Midseason tank rework - supports and itemization consequences
We all know that tanks, particularly vanguards are getting a rework and new items. Supposedly riot wants them to be a little more tanky without items. With that knowledge, we have to wonder what riot is going to do about support tanks. Right now we've got a problem in that support tanks, aren't really tanks because without enough items that they can't afford, they can't really do their job that well. Braum has his shield, which helps, and TK is an evil annoying bag of meat, and Leona gets a bundle of stats for a few seconds, but when it came to real tanking, you need items.
Meatshields are just too expensive for support peasants. Riot prices them like they are gold lined with wagyu or something.
I'm sure this also gave riot problems in balancing them in that if they were balanced to be tanky in a duel lane with limited incomes, they were too tanky outside of bot and if they were meant to buy items they'd have issues tanking without money. So as I said, riot is going to make tanks more tanky in their kits. So how is this going to happen? I mean are tanks just going to be given a bundle of stats while tank items have their stats reduced. This would certainly prevent tank Fizz and tank Ekko from happening, but riot seems to hate bundle of stats within a kit.
In theory it seems like tanky supports would be the biggest beneficiary of this change but this leads to another issue.
If I'm playing a champ who can kind of tank without items and the new tank items aren't as tanky anymore, what's preventing me from building that champion full damage? I mean Leona has a kit that wouldn't mind damage on it. I've played aram enough to see what kinds of damage AP blitzcrank causes and that's before riot is about to give him some free tanky stats. While this is definitely is outside of the realm of supports, grenade amumu might be back with a vengeance if he can build damage, blow people up, and is now tanky enough to live. I'm kind of afraid how bad poppy is going to be if riot makes her even tankier as a baseline.
So with what little knowledge we have, I think if the support tanks are touched, they'll be the biggest benefactors, but this rework could be a disaster in that all LOL tanks turn into pre-nerf D.Va.