Why have we taken something so fundamentally simple and made it difficult?

Barkley·Feb 2, 2018·59 votes·3,483 views

What is the big idea behind the way we balance tanks, bruisers etc? Legitimately asking, not trying to be a troll.

In my mind - and I'm no game developer - it should be as simple as this.... on one end of the damage/survivability spectrum, you've got assassins. They do lots of damage, but have little to no survivability. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got tanks. They have a shit ton of survivability, but do little to no damage.

In between, you've got bruisers. They have a good mix of both survivability and damage, but don't excel at either.

Then along that spectrum, you've got everything else. But the fundamental thing is that survivability is on one side of the spectrum, and damage is on the other. You must sacrifice one to attain the other.

Why is that so hard? Why do we have tanks that do insane amounts of damage, bruisers that do no damage, and assassins that can survive a full on 1v5 onslaught? What is the logic behind this?

At what point did we throw "Strategy video game stats 101" out the window? Could someone kindly go retrieve it, open it up, and give it a read? Because I feel like we got lost along the way somewhere...

Its not as if this is a new concept. This dichotomy has been around since games had to be installed through a series of floppy disks. Yet somehow we've managed to get away from what has been a tried and proven balancing act for literal decades.

Why?

99 Comments

Squidward DabFeb 3, 201834 votes

Cuz if tanks don’t have damage, then the enemy team will ignore them and go for their carries. [sg-lux-2]

I don’t agree with this logic, but it’s what some people constantly say to defend tanks even though most of them have reliable cc that should make the enemy carries fear being locked down cuz oh I don’t know, that’s the whole point of playing a goddamn tank. [zombie-brand-facepalm]

BarkleyFeb 3, 201830 votes

Tanks SHOULD be an ignorable source of damage. The threat from tanks doesn't come from their damage, it comes from their ability to run interference, soak damage, and crowd control the ever-loving shit out of your team. THATS why they're threatening.

A well designed tank CAN'T be ignored, because he forces your team to focus him through various forms of crowd control, damage reduction, taunts, etc etc.

You don't get a choice. You HAVE to focus him/her because you're FORCED to. That's what a tank is for!!

Look at virtually any other game that has these sorts of character classes.

Squidward DabFeb 3, 201811 votes

{quoted}

Tanks SHOULD be an ignorable source of damage. The threat from tanks doesn't come from their damage, it comes from their ability to run interference, soak damage, and crowd control the ever-loving shit out of your team. THATS why they're threatening.

A well designed tank CAN'T be ignored, because he forces your team to focus him through various forms of crowd control, damage reduction, taunts, etc etc.

You don't get a choice. You HAVE to focus him/her because you're FORCED to. That's what a tank is for!!

Look at virtually any other game that has these sorts of character classes.

I mean this is how I feel, but others clearly feel tanks need the best of both worlds

[zombie-brand-clap]

BarkleyFeb 3, 20183 votes

idk why someone downvoted you, but I went ahead and fixed that for you with an upvote.

FatedSaviourFeb 3, 20182 votes

i think its because of his username

zero356Feb 3, 201812 votes

One issue of this is that a lot of those other games are PvE, where aggro is a thing. Aggro against human opponents is a much more interesting thing. Not saying your wrong, but it is worth noting

doombotMECHAFeb 3, 20185 votes

There's other MOBAs, however. HotS, for example, has Diablo, who has next to no damage outside his % hp damage on charge, but can flip people over him, then charge and shove them back. However, bodyblocking is intentionally easier in that game, letting the big red devil use his own hitbox as additional CC, plus he has a massive HP bar once he gets farmed up, kinda like Cho'gath.

Athena (Smite) has a charged dash, a point-blank aoe damage ability (still doesn't deal that much, only really painful to assassins), a cone taunt, and a more explodey shen ult.

In both cases, they aren't the focus targets--MOBA tanks never are--but they're instead very disruptive and can keep enemies off of their allies, as well as help set up kills. You never want to hit a tank, but sometimes they're the only target you can hit. In addition, Tanks ward off assassins by bodyguarding the backline and dunking on anything that gets too close.

I'm not sure where riot got the idea to start upping their damage. We've got the whole mADC end of the class spectrum to do that--Rumble, Riven, Irelia, etc. Maybe it was that mobility has been creeped to the point where tanks an be easily avoided in the fight? It could also be damage creep in general.

Sire HippingtonFeb 3, 20183 votes

Funny you bring up HotS, i play that more thabn LOL right now, and Tanks are much more powerfull in Hots. With diablo i'm often pretty high up in the damage stats, any if any tank gets to melee a ranged squishy, they destroy them because in HotS, melees actually have FAR supperior basestats. The overall damage in HotS is just alot lower, so you won't 'burst' people down as tank, but if you let me 1v1 that ranged dude as a tank like anub, i will kill him or atleast force him to retreat. Though it's true that the concept of bodeyblocking is a great thing in HotS that gives Tanks a way to be disruptive and contribute to fights without direct CC or damage, which means they need less CC/damage to in their kit to funktion.

I'm not sure where riot got the idea to start upping their damage.

Start upping tank damage?? Tanks actually lost damage last season, and now with aftershoc damage nerfed they are back to low damage. IF you feel like they deal to much damage, that's most likely because EVERYTHING does to much damage because of power/damage creep- In the past, tanks were far more threatening vs squishys. The only thing that increased on tanks is %damage so they hurt other tanks and bruisers some more, but that started in S3 already, and theri CC uptime went up alot... Statistically, tanks remain on the buttom of the spectrum if you look at damage dealt to champs per game...

Vistha D ReptileFeb 3, 20182 votes

Of course a lot of PvE games have aggro as a numerical statistic that increases a chance of being attacked by mobs by a factor of X%, but a lot of games also have active aggro abilities.

Those are called "taunts", work against players and are present in League of Legends as well.

Sp33d Zer0Feb 3, 20186 votes

I would normally agree with you being an avid tank in PvE games.

But the tank roster we have does no support the taunt style, having DR without damage means your ignorable, and CC needs to be such a low cd that you could just build pure carry and kill in one cc chain.

Tanks being able to threaten you are the only way to FORCE a player to hit them.

Leaf on BushFeb 3, 20182 votes

Unless you make them intercept attacks like braums shield or yasuo windwall, but we all know how people like that kind of mechanic.

It Hertz When IPFeb 3, 20183 votes

I don't think people mind those abilities on tanks/supports. Braum's shield, for instance.... barely anyone seems to mind it. I think the real issue with Yas's windwall is that it was placed on a DPS character.

Pommel KnightFeb 3, 20183 votes

Because tanks bring cc to the game, or used to. They were cc machines that if ignored would go to your adc/apc and fuck him up, reduce his output or kill him if his base dmg is high enough and enemy has no peel. Tanks are supposed to be disruptiors and engagers.

Look at naut, Old maokai, malphite, Old cho, J4 when he used to be played tank, Old Sejuani, and well...all the old tank designs...

HügöFeb 3, 20182 votes

To make a tanke a threat without damage you need to lower the cooldown of their cc's by a shitton that it nearly reaches urf level.

doombotMECHAFeb 3, 20182 votes

As someone who plays HotS, you really don't. ETC has very reasonable cooldowns, but he's one of the game's best tanks.

The real problem is likely mobility creep--the only HotS characters that approach league levels of hypermobility either have less control, little-to-no sustain, and/or exactly three (3) hitpoints. Mobility is countered by CC, but mobility also allows a character to avoid CC. As such, you need wayyyy too much CC, an amount that would choke out anything less mobile.

KaisadiIIaFeb 3, 20182 votes

But tanks don't usually have that much damage. Maokai has a shit ton of CC, but deals no damage unless he's far ahead of your team. Skarner has moderate CC and his threat is actually that he deals some damage. But some is not the same as being a carry now. He may kill a carry 1v1 if he catches it (which shouldn't happen had your team peeled the carry correctly), but he won't do shit against an assassin or a more resilient mage, for example.

KnalxzFeb 3, 20182 votes

A tank should be able to be easily ignored IMO but be so annoying to deal with that they force conflict.

I.E. Reinhardt. A big portable shield that almost blocks all sources of damage. That's annoying to deal with thus he comes a target. It's also really hard to just walk past Rein because his hammer has innate CC meaning even if you do have alot of health you're going to get disrupted making whatever goal you were trying to accomplish near impossible.

The threat of a tank is simple.

They are in the way, and make it hard to get past them. This why tanks are always the front line. Fighting a tank is bad because you'll run out of ammo sooner then they will run out of health unless you have help.

In a 1v1 the dream should be for a DPS and a tank to go neutral.

ModCaptainMårvelousFeb 3, 201821 votes

Because it's not quite as simple as that. You're not taking into account things like the innate advantage of range, the different forms of surviving (Life steal, resistances, shields, % reduction, etc.) and things like statistical power in raw stats. And I'm not even going to bother with concepts like viability by rank, gameplay feel, meta-placement and otherwise. Those usually get ugly because those are more feel and opinion-oriented than fact-oriented.

In addition, there's an innate problem with tanks in MOBA-style games. DOTA, for example, doesn't have "tanks". They have initiators; tanky characters who start fights but don't deal as much damage as a carry. This is because traditional RPG-style tanking doesn't work. You need a reason to focus a tank, which usually ends up being A.) giving them a fuckton of CC that they can constantly cycle or B.) giving them decent damage so ignoring them will rack up damage. Bruisers would have to deal more damage.

Also, there's the scale/power curve that has to be determined: Are bruisers late game behemoths who have tank-level surviability and assassin-level DPS? Are they early game monsters that get outscaled in both offense and defense? Are they mid-game beasts? And we're not even getting into the two subclasses of divers vs. juggernauts.

The fact is that if it seems simple but it's not done in a day, than it's not as simple as it should be.

Sp33d Zer0Feb 3, 20181 votes

If we tried to emulate the Dota style we would break the game because of carry items that don't need scaling. Imagine if Someone like nautilus could effectively go triple crit and just wreck you in lane with infinite CC

ModCaptainMårvelousFeb 3, 20182 votes

Not even remotely why certain tanky initiators are good.

For one thing, those characters usually get blink dagger whereas not everyone in DOTA has a built-in flash. This makes it hard to escape from someone like Tidehunter blinking on top of you and ulting.

Building on this, initiation tools in DOTA are usually pretty strong compared to what we have in league. Take Enigma for example: Enigma has an instant black hole that silences, disables and draws in all nearby enemies while dealing true damage. You can't flash/dash/etc. out of it, you can only have someone outside of the blackhole pull you out or interrupt Enigma. This thing can absolutely win a teamfight by virtue of enigma getting one godlike ult. I can't really think of a comparison save for maybe Malphite but without nearly the same damage or lockdown power.

And finally, DOTA items allow for some amazing utility compared to League items. Refresher orb, for example, can let you cast your ult twice. BKB can make you immune to magic effects. I could go on but these items allow tanks to get more use out of their spells or just giving them "more spells" to cast.

League doesn't have any of these or, if they do, they're vastly muted by comparison (Locket is no Mekanism). We've exchanged singular, powerful abilities for abilities you can quickly rotate and rapid fire. This means that most tanks back in Season 1-3 were good because they could consistently CC-lock people given the chance. But that wasn't fun to play against especially when tenacity didn't do anything to them, so tanks needed stronger damage so there was a reason to focus them. Fast forward to today and you have tanks who can have DPS rotations while dealing decent damage.

Leaf on BushFeb 3, 20182 votes

I don't think that the average NA bruiser player with a slightly inflated ego cares about stuff like "initiation". They want to be a one man army and 1v2 all the time. Start the fight and also finish it. Afk push their lanes without caring for the enemy jungler an still come out on top.

Best example: hashinshin

Doesn't work? Blame riot.

Teridax68Feb 3, 20183 votes

I largely agree with this, and I think we need to abandon the idea of tanks as the main class to focus in MOBA-style combat. Tanks gather aggro in PVE combat because there's gameplay to having only one class of player character be able to take sustained damage, but the moment you switch even to World of Warcraft's PvP, they occupy a completely different function by being one of the characters worth focusing. Often in WoW PvP, it's generally better to focus the healer, as is also the case in HotS, because they can otherwise keep their whole team alive, and meanwhile the tank classes lay down heavy disruption to enable or prevent that. Aggro in PvE is a matter of managing a system so that the enemy side's damage output is focused on the right players, but aggro or focus in PvP combat is a matter of collectively choosing which opponent to focus from a selection of enemies who should all be worth focusing. Fail to focus the carry, and they can wipe your team. Fail to focus the support, and the enemy team will operate at a huge power surplus. Fail to focus the tank, and they will mess up your team's plays via general disruption and targeted lockdown. Fail to focus the assassin or the mage, and they'll immediately put you at a numbers disadvantage by taking out a key target. Each teammate's contribution should be a good reason to focus them, and optimal focus should be dynamic every fight, not a matter of always going for the tank or even the marksman.

As a side note, I also feel personal health reserves aren't really a contribution one brings to a fight, so much as a means of being able to contribute: when an ADC gets survivability through life steal, they're not trying to tank more for their team, they're just trying to survive longer so that they can output their DPS better. If a champion outputs damage, crowd control or utility (and it's always an output of some kind onto other players), then there's a reason to focus them; if that champion has nothing but durability or mobility, there is strictly no reason to care about them if they don't output anything. Because of this, I think we need to look at both tanks and fighters differently: to grossly oversimplify, fighters make the same contribution as marksmen in that they both output DPS, just as mages and assassins both output burst. Meanwhile, tanks specialize in outputting CC, and supports specialize in outputting CC and utility. Assuming the DPS capabilities of marksmen and fighters were the same (and that's admittedly making a big assumption), and all else held equal, the durability of fighters would have to be on par with the range of marksmen in allowing them to contribute on average, at least in some parts of the match if the classes are intended to curve at different stages of the game. Currently, melee champions do tend to have higher base stats across the board than ranged champions, but I'm not sure if that stat difference is significant or focused enough to allow all melee characters to operate properly in today's environment. Because of this, it might help to choose just one aspect in which melee champions surpass ranged opponents, either in durability or mobility depending on the character, and thereby focus their stats and mechanics around that until they get to compete about equally.

doombotMECHAFeb 3, 20182 votes

Yeah, ADC damage/survivability creep has dramatically warped the melee-ranged dynamic.

DNFVixenFeb 3, 201810 votes

{quoted}

What is the big idea behind the way we balance tanks, bruisers etc? Legitimately asking, not trying to be a troll.

In my mind - and I'm no game developer - it should be as simple as this.... on one end of the damage/survivability spectrum, you've got assassins. They do lots of damage, but have little to no survivability. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got tanks. They have a shit ton of survivability, but do little to no damage.

In between, you've got bruisers. They have a good mix of both survivability and damage, but don't excel at either.

Then along that spectrum, you've got everything else. But the fundamental thing is that survivability is on one side of the spectrum, and damage is on the other. You must sacrifice one to attain the other.

Why is that so hard? Why do we have tanks that do insane amounts of damage, bruisers that do no damage, and assassins that can survive a full on 1v5 onslaught? What is the logic behind this?

At what point did we throw "Strategy video game stats 101" out the window? Could someone kindly go retrieve it, open it up, and give it a read? Because I feel like we got lost along the way somewhere...

Its not as if this is a new concept. This dichotomy has been around since games had to be installed through a series of floppy disks. Yet somehow we've managed to get away from what has been a tried and proven balancing act for literal decades.

Why?

It was thrown out the window starting season 6, was half way to the ground last year, and shattered beyond hope this year.

The people at riot, i am mainly talking about ghostcrawler, have 0 fucking clue how to develop a game. He ruined WoW now he is ruining league of legends.

The Goodest BoyFeb 3, 201810 votes

I hate to point fingers at one guy, as Riot is a company with hundreds of people, but... In all honesty I'm going to have to pin most of it on Ghostcrawler.

In fact, if you look at GCs track record alone before his LOL endeavors, it's an objectively terrible track record. Slowly but surely, GC has moved Leagues runes system from the original (a huge, triple treed system with no keystones, that allowed for the most skill expression because you go all in one and get the most stats or go slightly in 3 different trees for varied stats) to the current Keystone-centric model.

Guys. HE DID LEGIT THE EXACT. SAME. THING. IN WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

WoW used to have the same talent trees League once did (no keystones, huge skill expression) to now having a system where every 5 levels you choose one of 3 things that are basically keystones. And players HATED him for it, and still do.

Don't ask me what makes GC so attractive, cause I can't see it. And to add onto that, he barely plays League and knows little about it. I despise the man's practices in all honesty.

BarkleyFeb 3, 20183 votes

I'm not super sure that keystone runes/masteries has much to do with the overall stat distribution of tanks, assassins, bruisers, etc.

They serve as more of an amplification of what's already there. I think the problem has more to do with the champions and the stats they're given than it does which masteries or runes they're running.

Even before runes reforged, champions like sejuani, zac, amumu, etc had periods of time where they were doing INSANE amounts of damage.

The Goodest BoyFeb 3, 20184 votes

You're absolutely right.. I went off on a little tangent there, and was more arguing as to why I hate keystones as a concept than to why tanks can one shot and damage dealers can sometimes tank 5 people.

Sorry about that.

BarkleyFeb 3, 20183 votes

hey man, people love this game and get really passionate about it. dont apologize for getting upset about something you care about.

I never do.

The Goodest BoyFeb 3, 20182 votes

It just really sucks dude... I've lost almost all motivation to start up and play league lately. If you had asked me my opinion on league at any time during the season preceding the ADC class update (season 5? 6?) and even the season after the ADC update tbh, I would have argued that League was one of the best, if not the best game I'd ever played.

But Riot has just really really lost their connection with what the game IS be on a deep, indescribable level.

It makes me genuinely sad :(

TehNACHOFeb 3, 20187 votes

Hey so this thread is about Tanks and Bruisers but you used Assassins as an example. I actually wrote about it way back in the past when people were building Tank items on Assassins.

Link

The main takeaway is that balancing damage and defense isn't so cut and dry when you throw in other variables, and in a game as complicated as League of Legends, "it should be as simple as this [...] damage spectrum" is a completely misinformed way of balancing the game.

ÈvilMortyFeb 3, 20187 votes

Because tanks now die in 3 seconds from any adc while being impossible to get with at (unless point click cc mao)

CaveslothFeb 3, 20186 votes

The problem was put well in another thread, basically the problem is the balance teams idea that adcs need to be the anti-tank. In order for them to be the counter to tanks they have to do so much damage that they can blow up ANYTHING, so tanks have to get tankier and do more damage to stand a chance in an unhealthy loop that feeds on itself.

Squidward DabFeb 3, 20182 votes

{quoted}

The problem was put well in another thread, basically the problem is the balance teams idea that adcs need to be the anti-tank. In order for them to be the counter to tanks they have to do so much damage that they can blow up ANYTHING, so tanks have to get tankier and do more damage to stand a chance in an unhealthy loop that feeds on itself.

I mean isn’t that why your own team has an ADC/assassin/mage

Lios AshenbladeFeb 3, 20185 votes

Because even building straight full on tank, you still get insta gibbed in a team fight unless you are like...one of 2 or 3 tanks

BarkleyFeb 3, 20181 votes

ok sure

but why

Lios AshenbladeFeb 3, 20184 votes

Because damage is high as fuck across the board, and if we made things like tanks, able to endure insanely long siege attacks under turrets, then thats just what they would do, sit under it and tank it the entire time while their allies kill people, since they dont really do any damage anyway, they would just be beef

NemeBroFeb 3, 20185 votes

{quoted}

What is the big idea behind the way we balance tanks, bruisers etc? Legitimately asking, not trying to be a troll.

In my mind - and I'm no game developer - it should be as simple as this.... on one end of the damage/survivability spectrum, you've got assassins. They do lots of damage, but have little to no survivability. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got tanks. They have a shit ton of survivability, but do little to no damage.

In between, you've got bruisers. They have a good mix of both survivability and damage, but don't excel at either.

Then along that spectrum, you've got everything else. But the fundamental thing is that survivability is on one side of the spectrum, and damage is on the other. You must sacrifice one to attain the other.

Why is that so hard? Why do we have tanks that do insane amounts of damage, bruisers that do no damage, and assassins that can survive a full on 1v5 onslaught? What is the logic behind this?

At what point did we throw "Strategy video game stats 101" out the window? Could someone kindly go retrieve it, open it up, and give it a read? Because I feel like we got lost along the way somewhere...

Its not as if this is a new concept. This dichotomy has been around since games had to be installed through a series of floppy disks. Yet somehow we've managed to get away from what has been a tried and proven balancing act for literal decades.

Why?

Because damage and durability aren't the only levers champions are balanced around, which is to say the concept is not as "fundamentally simple" as you've made it sound. No MOBA I've played is like what you've described. Dragon Knight from Dota 2 is an incredibly tanky carry, as is Medusa, but both also deal fantastic damage. Artanis is a very durable warrior (tank and bruiser class) from Heroes of the Storm, but deals heavy sustained damage. Sonya is similar.

League is not alone in this regard, because it has many other variables for how a champion is balanced. That isn't to say balance is perfect, it obviously isn't, but not strictly for the reasons you described.

BarkleyFeb 3, 20182 votes

I suppose you're right, but as I recall, league used to at least SEEM that way to me. I've been playing since season 1, and I've been at least somewhat educated and knowledgeable since season 3.

And I remember a time when tanks were tanks, and assassins were assassins, and bruisers were bruisers. Or at least I feel like i do.

Whisper87Feb 2, 20184 votes

Agreement. While your argument speaks just to melee champions, I would accuse Riot of creating and promoting generalists to the top for every role. It's a serious problem that shrinks our champion pools and makes balancing any aspect of the game really tough, not to mention issues with pacing that inherently arise because of those first two items.

I think a perfect illustration of this fact is that solo Q games feel much more one sided and snowball than they have in a long time, while the pro matches are longer than they have been in a while. Its hard to nail this down, but the champions that are strong are just really freaking good in a lot of ways. The pros snatch all those up and have even matches. In solo Q you get hard outdrafted simply because certain things can abuse the new runes and items so much better than others.

BarkleyFeb 3, 20185 votes

again, not super sure it has everything (or anything) to do with the newest runes and masteries.

Many carries were weak even before runes reforged, and many tanks were doing shit tons of damage before runes reforged.

I think it has more to do with overall champion design from a stat/skill perspective.

CleverCactusFeb 3, 20184 votes

Because the combination of champion kits and rune and item selections makes it more complicated than that. For example, if Singed had little damage it would be pointless to pick him over a champion with more CC because him running through your team wouldn't give much reward for risking his life to do that.

In your example, if bruisers were in the middle of survivability and damage, why pick anything other than a bruiser? By having all bruisers on one team, you would have the best of both worlds, and it would be better than putting all your eggs in one basket in the form of assassins or carries.

General Esdeath Feb 3, 20183 votes

Keep in mind this is the same balance team that thinks the way to nerf Ornn dealing too much damage is to remove the mechanic that required a bit of skill and not being baited.

ChanRaFeb 3, 20182 votes

I still have my hand on my face from that last facepalm I did when I read that they are going to remove his "unstoppable"

ValyrianBladeFeb 3, 20183 votes

The idea works in a PvE game (i.e. players versus environment, think something like a raid in WoW). Your tanks can have mechanics to keep the attention of the boss monster you're trying to take down, while your damage dealers actually take them down. Even there it's a bit more complicated (your healers don't tank or do damage really, and tanks still do some damage, etc... - largely because there's a large PvP component to the game as well so they need to balance it that way too).

There are many more problems when you get to a PvP game. First and foremost, there's not just damage and tankiness. Damage gets split in to burst damage and sustained damage. Then there's mobility, range, utility (think shields and heals, and possibly status effects), disruption (think crowd control), and individual other effects (i.e. champion specific things like immunity to CC or stealth). It's not a line that you're picking a spot on. It's not even a sphere that you're picking a point in. You're looking at like 8+ dimensions to balance around. Then throw in that tanks can't just tank damage and not deal it, because they'd just get ignored in fights (unless they were so overloaded with CC that you can't deal damage to their allies because you're cc'd).

So yes, a champion can have loads of tankiness, damage (burst and/or sustained), and CC (disruption) all in the same kit - assuming they're short ranged, immobile, and don't offer utility (heals or shields).

Likewise, a champion could have neither damage nor tankiness, assuming they have range (not for damage, but for...), utility, disruption, and mobility (think Soraka or Janna - they both lack damage and tankiness, but have ranged utility and disruption, as well as good MS for mobility).

ahferroin7Feb 5, 20183 votes

Um, because that's not actually the normal method unless you're doing an insanely simple game?

Go take a look at D&D for example. Paladins and barbarians are the tankiest classes in the game. They also do pretty much the most physical damage of anyone. Both of them however have other significant weaknesses (barbarians are particularly weak against mages, and paladins are heavily dependent on their deity).

The issue in League is that people have both survivability and damage, and they have few if any significant weaknesses.

PopcornBunniFeb 3, 20182 votes

Because there's a lot more than damage and durability that goes into a kit. Bruiser is a meaningless term used to describe everything from DrMundo to Pantheon when there's a substantial amount more nuance than two variables.

Mobility, resource sustain, health sustain, burst, sustained damage, crowd control, team utility, waveclearing, engage, disengage, scaling, bullying, isolating targets, roaming power, and more yet that I can't think of off the top of my head.

This is why riot introduced subclasses to better define what role certain characters play in the game. There's a split between two kinds of tanks and three kinds of "bruiser" in addition to assassins

Wardens are tanks that prevent the enemy from getting to your team. Because they lack mobility and engage, they also tend to have a strong combination of raw offensive and defensive stats.

Vanguards are tanks that dive in and lock down targets with heavy crowd control for your team to follow up. They tend to have the lowest damage of melee characters but some of the highest defenses to compliment their need to unleash multiple crowd control spells over a fight.

Divers are engaging fighters. They have less crowd control than vanguards, usually only a single spell made to focus a particular target, but deal much more damage both burst and sustained.

Skirmishers lack crowd control entirely, but deal extremely potent sustained damage

Assassins also lack crowd control, and also lack sustained damage, but have much higher burst and disengage power to get in and out while taking out a target.

Juggernauts lack engage, like wardens, but are more geared on the offensive side. They have the very highest combination of offense and defense, usually outclassing even wardens in both areas. Their main defining feature is preventing the enemy from escaping, again a mirror opposite of Wardens preventing the enemy from getting in.

And these are just the roles, not going into the other attributes I mentioned like waveclear, resource sustain, or scaling which depend on the champion in question.

PopcornBunniFeb 3, 20182 votes

Just looking over those attributes of the classes, you can see it's a lot more complicated than "trade durability for damage." These are of course, generalizations, as some wardens have more engage power, like Shen, and some assassins have, usually delayed, crowd control, like LeBlanc or Evelynn.

Sustained damage Skirmishers Juggernauts Wardens Divers Vanguards Assassins

Burst damage Assassins Juggernauts Skirmishers Divers Wardens Vanguards

Durability Vanguards Juggernauts Wardens Divers Skrimishers Assassins

Engage Vanguards Divers Assassins Skirmishers Wardens Juggernauts

Disengage Wardens Assassins Vanguards Skirmishers Divers Juggernauts

Crowd control Vanguards Wardens Divers Juggernauts Skirmishers Assassins

Pika FoxFeb 3, 20182 votes

Doesnt work that way. If you give a tank no damage, then the tank literally does nothing. The enemy has no reason to focus the tank or even kill the tank unless you overload them with constant CC so the enemy cant play league. Theres no threat with this champ.

All the same, you cannot make an assassin with no survivability, as then you would never see an assassin played above gold. Survivability is always stronger than damage, because it doesnt matter if youre 1 item up on your opponent if you die and throw your lead away.

Thus, you end up with tanks being able to do damage so you cant just let them run rampant, and squishies that have some form of survivability through mobility or whatever so they can stay safe enough to function.

The real difference is how fast the two deal damage. The squishier you are, the more mobile you generally are/safe you are but the faster you deal damage. The tankier you are generally ends up being more melee oriented which is inherently less safe but you gain continuous threat.

The only real reason ADCs die so fast is because theyre ranged, which is inherently safe and gets punished when someone gets in your nono zone, and because they further opt into at most 1 defensive item.

Scary DoorFeb 3, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pika Fox,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=HLZAALfF,comment-id=0020,timestamp=2018-02-03T18:33:17.611+0000)

Survivability is always stronger than damage,

This is false. If survivability were "always" stronger than damage, then games would last for hours. Damage always wins out in the end, and it kind of has to, unfortunately.

I think some people---not saying you specifically---have an idea that tanks should just be unstoppable beasts capable of absorbing 50-60 attacks every fight and dealing decent damage and tons of CC without being able to be killed. That's just not how the game works, has worked or will ever work.

Yes, damage is too high right now, but mitigation will never be able to scale with damage because then there would be no incentive to play a damage champ, siege potential would be zero and games would be back-and-forth tank brawls where team fights lasted for minutes, instead of seconds, and game lengths were measured in hours.

Pika FoxFeb 3, 20182 votes

No, survivability is stronger than damage. This is always true, and why we put all of our damage into 1 champ who we protect at all costs to contest objectives and end the game.

Mids take defensive items, Supports have defensive abilities, Tops are generally tanky champs, junglers usually build off tank or are tanky themselves.

The only role that consistently builds 0-1 defensive items is bot ADC. It is the ADCs job to stay alive and end the game, and it is everyone else's job to allow them to get there.