Don't freak out about armor nerfs, there's s good reason Riot is doing it

And before you flip out and downvote away, actually read this because I'm going to explain.

Riot is nerfing armor itemization for a few reasons. For starters, it's extremely cost efficient, probably too cost efficient for that matter with items like Frozen Heart. Meanwhile, MR is very lackluster in its values and furthermore with buffs to liandrys, Ap itemization is full of Magic Pen items/MR reduction that make the values feel more lackluster given their lower nature. A good move, it needed to be done.

But the reason riot is nerfing tank itemization and armor itemization in general is to help separate the line that's been closely threaded by both tanks and bruisers alike. Historically over the last 3 seasons, when bruisers have been good, it's because they build 1 damage item and stack tank items. This is a fine line between basically a full tank and a bruiser and it blurs that line because it's been hard to differentiate the role of a bruiser and a tank. Both have basically done the same things, damage soak and dive when/if possible. Not only is this gameplay typically very frustrating to play against, it's generally dangerous because you have times where tanks are becoming very bruiser-ish in their identities.

And example of this is full tanks like Gragas, Maokai and even Sejuani diving back-lines WHILE soloing carries. A tank is typically designed to be a champion that can start fights, disrupt and damage soak. When tanks are diving back lines and killing carries, there's something a bit off about that. Not only is that more of a fighter play style, it's not the designed intention for the tank role.

This begs the question, what makes a fighter different from a tank? Well for starters, relax, tanks aren't suddenly going to be awful after this patch. In fact, they haven't been in a very long time, contrary to popular belief. One of the communities biggest gripes was lack of tanks in the game prior to the cinderhulk introduction when the jungle was dominated by the Lee Sins of the world. This couldn't have been further from the truth. Tanks were very good, just not in the jungle. Top lane meta was Maokai, Sion, Mundo and you even saw Gragas come and go as a full tank. He was also played in the jungle at this time, too. Meanwhile, Leona was pretty popular and Braum saw some play, too. These champions by definition are true tanks. They innately have defensive steroids with tons of disruption, potential to initiate fights and damage soak for days.

What suddenly changed? Cinderhulk and people realizing how powerful challenging smite was. So suddenly, you're seeing a game where tons of tanks are played, which is good. But an unintended consequence of this was seeing more bruiserish style champions like Hecarim and Shyv building full tank and running cinderhulk with smite top lane. This was not good for the game, these champions aren't meant to be full tanks. These are champions with higher base damages and less than average or no defensive steroids that enable them to easily kill back lines while being incredibly hard to kill. As a result, tanks in general were doing this as well and this was not good for the game.

The fear riot has always had with bruisers as a class coming back into the meta is for them simply to build one damage item then go full tank. There's one of two ways to fix this, one of which was to not give them anything too crazy in terms of direct buffs and keep them less than average. The other was to overhaul their itemization that is geared more towards damage and durability, but less damage than a full dps builds. This would allow them to scale. But you could never do this with their kits being out of whack, not to mention the pure ridiculousness of how cost efficient armor is. There'd be nothing from stopping them from just going one damage item + full tank with their reworked, stronger kits and be the most broken thing ever.

So riot has changed it up, true tanks are plenty viable and have been for a long time. They're reducing the power of armor itemization and giving bruisers better kits and items, discouraging them from building full tank. In the meantime, realize that true tanks aren't really hurt much by this. How much is -10 armor and a few hundred gold in cost on frozen heart going to hurt Maokai? Not much, if any, at all. What about Braum? Nope. Leona? Nope. Malphite? Hell no. But it damn sure will be something, in conjunction with randuins and Thornmail chamge, that will make a bruiser think twice of stacking all these while it does relatively little to hurt true tanks.

This change is what separates the classes, both in armor itemization nerfs and bruiser items being added, plus the addition of direct kit for bruisers. This is also going to give those same tanks, in particular the nerfs the Thornmail, less dueling power and capacity to solo carries in teamfights, which is something they never should have been doing in the first place. Tanks will still be fine and good, many of them have been massively buffed directly over the last few years to have innate durability in the first place, so again, this doesn't diminish their power in their true role, it just gives bruisers back their role somewhat and kills a pretty unhealthy style of play (hopefully).

Damage soakig, disrupting and initiation are always in style, so tanks are never going to go away so don't worry about that. And further additions to tank itemization is probably going to tie up any loose ends and unintended overnerf potential these changes are going to have, so just relax. This is a good thing. Trust me, I'm diamond.