A Plea for the Future Rework of TANKS

So, gamers, I'm sure you already know the answer to this question, but in terms of the RPG or Class-based Team games, what is a Tank?

The Tank is the front line man. The wall of raw armor, health, and defense that everyone needs to stand behind to stay alive. A Tank is the line that gets drawn in the sand that will not be crossed by anyone who dares to harm the Tank's team. A Tank is the guy who leads the push into the enemy base and takes all of their forward defenses head-on without showing any more than a wince. A Tank is raw defense that can push up to make the enemy fear it more than what's behind it. And above all, A Tank stands by his team and keeps fighting, so long as one teammate is still alive.

A Tank is NOT someone who immediately rushes into the center of the enemy team, HOPING to hit one of the carries in the back line, the HOPING that the team follows up accordingly, and HOPING that by the time the dust settles, his team killed more of the enemy then the number losses his team had. A Tank does NOT want to bank everything on the slim chance that his super hard-engage, "no going back", full on charge ability his the target he INTENDED to hit. And above all else, A Tank SHOULD NEVER break away from his team to dive head-first into the center of the enemy team, with NO WAY TO HOLD THEIR ATTENTION AND ACTIVELY TANK ENEMY DAMAGE.

However, League's Tanks seem to fall into the latter set of characteristics. Well... Except for Braum Keep at it big guy, you're shield is doing good work. :)

But the Tanks of League fall into the kind that "dive first, question the decision when your entire team is dead" category that just really isn't worthy of the class: TANK. There are many "Tanks" in League with ultimates that are just reckless dives, and have kits that don't keep the damage reduction going in a consistent manner. Allow me to list some...

: Sion's ultimate is a straight-up head-long charge with hardly controllable directional influence. It's an ultimate that is easily dodged unless it is used at point-blank range, which does not benefit the ultimate because it's damage and knockup increases if he's traveled a long distance. And once he's in there, the only thing he has is a slow with armor shred, an easily dodge-able knockup/slow, and a small shield that probably wont last long enough for you to use its secondary ability. He only has one ability of any real use in a team fight.

: Jarvan's ultimate just has him cornering himself with either no one if he misses, or someone who probably out damages his tankyness. Not to mention most of his kit is engage upon engage with the one shield and slow ablility. I cant call him a tank if his ultimate call for him diving in and cornering himself with the enemy team, which leads to death more often than not.

: How does this beast count as a Tank if all he has is damage and abilities that only increase his own durability? Something I should mention is that it's not a Tank's job to take kills, nor is it his job to chase a low health enemy, ESPECIALLY if it means breaking off from the team. This guy has no way of defending his team except for a short knockup and silence. Any real Tanking is reserved for himself in his passive and ultimate.

: sigh This one... is gonna hurt. My favorite Champion in the whole game and he... ugh, doesn't even remotely feel like a tank half the time. First of all, you would only pick him if the enemy comp is very specific. Only if the enemy comp is high AD, and your laning opponent isn't someone who can bully you and deny you of farm in the early game. Cause if you can't stack that armor before the enemy can stack AD or Armor Pen. or what ever they need, then Malphite is gonna have a REALLY bad time. Plus, even he falls into that "dive head-long" spectrum. I love his Ultimate, but rarely is an enemy team dumb enough to clump up and get my the 3-man ult I'm looking for. Even then, he has nothing other than his attack speed slow to keep that "tanking" going. I love this mountain man, but half the time, I don't feel like he can really be called a Tank.

This isn't a balancing issue. Numbers have nothing to do with this. This is a set of flaws that are holding back this class of champions. It was the same for the Assassins. They used to be champs with a lot of single target burst and weren't worth much more than that. Now they feel like champs who set up their kills, and lie in wait for their victim to step into an untimely demise. This is what Tanks need. They need to not be just these guys with a lot of health, armor, and mr, and they need to turn into Champions that can actively use their role as Tanks to protect the team.

Now, I know I may have put Braum on a high pedestal earlier, which I still stand beside. I currently believe that Braum's kit is the pinnacle of a set of Tank abilities in League right now. But I am not saying that Riot should drop everything and make Tanks only suitable for Support roles. PLEASE DON'T DO THAT. While I criticize current Tanks for only being able to protect themselves most of the time, that's not a bad thing. It's just that as it stands right now, that's the only thing most tanks can do right now. But support roles are not the only place for tanks. Right now, we do have guys like Olaf , and Nunu (which is weird because he's not even classified as a tank) in the Jungle who can become very tanky, but also fall in the charge in head long style of tanks. And I've tried to find success in the Top Lane with all sorts of tanks. Malphite , Maokai , Sion , Trundle to name a few, by I've already told you my grievances with many of those. I love the Top lane, and I think, if made right, Tanks can be good duelers, perhaps by dragging on a trade long enough to turn it in your favor (or something along those lines).

So what kind of tanks can we have in place of the hard-engage? Allow me to list a few archetypes of tanks that I've encountered and would like to see added to League.

The Wall Tank: Now this is what Braum is. An Impenetrable wall that stands on the front end of your team, and holds up his shield or what ever he has to mitigate as much damage as he can. This is a very effective kind of tank. He can engage, but not in a hard way, rather he engages with the team. Slowly moving up with the team while keeping that wall of defense up around all of his teammates. But this can also can be used for disengage, to protect the low health team as they run back. I think this is one of the most effective kind of tanks, but I think such a kit can be made for a solo lane as well. For the sake of examples, I'll be using a character from another MOBA called Vain Glory. In that game, there is a character names Lance. His second ablility is a shield bash which knocks back enemies in the direction Lance is facing, normally this move would be horrible for disengaging, if it weren't for the same ability's passive, which allows Lance to "lock on" to a target and strafe around that target while still looking at him. Also, Lance will hold up his shield at his target, so long as they are in range, and take reduced damage from any damage source coming from that direction. To have something like that, makes a champion to a true wall of defense, for himself and his team.

The Support Tank: This is what belongs in the support role, for obvious reasons. These kinds of tanks can defend themselves and their allies fro level 1. Shielding themselves AND a laning partner or a ganking jungler, provinding more focused tanking for certain members of the team. Sort of like Orianna if she was more tank and less AP damage. But a good example of this style of tank, used in an actual tank, is Zarya from Overwatch. With her kit she can hand herself a shield and hand a shield to a nearby ally, which honestly come in handy in split-second moments. A Kit like hers is really more focused on saving a single ally, which makes her really strong in a support role. (If HOTS actually played like League)

The Aggro Tank: Now these are what most tanks in the game currently strive to be, but don't have the means to do such. Aggro Tanks are normally how you play tanks in MMOs, generating threat for yourself to make sure that what ever you and your team is fighting is hitting you and not your team. Champs like Shen and Rammus best fit into this category right now as they have actual taunts that make enemies hit them and no one else. Now a hard-engage ultimate would actually be good on Aggro Tanks, because an ult like that can get the initial attention of enemies, but Champs who have that would need a taunt to hold their attention. Think of what would happen if Malphite ults on the enemy but, his E also taunted all enemies around him. That would make him into an AMAZING Aggro Tank.

The Sustain Tank: These tanks are the guys who are gonna live through everything. Why? Cause they do it through the one thing you should do in this game. Fighting. Guys like Dr.Mundo, Trundle, Cho'Gath, and Aatrox all fall under. Guys who live by fighting. Life steal is the name of the game with these guys, but the idea can be spun upon. Case in point, Artanis from Heroes Of The Storm. His passive, Shield overload, immediately gives himself a shield when he takes damage while he is below 50% health. Also, constantly attacking will reduce the cooldown of the passive, and his kit revolves around constantly dealing damage. But it must be said that if doesn't lose the full shield before he uses the passive again, the shield will refesh, not stack. But this means that if Artanis can constantly keep attacking, he can generate shield after shield. This is sort of what Aatrox does. Building lots of attack speed can make him life steal a ton, keeping him alive in an extended fight.

These are just a few ideas of Tanks that League needs to really revitalize the concept of Tanks. But for the record, I'm no expert on tanks, but I do know a lot. Because I LOVE Tanks. I love being the guy who can be in the center of that huge team fight, and just absorb all of the damage thrown at you. But nothing... NOTHING... feels better than doing just that, walking into that fight, taking in all of this damage, and the best part... is walking out of it. When the explosions stop, and the dust settles, you're the first person to walk away, stepping over the enemy as they could do nothing against you. The Impenetrable Wall. The Unstopable Force.

The TANK.

If you made it to the end of this, thank you very much for reading. Please leave your feedback, and Riot... I really hope this helps in a future rework of TANKS. Thank you.