I really hate playing against Tanks in the top lane

**Annoying, but I can accept: **

They're hard to snowball off of due to the fact that they're tanky, and thus inherently difficult to kill, much less kill repeatedly. Their high base damages, utility in their kit and cheap items mean that even when gold starved, they'll still be able to contribute a lot to the team. Therefore it is incredibly difficult to gain a lead off of a tank, and similarly difficult to put them behind in any meaningful way. This leads to a feeling of limited skill expression, as you could be playing significantly better than a tank, but fail to show it off in a way that really feels meaningful and satisfying.

While annoying, this pattern is something that I can deal with. After all, it's something that's inherent to the very idea of a tank in terms of league of legends.

**Annoying, and is extremely frustrating and difficult to accept: **

What seems to have become a recent trend, however, and is mindblowingly frustrating to deal with, is the fact that in addition to it being hard to gain a lead off of, or put a tank behind, it's also become incredibly easy for them to; Put you behind Gain a lead off of you.

Bruiser items are currently some of the most expensive items in the game. (The Tri-force, Titanic, Steraks item set that many bruiser might find attractive is currently the most expensive core build for a class in the game, bar none.) The introduction of Aftershock which limits the trading patterns that Bruisers used to employ against Tanks, and instead gives them to tanks (more on this later) The removal of Magic Resistance runes, which has made Bruisers especially vulnerable to the Magic damage heavy kits of tanks. The introduction of Runes such as Mana Flow Band, which has greatly reduced the one thing that tanks have traditionally had to carefully manage in the early game - mana consumption. The introduction of stuff like Second Wind and Bone Plating

Because tanks are, well, tanky, it's very difficult to all-in them and have something meaningful come from it (such as a kill, or a forced back in a bad position). Therefore historically, a good trading pattern for Bruisers to adopt against tanks was to continuously force them into a bunch of short trades - the idea of which was that you'd whittle down their health to a degree that might allow for a fatal all-in, or trade with the intention of forcing them to waste their mana (as their mana costs, especially those on the disengage skills that they need to prevent all-ins, were generally much higher than yours). As a result, while it would be difficult for you to meaningfully put the tank behind, or snowball off of him, it would also be difficult for the tank to avoid being a punching bag during the laning phase (junglers interference aside). Therefore, low risk, medium reward. A tank could safely make it through the laning phase and scale into teamfights. That was their reward, as opposed to picking another fighter where suddenly it might be a feast/famine snowball war. The reward of tanks then, was a safe laning phase. Not necessarily an easy one, but a safe one.

Do I need to spell out how Aftershock, Manaflow Band, Second wind and Bone Plating, as well as the removal of MR runes ruins this narrative? Not to mention that Bruisers can no longer fine tune their early stats with rune pages, as they once could (and are arguably the class that most needs to, a one-trick Irelia, for instance, might need at least 5 rune pages.)

Aftershock grants 70 Magic resistance and Armor for 2.5 seconds at level 1. Suddenly, that tactic of continuous short trades to whittle the fortress that are tanks down is no longer much of a viable option, as the moment you jump on them, they'll CC you (as they always have done), but in the process gain so much Armor that for the next 2.5 seconds (when you want to be the burstiest) they can straight up beat you in a slugging match. Not to mention the fact that the tank can also engage onto you instead, by playing against the aftershock cooldown to negate any meaningful retaliation. (remember, tanks are by very nature difficult to all-in meaningfully, so not having a trading pattern to quickly chunk them suddenly leaves you with no viable method to actually trade with them). No MR runes means that where you once would edge them out damage wise, they now do horrid amounts of damage with their high base damage magical abilities. Bone Plating and Second Wind again directly counters your 'whittle' or 'chunk' method of dealing with tanks, and as said by Hashinshin, if you don't pick at least one of these you're immediately at a disadvantage in Top Lane. But remember, Tanks scale off of these runes better than fighters/bruisers do, because it covers the weaknesses of their style. Then Mana-Flow band once again provides massive weakness coverage for tanks, making it very difficult to meaningfully trade with their mana bar.

So now, you've given Tanks their traditional strengths, while covering for their traditional weaknesses with the updates, and failing to even the bench-mark out by providing bruisers with equal coverage or more optimised stats.

So now Tanks are suddenly strong early game, retain their strengths, and gain new ones in the form of being able to essentially out-lane Fighters/Bruisers, while still preserving the ability of falling back into their more defensive patterns should the Fighter/Bruiser be significantly better or gain a lead somehow.

And this is all without mentioning how much more effective tanks are at setting up ganks for Top Lane, or the fact that many of them can ignore wave management due to how the new runes have upped their regenerative abilities to absurd levels.

This is also expressed by Op.GGs listings for the best Winrates in top lane. Of the top 10, 3 are ranged champions who, naturally, can still bully tanks. Then there's Sion and Malphite, two tanks. So, immediately, half of the top ten are either tanks, or anti-tanks. Then there's Camille and Kled, both fit the Bruiser archetype well (Physical damage, damage items into tank, bruiser playstyles, etc.) We all know why Camille's WR is high - it's because she can absolutely abuse the enemy back-line mid-late game and is just as good, if not better than Tanks at setting up ganks. Kled is another obvious one; high damage, resource-less, massive amounts health through Skarl, and when weak (dismounted) he becomes pseud-ranged and tanks simply do not have the damage or resources to take advantage of the window of opportunity presented by tanks being dismounted. So both Bruisers on the list are essentially only there because of unique mechanics that they possess.

Then there's Singed, who basically builds full tank, or AP tank, and as a result has more in common with tanks like Malphite or Maokai than champions such as Riven, Jax, Renekton or Irelia.

Finally, there's Wukong and Pantheon. Pantheon has always had one of the strongest laning phases top-lane and can bully just about anyone. As for Wukong, I'll be honest. I have no clue why his WR is so high and why he's so viable Top Lane.