Tanks feel squishy because itemizing for optimum EHP is nearly impossible

Rebonack·Dec 30, 2014·42 votes·4,514 views

Effective Hit Points is basically how much HP you effectively have against a given damage type when your damage reduction is taken into account. Assuming your opponents have no %Pen at all, to get optimum EHP you need about 1500 HP for every 100 resist you've got. If the baddies on the other team are rocking with %Pen masteries and Void/Whisper, then that jumps up to 2400 HP for every 100 resist.

That's... seriously kind of absurd.

Getting 200 armor is pretty darn easy. How easy is it to get 4800 HP?

That is why Tanks feel like they're evaporating when the ADC or Zed decides that it's time for you to die.

The game desperately needs a real HP item. Or an HP equivalent of Deathcap. Or something. Because right now hitting that optimum isn't going to happen and between crazy penetration levels combined with items like Torment and BotRK, Tanks are going to continue exploding like paper bags filled with gravy.

93 Comments

SmokingPuffinDec 30, 201410 votes

"Tanks should be tankier" is a fine sentiment, but not against % penetration items. The % penetration items are there to ensure that nothing is immortal in the late game, so that games actually end.

The effects of Torment and BoRK are too slow for you to care much about as a tank. Sure, they hurt, but they do like 10% of your HP in damage over 3 seconds. Zzzzzz. Much scarier things are happening faster with the classic kill stack items.

Before you go stacking huge HPs, remember that %hp damage is a thing on many, many champions. You don't want anything like 2400 hp for each 100 resist in practice.

Angry MonsterDec 30, 201415 votes

bork does way more damage than 10% in 3 seconds. 2 autos do roughly 12% (pre restances) and Pen items help these effects. Then the active does a flat 10% of maximum health.

Bork does a shit ton more than you think to tanks.

SmokingPuffinDec 30, 20144 votes

{quoted}

bork does way more damage than 10% in 3 seconds. 2 autos do roughly 12% (pre restances) and Pen items help these effects. Then the active does a flat 10% of maximum health.

Bork does a shit ton more than you think to tanks.

"Pre resistances" is your hint that BoRK is not the thing that really kills tanks. In general, unless it's Vayne, you're really happy when the enemy ADC buys a BoRK rather than a conventional right click item.

Angry MonsterDec 30, 201412 votes

your still wrong. Adcs easily get 1.5 Auto in 1 sec. Ad animation cancel you are almost to 2 autos a sec. in 3 secs bork with a last whisper is going do over 25% of your health pre active. That is alot of a tanks health.

SmokingPuffinDec 30, 20143 votes

{quoted}

your still wrong. Adcs easily get 1.5 Auto in 1 sec. Ad animation cancel you are almost to 2 autos a sec. in 3 secs bork with a last whisper is going do over 25% of your health pre active. That is alot of a tanks health.

25% of your current (not maximum) health as magic damage. On a champion with no magic pen. Targeting a tank, which presumably has some MR items. If you have 150 MR, which is not a crazy number for a typical endgame tank, that's 10% of your current health, which is a number that is steadily decreasing from his other damage sources.

An ADC who buys a right click item is much more dangerous to your health bar as a tank than one who buys BoRK.

ProfDrDeathDec 30, 201420 votes

While I agree with your general premise, I am sorry to inform you that Blade's passive is, indeed, dealing physical and not magical damage.

SmokingPuffinDec 30, 20147 votes

{quoted}

While I agree with your general premise, I am sorry to inform you that Blade's passive is, indeed, dealing physical and not magical damage.

Wow, I'm awful. Thanks!

Fortunately, the damage isn't so severe. Please replace instances of "MR" with "armor" and continue reading as normal.

Black Star 1299Dec 31, 20147 votes

and replace instances of "no magic penetration" with "35% armor penetration"

IS1a442cd69a169ed293a39Dec 31, 20141 votes

{quoted}

Wow, I'm awful. Thanks!

Fortunately, the damage isn't so severe. Please replace instances of "MR" with "armor" and continue reading as normal.

really? You don't even know what you are talking about.

Angry MonsterDec 30, 201411 votes

Here is the math assuming 50% resistance assuming only bork is hurting you

4% of 100 4% of 96 4% of 92.16 4% of 88.47 4% of 84.93 4% of 81.53

That is just 5 AUTOS. WIth all the pen in the game it is not hard to keep at tank down to 50%

SmokingPuffinDec 30, 20143 votes

50 resistance is a tiny number.
There are other sources of damage in the equation, reducing the effectiveness of the BoRK damage. Rather a lot of tanks are dead in 6 autos from a late game ADC.

Angry MonsterDec 30, 20147 votes

% you missed the important part. DO you not know how the damage system works?

50 ar is only a damage reduction on 33.33%. 200 AR is 66.66 % reduction. That is assuming that there is no pen in play for these items.

200AR against a last whisper 56.52 % damage reduction.

This is only MATH, ITS NOT HARD.

edit: I am not including other forms of possible pen. (masteies, runes or other items).

SmokingPuffinDec 30, 20141 votes

By "50 resistance" I didn't take you to mean "50 armor". When I said it's small, I mean that 50% damage resistance is a small number, and can be attained even against LW.

If you don't have an LW, you're probably looking at more like 75% damage resistance on the target. BoRK is clearly not very good at killing tanks in such a case.

If you do have LW, and you want to kill tanks, it's clearly superior to build a standard ADC item like IE or PD instead of a BoRK on anyone who isn't Vayne.

In any case, the story here isn't BoRK. BoRK is nothing special for killing tanks. LW is an amazing tank killing item, exactly as designed.

Angry MonsterDec 30, 20144 votes

did u just completely ignore the math?

Every ADC gets a LW. Its a go to item and is efficient any enemy as long as they have 1 AR item(which most people get)

The problem is that Bork works with pen. And bork works with crit (the AS and life steal part). Bork has to much synergy with other items.

Where the disagreement is how effective it is. And not to be mean, but i do not trust your game sense even though your d5. When you though it did magic damage.

Angry MonsterDec 30, 20141 votes

to your 2nd point assuming that there is still a 50% damage reduction on bork and the tank has 4000 health and the adc does the first shot. Its 160 extra damage being done.

Sure 160 does not sound like a lot. But when you consider that on top of 800(crit) they are already doing a shot it is an issue. Plus they still have the execute ability and they are life stealing.

Crit should be the only anti tank system. Most fighters build Tri force anyways so they are getting crit also so its not like its an ADC only stat.

SmokingPuffinDec 30, 20143 votes

{quoted}

to your 2nd point assuming that there is still a 50% damage reduction on bork and the tank has 4000 health and the adc does the first shot. Its 160 extra damage being done.

Sure 160 does not sound like a lot. But when you consider that on top of 800(crit) they are already doing a shot it is an issue. Plus they still have the execute ability and they are life stealing.

Crit should be the only anti tank system. Most fighters build Tri force anyways so they are getting crit also so its not like its an ADC only stat.

If we take your numbers here, and round to the nearest 5 to make it pretty:

Shot 0: 4000 HP Shot 1: 4000 - (800+320)/2 = 3440 Shot 2: 3440 - (800+275)/2 = 2900 Shot 3: 2900 - (800+230)/2 = 2385 Shot 4: 2385 - (800+190)/2 = 1940 Shot 5: 1940 - (800+155)/2 = 1465 Shot 6: 1465 - (800+115)/2 = 1005

Over our 6 shot sequence, average BoRK damage is more like 100 true damage per attack. It's a lot less potent than it looks against tanks. On a typical ADC, you don't ever want to buy it because there are better ways to kill tanks.

StephenizgodDec 31, 20141 votes

I thought BotRK was how you were supposed to kill a tank as an ADC?

SmokingPuffinDec 31, 20142 votes

Standard ADC builds are designed to kill tanks.

Almost every carry wants item 3031 item 3035 item 3087 , and then you usually choose from among item 3072 item 3142 item 3078 depending on which carry you are.

item 3153 is generally the wrong buy for most ADCs. Some exception cases: Vayne loves on-hit effects, so it's core on her. KogMaw occasionally buys it because it provides some self peel and is reasonably synergistic with his W.

RebonackJan 1, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I thought BotRK was how you were supposed to kill a tank as an ADC?

Folks made this same mistake back in the day with Madred's Bloodrazor.

%HP damage helps against high HP targets, clearly. But it is a soft-counter if anything.

The standard IE/Dancer/Whisper combo is still the best way to just utterly wreck everything, but if tanky folks are giving you trouble picking up BotRK instead of Thirster is certainly an option.

This is why I'm so puzzled about an HP deathcap of some sort not being in the game already. There are counters build in right now for it. Don't tanky folks deserve some kind of late game fantasy?

TeemoJenkinsDec 30, 20147 votes

Should Veigar be able to 100-0 a 3500 health Shyvana with 150 MR? What's the point of building tanky if he can still delete you with his combo? Case in point my game last night.

RebonackDec 30, 20146 votes

Fortunately, the damage isn't so severe. Please replace instances of "MR" with "armor" and continue reading as normal.

Except that ADCs buy Whisper and make you sad.

That's kinda the point this whole topic is making. The proper reaction to someone buying Whisper is to build a boatload of HP, but building a boatload of HP isn't exactly possible.

A super-HP item would be a sort of soft-counter to Whisper/Void without having to get into nonsense like 'True Armor' or the dangerous game of handing out untyped percentile damage reduction to everyone via items.

WooBeeWooDec 30, 20145 votes

Fact tank items need a rework

RebonackDec 30, 20144 votes

I mean, if this thread is specifically for Fighter Tanks, sure. But do realize how fallible the idea is that you can fix all of tank itemization with a single item.

I'm talking about defensive itemization in general.

Barring %HP shredding nonsense, there's an optimal value for HP and resist to get the most EHP possible. All this topic is doing is pointing out that reaching the HP milestone for 200 resist against a foe with Whisper/Void just isn't going to happen because there aren't any HP items cost-effective enough to get there.

RebonackDec 30, 20143 votes

I mean, if this thread is specifically for Fighter Tanks, sure. But do realize how fallible the idea is that you can fix all of tank itemization with a single item.

Eerr...

I'm pretty sure BotRK has been doing physical damage OnHit ever since Riot gave it attack speed.

ImHerVoiceDec 30, 20143 votes

Yes we do. Badly. Right now. needed it years ago. Warmongs is gutted. We need a 2k+ hp item or might as well never build more than 2 resistance items even has a supposed "full tank"

Raid Boss MordeDec 30, 20143 votes

AR and MR penetration items should be late game items, but their cost is really low for the power they give to the user. Items like Black Cleaver, Last Whisper, Void Staff, and Liandries are pretty cheap for their benefits. Increase their price so they become actual late game items, or just lower the amount of penetration the give.

VesarixxDec 31, 20141 votes

They are late game items, if you buy them early you have less damage to make them useful and in the case of LW/VS you are reducing based on lower stats, so less gain from the items.

RebonackDec 31, 20143 votes

[{quoted}](name=Raith alghul,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O1OuKwsA,comment-id=000d0000,timestamp=2014-12-31T00:19:54.154+0000)

They are late game items, if you buy them early you have less damage to make them useful and in the case of LW/VS you are reducing based on lower stats, so less gain from the items.

Neeeeeh.

Void and Whisper should be built as the second or third major item on pretty much anyone who feels like dealing damage. Back when Whisper built out of Recurve and Longsword it was item number two on every single Ranger who had the faintest clue what they were doing. Now it should be item number three, typically. It can be grabbed as item number two on most AD caster/assassin/whatevers.

Whether it comes as two or three varies from champion to champion, but I'm not sure if 'third major item' really counts as late game.

You do have the option to do this through runes and masteries to some extent, the greater seal/quint of % health will give you +9% on all bonus health and the juggernaut mastery will add 3% that includes base health.

An HP Deathcap type item should be a reactionary purchase in response to the enemy team grabbing Whisper/Void. Under normal circumstances you should be able to hit 1500/3000/4500 HP at 100/200/300 resist relatively easily. Hitting 4800 is difficult, 7200 HP is basically impossible.

The issue with this is that on champions like Dr. Mundo it can really cause problems for game balance, or other champions that scale with health, Vlad, Shen, Sion and Garen for example.

And Voli! Don't forget Volibear.

Specific examples of champions such an item would be strong on are completely immaterial to this argument. If a +%Max HP item pushed such champions over the top then such that the game was favoring them in an unhealthy fashion then they could be hit with targeted nerfs. I'm calling for a means to itemize properly in response to Void/Whisper. Right now that is impossible for anyone who wants to build durability.

VesarixxDec 31, 20141 votes

Specific examples of champions such an item would be strong on are completely immaterial to this argument. If a +%Max HP item pushed such champions over the top then such that the game was favoring them in an unhealthy fashion then they could be hit with targeted nerfs. I'm calling for a means to itemize properly in response to Void/Whisper. Right now that is impossible for anyone who wants to build durability.

HP stacking kind of causes issues for balancing burst champions as well, sustained damage champions can go Botrk or Liandris to shred the health vs champions like Kha'zix, Zed, Talon, who need to be able to burst it makes the tank rediculous to deal with, more so for AP champs since aside from a few exceptions they don't tend to have high sustained damage.

RebonackDec 31, 20145 votes

[{quoted}](name=Raith alghul,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O1OuKwsA,comment-id=000d000000000001,timestamp=2014-12-31T00:59:10.963+0000)

HP stacking kind of causes issues for balancing burst champions as well, sustained damage champions can go Botrk or Liandris to shred the health vs champions like Kha'zix, Zed, Talon, who need to be able to burst it makes the tank rediculous to deal with, more so for AP champs since aside from a few exceptions they don't tend to have high sustained damage.

Eerr...

Typically Tanks are supposed to be difficult for bursty Assassin folks to deal with. The equation is supposed to go like this.

Glass DPS > Tank > Glass Burst > Glass DPS.

Right now it looks like this.

Glass DPS > Tank < Glass Burst > Glass DPS.

Which is why Assassins are running roughshod over everyone.

Adding an HP deathcap will just create an arms race between damage and tankiness. Specialisation is a much better solution I think.

An HP Deathcap would be, basically, a soft counter to %Pen. And the game already has two counters in place to an HP Deathcap ( item 3151 and item 3153 ).

There are several other potential options for fixing this problem (%Pen only kicking in above a certain value) but as previously mentioned that would just encourage tanky folks even more so to itemize HP and ignore resistance.

Honestly? I still think the best option would be to just straight up remove %Pen and %Shred as itemization options and then nerf resist values by somewhere between 10 and 20% across the board. But so long as %Pen continues to be a thing, we're still going to need an HP Deathcap if anyone is going to be itemizing defense in an optimal way.

RebonackDec 31, 20143 votes

I don't know all the math behind it, but I know the more resist you build, the less it does.

This is a common misconception and I'm glad someone brought it up so it can be addressed.

Resist stats are additive with themselves.

HP is also additive with itself.

HP and resist are multiplicative with each other. Each point of resist increases your EHP against its respective damage type by 1% of your actual HP value.

VesarixxDec 31, 20141 votes

The formula is Armor/(100+armor), and the same for MR, you get diminishing returns the more you build, 100 armor reduces damage by 50% but 200 armor will only offer ~67% damage reduction

LordOfTheLeagueDec 30, 20142 votes

I think the tank problem should not be addressed with itemization unless you want the items abused by bruisers.

It should be addressed with reworks for tanks kits with innate tankyness and scaling. See sion and maokai. Thoses dudes are tanky.

RebonackDec 30, 201413 votes

{quoted}

I think the tank problem should not be addressed with itemization unless you want the items abused by bruisers.

It should be addressed with reworks for tanks kits with innate tankyness and scaling. See sion and maokai. Thoses dudes are tanky.

This isn't a Tank problem.

This is a problem with defensive itemization in general.

The problem is that the correct response to someone building Whisper or Void is by building a ton of HP, but there are not itemization options that actually meet that criteria.

I was around during Season 2 and early Season 1 when Bruisers were the go-to. I know what the game looks like when tanky folks are highly impactful. It's no better or worse than having 4 squishy champions on each team with Assassins running amok. It simply is. If providing clarity of item choices pushes one of five or six Fighter/Tank-type champions over the top then Riot can respond with targeted nerfs like they did when the jungle items made Wolfy absurd.

Stop acting like Irelia or Mundo being top Pick/Ban for a month is going to be the end of the world.

LordOfTheLeagueDec 31, 20141 votes

Sorry, I forgot to answer.

I'll just copy/paste what I said on the top because the topic is the same.

The concept of a bruiser is basicaly to take the most powerful item in offense and the most powerful item in defense and be good at both. The thing is if you create an item made for tanks, it need to be generic enough to be purchased by any tank but not generic enough to not be purchased by bruisers.

That make me think that we could put a bonus hp to warmog's maybe. With an increase to the cost, it would be a great late game purchase :

Warmog's Armor

Stats +800 health

Unique Passive: You gain health regeneration equal to 1% of your maximum health. Health restore increases to 3% of maximum health if damage hasn't been taken within 8 seconds.

Unique Passive: +15% bonus health.

Item cost 3XXXg

Is it what you are talking about ?

StephenizgodDec 31, 20141 votes

I think itemization is a much better way to fix it anyways. Why screw with a bunch of random champs hoping to fix a problem, when you can introduce a single item and just see which champions it is too powerful on and which it is too weak on. Then you know which champions need some attention whether nerf or buff.

Also the idea behind changing tank itemization is to make items that are either too weak to be effective on a bruiser, but good on an early game tank or make items that only benefits those building massive amounts of resistances, which would be tanks.

LordOfTheLeagueDec 31, 20141 votes

I said that because the concept of a bruiser is basicaly to take the most powerful item in offense and the most powerful item in defense and be good at both. The thing is if you create an item made for tanks, it need to be generic enough to be purchased by any tank but not generic enough to not be purchased by bruisers.

That make me think that we could put a bonus hp to warmog's maybe. With an increase to the cost, it would be a great late game purchase :

Warmog's Armor

Stats +800 health

Unique Passive: You gain health regeneration equal to 1% of your maximum health. Health restore increases to 3% of maximum health if damage hasn't been taken within 8 seconds.

Unique Passive: +15% bonus health.

Item cost 3XXXg

Is it what you are talking about ?

StephenizgodDec 31, 20141 votes

Yea something along those lines, i was thinking of new items though. Warmogs offers decentish stats already and bruisers will still build it for those stats. The items i was thinking of offer ONLY scaling stats based on how high your resistances are, something that increases in effectiveness the higher your stats are (talking once you reach like 230ish armor/MR and around 4000ish HP is when this item is actually good) leaving not much room to build any damage items. The other option was for something small like a quick item for health thats kind of weak for a bruiser type build, but a nice early buy for Tanks, this would then build into a much more expensive tank item.

Another great post i saw was to make giants belt build out of two ruby crystals so that tanks can start with this item then make it a giants belt later on. It would help Tanks early game as they would be able to build into health and armor a little quicker, it would also be easy on champs who dont or cant rely on killing their lane opponent.

KafkaBrotherDec 31, 20142 votes

you want more HP.. use the +.5% HP runes.. they are good when you go over 4k health.. basically worthless till then compared to the other options.

RebonackJan 1, 20152 votes

Also, we already have an hp deathcap, face of the mountain gives a bunch of hp and a shield that scales off of % max HP.

Ten percent of your max HP every minute isn't anywhere near what a tanky fellow would need to hit optimum EHP against a %Pen packing opponent. Not even close.

Sorry people who don't like playing glass-cannons, you don't get any late game fantasy because surviving Zed's intagib combo isn't flashy.

TehNACHODec 30, 20141 votes

Hello, I suggest you read this.

The tl;dr is that you're trying to help "tanks". Okay, that's fine, but are you sure you're helping the tanks you want to help? This seems like the perfect solution to get Dr. Mundo to be virtually unstoppable and walk all over people, but do you really think this change is going to help utility tanks just as much?

I mean, if this thread is specifically for Fighter Tanks, sure. But do realize how fallible the idea is that you can fix all of tank itemization with a single item.

the Anarchit3chtDec 30, 20146 votes

If Mundo is a problem with new items, nerf Mundo. Warwick wasnt a problem with the old jungle items but when the new jungle items came out he suddenly became OP and got nerfs.

TehNACHODec 30, 20145 votes

That is not what I said.

My question was not "Does it make Fighter Tanks like Dr. Mundo op?", but "Does it help all tanks that you implemented one item into the game?".

...Okay so let's say that again so I'm completely clear, it's not about how this proposed item can make certain champs op, but whether or not it actually can help every tank champ.

the Anarchit3chtDec 31, 20141 votes

I think more of what he was saying is that Tank items can be much stronger if they become more effective the more resistances/health you build. If they scale off each other then it would make pure tanks viable while not making a fighter who decides to pick up the item strong because it has nothing else to scale off of.

TehNACHODec 31, 20141 votes

I think the guy just said "We need an HP Deathcap"

Which, as I point out, only helps some tanks and not all.

the Anarchit3chtDec 31, 20141 votes

I think you might have not read the part where he said "or something." I think it was more along the lines of him providing an example that if defenses have some sort of scaling that rewards you as you build more defenses it would go a long way to helping the tank issue.

It's not like if you build a Rabadons on an AD Tristana you're gonna suddenly blow people up with your jump + R combo because it is only going to top you off at 156 AP. I don't think you even understand basic math so I apologize.

TehNACHODec 31, 20141 votes

And my point was and still is that no single item implemented can possibly fix all of tank itemization.

Which returns to

My question was not "Does it make Fighter Tanks like Dr. Mundo op?", but "Does it help all tanks that you implemented one item into the game?".

the Anarchit3chtJan 4, 20151 votes

And his post was in reference to not just making one item, but perhaps a class of items that reward tanks for being tanky. At least that's what I got from it.

RebonackJan 4, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=the Anarchit3cht,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O1OuKwsA,comment-id=00030000000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-01-04T22:28:39.497+0000)

And his post was in reference to not just making one item, but perhaps a class of items that reward tanks for being tanky. At least that's what I got from it.

This is more or less an accurate take on what the game needs.

An item that simply provides a mass of defensive stats (old Warmog's) can easily be abused as a single major defensive item. What we need are more items like Omen that are more powerful the more a champion invests in defensive stats. Atma's sort of did that, but unfortunately it did it in a way that was only helpful to Fighter/Tanks and not really anyone else.

That's more or less what Crit/Crit damage do for AD and what Deathcap/Deathfire do for AP. Tanks need value multiplying items for defense. Imagine, for example, if Sunfire's damage scaled with your Bonus HP rather than your level or if Frozen's Heart's aura scaled with your bonus armor.

ZerglingOneDec 31, 20141 votes

I think the notion that there should be a set of characters in this game who should last late game through 7 or 8 seconds of focus fire while having the most powerful cc is a sick fantasy that would shatter the small amount of balance we have. Tanks can tank solo characters and can usually decide when they disengage. They also have aoe cc that disrupts fights and protects their team.

Stop concerning yourself with surviving through everything, realize you're strong mid game, and capitalize on it.

Also, we already have an hp deathcap, face of the mountain gives a bunch of hp and a shield that scales off of % max HP.