Am I crazy, or are tanks becoming obsolete?

PlsTouchMeGently·Feb 8, 2015·34 votes·5,732 views

Let me preface this by saying that I am by no means spectacular at this game. I just started playing a few months ago and am Bronze II, so yeah: not that good. Anyways, I enjoy playing tanks. I think they are fun and I like being able to protect my teammates from damage. However, it seems that whenever an AD carry gets , I am of no use anymore no matter how much armor I have stacked. It's a little better with AP carries and , but it's still an issue. I'm just wondering if this was intended? Are tanks supposed to be almost useless mid/late game?

74 Comments

ValyrianBladeFeb 8, 201523 votes

Well, I'd argue firstly that Health is much more important that armor/MR. Obviously it's your effective health that matters most, and at any given amount of health or armor/MR one of the two will grant more effective health than the other (and thus in many cases you do actually want armor/MR).

All I'm saying is, you're not going to be very tanky if you're building items like Frozen Heart and Thornmail. You'll be a LOT tankier with Randuins Omen and Sunfire cape for example. Or Spirit Visage and Banshee's Veil for MR.

Of course the counter to stacking health is BotRK or Liandry's (percent health damage). At least in that case though, you're forcing the enemy to build a whole item just to counter you (and only that person will do much damage). At these points you're not looking to tank in a teamfight for days though, you're looking to survive long enough to apply your CC in the fight so your carries can take out their carries and not the opposite.

As a closing comment, I want to state that you need to pay attention to gold differences. If you're underfed as a tank you will and should be getting wrecked quickly by a fed carry. I've seen plenty of tanks survive for absurd amounts of time when they're even or ahead. It feels like most of these "carries are OP, tanks suck" rants are due to tanks who don't have very good CS or KDAs and are getting blown up by a carry with 2k+ more gold than them (or tanks that are itemizing incorrectly).

PlsTouchMeGentlyFeb 8, 20155 votes

A lot of what you said makes sense; I appreciate the comment. And I'm not saying carries are OP and tanks suck, it just does seem like Last Whisper and Void staff may be a bit too effective on tanks than they should be.

ValyrianBladeFeb 8, 201516 votes

Honestly, I think LW needs its price increased to around 3100 and Void Staff to around 2750.

These should be niche items bought when an enemy is stacking armor/MR, not items that are core on practically every carry because late game they'll do more than the flat pen items do even against a squishy target who only has armor/MR from runes and masteries. At their current prices (2300 and 2200 or 2250 I think), the item is too cheap to not buy as soon as you see any armor/MR on the enemy.

I wouldn't want to reduce their effectiveness as they're absolutely necessary for carries to remain relevant against tanks (same with the percent health damage items, otherwise the only viable carries would be those with percent health abilities), but making them more expensive would make things a little more reasonable I think.

And also, I didn't think you were complaining so much that way - there has just been a trend of the "carries OP, tanks suck" threads showing up lately at various levels of competence :P

PlsTouchMeGentlyFeb 8, 20152 votes

Haha, I'm not on these threads often so I haven't seen those threads XD

A price increase would be perfect.

SecretAgentHulkFeb 8, 20155 votes

It would seem that changing these to bonus armor/MR shred might be a little better? And then they are niche buys for when you want to blow up tanks or people who are buying defense instead of just utilizing innate.

B1naryB0tFeb 8, 20152 votes

item 3083

SecretAgentHulkFeb 8, 20153 votes

Then you buy a BotRK (which would also only do bonus HP shred).

B1naryB0tFeb 9, 20152 votes

I disagree on the bonus HP shred since, ATM, it doesn't do %total hp damage, it just does %current HP damage, which can favor some tanks because they can find a good medium to keep their health at anyways. If you did bonus HP, you would just turn it into a true middle finger for tanks and quite useless for everyone else.

Hell WeekFeb 8, 20152 votes

nice, that's what wins me games when i use amumu. The bonus health from items such as visage, solaris, and such do help a buuuunch. The armour does help but in reality you want to survive as long as possible thus making health a little more important in my opinion. If you stack all that armour/mr plus health(i like to have low cooldown as well in some cases), your're the perfect tank. Most tanky items do have health added so that's good at least.

Forgot to mention, as a tank you want to ENGAGE first so your team does the damage right? Having all that health will help you survive all the damage being focused on you as well. Just my opinions and what i do, when i tank (rarely).

PentaJumpFeb 8, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Well, I'd argue firstly that Health is much more important that armor/MR. Obviously it's your effective health that matters most, and at any given amount of health or armor/MR one of the two will grant more effective health than the other (and thus in many cases you do actually want armor/MR).

All I'm saying is, you're not going to be very tanky if you're building items like Frozen Heart and Thornmail. You'll be a LOT tankier with Randuins Omen and Sunfire cape for example. Or Spirit Visage and Banshee's Veil for MR.

Of course the counter to stacking health is BotRK or Liandry's (percent health damage). At least in that case though, you're forcing the enemy to build a whole item just to counter you (and only that person will do much damage). At these points you're not looking to tank in a teamfight for days though, you're looking to survive long enough to apply your CC in the fight so your carries can take out their carries and not the opposite.

As a closing comment, I want to state that you need to pay attention to gold differences. If you're underfed as a tank you will and should be getting wrecked quickly by a fed carry. I've seen plenty of tanks survive for absurd amounts of time when they're even or ahead. It feels like most of these "carries are OP, tanks suck" rants are due to tanks who don't have very good CS or KDAs and are getting blown up by a carry with 2k+ more gold than them (or tanks that are itemizing incorrectly).

Against an enemy with no armor/magic pen, you want 1.5k health per 100 resistance. Against an enemy with void/LW, you want 2.4k health per 100 resistance. Reduce value if vs someone with % hp damage.

ValyrianBladeFeb 9, 20151 votes

Good info to know. The void/lw point sort of shows how important health is; aside from warmogs I don't think any of the items like randuins/Sunfire/banshees/spirit visage would let you get that much health per resistance.

aaronconlinFeb 9, 20154 votes

The problem with stacking health to force them into building item 3153 is that ADCs tend to build it anyway. An ADC using and item 3035 is going to counter a tank that has high armor AND high health, and still be very effective at killing everyone else on the team as well.

Zair UmbrasFeb 9, 20151 votes

False! Most ADC's go for a item 3072 rather than a BotRK, especially ones with AD ratios who can make the extra 50 AD do much more than what a BotRK could do, even against a beefy health tank. There's a few ADC's who do quite well with a BotRK, but the loss of sustain puts them at a disadvantage when facing something that isn't a beefed up tank.

ValyrianBladeFeb 9, 20151 votes

As an adc main (ish) I agree with this a bit. Although I've started delaying upgrading the vamp scepter to BT/BotRK until I have a better idea whether I need % hp or not. I've started to default to BotRK against champions like garen too. That all said, once an adc grabs their second BF sword for their BT it's easy to start stacking health knowing they won't want BotRK anymore.

RogueWillFeb 9, 20151 votes

Problem is the only lane tanks are actually viable is the jungle. The always get shunned on top and support doesn't provide as much gold. So you will most likely be underfed (around 80% of the time). And even in teh jungle you most likely want your teammates to take the kills from your ganks, so behind ahead is not so easy to pull off.

Although Randuins Omen and Sunfire Cape are decent mixed stats items I wouldn't recommend building both. I much rather get an omen + frozen heart and get the extra hp from visage or banshees

ValyrianBladeFeb 9, 20151 votes

I only go both against all ad teams or specific situations (where I know we can dive their only ap champions or we've shut them down).

I like randuins + SV and then choose between the remainder of the defensive options on a game by game basis.

DorkunedAurasFeb 8, 20155 votes

Rammus not ok

doombotMECHAFeb 8, 20155 votes

It's not just item 3035 it's item 3153 and lw. both your health and armor are countered, and there's nothing you do about it. even Malphite gets shredded, even lategame

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 8, 20154 votes

The role of being a tank and building nothing but defense items and expecting to do something is dead. That doesn't mean that tank champion are worthless. You just need to adapt.

DorkunedAurasFeb 8, 20157 votes

tanks should be a threat to some extent. A tank should not be able to stand on top of a carry and attack them with everything, and have the carry ignore them and attack other things. If the enemy jinx has an amumu right on top of her, and she's simply ignoring him, than what's the point of amumu. He got his ult off, and should be able to at least distract the damage threat like a good tank, except tanks can't do enough damage to attract the attention they need. I'm not saying Mundo should run in and 2 shot adcs, but at least make sure tanks do something. Ignorable tanks are worthless

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 8, 20151 votes

Yes and I think that it's already possible to do that, it's just that historically people have been building tanks with nothing but defensive items and that won't change before a pro show them how to do.

If you look at my history, you can see that I don't play nautilus with a standard build. I actually build to be both tanky but a threat in damage too. It's way more satisfying to be able to take care of the enemy carries rather than waiting that your team kill them while you just CC.

Nuclear CorvidFeb 9, 20152 votes

Tanks (or rather, champions designed to be tanks) are/should be designed to perform optimally when building full defense.

If they are more successful when building any amount of offense, either the design is a failure or the game is in a state where tanks are bad. Either is unacceptable.

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 9, 20151 votes

I disagree about that. I don't think every tanks should be about getting a full defensive build. It should be specific to some champion.

Nuclear CorvidFeb 9, 20151 votes

It is specific to some champions. It's specific to tanks.

Bruisers are/should be designed to be optimal with at least one offensive item.

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 9, 20151 votes

Well your definition make the tank class worthless and really poor. You can keep thinking that or trying to make them more than meat shields.

DorkunedAurasFeb 9, 20151 votes

I'm just gonna say that Rammus is one of the best true tanks, as he can stack defenses and scale off of them, potentially being a massive damage threat if the enemy team is full AD.

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 10, 20151 votes

Yes, I agree 100%. His full kit make sense with a full defensive (if you count thornmail as a defensive item) build. He can engage like a boss with his powerball, force people to attack him (that make his defensive build valuable), and then return the damage they deal to him. His R provides enough base damage over time to not build real damage.

Now, my point is that not all tanks have such incentive to build like rammus a full tank build.

Some tanks champion are closer to tanks/fighter than real pure tanks and should build 1/2 semi tank - semi fighter items.

DorkunedAurasFeb 10, 20151 votes

DrMundo has respectable damage while building tank. Highest AD steroid in game, damage around him, fucking % hp cleavers. He's a pain. I don't get why people build Garen or Darius full tank though? I always go hydra + tank on Darius and IE + tank on Garen . Those singular damage items on those guys are all they need to do damage, and, regardless of the point in the game (assuming no GAs), I can one combo an adc with just hydra for damage on Darius .

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 11, 20151 votes

Here is an other problem. Some people don't call the same things as tanks. As I can see you call anything that build tanky a tank. There is an other definition that say that a tank is durable, bring enough CC to engage a fight while dealing some Aoe damage.

With this definition, Mundo, Garen and darius are not tanks but bruisers (or fighters) with kits that force them to build tanky.

DorkunedAurasFeb 13, 20151 votes

that's an extremely good point, and one I think I agree with. I'd say anyone who builds tanky for themselves, and their teammates benefit because they're helping themselves, they're a bruiser. If you build tanky so you can engage and CC enemies so your teammates can help, thus directly helping teammates, you're a tank. As such, Mundo is more of a bruiser (btw, teambuilder's suggest role for Mundo is "fighter" not tank), as well as garen and darius. I still don't get why people build full tank garen, he doesn't do any damage that way.

Schoolgirl UrgotFeb 8, 20153 votes

I was able to kill a 3.5k health, 250 armor, 120 mr maokai with his ult up as AD fizz in under 2 seconds

without item 3135 or item 3035

think about that.

WooBeeWooFeb 9, 20153 votes

No you're not crazy its legit... tanks have been terrible for a while now.

TotalJerkFeb 9, 20153 votes

The problem is that offensive items synergize with each other and tanky items don't. This ends up making offensive build gain strength exponentially while tanks work linearly.

The difference in survivability between a 4:2 defense/offense item ratio and a 6:0 ratio is minimal compared to the damage gains. On the other hand, each item is such a power spike for ADCs and ADCs that a 0:6 build destroys a 2:4 build. This situation is EXACTLY why I think exponents are toxic to game balance because they invariably punish hybrid building when they aren't applied. Note that practically all of the toughest tanks are ones with exponential stats or some ability/passive that explicitly rewards you for building tanky in their kit ( Garen Alistar Braum {{champion:89} Rammus )

One could suggest that tanky items have more synergy with each other, but that would kill bruisers unless Riot added items that have hybrid synergy. Those existed, but they got removed.

DorkunedAurasFeb 13, 20151 votes

Hybrid synergy. For some reason, I'm thinking about Jax ult, where the defensive boosts increase based off of AD/AP. Something like that?

Krys StarFeb 9, 20153 votes

Hah I just made a thread about something similar. I was playing Leona recently, stacked armor because they were 90% AD. I had 529 armor late game with Eclipse activated, and 4k health to supplement it. Only problem was: I still melted like a hot knife to butter. Armor pen is way too cost efficient and way too easily obtainable.

DryditchFeb 9, 20153 votes

Tanks are only obsolete in YoloQ.

If you watch LCS or LPL or LCK or any of the other pro scenes, you'll see that a tank initiates, peels, and the rest of the team backs up those initiations with PAIN, and lots of it.

If you're having trouble seeing tanks survive, I recommend going with a bruiser instead (even though I hate them and wish all bruisers would fall off the face of the earth). The lifesteal will help you stay alive as long as you're hitting something.

DrukyulFeb 8, 20152 votes

Tanks are OK if they can set up a wombo with an AOE stun of some sort. That way they don't actually have to tank for more than 1-2 seconds.

SmokingPuffinFeb 8, 20152 votes

However, it seems that whenever an AD carry gets , I am of no use anymore no matter how much armor I have stacked. It's a little better with AP carries and , but it's still an issue. I'm just wondering if this was intended?

This is intended. Offense has to outscale defense or games don't end on time and we only can play late game champs.

Are tanks supposed to be almost useless mid/late game?

Tanks are supposed to be amazing in midgame teamfights and necessary but not exactly inspiring for late game teamfights.

Slamurai JackFeb 8, 20152 votes

I cannot disagree more. As someone generally mains squishy mages and adcs, but also likes to play beefy tanks on occasion, I can say that a strong tank with lots of CDR can really feel impossible to deal with. Someone like a Nautilus, Sejunai, Mundo, or Amumu feel extremely difficult to deal with in a teamfight with how incredibly durable they are while still having high base damages and a huge zone of control from all their CC. I've won so many games as Mundo just by being so tanky and so fast that I can just plunge into their entire team and keep them from ever teamfighting properly.

Yes, item 3035 does make this more difficult, but so long as you don't dive so far that the entire enemy team can focus you for free, you should be fine. In my experience, tanks seem to have the hardest time when they think their job is to just dive enemy carries, but then just get kited back and killed while your back line is too far to help. Personally, I find it much better to help your team by duking it out with the enemy front line while zoning the enemy back line, and going on them if they get too brave.

RogueWillFeb 9, 20152 votes

May I ask what champion are you playing as tank? Some champions benefits more with higher Armor over HP ratios while other the other way around.

For example: Rammus will benefit more from a 300 armor with 2.5k hp build than Sejuani which flavors a 200 armor with around 4k hp.

If none of your abilities scale out of armor or hp you want to mix a damage item with your build, so the enemy carries has a reason to attack you over the bruiser or the other carries. item 3075 works wonders with heavy aa based adc (tristana) although it does poorly with bruiser adc which i would suggest a item 3110 or item 3143 which gives better utilities as giving huge boost on armor.

Don't get me wrong, they will still melt you relatively fast but if you can buy your team 4-5 sec to kill the enemy assassin or ap carry they willl most likely be able to clean up the rest of the fight without you. Remember that you job is not to get attacked but prevent the enemy to attack your teammates. Some times a good zoning will do the trick. The assasins will always go for your carries on the back if you can force a 4v1 or 4v2 on the enemy assasins while you keep the other reds at bay you have done your job.

PlsTouchMeGentlyFeb 10, 20151 votes

I generally play Amumu, Elise, Zac, (I know people say he's bad, but I like him), and Cho'Gath when going tank!

RogueWillFeb 10, 20151 votes

For cho gath you want item 3027 and maybe item 3116 as it gives you both HP and some ap. While for armor you most likely want item 3110 . item 3143 is useless on cho since you won't chase anyone, if you catch them they are dead within seconds.

Amumu will want item 3001 as most of his damages comes from his AoE. I normally get item 3068 instead of item 3143 on him as again you won't be chasing people and the extra passive damage stacks well.

I personally don't play much Elise or zac, zac abilities scales just out of ap so it forces you to buy an item to boost his damage while my elise mechanics are awful so i can give you many advice for those too.

LordOfTheLeagueFeb 10, 20151 votes

I don't think that rammus benefit more from armor than Hp, he has an armor/mr steroid so buying a lot of HP will make his EHP skyrocket. If you buy just a lot of armor, you won't be really tanky.

ABlueQuakerFeb 9, 20152 votes

Nope. They just exist in a different context now. Alistar Braum Blitzcrank Thresh Leona Taric

Most Champions formerly used as Tanks, such as Amumu , Maokai and Malphite , benefit from having 1-3 pseudo-offensive items (items that provide a decent amount of both a defensive stat such as armor, HP or MR, and an offensive stat such as Magic Pen, AP or AD) like RoA, Liandry's, Abyssal, etc so that they have some potential to kill squishy targets because the game has evolved to the point that if a carry can sustain/survive through the base damage of something like Gnar , all they have to do is avoid their CC and ignore them.

It's a matter of Tankiness vs. Threat. You need to find the balance between the two for the Enemy team to actually value you enough as a threat to focus, but still be able to survive long enough for your team to capitalize on the enemy team not focusing higher priority targets. http://i.gyazo.com/848c2bbff22884a82afba757a2019ed4.png

Major SparklesFeb 9, 20151 votes

Okay the original post seems fishy to me. Sounds like someone with previous game knowledge (AKA a smurf). He makes the "nerf last whisper and void staff" argument that much more convincing because a new bronze player is able to figure it out. Forgive me if I seem skeptical.

JamnonFeb 9, 20153 votes

Perhaps, but I am not convinced this has any affect on or relationship to the argument which others have discussed.

It's not entirely unbelievable that a new player who favored tanks could see the text on one or both of these items and express concern. They did not afterall, know that getting item 3075 is perhaps a good idea in this scenario. Something an experienced player would arguably know and thus not need to ask.