An Idea to help improve the viability of pure tanks (not bruisers) in the current meta
There's obviously a lot of talk about tanks being virtually useless and being kept that way intentionally for "LC$B!GPL4Y$!". I came up with an idea while playing an ARAM game recently that really sparked my interest of how to improve tanks ability to tank, without making them OP. Bear with me, as this is an incredibly long post.
It all started from one man, errr cow. 
More specifically Alistar's Ultimate:
Triumphant Roar Alistar removes all crowd control effects from himself then gains an additional 60/75/90 attack damage and takes 70% reduced physical and magic damage for 7 seconds.
Let's focus for a minute on the second half of that ultimate. Takes 70% reduced physical and magic damage. Sounds pretty tanky, right? And in fact, it is. Alistar's Ult is one of the best Tank abilities in the game.
What if we gave some form of that to all tanks? Certainly not 70%, but perhaps a reduced form as a passive. Make it higher for conditional passives and lower for constant passives. Tie some to abilities instead of making them passives. This gives Riot some control over who is gets benefits from building tanky and who doesn't and just how big those bonuses would be.
This would help Top lane tanks, Jungle Tanks, and Support Tanks and allow a bit more interchangeability with the roles. Additionally, it already exists with a few champions in the game , 
, 
. All champions that are almost never in the conversation of toxicity. In fact, only 2 tanks crack the top 10 most played in ranked, 
, who's problem isn't his tankiness, and 
, who is confined to the support role. Some of the other champions don't aren't as viable. (Also, keep in mind damage reduction numbers are very tunable).
So Let's take a look at the main tanks in this game, in order of their popularity in ranked matches. This shows the collective players' perceptions of power. I'll also show the win rates for an idea of what %age of the total games in the past month the champ has won. For a completely equal champion (equal in popularity and win rate) they should have:
0.87% of the popularity 50% win rate %age of total games won at 0.435% This would assume that each champ is equally likely to be picked and equally likely to win.
Remove the shield from Golden Aegis and instead let it grant him 1/2/3/4/5% damage reduction for the same duration.
Passive on her W: Gains 30% damage reduction against all enemies affected by Sunlight. Gives her a bit more viability in a solo-lane situation (either as a top, or while carry is recalled/dead), while not super-charging her support lane role, since her ADC will quickly trigger the mark.
Popularity : 3.57% Win Rate: 53.60% %age of All Games Won: 1.91%
Takes 25% reduced damage while in Overdrive. Gives the idea of a steamrolling machine bolting towards you.
Popularity : 1.93% Win Rate: 50.30% %age of All Games Won: 0.97%
Adding an additional passive to his shield that has him take 10% less damage per stack of concussive blows on a target. (Max of 30%) and gives him more synergy with his ADC and makes him able to be a better tank both in teamfights and during the laning phase.
Popularity : 1.87% Win Rate: 51.95% %age of All Games Won: 0.97%
Add a passive to Granite Shield that has 20% damage reduction while it is active. This'll make it more difficult to shred his shield initially, making Malph harder to crack.
Popularity : 1.62% Win Rate: 52.06% %age of All Games Won: 0.84%
Change Tantrum's passive to a % damage reduction passive 3%/5%/7%/9%/11% rather than flat damage. This helps him scale into late game better.
Popularity : 1.33% Win Rate: 51.90% %age of All Games Won: 0.69%
Add a passive to Carnivore that gives him 5% damage reduction for 1.5 seconds after a unit is killed (Stacks up to 10 times). Adds more to the identity of a nom-nom eat em up champ.
Already has area damage reduction on his Ult. He's pretty good as is, but the %age could use a bump up.
Already has area damage reduction on his Ult. He's pretty good as is.
Popularity : 0.92% Win Rate: 52.33% %age of All Games Won: 0.48%
Add to Permafrost: When triggered, all nearby enemies with Frost deal 50% reduced damage to Sejuani for 1.5s.
Has %age damage reduction on his W already.
Popularity : 0.73% Win Rate: 48.35% %age of All Games Won: 0.35%
Takes 30% reduced damage from enemies marked with Vorporal Blade. (alternatively) Takes 20% less damage from taunted enemies.
Popularity : 0.59% Win Rate: 46.72% %age of All Games Won: 0.28%
Add a 30% damage reduction on Sadism.
Popularity : 0.55% Win Rate: 50.31% %age of All Games Won: 0.28%
Give him 20% damage reduction from taunted enemies as a passive on his E.
Popularity : 0.51% Win Rate: 53.02% %age of All Games Won: 0.27%
While Radiance is active, Taric gains a 30% damage reduction bonus.
Popularity : 0.49% Win Rate: 49.19% %age of All Games Won: 0.24%
Add to his Passive that he takes 50% less damage from immobilized (rooted) targets (his passive procs a root 0.5s-1.5s long on a basic attack no more than once every 9-6 seconds depending on level).
Popularity : 0.28% Win Rate: 51.17% %age of All Games Won: 0.14%
Add a 5/10/15% damage reduction to Insanity Potion.
Popularity : 0.25% Win Rate: 46.53% %age of All Games Won: 0.12%
Add a passive to Cell Division that Zac takes 40% reduced damage from enemies for 1.5s after reabsorbing a blob.
Popularity : 0.24% Win Rate: 51.32% %age of All Games Won: 0.12%
On his Ult, give him a 30% damage reduction against slowed enemies (he can proc a slow with his Q, for those unfamiliar).
Now, this method will allow Riot a great deal of flexibility and tuning with the damage reduction. They can decide just how tanky which tanks should be, should they be situationally tanky or generally tanky, and how well they make that tankiness tie in with the tank's kit.
Potential Ways to Tune Damage Reduction
- Adjust the %age damage reduction
- Change the skill that the damage reduction is tied to (where applicable).
- Change the duration of the damage reduction (where applicable).
- Adjust damage reduction scaling by level (where applicable).
- Make the damage reduction be affected by Health/Armor/MR.
- Increase the mana cost of the skill that procs it (where applicable).
So this gives Riot a decent and fairly straightforward way to balance tanks to bring some viability back to the role and help preventing them from getting deleted ridiculously quickly by 
, 
, and all of the items and champion passives that give %age health damage.
Thoughts/Ideas/Feedback?
Also, please be more constructive than "Tanks are Fine as is." If that is your opinion, support/defend it.
