RIP Tanks

I am a toplane troll and i used to main all sorts of tanks back in s6, and etc. was my favorite champ, I made it to diamond in s6 with this ugly troll and had like 67% wr on him. But right now, you can't even find him in opgg anymore cuz there aint enough sample size for

Not just ,but pretty much all top lane tanks are just bad these days. According to opgg, the lower tier top champs are filled with tanks. So I tried a few games myself played some tanks in d4 mmr( sry thats my limit ), and yeah I think I understand why tanks aren't as good these days.

During laning phase, most tanks don't have enough damage to pressure their enemy, which widens the choices for ur opponent during champ select. They can pick a scaling champ to just free farm and outscale u, or pick a lane bully to punish u in lane depending on their comp.

Imagine picking a toplane tank in champ select, like , here's wuts gonna happen:

1st scenario ur opponent instalocks , or any other champ that scales better than you. He knows that u'll never be able to pressure him so he just free farms and wait to scale as the game progresses. If ur mid/bot/jg r even, in the long run, u lose your lane, and ur lp.

2nd scenario ur opponent picks a lane bully, ie . u turtle under tower for the first 10 min cuz u know u can't win trade against a bully. If he dies to u once its no biggy for him, but if u let him kill u once ur pretty much done. Unfortunately that's how snowball works. Eventually, he's gonna gain more gold and xp than u. This means that he's more likely to become a greater threat to ur team than u r to his.

3rd scenario similar to the 1st one, ur opponent picks a split push champ like . U still won't be able to pressure him early game, and sadly he does scale better than u as well, ( at least in 1v1). After 15min farm then u realize u can't stop this guy anymore. In that case, u either try to hard engage in a 5v4 when u see that dog split, or u just walk around struggling wut to do and eventually lose objectives.

4th scenario ur opponent doesn't care wut u pick. He looks up opgg and locks in the highest wr toplane champ this meta , shove his lane, then walks around the map and ganks ur teammates, because he has better mobility than u and he is op, u lose ur lane priviledge again, perhaps ur lp as well.

We can tell that tanks r likely to get outscaled, countered, outroamed, punished in lane and split pushed by their opponent for their lack of 1v1 potential. This happens becuz tanks in soloq aren't likely to gain their lane priviledge, and thats where the snowball begins. Im not writing this to tilt all tank players, but if ur tryin to climb in soloq, i would suggest you not to pick a tank. Its just that the cost of playing a top lane tank this meta is too big.

In fact, there are also other cons when u play tanks

FIrst of all, lets look at wut tanks do. In my opinion, tanks r supposed to absorb damage, zone the enemy (peel/engage), and provide an ideal environment for ur carries to do the damage. However, if ur carry dies when u landed a 5 man ult as or tanked a century with , the cc u provided and the damage u absorbed soon become meaningless, becuz the source of damage for ur team is gone and ur just a tank. Therefore, picking a tank for ur team means that ur putting hope on ur carries. But, if they don't know how to position, or they r just trolls, then its pretty much game.

And btw, tanks rn't rly as tanky as b4. ( conquerer op) Ever since riot nerfed the hp on the tank items, i feel like tanks tend to have less hp then a bruisers. Consider a full build , building bruiser items ie with this build, can have around 4k hp when she's lv18, with decent amount of resistances, and enough damage to kill any carry with her full combo. She can also heal from her abilities and conquerer that stacks with , making her even more difficult to kill. Doesn't matter if her carry is a troll or not, she can be the carry herself if the player has good mechanics. Imagine being a huge threat to the adcarry that can dash around and do tons of damage in a team fight, meanwhile having 4k hp and decent amount of resistance. U may wanna ask ur self, wuts the point in playing tanks?

Im not saying that is op, maybe she is, but there's also that can abuse conquerer and the similar build and pretty much do the same thing.

Maybe that's just how this meta works.