League Of Tanks Unmasked - My Thought-Dump about How OP Tanks Are

So, I have been noticing for a while now (around since when Cho'Gath and Urgot were in the NA LCS as meta mid-lane picks)... this game is completely broken in favor of tanks. This is long, so I've tried to group my points under different headings if you're not interested in reading the whole opus.

Here are some of the main overarching points:

• Mathematical value of HP/Resistances versus Damage
• Quantity of stats available in items
• Availability of bonus stats in standard builds removes other possible limitations
• Comparative utility of champion classes, as gated by stats

A Look into the Nature of my Claim: The Comparative Value of the HP Stat to Damage Stats Tanks' primary stat is HP, and obviously also damage resistances. Before resistances, of course, 1 damage dealt = 1 HP lost. However, after resistances are added, 1 HP > 1 damage... up to a pretty absurd ratio being possible with standard tank itemization routes. Penetration counters this. Now here's the thing: penetration stats have far more limited availability for both AP and AD damage dealers, and can't hope to be equivalent to reduce a tank's resistances to anything nearing original base damage calculations... and that doesn't account at all for the extra health of the champions, which typically doubles, and often triples base values by 35-40ish minutes.

Bonus Goodies from Tank Builds ON TOP of that, the tank items give CDR, health regen, mana, AOE damage effects, and other utility. Add into that the champions' actual kit, and you have unkillable CC bots who can 1v1 any carry and kill them easily just based on base damages and having the health pool to survive. Let's not forget the fact that many of them have low to no mana costs.

I could go on and on about the imbalance of the builds and the gold value of the stats, but I'm convinced that champs with HP as their primary attribute have it way too easy in League of Legends. None of their stats are gated very meaningfully at all... not health, not mana, not cooldowns, not even the regen of these stats once initially lost in most builds. They don't need to farm well to be equal in power and meaningful strategic contributors, etc.

No Matter Who, Tank Form is Better I've been noticing this for a while, and now we are seeing assassins (especially AP damage dealers) take tank routes and join the ranks of the immortal. Ekko, Akali, Fizz, even LeBlanc. Add them to the pool of champs who were already only single offensive item brutes: Olaf, Irelia, Garen, Illaoi, Tahm Kench, Poppy, Fiora, blah, blah, blah... The meta is lagging and holding out on the simple truth: tank ANYTHING is better than the damage form. And champs intended to be tanky have an edge on champs intended as damage dealers.

Effect of on AP Champs AP damage-based champs get the worst end of it all, and AD damage-based champs have it a little better. Sucks worst for AP dealers because they are almost always mana-gated, and going OOM is pretty much unavoidable. Obviously, with a damage build, they're going to also be health-gated, but that's not supposed to be their focus. So they have more limitations, and I already mentioned how their damage stacks up to health builders. AP versus tank is just a waste of mana and cooldowns, and there are no meaningful counters. Also, there is only one champ I can think of that does AP damage and doesn't use mana, which would be Akali, who is also range-gated.

Effect on AD Champs AD damage dealers don't OOM so easily, or if they do, their utility is not lost because their damage source is still online. Furthermore, items like Essence Reaver and anything that gives life-steal counteracts the loss of resources meaningfully. I argue that something like Essence Reaver is even better for gaining mana back than the caster options like Morellonomicon because you can run off to farm (Read: Continue earning gold), and with life steal and mana region on crit, the process of earning money and experience rewards the champion with resources, too. By contrast, AP champs need spells to farm effectively, and this COSTS mana, which in this example defeats the purpose of running away to regen, which leaves them to go back to base (even if still at full HP) and miss out on EXP and gold.

Tanks' Counter-Builds The point can be made further by comparing the effectiveness of counter-building. For instance, a tank's counter-AD items not only multiplicatively reduce damage (in a stacking manner, too, by increasing resistances and by adding health to reduce the % damage per hit by granting a larger pool), they also have effects like slowing attack speed, reducing crit, and even reflecting damage back. Pretty sweet deal, since that all occurs just by standing. Against AP damage, the multiplicative damage reduction also plays in, though its effect is more powerful since casters damage patterns are cooldown-gated, and even with full CDR, will only come every 5 or so seconds, whereas an AD champ can attack multiple times per second. Then you can add in the CC-negating effects of spell shield (Banshee's) and tenacity stats.

AD Dealers Countering Tanks On the other hand, for an AD damage dealer to counter a tank, one has to itemize penetration, and items to not exist to level the playing field, so these choices, by definition, are only mitigation of a superior scaling stat. Thankfully, there are also some items that provide %-HP damage, and this presents a meaningful route, since it approaches equilibrium fairly well at the cost of itemizing that way and also at the cost of focusing that target in fights instead of someone else.

AP Dealers Countering Tanks For an AP champ to counter a tank, there is a special key binding: "/ff". Seriousness aside, you can invest in two items (>6000 gold) to try and shred tanks, but the damage values remain paltry (I mean Rylai's and Liandry's). Otherwise, there are penetration choices, but other valuable stats are traded off to achieve another slight mitigating effect that doesn't stack up to the value of HP+Resistances available to the tank. Still cooldown and mana gated, and somehow, not all of the damage items grant these co-necessary stats to AP casters (whereas there are an abundance of stat-rich HP items that ALSO grant less necessary, but extremely beneficial stats to the tank archetype in the form of mana, CDR, etc). This matchup is completely GG in favor of the tank, hands down. The only exception I can think of is probably Azir, since he operates on a short auto-attack based damage cycle, though it applies AP damage.

Note: In both the AD and AP dealer cases against tanks, an AD-dealing tank or an AP-dealing tank are excepted. I was focusing on damage-build champs.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts I believe, boldly so, that the team with more tanks will win more often because they are tanks in most cases. I believe this even to the extent that a 5-tank comp probably outclasses a 2-3 tank comp, all else being considered equal.

I am mystified by the moves by Riot to take out 20 AP damage here and there on AP items... do the math, even with 4 spells on 1.0 AP scaling, a direct hit on a 0-Resistance champion yields 80 Damage... this is equivalent to one level 3 AA from most champions... never mind that I gave the most favorable case, which is totally unrealistic. Then, on top of that, Riot removes Mana Regen stats from key CDR items. Even with NO mana costs and only the current CDR costs for spells, AP champs are left in the dust against tanks champs and comps. This only ever matters when the little AP children are left to play against each other in pre-teamfight phase sandbox.

I laugh when I read the patch notes where a totally broken champ's strengths are "dialed back" or "tuned down" or other fancy jargon, and you look at the numbers, and it's like 5 mana added to a spell cost or 20 base damage removed. In what farfetched, .1% scenario do these changes make any difference?

Tank items are too rewarding. Non-tank items are also not rewarding enough, primarily for AP champs.