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Tank changes for 8.16

RiotRiot MapleNectar·8/3/2018, 6:09:10 PM·110 votes·81,590 views

Hey folks,

Putting this out to get some feedback on our current planned tanks changes. The general direction we chose was to find ways to scale each of their defensives in ways that were unique to their kits which hopefully nets some satisfaction while also generally being power up. Worth calling out that Tahm Kench got a bit of a different treatment than some of the other champs on this list.

Nautilus: Goal: Give Nautilus' shield some more flexibility; aiming to bring the effect into more usable trade windows and additional casts per jungle camp. Titan's Wrath (W)

  • Shielding :: 65/70/75/80/85 (+9/11/13/15/17% maxHP) >>> 60/70/80/90/100 (+9/10/11/12/13% maxHP)
  • Duration :: 10 >>> 6
  • Cooldown :: 18 >>> 12
  • Cost :: 80 >>> 60

Amumu: Goal: Simply put, give some unique scaling to Amumu's defensive mechanic. Tantrum (E)

  • NEW :: Passive physical damage reduction gains additional benefit equal to 3% of Amumu's bonus Armor and Magic Resist

Rammus: Goal: Generally just trying to make him a bit tankier at all stages of the game, but still with a heavier skew towards physical ad rather than magic damage. Defensive Ball Curl (W)

  • Bonus Armor :: 50/60/70/80/90% >>> 60/70/80/90/100%
  • Bonus Magic Resist :: 25/30/35/40/45% >>> 30/35/40/45/50%

Sion Goal: Increase the reward for stacking W passive Soul Furnace (W)

  • Permanent max HP gain from small enemies :: 3 >>> 4
  • Permanent max HP gain from large enemies :: 10 >>> 15

Leona: Goal: Giving Leona the potential for much higher uptime on her defense button, but trying to do so in a way that doesn't buff her lane too much. As such, W and E have had their damage redistributed to mean Leona doesn't get both incredible offense and incredible defense if she maxes W first.

Eclipse (W)

  • Damage :: 60/100/140/180/220 >>> 60/90/120/150/180
  • Cooldown :: 14 >>> 18/16/14/12/10
  • Armor :: 25/35/45/55/65 (+20%) >>> 15/20/25/30/35 (+40%)
  • Magic Resist :: 20/30/40/50/60 (+20%) >>> 15/20/25/30/35 (+40%)

Zenith Blade (E)

  • Damage :: 60/100/140/180/220 >>> 60/110/160/210/260

Maokai Goal: Giving Maokai some stat help aimed at a moderate buff to jungle position and small buff to non jungle positions. We're particularly hesitant to over buff his top lane.

Base Stats:

  • Movespeed :: 335 >>> 340
  • Magic Resist Growth :: 1.25 >>> 1.75 Sapling Toss (E)
  • Max damage against non champions :: 300 >>> 500

Tahm Kench Goal: Reduce the overall availability of his defensive devour and better reward use in aggressive scenarios. Also tuning Q to give him a few more buttons to press in light of longer cd ally W, and reducing the slow to compensate.

Tongue Lash (Q)

  • Slow Duration :: 2 >>> 1.5
  • Cooldown :: 6 >>> 5

Devour / Regurgitate (W)

  • Damage :: 20/23/26/29/32% (+2% per 100AP) >>> 27/29/31/33/35% (+1% per 100AP)
  • Devour Duration :: 4/4.5/5/5.5/6 >>> 4
  • Enemy champion duration still halved Cooldown :: 14/13/12/11/10 >>> 28/25/22/19/16
  • Cost :: 90 >>> 60 NEW :: Triggers half its normal cooldown on enemy cast

Let us know what you think of some of these specific changelists, particularily if any of the more involved ones read more like nerfs than buffs to you.

Thanks! Maple Nectar

597 Comments

Ereldra8/3/2018, 6:30:37 PM107 votes

Uhm, sorry, but I don't think I really understand the Leona changes? The Cooldown gets reduced at rank 4 which is at the earliest level 7, earlier its actually higher than before. At the same time you lose damage, that is put on the E, which means it evens out earliest at level 12. You also lose flat MR and Armor for increased scaling which also will not really kick in after Laning Phase and 1-2 Items.

So... to me this looks like more like a quite substantial nerf to her Laning Phase that maybe evens out/buffs her a bit in the later stages of the game? Only that Late game for Leona doesn't really matter if she doesn't get ahead in lane/early game, so I can't really see how these changes are going to help her? Or did I read something wrong?

Javi Is Here8/3/2018, 6:32:45 PM69 votes

Yes a change to tanks that doesn't involve more damage! [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Ultîma8/3/2018, 6:36:44 PM50 votes

Riot, the change Tahm Kench really needs is to have an animation where he swallows champions if he happens to kill them with his devour. You have the technology with Urgot. Please make the river king the gluton he is meant to be <3

Rouxful8/3/2018, 6:32:02 PM46 votes

I too am a little concerned with the tahm kench changes

Dellendor8/3/2018, 7:21:30 PM35 votes

I dont like the Nautilus changes, the shield from him is a verry importent clear source of his kit and by lowering the max HP shield about 4% of his total hp also the duration was pretty nice for one clear, I dont want to waste 2 w for one jungle camp whitch would costs 120 mana.

AmenPerson8/3/2018, 8:08:27 PM32 votes

Eh, that Naut change honestly feels more like a nerf then anything else really. We get overall less shield, for less time, at what seems like more cost.

I feel like a better change would be increasing the base shield to around 250-300, and changing the scaling to bonus health instead of max health. Keep duration the same, lower the cooldown to an inbetween of 18-12, say 15.

Or keep the values as they are, but add a bit more extra like damage reduction that scale with Armor and MR.

Just my thoughts though. Again, these current changes feel like more of a nerf if anything.

Jar Jar binks l8/3/2018, 6:16:56 PM26 votes

amumus passive seems not much rewarding. Assuming he has 200 Armor , which is lategame, he only gets 6% Dmg reduction. Increasign it to 5% would be better

Koboldgeomant8/3/2018, 7:17:55 PM25 votes

Ty for killing Tahm Kench. His 47 % Winrate was way to high. Keep the good work up.

oHammeRo8/3/2018, 8:01:46 PM20 votes

And once again Shen is forgotten... Sure Riot keep nerfing him into the ground, if your not able to balance him just frigging delete him. Im so tired of this bs.

Nea1048/3/2018, 7:29:20 PM19 votes

Nautilius doen't look buffed that way. Tahm's changes don't even involve his tankiness (as pointed out, ok; but then, why putting him here?). No Alistar, no Braum, no Taric; basically Leona is the only true tank support there (Tahm is no more), and she's gonna suffer in lane fase even more. Since you gutted tank supports EVEN MORE with that absurd increase in item support costs, that's pretty surprising.

Actually, it's not surprising. That's what you get when the same people who are responsible for the current state of this game are allowed to keep working on this game.

Salvor Hardın8/3/2018, 7:13:52 PM18 votes

Hello Maple Nectar

I'm a Rammus main (almost OTP), and I've come to comment on the changes you propose to it.

I think that while the W buff is fine, I think from my point of view it has its wrong point. This is the time of the game when Rammus needs the buff. https://i.gyazo.com/48fb450b467d4c4c19c059f3f4a6ce4f.png

The current W buff is a buff to ALL game time, and I think he just needed an early buff to play.

Personally I think it's better to reverse the Nerf in the 7.24b patch: https://i.gyazo.com/3a8aebbdebafcc084c76309d04f6a8b4.png

I'm afraid that you guys overbuff him. That is why I ask you to be careful that this does not happen.

Have a great weekend!

AccountaBilabudy8/3/2018, 8:42:32 PM18 votes

WTF these Leona nerfs??? This is terrible. It makes her laning so much weaker...for some barely noticeable damage buffs in the late game....where no one cares about Leona's damage.

Is this serious?

Sire Hippington8/3/2018, 8:42:35 PM17 votes

The Lona changes reas like a massive nerf. Her early all-in potential is her trademark, and you totally destroy it by reduceing both the damage and tankiness given by her W in the Early. Either keep the base resis and up the scaleing to 30%, or go with the resi changes and keep the damage on her W

On naut, i'm not 100% sure if it's actually a buff. The lower uptime might hurt his clear(he often needs more than 6 sec, but less than 12 for a camp), the lower value means changes are higher it gets taken down early causeing him to loose dps, the overall manaosts if used on CD are actually up, and in teamfights the current insane damage means he probably still dies befor getting off a second shield, causeing him to die even a bit faster as a single shield is weaker than befor. I think the flat shield values could use to be increased by 10/rank and the manacost down to 55, and maybe increase the duration to 7sec or disjoint the on-hit from the shield lifetime so you keep the dps for clears even if the monsters get through the shield. It also won't do as much for his lane. In all-ins, his lower shield will be an issue, for waveclear the lower uptime from a single W hurts, so it's only short trades that profit from it, and going for those frequently weill be to mana intsnsive despite the lower cost on W. And for him as support, it's bad, as he either goes all-in or home, there are no short trades bot for naut.

I also really wish that his E gets returned to pre5.5(more CD, more damage, higher AP ratio, stronger slow), it was more rewarding for skilled use rather than beeing a mindlessly spammed spell. If you want to keep the spam version, reduce the cast time so spamming it doesn't hinder your movement as much, it feels VERY clunky. Also, it wouldn't hurt to increase the base AS to atleast .625, i get that he should be on the slow side of things, but the current state is overkill on that. Also, If he's to keep the lowest AS in the game, could he atleast some punch in on his AAs with some prioper AD/lvl? He's on the lowe end for melees and lower than some rangeds like nida, jayce and drawen at 18 despite swinign a massive anchor and haveing the by far lowest AS...

Amum changes look interesting.

The Rammus changes look like they hardly will have any impact in the current state of the game

Sion also looks like it won't change much, it mostly kicks in later on, and 300-400 hp ion the late sadly make much less of a difference than one might think on a huge immobile target

(The mao changes actually might be an overbuff, given how he can stack sapplings, that's easily a 1k increase in his oppening burst vs bluebuff, giving him probably the fastest lvl 2 which can result in either an early gank with W or a rather fast lvl 3, maybe even chesse starts on the enemie blue, while the increased ms does make his already strong ganks even more threatening. The high sapling damage might even enable sololane mao to start bluebuff. Maybe increase the damage vs mosnters only to ~400 rather than 500, or let is scale with E ranks.) Edit:_ Misscalculated the damage vs monsters in the early. seems like the increase of the cap will only affect dragon and nashor, so not a big deal..._

I really like that you guys finally nerf thams W on allies and also compensate ti's otehr uses. Not sure if it isn't still to strong if yoused well(especially in high elo premades), but certainly a good step in the right direction. **Edit: **_ Given the outcry of Tha,-supports, i undetrstand that this nerf hit's hard because tham has not to much to offer in soloQ without W(His ult is bad in solo but outright broken in coordinated teams), o maybe increase the ult CD and add an passive effect to his other abillities with each rank: increased slow on Q and more duration for each stack on the opponent(maybe 5% morew slow per ult rank and +0.25sec slow duration per stack, so back to 2sec vs a 2 stack target) Add a small slow+as slow on his W spit(5%+5% per ult rank) Lower the E CD by 1/1.5/2 sec if the shield is broken, rewarding good timeing on the shield and useing it with 50%hp rather than always waiting till you're really low._

Or give him back ms towards opponents to make agressive use of the ally devour more rewarding

Aptest8/3/2018, 8:16:15 PM15 votes

[{quoted}](name=Maple Nectar,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=P4eh9Or5,comment-id=,timestamp=2018-08-03T18:09:10.297+0000)

Nautilus: Titan&#039;s Wrath (W)

nerf : shield power shield duration

buff : shield cd (not suffiecient for increase # shields in pvp) shield cost

Obviously aimed at buffing jungle clear. Secondary effect may be increasing trade opportunities in top lane. Noted naut is gated by positioning here a lot, need top lane player to comment on whether this is in fact a buff.

What gates junglers? jungle clear speed, if not really bring up to speed, than will not matter. Other than that, still not able to 1v1 opposing jungler and not able to move about the jungle fast enough. contesting objectives without team ("1v1") not reasonable to buff because outside restriction of class. Then must compensate with map mobility to compete with low CD on jump skills from "lee sin" and other damage picks.

suggest complement with further buff: mana refund on using Q for mobility.

At support position, position gating on skills much heavier, cd on shield skill not effective at opening more trade opportunities. in addition, naut is a very all-in champion, punish of trade as retreat happens is painful, and this is increased due to both shield power and shield duration nerf. I.E. In support position naut does not benefit from buffs, but suffers from nerfs, therefor champion is reduced.

I would have preferred to see mana refund on mobility Q as an overall buff, instead of suggested. This both buffs the support position and also makes the champion more fun to play (mobility is fun).

Leona: Eclipse (W)

nerf : CD (early game) Base stats damage

buff : CD (early mid game+) Scaling damage (late game only +, with ZE added)

Not sure about how you presented the reasoning. This is obviously shifting her power from early game to mid-late game. Changing the power timings of the champion. She is overly oppressive early and useless late atm?

Maokai

Same comments as for naut, but in this case is clear buff. idk.

Tahm Kench Goal: Reduce the overall availability of his defensive devour and better reward use in aggressive scenarios. Also tuning Q to give him a few more buttons to press in light of longer cd ally W, and reducing the slow to compensate.

Tongue Lash (Q) nerf : CC duration

buff : CD

its more buttons to press but the button does less. And the skill to begin with isn't impressive. The main usage of this ability is to serve as a target access enabler, something TK has huge issues with regardless of position.

the CC duration nerf hits the main usage for the ability. So despite "having more buttons to press" the button does less of what it's supposed to do, which is to allow TK to close to melee. Which is already an issue for him.

Devour / Regurgitate (W)

nerf : CC duration Save duration Playmaking (with ally) duration Playmaking (with ally) follow up ability Play disruption duration Play disruption CD

buff : Damage CD (on opponent) Mana cost.

From my perspective this is a net decrease in the depth of the champion. TK's "money skill" is definitely his W. that's where the fun's at for this champion.

The ability to save allies is nerfed. however eat ally to use the speed boost and close range with the ally, also nerfed: after this move you have to concede the rest of the play to your ally because your main skill is spend and you are left with a weak single target Q.

Additionally the devour duration is a net decrease to the range of plays that TK is able to pull off. For me it's not as important that TK can push the same skill more times, but the range of moves that he has is more important. Perhaps a better compensation buff would have been to make QW combo more viable? For instance introducing a condition where W is not spent in this combo ?

In the support position I will get very few of the benefits, and suffer most of the costs of this change. Given that in soloQ this champion is suffering, I (who played him in previous season extensively as a support) would want something more interesting and engaging than "more (but weaker) Q".

NOTE: I get that TK is considered a BS champion because of his W. but then if we nerf it extensively, Q or E should become much more engaging skills. i mean visually i like them very much but other than that they don't do enough, at least for the soloQ support player.

weegg8/3/2018, 7:11:36 PM13 votes

The Tahm Kench devour CD increase is problematic. I've mained him since I picked him up - his whole concept revolves around devouring a champion. Speaking as a support tahm kench main, an ability with such a long cooldown at early levels will have to be used at the optimal time, without any room for a timing error. There is a LOT of crowd control in this game - devouring an ally will let them live for a few seconds longer until they jump out themselves and get hit with another crowd control or TK will just get cc'd himself.

I personally don't think winrates are the main way to decide whether a champion is weak/strong, but TK support is sitting at a 46/47% winrate. He's popular in pro play - I get that, but don't nerf him because of pro play. Nerf the damage on his devour, don't nerf the cooldown. Don't nerf his identity.

beany8/3/2018, 6:21:21 PM13 votes

I think tahm's ally devour nerf is a bit too heavy-handed even for the frustration it causes, starting from 24 scaling to 16 IMO is better.

Flemman8/3/2018, 6:31:45 PM13 votes

losing 1 sec of "CC" for tham late game devour could possibly be a problem for the champ.

Those are the champ that need buff for sure but, if the goal is to make them more appealing in the meta, I feel like naut/leona and tham will not rize as it seems like a shift of power more than a straight buff.

Also, for leona, making rank 1 W that bad compared to live for early game will not drew player to pick her more than now

Not a Furry8/3/2018, 8:01:45 PM12 votes

I like the idea of Leona's changes but they look like an overall nerf to me. Here's my thought for ways to change it.

W damage and resistances I feel are just fine but the cooldown is just too long early. I think a better cooldown would be 14/13/12/11/10. Since you usually won't have enough resistances for the new W to give more overall stats until after it's rank 5 I think it's fair to have it keep its level 1 cooldown.

I don't think all of her W damage should've been moved to E since it makes it look like you want Leona to max E second. I think you could have some damage be given to Q instead of E so Leonas that max Q second don't just lose out on 40 damage. I think a better distribution would be 30 damage to both Q and E at rank 5. This will be an overall damage buff, but by the time you have Q and E at max rank 20 extra damage doesn't seem like a lot.

WintersWard8/3/2018, 7:00:46 PM12 votes

I understand why the Tahm changes are being made but it really will gut support Tahm imo. Which is sad because he already is super weak (for SoloQ) on support, but I guess he is one of these OP in pro bad in SoloQ cases... :( Also not sure about Leo but we will see :)

Shuriman Curator8/3/2018, 8:02:33 PM12 votes

Anything for Shen in the future?

Cremepie8/3/2018, 8:53:51 PM11 votes

Frankly beyond the slightly nice sion and rammus buff, the rest of these changes seem awful. I don't want any of them. The Leona changes are just straight up nerfs and the nautilus changes will not help him at all.

AccountaBilabudy8/3/2018, 8:44:45 PM11 votes

Riot: Hey guys, we want to buff some tanks, here's our thoughts...

Proceeds to NERF the shit out of Leona, and calls them buffs.

Riot logic 2018.

PWR BTM8/3/2018, 7:11:04 PM11 votes

Finally some Nautilus love. Definitely won’t fix his problems but it’s a nice start.

Àhrí8/3/2018, 6:48:29 PM10 votes

One of the parts that absolutely bones Rammus now is that his taunt pulls lane minions aggro because it is a single target ability. I used to play Rammus top into some niche picks or jungle him in other scenarios and this is by far the most frustrating part of playing him at the moment.

Melkor1138/3/2018, 8:40:59 PM10 votes

Where are the Shen buffs? He is literally unplayable in the top lane and it sucks how you have to balance him around the LCS as it really hurts us solo queue Shen mains.

4th3t0s8/3/2018, 8:53:25 PM9 votes

Uhh.......Shen ? Passive shield could use a QoL buff to trigger instantly rather than waiting for that damn sword; nevermind his base armor still being abysmal.

Edit: @Riot As much as I hate self-promotion; I really feel there's something useful mentioned in here, especially now that there's a tank discussion: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/rAGZORjU-shen-a-discussion

I Sushi I8/3/2018, 6:42:55 PM8 votes

Having the goal of a specific change that is really nuanced yet brief is a crazy good idea and the patch notes should be written more like this, with goals in mind rather than just "needs a little help" or "a little overtuned atm". Thanks Maple Nectar!!

Yaldekraut8/3/2018, 7:10:27 PM8 votes

What about Ornn? He struggles a lot in solo queue. Are there any plans to nerf him in competitive and buff his casual play? Maybe reduce ult range but don't leave him in the gutter like this :(

Xinyuo8/3/2018, 10:49:06 PM7 votes

HERE'S MY 20 PAGE ESSAY ABOUT HOW TO FIX LEONA

revert her Q/E damage

Done..

Like, real..q/e were nerfed cause of AS/less def stats, but aftershock got changed/def stats more accessible, no revert gg

Support Position8/4/2018, 6:14:57 PM7 votes

TahmKench is offically ruined. Good job. If you can't see you just made him completely garbage nerfed and probably unplayable now. Then you guys got a problem. A big one. Whoever though of this, definitely shouldn't have anymore says for a while.

What the fuck is that W nerf. It's fucking DRASTIC. [zombie-brand-mindblown] HES FINE RIGHT NOW WHAT.....

You literally hate us.... Hes the only good thing VS the god damn assassins....

Stronghammer028/3/2018, 6:57:34 PM4 votes

Hi Maple,

Any updates on Alistar ? I know he was mentioned at one point but I don't see changes for him here.

IMO I know he is doing pretty well on the pro stage but he is simply not tanky enough to perform well against high-damage comps in solo queue, especially high damage bot lanes (Brand Heimerdinger Swain in particular).

Edit: Also, the TahmKench W changes will make him completely unviable in the jungle, could you also grant the cooldown reduction on NPCs?

gileskd8/3/2018, 7:50:21 PM3 votes

Nautilus: Titan's Wrath (W) Shielding :: 65/70/75/80/85 (+9/11/13/15/17% maxHP) >>> 60/70/80/90/100 (+8/11/14/17/20% maxHP) Duration :: 10 >>> 10/9/8/7/6 Cooldown :: 18 >>> 18/17/16/15/14 Cost :: 80 >>> 60/65/70/75/80

Leona: Eclipse (W) Damage :: 60/100/140/180/220 >>> 60/95/130/165/200 Cooldown :: 14 >>> 16/15/14/13/12 Armor :: 25/35/45/55/65 (+20%) >>> 30/40/50/60/70 (+25%) Magic Resist :: 20/30/40/50/60 (+20%) >>> 25/35/45/55/65 (+25%)

Zenith Blade (E) Damage :: 60/100/140/180/220 >>> SAME

Let us know what you think of some of these specific changelists, particularily if any of the more involved ones read more like nerfs than buffs to you.

this Is my opinion Please,Please,Please do no buff damage for any reason. damage is too HIGH. increase armor shields magic resist and health, Thank You!