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I was checking op.gg as I do, and I noticed a trend among top tanks.

kasfas··26 votes·2,716 views

All of their highest winrate builds, and increasingly their more frequent builds, omit item 3068.

Most champions opt instead into either item 3075 or item 3025, and some instead use item 3110. For example: Sion builds item 3110 and item 3075 now in his best builds. Maokai builds item 3075 as doGalio and Ornn. Nautilus builds item 3075 and item 3025, as does Malphite. Gragas builds item 3025. Even Shen has started building item 3068 less, opting into taking only item 3748 for waveclear.

There are only two exceptions to this rule currently, and those are Poppy who's highest winrate builds also include item 3025 and often include item 3075, and DrMundo who also often builds item 3075.

This has only happened for a SINGLE patch so far, so I don't expect this to be acted upon in any significant sense but if this trend continues there may be reason to look into the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of item 3068.

(Note I am a top tank main, so I've always hated the item 3068 but I know my opinion isn't informed enough to be considered by riot)

(Note 2: I take into account here the champions who build tank items and item 3068, and that is who I refer to when I say tank and why Mundo is included for you subclass fanatics)

37 Comments

Daganth16 votes

uh no one has built sunfire for months after its nerf.

Ben Sharpio16 votes

nobody builds frozen heart either........

kasfas1 votes

Really says something when FH is being bought increasingly as often as sunfire, doesn't it?

kasfas1 votes

Except it was still the most built item on tanks for patches since the tank update. Not that I like it.

Melledoneus15 votes

The reason why Sunfire is omitted is because there are so many requirements for tanks to fulfill to be able to effectively survive through a team fight. Let's go through them.

item 3047 You need this to survive a fed ADC auto attacking you. And by fed I mean an item and a half. item 3075 You need this to prevent said ADCs from turning you into an endless IV bag. item 3143 You need this to mitigate an ADC's crit damage to you so they burn through your HP a bit slower.

##These are three items you already NEED to have in your build to have a chance of tanking the enemy ADC. Now, if we're dealing with some heavy magic damage as well we need to invest in:

item 3194 For spam spells (Ryze Cassiopeia Karthus) or DOTs (Teemo Malzahar item 3151) item 3001 For bolstering your own team's magic damage. item 3065 To help your healing and regen effects during a fight (or you know, Soraka/Redemption).

##Then, you have to consider that if the enemy team has a full AD comp, you need to invest even HEAVIER in armor itemization:

item 3742 Good HP and armor, as well as minor engaging power. item 3110 Lol who builds this item item 3025 For tanks that can afford to weave autos into their spells.

##But wait! If they have a full AD comp, they will most likely buy item 3071 or item 3036! Awesome. Now you have to buy HP since your armor is moot:

item 3083 HP and heavy out of combat sustain so you can rejoin fights quickly or rotate between objectives without needing to back. item 3800 Decent HP, mana, and engaging power. item 3193 An active that lets you have a higher HP pool for a few seconds.

##Oh, wait. You happen to be a support. Here are even more required items:

item 3109 If you don't take this item you're doing a shit job as a support because your ADC is not invincible yet. item 3190 Shields? Please and thank you. item 3401 Another shield? Good.

As you can see, tanks are already burdened by the sheer amount of items they NEED to even dream about being able to be a tank in the face of the enemy's carries. Sunfire is a crappy item because it offers nothing in terms of tanking power compared to the alternatives. You must be able to soak up as much damage as possible so your ADC(s) can mow down the enemy team and win. It's a sad state the game is in, yes, but that's the reality of the situation.

But maybe that's just my elo.

RenownedWheat421 votes

This is such a very real problem, yet I still find myself heavily enjoying being a tank main right now.

kasfas1 votes

Tanks are still pretty tanky, but now lack self agency and cannot shift the tide of a game unless the god forsaken adc is winning.

kasfas4 votes

Nope, I've had that problem too. The only difference is I only play norms now. Ranked is full of enchanter and hyper carry cancer that has made this meta unfun. At least in norms you have a chance to have a botlane that doesn't focus on pushing their 1 cs advantage into a winning game.

It's really not fair that so much of a tanks build can be negated by a single item, or any item for that matter, considering the whole purpose of a tank is to NOT take damage. And even more so when we need to go to such great itemisation lengths to do our jobs properly.

I once this week had a game as sion where I rushed Thornmail, I'm not sure if I had tabi or not, and tried to get near the enemy jinx who had not yet completed a single major item (had bf and zeal). She did about 9% or more of my hp per auto, and didn't even feel threatened enough to stop. I don't think this scenario should be possible, and yet this is where we're stuck now.

I have been trying to cite as much data as possible to prove the regressiveness of the tank update and hope for an official statement about its negative impact on the game but haven't gotten it yet. It's only a matter of time until it happens. Until then I wait patiently...

Oh, one more thing. FH is actually pretty good in combination with Thornmail and a high health pool against full ad teams. I sometimes find myself buying it on ornn and sion in those scenarios. I remember the days where FH was a good enough item for people to rush it as a first item. Now it's just not that good, though it's relative value has increased due to less penetration in the game overall.

LankPants1 votes

The reason why Sunfire is omitted is because there are so many requirements for tanks to fulfill to be able to effectively survive through a team fight. Let's go through them.

It's omitted because it's hot garbage and other items fill its role better.

Sunfire deals a billion damage to creeps, but it's always overkill. Bramble Vest and IBG both work out to be good enough for killing creeps while being significantly more effective VS champs. If Sunfire did something more than tickle champs then it would be a fair option, but the only thing it hurts is creeps.

Also there's a very clear case where your logic breaks down, IBG doesn't offer you more survivability than Sunfire, it offers significantly less and yet is still a better item.

DeathBurst9 votes

Well, I'm no pro either, but if my champ has even a shred of waveclear built-in in their kit, I avoid Sunfire as much as I can.

Thing is, with the nerf to the champ damage, the only thing Sunfire is now good for is wave-clear. But as a Tank, I don't want to invest my gold into wave-clear. I want to invest it into durability and CC/supportive effects. No way I'm buying the current Sunfire unless I'm forced to by circumstances.

TotalJerk1 votes

Sunfire is supposed to be bought so you don't have to burn spells clearing waves, saving yourself mana. If it's not being bought either tanks aren't having mana problems on other build paths, or Sunfire's stats are simply too bad.

DeathBurst1 votes

yeaaah, except I can just buy Mana and use my spells on the wave OR on the enemy depending on the situation. New sunfire is totally underwhelming.

It Hertz When IP3 votes

item 3748 : Hi!

Meep Man1 votes

That and most Tanks have at least decent wave clear already. Only the Tanks mentioned have really bad wave clear (Dr. Mundo and Poppy) in comparison to others. Sunfire is also just a good synergy item for Mundo.

kasfas2 votes

It's not worth it though, since spells are generally better because they also do damage to the enemy laner. You're probably better off getting Frozen Heart than sunfire because it increases your spell uptime while also giving more mana to use them.

You also have to think about thornmail which does the same job, but also has other uses and has damage vs champs that doesn't suck.

Spoofghoul2 votes

sunfires stats are too bad

one of the main culprits is the tiny aura

it used to have at least enough size to hit all the minions now you cannot even do that anymore

it's also fairly useless now for damaging champions not only did that damage get shafted you need to literally sit on top of them now to even burn them

so all it really has is it's stats vs other tank items, and they are roughly equal in hp and armor yet other tank items provide useful additional stats like as reduction grievous wounds or crit reduction

kasfas1 votes

Personally, I think it was the introduction of bramble vest that killed sunfire cape. It does essentially the same job, but also has damage vs champs that isn't ignorable and also has decent tank stats. Plus it builds into thorn map which is essential in this ardent censor enchanter meta.

Champion Skin1 votes

Sunfire is supposed to be bought so you don't have to burn spells clearing waves, saving yourself mana.

Well at that point you could just as well build a good mana item item 3024 ---> item 3800 /item 3110 /item 3025 item 3010 ---> item 3001 item 1056 (it isn't that good but it is a cheap way to get some mana and the need for mana usually goes down since champions gain increased mana and mana regen on level up though tanks usually have some ability the can spam so they do tend to burn a lot of mana when fighting)

There is also item 3748/item 3077 which to be fair is more expensive but it is much more useful in combat with champions (just AA + active (AA) deals 45 + 11% max hp + the damage from the AAs)

LankPants1 votes

It's outclassed by Thornmail, IBG and Titanic Hydra, all of which offer some waveclear without being hot garbage VS champs.

Erockandroll1 votes

{quoted}

Well, I'm no pro either, but if my champ has even a shred of waveclear built-in in their kit, I avoid Sunfire as much as I can.

Thing is, with the nerf to the champ damage, the only thing Sunfire is now good for is wave-clear. But as a Tank, I don't want to invest my gold into wave-clear. I want to invest it into durability and CC/supportive effects. No way I'm buying the current Sunfire unless I'm forced to by circumstances.

Does anyone remember Tank Ekko/Fizz? Riot pretty much was forced to dumpster Sunfire, less any non tank built it without sacrificing significant damage. And to that end, Tanks should be more reliant on their abilities for wave clear, not just on itemization.

{quoted}

Sunfire is supposed to be bought so you don't have to burn spells clearing waves, saving yourself mana. If it's not being bought either tanks aren't having mana problems on other build paths, or Sunfire's stats are simply too bad.

I doubt Riot would see that as fair. Not having to burn spells on wave clear would mean that you have fewer opportunity costs using your spells for other things. (Lane harass, engage, etc) And possibly end up with Tanks not being properly mana gated.

DeathBurst2 votes

Thing is, if you actually buy Mana Items (Glacial Shroud and co.), you're effectively not Mana gated, and you still have better items than Sunfire. So TotalJerk's argument doesn't really hold for me.

PopcornBunni7 votes

The tank update absolutely gutted tank itemization.

Old item 3068 was 500 health and 50 armor, effectively granting 750 health against physical attacks in addition to whatever effective health gain from your characters existing health pool

New item 3068's 425 health and 60 armor grants effectively 680 health against physical while also being much worse against magic damage. In order to grant the same effective health as before it would need to have either 469 health or 77 armor. It's ridiculous how much worse it is.

DeathBurst1 votes

Except that, as you said it yourself, you didn't take into account the gains from your character pre-existing health pool. So yeah, new Sunfire is much worse against Magical damage, obviously, and that's very much on purpose. But it's not worse against Physical damage, to the contrary, it's better. In practice, your character pre-existing health pool needs to be higher than 750 HP for new Sunfire to be better against Physical damage. Realistically, that's always the case.

kasfas1 votes

So health is harder to get, but more valuable? It sure as hell doesn't feel more valuable, especially when % pen items have the same value of penetration against armour that they had before the update.

DeathBurst1 votes

I don't see the link between what I said (which was replying to Popcorn Bunni, in case you're not in Discussion view), and your point about Penetration.

The thing is, if Tank items have a lot of health and a little resistances, an Armor item is still good against Magic, and an MR item is still good against Physical damage. That's not good gameplay, and that makes a Tank that wins lane scale too easily into the late game. So they shifted the value of Health and Resistances.

The end result is that now, compared to before, Armor items are better against Physical damage. They are not gutted at all. They are better than before for their main purpose. So yes, they are also worse than before against Magic damage, that's true. But the way Popcorn Bunni presented things is dishonest and misleading.

kasfas2 votes

I haven't said all armour items were gutted, in fact I think some of them are pretty decent like thornmail and randuins, and to a lesser extent frozen heart. However, when you concider the amount of armour in the game has increased, including the fact that %pen/shred has decreased, many % pen/shred items end up reducing about as much armour as they had previously, except now on targets with a smaller health pool to back up those reduced resists.

So while armour items may be better against physical damage, the pen items in the game make up for the difference, leading targets to be just about as tanky as before the update, in addition to lowered damage reduction from the opposing damage type, leading to taks having an even weaker earlygame than before with virtually no compensation lategame.

Even worse is that in riots words, they wanted to alow tank builds to become more effective through game time, and yet they still push the idea that adcs are the only class capable of lategame functionality. Thus their point on power growth is moot and leads to tanks just being weaker overall.

This isnt just anecdotal as well, every single tank that wasn't directly touched by riot after the tank update suffered a MASSIVE winrate drop and some still haven't fully recovered despite direct and indirect buffs.

We also STILL havent looked at the %pen/shred innately in champion kits, which has inadvertently made some champions significantly better than others, and likely is the only reason why juggernauts like darius and garen remain playable in this meta.

So, from what i understand, you claim resistance items are better at reducing damage from their respective damage types and worse at the opposite making tank builds less powerful after one item and more after several. Thus, health gained from items or other sources must be more effective when combined with these increased resists against their corresponding damage type.

I claim that this causes problems due to the penetration items in game nulifying this effectiveness while still having reduced effectiveness against the opposing type. Additionally this causes scaling problems as tanks have difficulty fighting in non-singular damage comps until they have completed at least 2 items, much like adcs and other classes, and yet dont scale nearly as well leaving them feeling underwhelmed at all stages in the game.

Though his point may be misleading, it shows a general truth about the state of tank items in that they are almost universally weaker than they were before the update no matter what stage in the game you are.

The only thing really propping up tanks, which is also being abused by another class it wasnt meant for, is stoneplate.

We can discuss that further if you would like, but im feeling pretty done on this topic for now.

Geshultz1 votes

I agree with your statement (As someone who plays top lane tanks) sunfire cape feels pretty useless as the game goes on. As it does so little damage that most tanks are better off rushing item 3025 oritem 3748 for waveclear; Well, those items give better waveclear and damage as well.

LexLutheran871 votes

The passive of thorn is also needed to manage the gods of bot lane that might also have something to do with it showing up in the most "effective" builds.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

Tanks don't need item 3068 . Tanks have item 1401 . If you are insisting on remaining in top lane as a tank after all this time, then I have no sympathy for you.

RocketRelm3 votes

I sure am glad they removed every other jungle enchant. It'd really suck if your jungler wanted to pick anything using any of those other jungle enchants that made your team just not have a tank.

kasfas2 votes

Wow, it's like tanks need to go somewhere that isn't support or jungle because they were DESIGNED that way!

I hold his opinion in very low regard.

I mean this guy, he must be really dense. They LITERALLY just released a toplane tank claiming he was MEANT to go there and insists that his misguided view is right. How stuck in an echo chamber can a person really be?

The Yetii Rider1 votes

{quoted}

I sure am glad they removed every other jungle enchant. It'd really suck if your jungler wanted to pick anything using any of those other jungle enchants that made your team just not have a tank.

If you are playing a tank, why would you want Warrior or Runic Echoes? Cinderhulk gives a tank everything they could want. Better clears, a big chunk of health, and the safety to rush a pure armor or pure MR item right after.

AwesomeGuyDj1 votes

They meant your basically fucking yourself by choosing a champion like lee or elise etc that dont use cinderhulk

OyddAWqJ5r1 votes

Sunfire Cape's design is just too archaic to be a viable item. I don't suggest they simply toss damage back onto it.

Rather I think the passive needs to be reworked to be more interactive in some sense along with damage increases for that higher interactivity.

kasfas1 votes

Not everything can, or should be interactive. If you say we should make sunfire more interactive, then what about all the other sources of uninteractive damage? Should they be removed as well, Because I'm all for that.

SwiftKitten881 votes

there are these things called icons...

then i dont need to spend 4 min trying to figure out "IBG" stands for item 3025 and FH stands for item 3110

kasfas1 votes

There is this thing called an smartphone, which lacks that functionality.

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