With all the rants against tanks, I feel like I should say something like this.

Like what the title says, tanks are crazy strong atm with having stupid damage from Aftershock and their ability to just incessantly dive and stay okay because of their ridiculously high defensive stats. Now, I'd like to talk about something called, an "Ideal Tank".

Rhaast (AKA Red Kayn) is what I can call an "Ideal Tank". The reason is that he doesn't usually need a lot of AD to get going and that he doesn't have great base damage and so overall, his damage is pretty tame. What he does have however, is great disruptive power while still being fair and balanced.

Red Kayn isn't a guy that can instantly steamroll through stuff because of all the defense items they have and still have their base damage kill everything in sight (Hello Maokai, Ornn and etc.).

Red Kayn has great disruption through simply his W. An on-demand, basic skill, line-knockup (like Yasuo's 3rd Q) is much more powerful than something like Maokai's ult or Ornn's ult because it's simply on-demand. It may not have great damage, but a knock-up like that rewards the Kayn player if he can get 2 or more ppl in it. He is however, greatly punished if he misses it in a crucial situation.

At 40% CDR, Kayn's W is on a 5.4 sec cooldown, making it more accessible than something like a Malphite/Ornn/Maokai ult. Unlike the aformentioned ults, Red Kayn's W isn't easy to land however, considering the wind-up time and its short range. Therefore, it does show some form of skill expression.

His Q is also another part of this. Here is the damage on Red Kayn's Q

((50% of his AD + 5% of target's maximum HP (+4%/100 AD))

If you play Red Kayn a lot, the max AD you can get per game is usually 200 - 250 AD, making the effective dmg of your Q along something like this:

100-125 (base) + 13-15% of target's maximum HP (depending on the AD you have)

(Dunno if I did the math right here. I'm too lazy)

As seen above, the damage is piss poor against squishies since it only has 100 - 125 base damage and the %HP damage isn't amazing either because ADC's don't usually build HP, but that's OK.

Red Kayn is not meant to deal with squishies but rather, he aims to disrupt them through his knockup, using tanks has his HP battery via his passive, and his ability to get in and out of fights through his E and R. His presence and ability to sustain through his passive and some defensive items is what makes him very disruptive.

Although Riot considers Rhaast a fighter and not a tank, he does have qualities of a tank. Now, think of the design philosophy of what a tank should be. A tank should have two things:

• Disruptive power, CC and ability to initiate
• Niche base damage, but good durability and utility.

Nowadays, Riot does screw up on this as tanks like Ornn and Maokai follow this philosophy, but are overbearing strong and easy to use as well. However, look at Red Kayn. He does follows this philosophy, but he is not overbearing strong and he is very easy to punish as well. Missing his W punishes the Kayn player a lot since they lose their disengaging/initiating and disruption skill. It can have a 5.4 sec cooldown with 40% cdr yes, but that's a long time to wait in a teamfight. His E also has a long cooldown, making him fairly easy to catch out if he doesn't have that with him in a tight situation.

Now, look at tanks like Maokai and Ornn. Yes they fulfill their duties as a tank. The problem here is they have ridiculously high base damage and that very forgiving to use as well. With Maokai, you can just plop down your ult and try to catch someone out. The same goes for Ornn as well. You can win lane against them but the second they build 1 - 2 defensive items, it's like your effort to shut them down in lane is just gone. Both are stupidly easy to initiate teamfights with as well.

The same can't be applied for Red Kayn as he is very easy to punish since he can't rush defensive items before his Black Cleaver or else he'll lose out on his damage and durability. Kayn also can't initiate as easily as the other two tanks mentioned above. He has to wait for the right time, positioning with his E and aim to catch out people with his W. However, it does stand out that Red Kayn CAN initiate teamfights and catch people off, but he needs a ton of finesse to do so.

So TL; DR: Red Kayn is a good example of what a tank should be despite being classified as a fighter: highly disruptive, but fair and balanced to deal with as well.

I think Riot needs to re-think of their design philosophy for tanks and put what I talked about into mind.