:56 PM2 votes

Tanks are legitimately not as viable anymore. They still have a place on the team (and you really should have a tank on your team every game) but there's just too many champions that were indirectly buffed or just buffed with the new items introduced in the preseason.

Sire Hippington12/12/2015, 8:19:30 PM1 votes

Tanks aren't weak, it's just that they mostly excel in coordinated teamfights mid-late, but aren't as powerfull in lane. Right now, the game is pretty chaotic, many skirmishes and snowballing in lane kinda became imperative, hence champions that dominate lane and are good in skirmishes are favoured over teamfight/mid-late champs. Given the enviroment, tanks perform quite well right now.