I don't think it is damage creep alone...

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When Randuin's gave 80 armor and slowed AS AND MS on each hit taken.

When FH gave 100, and more AS slow.

When thornmail was more relevant than the component items it builds out of.

When Riot gutted HP regen off every non-support item in the game.

Lets not forget a tank item that gave %MS, and Magic resistance, with incombat healing. I still miss you FoN

when regen as a stat was actually good

I dont remember 1200 hp warmogs but i remember 1000 hp warmogs with in combat healing. Dont worry guys its okay we got 10% cdr now.

{quoted}

When Randuin's gave 80 armor and slowed AS AND MS on each hit taken.

When FH gave 100, and more AS slow.

When thornmail was more relevant than the component items it builds out of.

When Riot gutted HP regen off every non-support item in the game.

Randuin's used to have 90 armor, alongside some HP regen (remember Heart of Gold?) and 15 CDR(!)

Randuin's gave 75 Armor and had A CHANCE to slow AS and MS on each hit. The slow was not guaranteed. It also cost a bit more (3075 gold).

Frozen Heart had 99 Armor, 500 MR and cost 2775 gold.

Looking back, I can understand the nerfs to HP regen. The stat is fairly invisible, but small changes can have big effects (changes to base regen nowadays can easily shift a champions winrate by 1-2%).

back when last whisper items gave total armor pen? hehe

Yep, they were actually strong enough that sometimes a damage champ would take them and sacrifice getting damage. You don't see that now anymore.

And then Riot decided that tanks were spiking too hard in the midgame and destroyed all their good one-item spikes.

And were shocked when their winrates plummeted across the board. The tank update upset me so much, I don't want my ability to soak damage to be tied up entirely in one item with a double-edged active.

I miss games where you would stack them just trying to get to 10k hp. Sure sion could get there, but not many other champs made it. It made the games alot of fun.

We still have 80 attack damage items.

This. People don't realize that the only reason that ADCs seem to be unkillable is because they have someone to spoon-feed them double kills. After that, you see the jungler and mid as the most fed, as they're roaming the most and tend to have high damage. The only reason we don't see tanks fed as much is because the nature of their kits make it hard to pick up a lot of kills.

But that changes when you pull in someone like Kled, who is tanky and does a lot of damage. If he wins lane, for the next 10 to 20 minutes, he's unstoppable. He will charge into your team, crush everything in sight, burst your squishies, DPS your tanks, and be all but unkillable while doing so. It's rare to see that on many other tanks or juggernauts, because they tend to be less mobile or do less damage (and typically both), but it happens. You end up as a truly unkillable force that still manages good damage outputs for a while.

sunfire

great addition

Uh... 99% sure that sunfire has literally always been in the game. At the very least, it's been around since late in the alpha. It had slightly less armour, slightly more health, and double the damage to champions until season 4. It also cost 400 less. The only way you can argue that tank items are stronger now is stoneplate. They might be more varied now, but they're almost certainly weaker.

Oh, and the MR items are only better if you want damage. FoN had 76 MR, Spirit visage was so good for regen (and at times had the same amount of MR as it does now), Banshee's veil is rarely built these day even though it has more MR, and Runic Bulwark gave 55 MR to you and 25 to the rest of your team.

Having a larger variety doesn't mean the items themselves are stronger.