PSA: Tank Base Stats Are Going Up, Item Stats Are Going Down

Meep Man·Feb 21, 2017·46 votes·2,238 views

This means that all sources of bonus armor penetration are going to be penetrating less armor. Remember this as we learn more in the days to come.

69 Comments

SSShutTheDuckUpFeb 21, 201712 votes

My concern about this is how are they gonna make tank items desirable then. If I am on a tank, who is already tanky why would I invest in weak defensive itemization when I can build somewhat offensively, still be durable and still pack a punch?

Big LincolnFeb 21, 20177 votes

presumably for more conditional strengths like Randuin's crit reduction and Visage's healing amp

SSShutTheDuckUpFeb 21, 20175 votes

Hope they do it right.

Meep ManFeb 21, 20174 votes

I think this is how they will do it. General flat defenses for more hybrid items like Abyssal and Maw, while pure Tank items have stuff like "Reduced Damage from Crit", "Reduced Attack Speed on Being Hit", and "Increased Base Health Regeneration When Hit by Magic Damage".

Tychusfindlay919Feb 21, 20178 votes

[{quoted}](name=Awesomeasf ck,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IOk5rMmf,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-02-21T00:29:06.629+0000)

My concern about this is how are they gonna make tank items desirable then. If I am on a tank, who is already tanky why would I invest in weak defensive itemization when I can build somewhat offensively, still be durable and still pack a punch?

A smart option would be to lower flat values on tank items but introduce small % of base values.

For example, warmogs could go down 200 flat hp but then have a +12% of base hp tacked onto it. This keeps tanks in check early game where they are too dominant but provides them a way to at least scale a bit better later game so they arent just cc bots that become lifesteal sacks after they use their cc.

AptestFeb 22, 20171 votes

tank items already have % value.

it's called Armor scaling off HP and HP scaling off armor.

WoonStruckFeb 22, 20171 votes

HP doesn't scale off armor/mr.

HP is a flat value that you purchase that may or may not be more efficient at any given breakpoint value than the amount of effective health you get from armor/mr.

Armor and MR scale off of HP. HP does not scale off of armor/MR.

The ONLY reason you buy health is because armor/mr (including base) scale incredibly well off of it, true damage, and HP scaling on various champions.

If armor/mr did not scale off of health, people would JUST buy armor/mr since the value of shielding and healing is more heavily affected by resists than health.

Armor/mr scale so well with health that health is a very powerful buy, but do not misconstrue things.

AptestFeb 22, 20171 votes

The amount of effective HP that you receive from a purchase of HP depends on the total amount of armor / mr that you have.

EHP(physical) = HP ( 1 + Armor /100) )

Therefore the more armor you possess the more effective a purchase of HP becomes.

Ergo HP scales off armor.

WoonStruckFeb 22, 20171 votes

The effective HP you receive from purchasing HP is significant BECAUSE armor scales on it.

Yes, HP becomes more effective because armor scales off of it. Not because armor itself scales HP.

If you removed the HP scaling that armor has, HP would be a largely useless stat outside of cases involving true damage, especially because high resists also magnify healing/shielding.

Efficiency =/= scaling.

Look at it this way.

Attack speed does not scale crit. Crit does not scale attack speed. Crit scales AD. AD scales crit. AD does not scale attack speed. Attack speed does not scale AD.

However, they all scale auto attacks, which is why they stack so well together.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20172 votes

You can have high base stats but still be relatively squishy.

You need at least 210 armor to survive a carry, 250 for a crit carry.

KNVBFeb 21, 20173 votes

seems as though tanks are gonna be the new cancer supports instead of the mages

Meep ManFeb 21, 201714 votes

Tanks aren't meant for the Support role?

chipndip1Feb 21, 201714 votes

Designed for top/jg/sup depending.

junglerboy16Feb 21, 20173 votes

Nothing new about it, or you might not have been around for any of the previous tank support cycles where everyone cried for months that they couldn't play anything but Alistar Leona Nautilus Shen Taric etc.

Basically any champ that has abusive base stats and can get away with minimal gold investment tends to break the support role.

Ariel the CruelFeb 21, 201711 votes

So support champions can't have strong base stats because they become oppressive. . .

Rito: "Don't worry, we can fix that by giving support role laner-level gold and utility scaling."

<Insert Panthion, Olaf, Syndra, Rammus... support here.>

Rito: "Well.... That was unexpected. Ok, we're taking away most of the gold."

Players: "What about the utility scaling?"

Rito: "We still want supports to have a late game fantasy."

~ Pre-season 4.

. . . The support role can't have gold because supports will never see play.

About time we started looking at LoL foundationally to start fixing this, Riot.

junglerboy16Feb 21, 20174 votes

I mean, yes, actually.

Case in point, Sona when she had even half decent base stats terrorized solo queue, but then nerfing the "classic" supports leads to champs from other roles that have excessively strong base stats being top picks (see Annie support in season 4).

Supports as a general role are WAY too dependent on stat checking, since there is too much overlap in how they express their strengths and weaknesses. Newer supports like Braum and Bard get around this since they have much more unique identities and can be effective in their niche without being stronger in a stat check. Even a couple older support champs like Blitzcrank can be effective outside that frame of reference because he's the only support that offers the level of engage safety he provides. Meanwhile every other support or champ used in the role boils down to "do I out-damage, out-sustain, or out-CC my counterpart?" Even Soraka, who's supposed to be League's premiere healer, is only on par for sustain compared to the likes of a Karma or Janna, meanwhile Mage supports leave you with whatever the current burst+utility mage without scalings happens to be. Tanks are basically pick your flavor of "I jump on them and hold them still" or "I keep them from sitting on you"

Supports need the class overhaul next, but in a teardown start from the ground up direction where literally everything about what defines a support is scrapped and redone from scratch.

Ariel the CruelFeb 21, 20172 votes

Supports need the class overhaul next, but in a teardown start from the ground up direction where literally everything about what defines a support is scrapped and redone from scratch.

And this is where the masses start down-voting you into oblivion. Speaking from experience.

junglerboy16Feb 21, 20172 votes

Yeah, you're probably right, but it needs to be said.

I wouldn't be surprised if doing that to Supports might actually fix some of the issues that the role gets, especially how many players consider it so oddly undesirable to play.

ZT XperimentorFeb 22, 20171 votes

Like marksmen aren't stack-check champions? Their primary form of damage is unavoidable auto-attacks, leading to a series of checks; do you have more range, attack speed, or damage? If no then I win, if so then you win. If we're evenly matched in this overall dps, then whoever has more lifesteal wins; otherwise whoever is luckier with rolling critical hits wins. There's no room for counterplay aside from denying them their ability to attack; such as blind or vision limitation, avoiding being hit by becoming intangible, or hitting them with some kind of stun.

AptestFeb 22, 20171 votes

Marksmen do not generally stat check, because they die to a wet noodle thrown at them.

stat check happens when you have to beat this guy but he has X stat and Y stat and Z stat and you either overcome all of them or you do not.

ADCs outright lack the "you can't kill me" stat. so they die to everything 1v1. OTOH a DEFENDED adc is terrifying.

This makes the power of ADC completely dependent on situation and team effort. So they are about as far away from stat checks as you can get.

ZT XperimentorFeb 22, 20171 votes

I'm referring to a duel between marksmen generally speaking, as ezreal & corki would often loose without proper use of their abilities. The formula is rather different when cross-class fighting; but my point is most other classes require some kind of skill (aiming, timing, resource management) to win a duel within their own class.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20171 votes

Shen support has, is, and always will be garbage.

I don't even know what kind of potato thinks that taking a worse Leona bot lane is a good idea.

junglerboy16Feb 22, 20172 votes

Tell that to the pro teams who thought support shen was ban worthy back when he was meta.

He may suck now, and post rework he's not as potent bot anymore, but he still finds a fair bit of use when teams want a tank support.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20171 votes

I was talking about post-rework exclusively.

I don't consider pre-rework Shen when discussing current balance, unlike some people.

junglerboy16Feb 23, 20171 votes

Well I was talking about the last time tank support meta was the go-to and that was when shen hadn't been reworked.

Nowhere in my post was I referencing the current meta, and it'd help if we didn't confuse timeframes and definitions.

SpoofghoulFeb 21, 20173 votes

i just hope they take Sion into consideration since he has like the lowest base stats in the game

if you shut him down early preventing him from farming then he is more squishy then sona lol

And A Real HieroFeb 21, 20173 votes

Ahem.. Shen

Glory ln DeathFeb 21, 20172 votes

Ahem...

Sion: 1783 Health, 74 Armor

Shen: 1985 Health, 76 Armor

Same MR.

You were saying?

Sagan ForeverFeb 22, 20171 votes

I mean other than health they are the same, and sion is likely to have more health due to farming by lvl 18 anyway. Champs with low base stats should not be competing for who was the worst stats.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20172 votes

These are stats at level 18.

Go back a few levels and yoir point is invalid.

Glory ln DeathFeb 22, 20171 votes

At level 2

Sion: 615 Health, 23 Armor

Shen: 625 Health, 25 Armor

Same MR.

You were saying?

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20172 votes

So you're telling me a champion with infinite health stacking and a versatile %HP shield isn't allowed to have 10 less HP than a champion whose tankiness comes from a delayed shield based off his max HP?

Also, for a champion who has far more CC than Shen, Sion should give up something for his tools. Shen has a long cooldown, high-energy, slow skillshot-dash that can be cancelled, sidestepped, and/or spell shielded. Also, it provides a short duration taunt, and that's the extent of his CC.

Sion has an armor shred slow that also allows him to hit people using units blocking it, a large AoE knockup that deals massive damage (Granted, you have to charge it up, but it creates a huge zone of threat), and a huge global charge that, while unreliable against mobile champions, lets you dictate the movement of your enemy or they take huge damage and get perma-CC'd.

Sion even has the added bonus of having infinite HP stacking and thus can focus more on resistances while having his HP covered by his W passive. Not to mention if Sion had more armor he'd be even harder to kill considering what his passive provides: a post-mortem threat to your enemies should they not scatter or waste CC/damage on you.

RalanrFeb 22, 20171 votes

More often then not you end up building some health items on Sion to get a better boost of HP around teamfights since you can't farm all game like Nasus and Veigar. Not saying that Shen doesn't have problems. Both will need a careful look at base stats in the tank update.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20172 votes

Definitely. But to say that Shen is better off than Sion is like saying Malzahar is better off than Kassadin.

Both are utter shit right now and no clear comparison can be made.

RalanrFeb 22, 20171 votes

Shen is arguably more reliable.

And A Real HieroFeb 22, 20171 votes

Sion outscales Shen hard, I had this funny support Shen vs support Sion game. I went 10/2 off just dueling the sion. A few minutes later, Sion could 1v2 me and my carry lol. Granted my carry was bad and I could disengage safely, but the huge advantage I built up didn't matter at all.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20171 votes

For peeling for carries, yes.

For engaging and creating threat zones? Sion destroys Shen in those categories.

Next, let's compare Twitch and Zed.

RalanrFeb 22, 20171 votes

Almost like Sion is a Vanguard and Shen is a Warden.

Of course they are better than each other at their designed jobs.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20171 votes

Which is my point.

You can't argue which is more reliable if they do two completely different things.

Glory ln DeathFeb 22, 20172 votes

...

You did not just call Sion "utter ****".

https://media2.giphy.com/media/KwjMpNIArpWWA/giphy.gif

Boy, I will end you!

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20171 votes

Stat-wise, yes he is.

As for Sion himself, he is a hulking juggerhulk of a hulk-man.

Glory ln DeathFeb 22, 20171 votes

Just keep it coming, boy. Soon enough, the Shenpai won't be able to notice anyone, even if you wanted to.

MelledoneusFeb 22, 20171 votes

Wait, is 'the Shenpai' me, Shen, or both?

Glory ln DeathFeb 22, 20171 votes

I dunno, you I guess.

Glory ln DeathFeb 22, 20172 votes

Nobody ever said that one was better than the other. Someone said Sion had low base stats, then someone else said Shen had lower, which is flat out untrue. At any point except level one, Shen has higher or equal base stats than Sion (and at level one, Sion only has 2 more health than Shen). This wasn't an argument over which champion is worse off - it's pretty obvious that Shen is in a much worse state than Sion at the moment.

MordepoolFeb 22, 20171 votes

{quoted}

i just hope they take into consideration since he has like the lowest base stats in the game

if you shut him down early preventing him from farming then he is more squishy then sona lol

I'd like to do the math on that and compare him to Mordekaiser because I think I might have you beat

SpoofghoulFeb 22, 20172 votes

ah yes poor morde and shen

morde could definitely use an upgrade too

since his abilties cost health they might as well make his health regen a lot higher then it currently is that would also be my preference for sion just throw on the health regen and perhaps some extra base armor

as for shen he is kept down due to e sports because of his ult mostly he deserves better but he is in a tough spot to balance they should probably rework him

And A Real HieroFeb 22, 20171 votes

They should look at all tanks Wardens and Vanguards and not just one class.

LankPantsFeb 21, 20172 votes

Tank base stats going up, defensive items become trash. Optimal tank build starts to look like item 3001 item 3068 item 3151 item 3026 item 3083 item 3047 or item 1401 item 3143 for junglers