What makes tanks tick? Aggro, they need to be able to draw aggro! let's discuss that.

If they dont bring any damage then they are going to need something else to be a threat, right now most of them do not carry that much more cc then other classes except for maybe nautilus he has a bit more then average

They need to be disruptive in some way or they will be ignored, this can be with their base damage so that you cannot ignore them forever. Or double/tripple their cc so you have to deal with them and keep them at bay and perhaps you will be forced to focus them or be stunned all the time

Or perhaps they need more debuffs or aura's They are going to need something to draw ''aggro'' as well as means to say hey do not attack me, like defenses or other ways like debuffs

Right now all they have for aggro is a medium amount of cc at best and the rest is put into other utility and damage, but mostly damage and it isnt even that much, once an adc builds GA your damage is no longer relevant anymore and they can ignore you for half a minute

Reducing their damage further without compensating elsewhere leads to the whole class being unviable

The question is what do the league players want, tripple the cc? tripple the debuffs? a combination of both? Ill tell you now, people are going to hate it, tanks will be more annoying then ever with things like that.

And besides that tanks will still need to have tools to farm or help fight objectives too, just look at the jungle who plays tanks there anymore? their clears take too long to make an impact and their damage/defense is too low to stand up to lee

How can this best be done

well lets take a look at Sion, Very unreliable damage, this way tanks can have damage to farm up and help take neutrals well except for Sion since all his damage is capped vs minions/monsters gj rito gj go fix that man

But you get the idea, fail to outplay the tanks damage get hurt and i think that is fair

AT the same time they need compensation possibly in items they build, more debuffs or cc so they cannot be ignored in fights Sion has an armorshred debuff in his kit for example. But also aura's & actives on items could help with this.

Stronger cc is a good idea too, again sion has this tied up with his unreliable damage, he can stun your entire team for over 4 seconds which means guaranteed victory most of the time if he successfully does so. But all of it is entirely avoidable by sidestepping it.

Tanks are going to need ways to draw aggro to them otherwise they will be ignored, just reducing their damage and increasing their bulk fixes nothing If anything it makes them worse, because they will be harder to take down so why focus them? and worse yet there is no urgency to it since they aren't a threat, and to worsen the situation further, with less damage they will have more trouble laning and jungling. In short the whole class just becomes unviable until the next update!

If their damage is to be reduced it needs to be compensated in a multitude of ways to make them function at all. They will need a way to lane/jungle so more ways of increasing damage vs creeps/monsters/structures They will need more ways of drawing aggro, increased cc and debuffs They will need more utility

I see far too few discussions on this particular topic of aggro and the implications of reducing tank damage output. And looking at the upcoming item changes in the tank update im starting to get scared that Riot isn't paying attention to this particularly important aspect of tanks

But lets discuss it here.

If tanks are to lose damage how should they be compensated to still allow them to be a threat worth dealing with in a fight?