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Please buff tanks

Akesgeroth··85 votes·4,434 views

I'm not even going to try and be clever about it: Buff tanks. Why? Well, when I stack over 200 armor and MR and hit over 3k health, I'm supposed to be able to live through things. I don't. And no, I don't mean "if 5 people focus me I die after 5 seconds", I mean even with those stats, if the enemy's carry is 6 slotted he melts me like I'm ice in the sun. This can be explained by several factors:

  1. Too much armor penetration. If the enemy team has someone with a black cleaver to stack the debuff on me, I'll have my armor reduced by 60% against anyone with a Last Whisper. This means that at 220 armor, I go down to 88 armor. If the enemy carry has any flat armor penetration on top, I'm actually going below 80 armor. This is idiotic and makes armor stacking pretty much useless in the long run.

  2. Too much % health based damage. This is most egregious when said damage is true damage (I'm looking at you Vayne). So now you're punished for stacking health too.

  3. Poor itemization. Hitting 220 armor, 200 MR and over 3k health is impossible to do without crippling yourself in one or more aspect, usually damage done or mana efficiency. Though tanks aren't supposed to be doing a lot of damage, they need to be doing some. And I'm not even going to mention how I'm always out of mana as a tank. So, I stack tanking stats and in return I do no damage, run out of mana all the time and I'm still squishy.

  4. Lifesteal is out of control. Since carries can pretty much ignore my armor and do immense damage to me while I do no damage to them, I'm efficiently nothing but a huge health battery for the enemy carry. Low on health? Target the enemy tank and heal yourself back to full while he can't do anything about it!

So, the solutions are simple. Nerf armor penetration, remove % health based damage as much as possible, buff tanking items and nerf lifesteal.

95 Comments

Rebonack34 votes

An ADC burning through a Tank's health is how things are supposed to go.

What I have issue with are things like Zed grabbing BotRK/Whisper and turning Tanks into grease-stains. Assassins should not be winning fights against Tanks or even Bruisers for that matter. They should be winning fights against soft targets and getting schooled if they blow their cooldowns on a hard target.

Akesgeroth4 votes

I would be fine with it if marksmen weren't killing tanks as fast as assassins and healing themselves doing so.

Rebonack8 votes

{quoted}

I would be fine with it if marksmen weren't killing tanks as fast as assassins and healing themselves doing so.

As said, this is how things are supposed to work.

Sustained damage > Defense > Burst damage > Sustained damage

Right now it looks like: Sustained damage > Defense < Burst damage > Sustained damage

Since there's noting to keep bursty Assassins in check they're running rampant and wrecking everyone.

Akesgeroth15 votes

Sustained damage is supposed to kill a tank, yes. Not in less than 4 seconds, no.

FantasySniper2 votes

It's not.

A fed ADC has to kite any tank worth their salt for several seconds.

Hella Kaiser2 votes

got killed in 6 aa by a vayne Sion item 3143 item 3083 item 3065 item 3748 item 3053 item 3047 with her as it took 3 seconds

FantasySniper2 votes

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/028/427/Thread_Necromancy.jpg

GloriousKaiser3 votes

This I can get behind.

Sightless6622 votes

Why should an assassin kill a tank faster than an ADC? Tanks should be able to survive an assassin's burst much easier than an ADCs sustained dps.

Akesgeroth3 votes

I never said an assassin should kill a tank faster than an ADC. He said "assassins kill tanks too fast". I said "ADCs kill tanks just as fast as assassins". Make the connection.

Sightless668 votes

I said "ADCs kill tanks just as fast as assassins".

No, that's not what you said. What you said was...

I would be fine with it if marksmen weren't killing tanks as fast as assassins

What you wrote says that you have a problem with marksmen killing tanks as fast as assassins. If he's complaining about how fast assassins kill tanks, and you say "I would be fine if marskmen weren't killing tanks as fast as assassins", then what you've said is, quite literally, that you'd be fine if assassins were killing tanks faster than marksmen. Maybe you meant to say something else, but this is what you wrote.

LordGeovanni1 votes

assassins for one have to get close to that tank compared to an adc who doesnt. they should kill tanks faster hit for hit assumeing no one is touching them but then when retaliation is factored in assassins cant kill tanks faster than adcs.

Hawkefire7 votes

Here is the problem though, ADCs burst through tanks way to fast right now. I don't mind them taking down tanks (THEY SHOULD), I have a problem with the fact that they do it so quickly and with such ease.

ProfDrDeath3 votes

I'm just leaving this here:

Tristana pre-Armor DPS with max damage build (BG, IE, PD, BotRK, LW, Scimitar) against said tank: 1905.3 with Rapid Fire 1354.5 without

A tank's (450 Armor, 400 HP, Ninja Tabi) EHP against LW Tristana: 4000 * (100 + 292.5)/100 * 10/9 = 17444.4

It takes Tristana, on average, 10.8 seconds of uninterrupted wailing onto him to kill said tank. And I did not even factor in Randuin's and Frozen Heart, nor other AS slows, reinforced Armor or Oppression. 5 seconds of Rapid Fire: 9526.5 Remainder: 7917.9 EHP Time to kill that: 5.8 seconds

With Frozen Heart and Randuin's calculated in: Each reduces DPS by 15%, stacking multiplicatively to 27.75%. Hence, Tristana's DPS while affected by both: 1376.6 with RF 978.6 without

5 seconds of Rapid Fire: 6883 Remainder: 10561.4 Time to kill that: 10.8 seconds

So, in total, 15.8 seconds of uninterrupted wailing onto that tank. While he does nothing at all (important!).

Puppet33r4 votes

I think you are forgetting the most important thing that drove tanks into extinction(s3 masteries and all their additional %dmg in offense). I also don't see how you can possibly account for crits in this dps which should happen pretty often given her attSpeed steroid

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

[deleted]

ProfDrDeath2 votes

You calculated the average DPS of BotRK incorrectly. You use the arithmetic mean, when instead you'd need to use geometric mean.

Using that, it means out to 3% of max HP for the damage of BotRK's passive.

And did you just calculate BotRK's passive as extra AD? Remember, that thing actually cannot critically strike.

See my post with the answer to Puppeteer for the formula used.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

i posted my previous post half done, i was checking my work and you are right. i'm bad at math, and i should feel bad. :P

LordGeovanni1 votes

Here is the problem though, ADCs burst through tanks way to fast right now. I don't mind them taking down tanks (THEY SHOULD)

on the condition that they dont allow the tank to get to them.

InsaneSamurai2 votes

I feel like as far as game balance, an ADC should not be able to 1v1 a tank under normal circumstances. The ADC is supposed to be someone who is being guarded by the team because they are the extremely vulnerable primary source of consistent damage, not someone who can just walk right up to the tank's face and stand there melting him with Armor Pen, stealing more life than the tank can output damage. The more this becomes normal, the more the game will start shifting away from tanks entirely. If a tank gets melted trying to be a tank, then you might as well play one of these mobility champs since they can fly around and last longer with little or no defense.

LordGeovanni1 votes

that is what is supposed to happen over periods of 10+ seconds not 6 or less if you are one of the top 5 tanks which are fighters btw in the game with shields and or extra stats. Adcs arent supposed to rip through tanks they are supposed to leverage their range over tanks lack there off to win long battles not crit them 5 times and they are dead..

TehNACHO19 votes

{quoted} if the enemy's carry is 6 slotted he melts me like I'm ice in the sun.

So...the carry is properly doing their job then.

Akesgeroth7 votes

I'm not sure what your point is here. That it's normal for AD carries to kill tanks pretty much as fast as any other champion?

Sailor Mint15 votes

You'll live 3 to 6 seconds, squishies rarely make it to the two seconds mark.

Akesgeroth5 votes

Except squishies aren't supposed to go in there and take hits. Your logic is like saying marksmen, mages and assassins should do less damage because tanks don't do a lot of damage.

Sailor Mint11 votes

If you're taking damage while your team is not in a position to answer back/take advantage of it, you're out of position and you deserve to die.

Akesgeroth9 votes

Take advantage of what exactly? As said, tanks die so fast they might as well be squishies once you get to late game. Your CC? It's not just tanks who have CC, and those other champions actually do damage.

Sailor Mint10 votes

Is your definition of "tank" limited to a lumbering pile of meat that is supposed to soak damage while standing around looking pretty?

Tankiness is just a tool that is supposed to help you do whatever you're supposed to do. If you're getting targeted by the enemy you are either a threat (and your team should be able to take advantage of it) or you are out of position and giving the enemy team a free kill.

Position properly to not take more damage than necessary, take advantage of the few extra seconds your tankiness gives you to do your job.

Done252 votes

[{quoted}](name=Devi Freak Mint,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Ecz1nwZ4,comment-id=0000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-18T23:43:39.445+0000)

Is your definition of "tank" limited to a lumbering pile of meat that is supposed to soak damage while standing around looking pretty?

Tankiness is just a tool that is supposed to help you do whatever you're supposed to do. If you're getting targeted by the enemy you are either a threat (and your team should be able to take advantage of it) or you are out of position and giving the enemy team a free kill.

Position properly to not take more damage than necessary, take advantage of the few extra seconds your tankiness gives you to do your job.

This. People want Tanks to be pure damage soak and CC. The problem is that this is toxic. It translates into "Ignore this player until last". You can be as hard to kill as you like, but why would they ever attack you if you do no damage? Take Amumu for example. He uses his Q then R. Now what? If he has no AP to fuel his abilities or a Sunfire he's just waiting on his Q to come back up and that's all he does. There is no interaction between him and the enemy team. Bo-ring.

Auryiel3 votes

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that tanks should be able to do stuff on their own

They are by their very nature enablers. They soak damage so their allies don't have to and use their CC to help their allies score kills. That's what tanks do. In the 5 seconds it takes the enemy AD carry to die, your team should capitalize on that and erase the threat. Those 5 seconds it takes you to die are 5 seconds that your mid and ad carry are not instantly dying.

I understand that it can be very frustrating to play a role that is so reliant on your allies to do good, but that's what tanks are meant to do. If you don't like that, play something else. From what I gather, most dissatisfied tank players would enjoy themselves more by playing bruisers.

LordGeovanni1 votes

if the whole games revloves around sucking an adcs dick why is there any reason to not play one might as well go back to the beginning of season 6 with 5 adc teams.

LordGeovanni1 votes

squishies do make it past the 2 second mark because they get to do damage while the tank is taking damage and often tradeing blows with lifesteal adcs last longer than tanks being anywhere.

67chrome4 votes

I'm not sure what your point is here. That it's normal for AD carries to kill tanks pretty much as fast as any other champion?

Carries by definition are late-game champions completely reliant on items to matter. They often have a weak early and strong late, to the point their team basically has to carry them early on and then they can transition to pretty much carrying their team once they hit 6 major items.

It's important to note the average game is ~33 minutes long and sees ~11,000 gold per player, which is more 3 major items and boots.

Also incredibly important to note most champions are balanced around how strong they are on average over the course of a game. Early game champions like Shaco and LeBlanc tend to be pretty lackluster late, where late game champions like Tryndamere and Vayne tend to be pretty useless early.

Anyways - late game carries destroy pretty much everything. Tanks are not late game carries, so the carry is properly doing their job if they're deleting you when they're 6 slotted.

Late-game champions aren't guaranteed late-game status either. You pretty much always get to use a solid mid game and you always get to use a solid early game.

Also, the pre-Last Whisper and pre-Void Staff phase is like 90% of the game if we're looking at an ~11,000 gold per player average. Obviously there's a solid amount of anti-tank that can happen when you fill 6 slots with anti-tank, the game doesn't start at 6 slots filled though.

Akesgeroth8 votes

Yes, and tanks don't start the game with 200 armor, 200 MR and 3k health either. Anyway, yes, as I've said myself several times in this comment section, carries should be able to kill tanks relatively quickly. Much quicker than any other character. But what we're seeing right now is not acceptable. You can't honestly be playing characters like Nautilus, Leona or Volibear and think tanks are fine in the late game.

Brorelia7 votes

And this is when we reach the point of being reminded that Armor and MR are OP when no LW or VS is on the enemy team but under powered when the enemy team has LW and/or Void staff

Riot please delete LW and Void staff then reduce all armor and MR by about 20%. IT would really help make building tanky more worth while. Might need some more adjustments to armor/MR pen/reduction but it would help

Akesgeroth5 votes

One thing of note is that I find AP characters to be far less problematic. Magic penetration is less common and spell vamp is far less effective than lifesteal.

Brorelia1 votes

{quoted}

One thing of note is that I find AP characters to be far less problematic. Magic penetration is less common and spell vamp is far less effective than lifesteal.

That is true it would be nice if Life steal was reduce say 2/3rds of what it currently is.

Literally the only item that would need to be changed because of that is thornmail which in all honestly needs a complete rework on how it functions. Say instead of a passive 30% auto attack damage reflection it had an active that reflects 100% of auto attack damage for say 2 seconds that is 2 seconds in which a tank can go in and cause problems for the enemy team.

Then change some things on rammus because taunt OP.

Akesgeroth2 votes

TBH, I said "buff tanks" but it's really AD characters which are problematic. Hell, look at all the threads about assassins. AD items just scale way better than AP, tanking or support items right now. I've said it and I'll say it again: If it wasn't for the need to force the enemy team to stack some MR, people would stop playing mages entirely except for the CC heavy ones.

FantasySniper1 votes

Rather'd not. People who buy a penetration item are those who are optimizing damage, so the inflated resistance values have an even easier time against everyone else who isn't building damage.

Then there's the missing item slot. An ADC that can just build another hyper-damage item instead of LW is going to be a nightmare.

Brorelia3 votes

{quoted}

Rather'd not. People who buy a penetration item are those who are optimizing damage, so the inflated resistance values have an even easier time against everyone else who isn't building damage.

Then there's the missing item slot. An ADC that can just build another hyper-damage item instead of LW is going to be a nightmare.

I don't know about that. When you have 250 armor and you lose 100+ armor through penetration/reduction while having 3000+ health it is preferable for the enemy to carry getting another 30 to 50 AD or say 20 to 30% crit chance.

I wouldn't mind seeing carries having to build Black cleaver since it has some windup time for being most effective.

But I also just kinda feel that armor/MR penetration is a bad design since it is basically hidden power compared to reduction which is applied to the said target.

You don't see the penetration making 40% of your armor/MR being useless but with reduction you see your armor/MR being reduced.

qetzel7 votes

  1. Well, Firstly, %pen stacks multiplicatively, so you would have your armour reduced by 48.75%, not 60% in that circumstance.

  2. Vayne is an outlier. Besides, most of her damage doesn't come from the third hit. It is some, but it is not the vast majority by any means. In general, %health is overrated. Normally it is of the wrong damage type so isn't improved by penetration. Often it goes on champions that wouldn't deal much damage without it (tanks). There are, of course, exceptions such as Nidalee and Malzahar, but these are often dodgeable or avoidable.

  3. A tank should NEVER deal significant amounts of damage. That is bad design. A tank should be setting up kills (with CC) and tanking damage. A general rule is "If you notice that you are doing damage as a tank then it is OP".

  4. Target enemy tank and have the other team's damage dealers destroy your team. Better to target squishies who don't reduce your damage and therefore give you more lifesteal. If you are a tank duelling an ADC then it is your fault that you die... And then, of course, there is the obligatory mention of Thornmail.

Also, 200 armour sucks... It isn't enough for a tank. A tank should be hitting 300 Armour, 100 MR and about 3.5k health.

Finally, I understand that you like tanking. Written a different way, I understand why you like being able to ignore your opponents damage. It is equally frustrating, if not more frustrating for a carry to deal with unkillable tanks then it is for a tank to have problems when facing a carry. The tank meta was boring. This is about as balanced as tanks and carries have ever been. Don't ruin it please.

Akesgeroth4 votes

  1. All right. But even at 48,75%, that's still a massive amount. Still, thanks for the precision.

  2. Yes, Vayne is an outlier, but she's not the only one who brings this issue. BotRK and Liandry's are the worst offenders in this category IMHO, much worse than Vayne.

  3. No, a tank should not deal a significant amount of damage except in specific scenarios. As an example, Nautilus is supposed to do a LOT of damage while his W is up to force enemies to focus him and take out his shield. Still, I was mentioning this mostly as a comparison: If tanks die so fast, their only use is CC, and in that case why not get someone who has CC and damage?

  4. Though I agree that 300 armor would be better (and I usually do hit 3,5k health), do you think 100 MR is enough?

qetzel1 votes

  1. 50% of 300 armour more than triples your survivability. 300 is about the amount I would expect a tank to have late game.

  2. I have calculated that it takes 20 shots before damage reduction of BotRK to reduce health past 20%. BotRK will probably do about a fifth of all the damage an adc will do to you. Liandry's is 12% per three seconds before MR, which does not stack. This will likely decrease to 6%. It is only really a problem in extended sieges, in which case, why aren't you dodging? %health is severely overestimated.

  3. Yes, Nautilus is supposed to do a lot of damage in that scenario, but he doesn't itemise for that damage. His base damage is enough. Other tanks have similar scenarios but again, the base damage is enough. Any more becomes ridiculous. 3.5) Tanks don't die that fast, really. They live for more than 3 times as long a their squishy counterparts. More if they effectively apply their CC. A tank's job is to tank damage, to CC opponents and to peel for his carry. Think; every second longer your carry lives because of you is extra damage. Your peel, CC and survivability helps the team.

  4. Yes, in general. 1MR item is normally sufficient. Exceptions would be when you are up against a Swain, for example. Sustained damage should be what you avoid. The burst that normally comes with AP shouldn't ever come your way. If they blow their burst on you then they will probably lose the fight. It would be better against the squishy target behind you.

AMYS GRAVE3 votes

50% of 300 armour more than triples your survivability

an AD with 50% armor pen, and a tank with 300 armor will leave the tank with 150 effective armor. 100/(100+150)=0.4 will get through which means only 3/5 of the AD's damage is blocked. that is notably less than tripling your survivability.

Tanks don't die that fast, really. They live for more than 3 times as long a their squishy counterparts

one zed combo will burst a tank same as a squishy. they really don't live longer against assassins. i feel like most people who want tanks to be stronger just want balance restored.

it should be... tanks > assassins assassins > adcs adc > tanks

Erijian6 votes

Well, major HP and most Armor items have been nerfed pretty hard over time.

On the other side of the coin, Armor Penetration items and %HP items have either been buffed or have seen no changes.

So they nerfed one side, and either buffed/kept the other side the exact same. I think that's part of the reason why things are so wonky right now in regards to Tanks' survivability.

Marinaras Trench3 votes

The way it should go is this.

Tank beats mage, assasin Loses to ADC and Bruiser Mage beats adc and bruiser loses to assassins and tanks assasin beats adc and mage loses to bruiser and tanks adc beats tanks and bruiser loses to mage and assasins bruiser beats tanks and assassins loses to mage and adc

WzqdQsZwQA1 votes

[deleted]

Brorelia10 votes

{quoted}

yes riot buff tank i like the 3hours teamfight

Better then the who presses R first wins team fights.

WzqdQsZwQA2 votes

[deleted]

Brorelia11 votes

{quoted}

tank don't make shiny play so i don't care about them

You should be an LCS shout caster with that mentality. You might go make frends with Jatt and his #LCSBigplays.

You basically just said something that makes me think you have little to no credit.

In most sports they have defensive players. Most have names that are not known unless they are not doing a good job but they have a really important role that they do in allowing the stars to do their jobs.

You might go watch the movie "the blind side" in the first few minutes they will explain why defense is really important even for offense.

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