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Should tanks be able to outdamage carries?

SymbolicFear··2 votes·1,361 views

This isn't a discussion about HOW to play against one, this is about whether or not fundamentally, they are healthy for the game. I want to see the general thoughts on this subject. I personally see, nearly every game i might add, tanks doing the single highest damage in the game, while being the single hardest to kill.

In my opinion, tanks should be able to do some damage, but not to the extreme they are able to do. If you want damage, you should have to sacrifice a few defensive items. The main reason i think that is that it causes extreme balancing issues, either a tank/juggernaut is too powerful and easily abused, or they are too weak and more often than not, never accomplish anything.

Its at this point I'd like one or two members of Riot's team members come on over and give their own personal thoughts to this matter, its all matters of opinion and we are not asking for an explanation as to why Riot hasn't changed things or anything of the sort.

As of now the responses are overwhelmingly against the idea of tanks and juggernauts being able to out damage APCs and ADCs.

54 Comments

Mens Hair Club7 votes

juggernauts are carries

so yes

bloom1 votes

He means something like 7k hp, 0 ap cho'gath flashing on your face and literally 1-shooting u with just r and q.

Mens Hair Club3 votes

ADC scum deserve to get roasted

SymbolicFear2 votes

juggernaut main?

Mens Hair Club1 votes

yes, i am the ubermensch

SymbolicFear1 votes

Well, your opinion is just as valid as the rest, but I must ask, why do you main juggernauts?

Mens Hair Club1 votes

because I always like the tanky dudes who hit hard. in shooters, i play heavies; fighting games, I go for grapplers

not really a surprise i would play the equivalent of those dudes in League, right?

Ironfield1 votes

{quoted}

He means something like 7k hp, 0 ap cho'gath flashing on your face and literally 1-shooting u with just r and q.

Theyre fixing that with a stoneplate update in pbe, they just had to postpone it due to a bug with kled.

Cybernetic Ghost1 votes

{quoted}

He means something like 7k hp, 0 ap cho'gath flashing on your face and literally 1-shooting u with just r and q.

R and Q is not "one-shotting" because you are using two buttons--R and Q.

Better Jungler1 votes

3 because flash, and probably a click or two!

MysterQ3 votes

I do not think he means Cho.

In fact he specifically mentions... "they picked Garen. gg"

SymbolicFear1 votes

I mean all of them. There are some like Zac that are utility tanks, those are fine. They dont detonate people without fear of dying due to a hefty 4k health pool with 300 armor.

SymbolicFear1 votes

Juggernauts should not be carries though, its too easily abused by their kits as they are made for top lane vs other tanks, so they have very high damages and some even have initiations and disengages built into the kits like garen. Winning due to having a more powerful champion that is beyond difficult to kill with 3 people is kinda toxic to the game as a whole.

LightIsMyPath2 votes

Garen initiation? He literally runs at you and his only cc is a silence.

DeathBurst4 votes

Yes, Juggernauts should be able to out-damage ADC or Mages, because their damage is much more conditional. They are Melee and usually have to jump through hoops to access their full damage potential (Darius needs to stack his passive, Illaoi needs Tentacles, Yorick needs ghouls, Nasus needs stacks, etc.).

No, Tanks shouldn't be able to out-damage carries. And they are not able to do that. So everything's fine.

SymbolicFear1 votes

Look at the state amumu is in currently. Ive played with and against him several times since his last buff, and no nerf. He is easily capable of getting triples without building any form of real ap. Chogath is not a juggernaut, but another ap tank. He may build ROA but thats about it yet is able to slaughter people without any real form of counterplay. Its these types of things I am asking about.

DeathBurst2 votes

So, for Amumu, he's clearly not out-damaging carries. He has some Burst, which can be enough to get a few solo kills on squishy targets, but without "any form of real AP", his Burst is still much lower than Annie or Lux or Vel'koz. And his DPS is laughable compared to any ADC. Not out-damaging carries.

For Cho, there is an argument to be made, but keep in mind that to reach this "no counterplay one-shot" he has to blow up at least 3 different cooldowns: 1 to get in range (can be a lot of different things, from Ghost to Righteous Glory, but in any case it's a pretty long cooldown), 1 for the Stoneplate, 1 for the R. And by committing to that Full Tank build with Stoneplate, he basically makes his other skills deal no damage at all. So yeah, he has one OP combo, but it's entirely single-target and he has to work for it. I don't have any strong opinion for or against it, but it's unfair to point to that case and cry "Tanks are out-damaging carries".

Do you have any other case in mind? Sejuani/Maokai/Sion/Zac/Nautilus/Poppy/Shen/Gallio are all more or less in the same case as Amumu. And I don't see any other Tank with ludicrous amounts of damage.

Need Gold 4 Tent4 votes

They actually don't, and have never did. The high numbers in the stats come from outlasting rather than outdamaging. If you leave Mundo pounding someone on your team for a good 10 to 20 seconds or so, he's gonna rack up the damage numbers. But a typical carry champ can do that in probably 5 seconds or less.

Then another thing to consider is AoE. AoE usually seem small, but considering they are multiplied by up to 5, the damage in the stats are gonna build up too. But here, AP carries are gonna rack up the big numbers. Without fail, if an AP carry gets fed, I always notice them to top the damage charts. Even sometimes when the ADC is fed, the AP (as long as not too far behind) is going to get the highest damage to champs, with the ADC next up.

If you think of it in the reverse, a carry who builds damage dies just as quickly as he pumps out damage, or gets zoned out. He still does 5 seconds worth of carry damage, which is equal to a tank's damage over 10 seconds. There is a tradeoff and it's reasonable, and actually favouring the carries considering how defense is weaker to damage in terms of itemisation.

SymbolicFear1 votes

To fully comprehend the main question requires playing as and then against the same juggernaut/tank. Could be anyone, garen, amumu, darius, etc. This isn't about fighting against one, but also as abusing them yourself. Ive done both to figure out weaknesses, and most just say "Kiting works" when in actuality it does not. With things like ghost, flash, and speed boost abilities, kiting is a very unreliable and often times impossible form of counterplay.

Need Gold 4 Tent2 votes

I wasn't talking about counterplay here I was just explaining your observation of tanks doing high damage. I am assuming this is from the postgame stat charts, because if you're basing your statement on a tank doing a lot of damage to a squishy your entire post becomes pointless. Squishies take a lot of damage because they are squishy, not because tanks are doing too much damage.

Tanks don't and never have outdamaged damage dealers. They rack up the numbers by outlasting. A carry won't need to stick around for that long to do the same amount of damage, but they usually die just as quickly (with the current meta, not quickly enough Janna item 3382 item 3190). Let an ADC stand shooting for the same full 20 seconds as a tank, then come back and tell me the tank does more damage.

Ironfield3 votes

Tanks deal the "most damage" because they often have way more AOE abilities, %max hp, constant aoe item (thronmail, sunfire), etc that inflate the damage they do. The same things happen with Cassio vs a LB, Cassio being a Dot mage will have high damage because of AOE constant Dots throughout the game even if LB does more meaninful damage in actuality. The problem with the post game damage graphs is that its not really reflective of meaningful damage that why riot was testing a new way to view damage.

Juggernauts such as darius etc are fine how they are due to the lack of mobilty and he suffers form the same high "damage" because of his bleed.

Ironfield3 votes

Garen lacks damage to anyone other then the villain. Hes easily kited like every other juggernaut and can be cc'd down. His initiation and disengage tool is literally running to you. The closest thing for a juggernaugt having a initiation tool is Urgot e, Darius e, Shyvana ulti and theyre all low ranged or highly telegraphed. I dont think a single juggernaut has a real escape.

edit: The trade juggernauts make for high damage, high defense is low mobility.

PaffWasTaken3 votes

Depends. Should carries should be able to survive longer than full tanks like they do right now, while either using warlord or a single sustain item? Yeah thought so. The problem is not "should those champs be stronger than them and hurt more or vice versa", the problem is that EVERYONE does way too much damage, mostly with bursts. So if you don't want tanks to be too Dangerous, then any champ focused on dealing any type of damage should be gutted as well. An healthy game is where a tank can get the carry and kill it easily if it dosen't have any form of protection It is not healthy, when the tank needs as much damage to be able to do Something before the carry 1v1 it like Nothing Tanks should tank for carries and carries should carry the tanks, it shouldn't be a competition of "who has the best scaling with burst potential"

Critmaster Garen3 votes

a) tanks and juggernauts are two very different types of champions.

juggernauts are carries, and theyre supposed to deal as much damage as a marksman when they can get on top of their opponent while building 1 to 3 ad/health items like item 3071 item 3053 item 3022 item 3748 tops and the rest full defense.

juggs as carries have high melee damage and defense. marksmen have other advantages in return.

b) what does "tanks being able to outdamage carries" mean?

outdamage when fighting each other or when fighting a third champion?

in the first case id say it depends on how much armor the tank has stacked, how consistently he lands his cc skillshots and abilities, and if the marksman even bothered with armor pen. its also important to note which tank youre fighting. malphite and rammus should most definitely be able to fight marksmen.

so i say situationally, yes they should be able to.

for example a marksman should not be able to kill a tank with multiple health/armor items just on a crit build without last whisper like they do now.

even as marksman, if you want to kill a tank, you should at least be forced to itemize for it.

MysterQ2 votes

Your question is misleading. The method in which they produce high damage numbers is not the "damage" that bursts someone down and kills them.

SymbolicFear1 votes

That may be the case sometimes, but when you see an ally 100-0 an enemy almost instantly, when that ally has 4k health and 300 resistances, and maybe one single damage item. It makes you wonder how thats healthy.

MysterQ5 votes

Your initial post should be redone then. I hate to draw the lines, but you are talking about a juggernaut who must have a sizable lead. The problem is juggernauts are often toplane and so they have a level advantage over everyone (except good mids). That gives the jugger a big advantage in fighting anyone. And if they have a good lead, they often have that 1 damage item that makes them strong. And what defensive item does your dead teammate have? Usually nothing.

Trust me, I have been on the losing side of a Darius who is going 1v4 and diving under turret (Riot fix the turrets). It sucks. I don't know what ELO you are in, but now in SIlver our team ADC can effectively make the jugger useless. Not always, sometimes he will get onto the backline somehow, but if he doesn't he just dies.

I think if you get to Bronze2/1, you will see juggernauts are less played. When they are played a decent teamfight and your ADC will kill him if he isn't fed with a lot of kills. But yes in Bronze 3 sadly, it may be tough to rely on your team to stop him.

SymbolicFear1 votes

I dont play solo q. I find it to not be worth the trouble, I play flex with 2 plat buddies. We just decided to start climbing in that recently.

Either way, the three of us had this same discussion and in their elo, the tanks are a massive problem. They told me quite a few stories of how the enemy teams abandon their adc for death regardless if they are fed so they can peel for the juggernauts, as they are so much more powerful and useful.

Keeby2 votes

The most fundamental problem I can think of is not understanding the disparity between someone that has a lot of kills, experience, and gold and someone that doesn't. If the enemy tank or juggernaut has won their lane and gained a significant number of kills, CS, and levels over your own allies then they will appropriately be able to do much more damage than you regardless of if they are tank, mage, or carry.

Marksmen and mages with 3 items do much much more damage than a tank with 3 defensive items. The problem you might be having is you are improperly judging how powerful a tank or bruiser is relative to your carries' builds. If a bruiser or tank that has offensive scaling with health or armor happens to have Sunfire, Tabi's, and Thornmail to the enemy ADC's IE, Zerker Greaves, and finished zeal item, then the ADC most definitely should not be able to outdamage a tank in a 1v1 scenario.

A lot of problems that can be alleviated with "unkillable tanks that do too much damage" is simply buying penetration items such as Last Whisper/Dominik's Regards/Mortal Reminder and Void Staff. For some reason, so many awful players will decide these items are optional despite one or more tanks on the enemy team becoming huge and building plenty of armor/magic resist.

This also coexists within the intentional power curve of Marksmen, mainly that they simply do not start putting out the same damage as high base damage melee guys. Could you imagine how awful LOL would be if Caitlyn or Lucian did the same raw dps as Garen Q E at level 2? The main trade off for most of these "high damage tanks/juggernauts" is that they are very very easy to disable and deal with if you have even an ounce of crowd control to stop them. A polymorph, stun, or knockup will ruin them as a IE zeal LW carry shoots them from safety mid-lategame.

I generally feel the opposite of threatened when the enemy toplaner drafts Garen or Darius because I know I can lock in Janna, Nami, Lulu, Taric, etc. and completely nullify whatever they try to do once teamfights start showing. I cannot really agree with your assessment that tanks do too much damage in the current meta game beyond ridiculous edge cases such as Cho'gath's abuse of the Gargoyle Stoneplate.

Ok sure but why2 votes

It's not generally that they can "Do more damage than carries," except that they can usually deal a carry's amount of health in damage faster than a carry can deal a tank's amount of health in damage, which is just as obnoxious

Meep Man1 votes

That is, as long as the carry doesn't have peel of course, which leads us to Janna and the other Supports which are getting hated on right now for their peel.

SymbolicFear1 votes

This is fine, except for the fact that those supports are easily killed themselves to eradicate the peel. Janna herself is extremely squishy with not much in the ways of resistances.

Ok sure but why1 votes

So basically, supports are getting shit because they're FINALLY able to do their job?

Ralanr2 votes

In my experience, champions that are built around preventing people from doing stuff get the most hate.

This is why tanks and supports are hated so much right now.

Ok sure but why1 votes

Well I mean, that's because everyone just wants to abuse the shit out of Kayn, and when Janna gives Kayn a slight shove and makes him not instakill someone, Kayn players get upset for having to actually put effort into their fights.

And tanks just stop people from doing stuff, mostly by being impervious to stuff in general, the way a full tank Poppy can just walk circles around an enemy adc while spamming her laugh and receiving no damage from all the autos. And then chunk the ADC for half his health, since tanks have massive base stats "needed for wave clear."

Ralanr1 votes

It's not my fault ADCs aren't that much more durable than a bunch of minions.

Ok sure but why1 votes

Yeah, that's why they SHOULD be able to have damage to make up for it. What a shame they have to rely on supports to give them enough damage to be viable, or give enough cc to let the ADC pretend he's actually doing damage.

Ralanr1 votes

Except ADCs do have damage. All supports do is keep them alive.

AlienPrimate2 votes

Top lane damage dealt is misleading. If you have a Mundo vs as Cho, they are obviously going to do a lot of damage to champions because they are whacking each other all early game. When your target has 1500 hp with a good amount of healing and everyone else has 900 hp with no defenses or healing, the top laners often have to do 3k damage to get a single kill while everyone else just bursts their enemy down with 900 damage for a kill.

Cybernetic Ghost1 votes

You have a point. It's never fun to play against a fed tank champion. But on the other side, this is why teamwork is of utmost priority. Cooperation by 5 teammates should still be able to easily take down a fed tank. The problem is that most teams don't cooperate.

SymbolicFear1 votes

Then you run into the problem of needing to "5v1 the tank cause its the only way" scenario. Its just not right in my eyes, cause that means whoever has the more powerful champion will win the teamfights. I dislike the whole concept of losing/winning a game in champ select. It should be more determined on skill rather than "well, garen got picked by our team, we won" which is generally the case unfortunately.

I Ban Freelo

{quoted}

should be more determined on skill rather than "well, garen got picked by our team, we won" which is generally the case unfortunately.

LMAOO

Ironfield1 votes

If youre talking to me then i dont main juggernauts i main pure tanks like galio, moaki, shen, etc.

GigglesO1 votes

{quoted}

This isn't a discussion about HOW to play against one, this is about whether or not fundamentally, they are healthy for the game. I want to see the general thoughts on this subject. I personally see, nearly every game i might add, tanks doing the single highest damage in the game, while being the single hardest to kill.

In my opinion, tanks should be able to do some damage, but not to the extreme they are able to do. If you want damage, you should have to sacrifice a few defensive items. The main reason i think that is that it causes extreme balancing issues, either a tank/juggernaut is too powerful and easily abused, or they are too weak and more often than not, never accomplish anything.

We could just try having a balanced rotation of mage>adc>tank>mage so that everyone actually feels valued

MysterQ1 votes

Kayn cries in shadow

SymbolicFear1 votes

Its not a matter of feeling valued, the meta thing in my opinion is a problem to itself. It makes it so some champs will not see play at all, while others will be perma banned due to being overbearing that time of the season. Of course it is easy to see why Riot does this as it keeps the game feeling different but then again, it also gives cause to why a lot of people have abandoned this game. The meta's before patch 5.16 were not quite so heavy. You could still beat meta champs if at moderate skill level, these days, its pick the meta or you lose. Again, as i have said this many times, i find this to be unhealthy.

SymbolicFear1 votes

@Riot Any thoughts?

Meep Man1 votes

They don't deal as much damage as a carry, but they don't need to to deal as much damage as a carry because a carry is so squishy even a Support could kill them if they don't kill the Support first or have life steal.

SymbolicFear1 votes

I played four games, two as garen, two against garen, building youmuus enabled him to reach upwards of 75k in damage easily each game, vs the 50k of a very fed adc. The rest of the build was fully defensive.

IcyPepper2 votes

Garen built one damage item. How many defensive items did the ADC have?

And why is the ADC in melee range of Garen in the first place.

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