Tanks need some help [Thoughts]

So over the past couple of months I have been playing a lot of tanks. For a long time, they have been a personal favorite that I could always feel safe picking; enjoying what time I had on them as well.

With the recent tank update however, I feel like tanks themselves are suffering from being a little too squishy. Never before have we had so many tools to survive as a carry in league. With all the powerful support items, tank items (and tanks in general) have seemed to get the short end of the stick on power. A while ago, people complained a lot about tanks, saying they had too much damage and were too hard to kill. So Riot reacted with more CC, lower damage, and I think the main problem with tanks,

bursts of tankiness

Much in the same way assassins got their burst patterns extended, Tanks got their overall tankiness reduced into periods of time where they are tankiest and where they are not. You can see that more with tanks like Sej or Rammus, along with a handful of others. These tanks are best at key moments but fall off in tanking power as the fight goes on and they don't have that. Sej is only tanky at the start of the fight, rammus is best with his W. Naut when he has his shield (can be argued). We are even seeing this idea show up in items like .

Now inherently this isn't a terrible idea. When tanks are overall tanky they are crippling at times, Tank Ekko is a good example. When they have a lot of damage they can be a giant pain, when Maokai was one-shotting with Saps. But I feel like these periods of tankiness came at too much of a cost of just being tanky. While some tanks will shine in a certain moment, some tanks too the hit to general tankiness harder than others. Basically, HP was really important and now we are lacking it. I am fine with that but the raw stats that tanks are getting overall are lower than before. The items effectiveness is diminished and it's why we are seeing tanks get Locket, Knight's Vow and other support items. Those items come with powerful effects that increase their total value, while having stats that are almost equal to the tank items.

Locket has 30 Armor, 60 MR Knight's Vow has 400 HP, 40 Armor and 10% CDR Stoneplate (A mix of tank and support) has 40 Armor, 40 MR but goes up to 80 Armor, 80 MR when you are around 3 or more enemies.

This doesn't even include each passive which increases team survivability along with your own (Locket+Stoneplate is massive)

Now let's look at the tank items

Omen is 400 Hp, 60 Armor, 20% reduced damage from Crits, and reduces 15% attack speed Sunfire is 425 HP, 60 Armor and a passive burn (29 damage at lvl 18) All MR items have about 400 HP and 55 MR on average.

Now comparing the rare stats, The 3 support items give the tank player about the same stats but often with an increase of 500-1000 gold pre item. WITH LESS POWERFUL EFFECTS

This is a massive problem for tanks right now, because they are often pushed with scaling numbers, but are given lower amounts on average. A normal tank with a standard tank item build is getting (Just a normalish build to give an average idea) and or gives you; 1450HP 275 Armor without boots - 305 with and a potential 315 (345) 150 MR without boots - 175 with and a potential 190 (215) Now if you are a jungler you will have cinderhulk, meaning you get more HP but lost a stat along the way. With this build you will be pretty hard to take down but you are fairly weak. You have some lasting power but this is doubling down on some power items (you are not getting both thornmail and Omen). So on average you will be at about 250 Armor and 150 MR with 1500 HP, changing depending on items. Stoneplate is the big one since it can add a lot of HP, but the support build also uses it and has a neat trick with it (may not be staying so we'll see).

Now let's look at a standard tank with support items and or Zeke's could be swapped for or something but I think it's pretty good on tanks So this build gives you; 700 HP (or 1050 with Helm) 185 Armor (245 with Zeke's) without boots - 215 (275 Zeke's) with boots and a potential of 225 (255) or 285 Zeke's (315 Zeke's) 155 MR (130 with Zeke's) without boots - 180 (155 Zeke's) with boots and a potential of 195 (220 with boots) or 170 (195) with Zeke's Considering cinderhulk and other items, as you can see, although you lose some stats, the numbers often end up pretty close. Your average will be about 1000 HP, 200 Armor and 150 MR I'd say. Which isn't much of a drop off from your tank counterpart! You also need to factor in your new found actives as well! Locket Passive gives your team a massive shield, Stoneplate is still on here so you can survive burst. You also have Knight's Vow to reduce the damage on your important carries. And if you grab a zeke's you get some sweet burn for your ad.

This all comes down to a couple of things. Do I think support items are strong? Yes, they are, but they should be since that is what they are designed for. Do I think Tank items are week? Greatly. Although they are meant to be stronger in certain areas, they fall flat when you start looking at both groups. Let's also take into consideration the cost of both builds.

The Tank Build will cost 15000 gold on average

The Support Build will cost 13500 gold on average

The 1500 gold may not seem like a lot but what this means, is on average a tank will reach his full build sooner and keep up with his team and the enemies easier. Every bit of gold counts and right now when you consider the effectiveness of the Support build and the cost of it, Tank builds are lacking quiet a bit!

So moving forward what do we do? Well I think increasing the potential strength of tank items would greatly help. Tanks, although should have periods of strengths, are struggling to make the most out of those periods, and feeling even weaker when not in them. Their build paths are very weak at the moment and giving some extra strength to all tank items would help everyone in general when going for tank. The tank update sapped a lot of HP from these items and the general return was not that much. Tanks need something more, so please give it to them.

For fun I did a little bit of a number look. 250 armor on a crit is about 170ish damage. 200 armor on a crit is about 200ish damage. This is before armor pen. so that means the overall damage you take is only slightly more compared to Tank as a Support Build.

That's just sad....

** TL;DR - Tank items are only slightly stronger than support items, but come at a greater cost and less effectiveness. Please buff these items so Tanks aren't paper. **