A "Common Player's" opinion about the Tank Meta. (Patch 6.7)

First of all, I will say at the start that this is a very biased opinion, and what I am stating could be wrong or right. Additionally, I am not a professional or pro player, I am a common "League of Legends Player."

I will get straight to the point; Tank meta is coming back, and it is very strict.I never had a game recently with 1 tank, and they always run the same items (Of course in different combinations); Sunfire Cape , Spirit Visage , Frozen Gauntlet and Maw of Marmortious with occasional ZZrots and Titanic Hydra here and there. Some people may be questioning, this is not true, I saw people go locket or something like that. However, usually what items do you see first and second? They are usually then then or . They have very strict builds that they follow and this causes lack of diversity in gameplay. It goes like this at top lane: buy cinder and start trading. Usually the one with cinder will win the trades if the enemy is not building defense or you are behind.

However, probably the most powerful point of being a tank should be the grasp of the undying mastery. This mastery offers so many things. It offers damage, lifesteal, and scales with HP. It can be run on everyone, and be decently good. It gives tanks too much power for any other pick to come in. This mastery needs a nerf or other masteries needs to become strong. Defense should not increase damage by giving damage; it should increase damage by giving time to continuously do damage.

I am not saying in any way that winning by building defensively is bad. However, I am trying to say that the win conditions are way too strict. I have rarely seen people build Ad or Ap at top against someone with cinder and win the lane. The tank items currently are just really too strong, and it leaves very few options for players. In my mind, League of Legend was a game with enormous diversity in the gameplay, with over a hundred different champions and ways to play them. However, as of current state, many champions are just not viable because the tanks are way too strong. Riot should to nerf the four items or add more options to the game.

Next, Champions. This is the biggest reason why I hate the tank meta. Recently, I have never seen these two assassins be assassins: they are and . They were high risk high reward champions, but recently, there were no risk in them. As a benefit of being tank, lowering the risk is not the issue. However, the biggest issue is their damage output. Their damage output, even though they are the tanks, are too high. Even if these champions are going tank, they are very likely to drop you down to 50% if you are squishy and being tank and have utility, safely get out. What is the point of building damage when building tank gives you not only burst and very high consistent damage? They lost their assassin trait completely, but they became tanks with high damage and self utility that makes them super strong thanks to grasp of undying.

Finally, Tanks have little counter play. Tanks usually don't get punished for mistakes because they can stand alot of damage, they do alot of damage because of the champion base damage, items and grasp of the undying and it is really difficult to purchase armer penetration or magic penetration and make them useful early in the game since the items with flat penetration have little as 10 or 15. Riot has made additions as percent health damage and such, but most of those percent health damages are not really there when they are affected by resistances; they can be stopped unless its true damage.

Riot needs to buff damage and nerf tank items and grasp of the undying. Nothing in League of Legend should be good on everyone in the game and should have a specific purpose on why it is used since that is how it always been. Changes such as nerfing sunfire cape and frozen gauntlet would be great. Changing Ekko and Akali to add more emphasis on scaling would be great as well. However, the changes are occured in the game by Riot Employees, I can do so much about the game as of right now. I jst wish that the game is directed towards the correct direction.

Tank Meta makes game really NOT FUN. I would rather have Rengar one shotting everyone on the rift than have this boring meta. I spent many hours on League of Legends because of the outplays, the joy of winning and complexity of the game. However, whether I lose or win a game, recently I felt very little happiness because of how strict the game is. The game became so intuitive that it became dull and boring. I miss the Assassin meta, I miss the sustain meta because there were several outplays everywhere on the rift. I read and watched about how League of Legend reached its peak. Recently, I believe that to be true. Now, instead of the peak, the game is on the decline.