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Can we stop pretending tanks are weak?

Mira Arya Enthe··94 votes·4,696 views

It is a bald faced, statistical lie. And these stats are from platinum+ not "bronzies". The boards keep saying they "Don't ever feel tanky on tanks" well here are the factual, non-bias, numerical statistics. Tanks are perfectly fine overall with some strong and weak outliers. So if you are going to buff anything for the class as a whole realize it will come with compensation nerfs. This is not S6, tanks are not weak. Stop living in last year.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/zac/platinum 11.3% play rate, 54.5% win rate, 59% ban rate highest in the game, higher than Yasuo.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/ivern/platinum 4.7% play rate, 54% win rate, 14% ban rate. Ban 3.5x more than Riven despite being played a lot less.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/galio/platinum 12% play rate, 48.5% win rate, 10.7% ban rate. Played extremely often ban just as much.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/sejuani/platinum 4.4% play raye, 51% win rate, 8% ban rate. Looking fine to me.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/thresh/platinum 37.1% play rate, 51.7 win rate, 3.5% ban rate. Oh look even support tanks are viable. More below.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/blitzcrank/platinum 13.1% play rate, 52% win rate, 3.2% ban rate. More tank supports.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/gragas/platinum 13.1% play rate, 49.5% win rate, 1.8% ban rate. A healthy nearly 50/50 win rate despite popularity.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/rammus/platinum 2.8% play rate, 50.7% win rate, 0.7% ban rate. On the lower end of tanks but still doing OK.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/malphite/platinum 5.4% play rate, 50.1% win rate, 0.7% ban rate. Looks solidly balanced if not frustratingly binary.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/amumu/platinum 3.9% play rate, 50.9% win rate, 0.6% ban rate. Again, solid average performance.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/braum/platinum 7.6% play rate, 49.4% win rate, 0.5% ban rate. More viable tank supports.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/nunu/platinum 3.7% play rate, 53.3% win rate, 0.3% ban rate. Most mains can only dream of such ideal stats.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/leona/platinum 6.7% play rate, 50.1% win rate, 0.2% ban rate. Tank supports, doing fine.

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/sion/platinum 2.8% play rate, 51.3% win rate, 0.1% ban rate. Looks fine considering all the other tank options crowding him out.

This is almost all of the tanks. 14 total either viable or OP, 13 if you do not like counting Ivern a jungle tank support. I found only 5-6(depending on who you count as a tank) who were weak right now by their numbers. That is totally acceptable by me as it represents about the same or better ratios of good to bad of any other class in the game. And it is not a class issue it is an outlier issue.

Again these stats are platinum through challenger and have nothing to do with "bronzies". And they mean the class is fine. So if you want to buff the entire class, what compensation nerfs are you going to give?

This same spread of viability on Assassins or Skirmishers would make the boards burn down with complaints.

190 Comments

SEKAI56 votes

You'd completely ignored the fact low play rate inflates win rates. Nunu's a good example of this, his 53% win rate is a heavily skewed by his low play rate. On a flip-side, champs with low pick rate but still enjoy a somewhat "balanced" 50% win rate may still indicate a problem, often to do with the champ being underpowered.

Many of these tanks aren't tanks too. As mentioned a billion times, someone who can tank and someone who is a tank are 2 very different things.

And we (well I lied, more like "I") don't know the validity of the site, how reliable is it in the first place? Or is it chosen because its stats already align with your opinion OP?

TEA Nietzsche 6 votes

{quoted}

You'd completely ignored the fact low play rate inflates win rates.

Why is that, through magic?

Mira Arya Enthe11 votes

No a lower playrate narrows the gap between the number of mains on a champion and the number of casuals, boosting their win rate. But it has to be a much smaller number typically like last year with Kog'Maw.

TEA Nietzsche 16 votes

What I was getting at is that this is not always the case: a high playrate may be indicative of an inexperienced playerbase, but that is not always accurate. Riven is the best example against it, she has the 4th most dedicated playerbase (->champion.gg) despite having a 16% pickrate. Tanks have a notoriously inexperienced playerbase for a number of reasons: they have not unique mechanically demanding abilities which means that tank players tend to change their mains depending on meta, while most carry mains have much less flexibility.

Teridax6821 votes

Generally, when complaints get made about tanks being weak, they refer to their performance in top lane, where the nerfs to Sunfire Cape affected them the most. This is corroborated by poor statistical performance from tanks in top lane, only 2 of whom have win rates above 50% (Maokai and Malphite, surprisingly), and all of whom have fallen behind relative to most top lane fighters and even marksmen. This is directly tied to the nerfs to Sunfire Cape, arguably the most significant power spike for any top lane tank, around which most of them were balanced, so it is not wrong to say that tanks are weak in top lane.

Tanks aren't weak overall, but mostly because most of them have remained unchanged and have had their itemization for the support and jungle roles left relatively power-neutral, so pointing at their general win rates is a bit of a red herring. Trying to make the case for there being no issue when there is a valid discussion to be had on this is, in this respect, not all that helpful.

Aterpater17 votes

The problem with your argument is that winrate has nothing to do with how "tanky" a tank is. If you look over your list (ignoring the debate that which ones of these are "pure tanks" at all...) you can name at almost every champ that why is it good and it's almost always some strong offensive power or CC ability.

The thing that many tanks just melting from the attacks of some champs (especially since they can't build full hp but have to build armor or mr - what, on top of that, many champs and builds will simply cut through...), so they don't really feel "tanky", isn't a "bald faced, statistical lie" (such harsh words...). As, no offense, but your argument is simply irrelevant with winrates against tankiness...

And I would seriously argue with "This is almost all of the tanks" sentence. As you included a nice amount of champs who aren't classified as tanks officially at all - like Thresh or Blitz who are "Catchers", so Controllers and not Tanks, etc. - but quietly forgot about Volibear, Shen, Poppy and a lot of "real" tanks.

Jbels5 votes

{quoted}

The problem with your argument is that winrate has nothing to do with how "tanky" a tank is. If you look over your list (ignoring the debate that which ones of these are "pure tanks" at all...) you can name at almost every champ that why is it good and it's almost always some strong offensive power or CC ability.

The thing that many tanks just melting from the attacks of some champs (especially since they can't build full hp but have to build armor or mr - what, on top of that, many champs and builds will simply cut through...), so they don't really feel "tanky", isn't a "bald faced, statistical lie" (such harsh words...). As, no offense, but your argument is simply irrelevant with winrates against tankiness...

And I would seriously argue with "This is almost all of the tanks" sentence. As you included a nice amount of champs who aren't classified as tanks officially at all - like Thresh or Blitz who are "Catchers", so Controllers and not Tanks, etc. - but quietly forgot about Volibear, Shen, Poppy and a lot of "real" tanks.

Voli isn't actually a tank, and Shen's playstyle doesn't reflect a tank even if he's classified as one. I generally agree with what you're saying though, there is definitely cherrypicking going on here

Aterpater2 votes

Yes, you are right about Voli and Shen in that sense. Actually, putting aside official classifications, it is hard to find champs what are played in a classic tank role and not for some other advantages they provide. Maybe Galio and pre-rework Maokai can count as "real tanks"...

Not to mention the practical tankiness of some non-tank champs due to damage mitigation and untargetable abilities (e.g. Fizz...) :)

Ralanr6 votes

Rammus is probably the most classic tank in terms of playstyle.

Because he can hold aggro.

Ralanr15 votes

Frankly the only thing I'd want to buff is the sunfire radius. You can nerf the damage more for all I care.

Mira Arya Enthe19 votes

I think buffing the radius is fine without the nerf. It was already nerfed and has not been a very good buy since.

Ralanr6 votes

Yeah. It's a rather poor option for pushing despite advertisements for it. Most toplane tanks already have waveclear and support tanks don't want to build it.

Maybe I'd build it on Leona/Alistar top if I decided to be weird.

Mira Arya Enthe14 votes

Funny how this post was upvoted and in the blink of the eye I got a ton of downvotes just like everything I've posted recently

RookPusher30 votes

Probably from your dig at bronzies which is 50% of the population. Not smart.

Mira Arya Enthe9 votes

Actually. I was not insulting bronze players. Rather some higher tier players who whenever linked statistics start talking about bronzies.

Snowplosion16 votes

It's because you used stats. People here don't like numbers.

chipndip16 votes

Gotta use algebra. Letters sneak by a bit better.

Ralanr5 votes

It's a mixture of tank lovers and tank haters imo.

Personally I've chosen to stay a bit neutral in the voting.

Mira Arya Enthe5 votes

I know it's always the exact same amount every time plus it just literally lifted off out of nowhere and typically is followed by Commons by the same couple people who have the same mannerisms

Ralanr3 votes

I'm honestly amazed at how much the votes in this thread change in a few minutes.

Deep Terror Nami9 votes

https://i.gyazo.com/86aaeba37af715707d4e6af4d6bb3c35.png

TyrekGoldenspear2 votes

Eh don't worry. You have enough people here with sense and without a personal vendetta against you to keep you positive until the boards vote reform.

Deep Terror Nami12 votes

By "reform" do you mean disabled? Because that's how the vote manipulation gets fixed, both up and down. Though, this is a discussion for the moderation board.

Mira Arya Enthe16 votes

Imo the votes should be as meaningless as they use to be on the old boards. I have no problem with people disagreeing or a -1 by my post title. I have a huge problem with my post becoming invisible because of the first 2-3 people who see it or because of a mysterious 5 downvotes all instantly that thankfully disapeared. Visibility and votes should not be linked in my opinion.

But I will leave such an off topic discussion for the appropriate place. Where I already have posted my views before.

It has gotten to the point where everyone is making smurfs. And I have also seen in discord chatrooms I use to be in. Targeted downvoting of threads. Somebody even once told me to Downvote Rubick just because they did not like them. Which is funny because as much as we disagree I like a lot of Rubick's posts.

Not xPeke4 votes

and that's the same thing that happens in alot of the player behaviour discussions. Where people instantly downvote threads for no reason and don't even leave a comment.

Fondling Gems14 votes

Not gonna dispute your point, I agree that tanks are in a good spot, but I do want to point a few things out.

  1. Ivern is not a tank. (I know you made note of it but I felt like mentioning it again for the sake of forming a good list. Gotta get that nice formatting down.)

  2. Neither Thresh nor Blitzcrank are proper "Tanks" IMO. Neither of them actually build that tanky, prioritizing things like Locket and Redemption over actual tank items. They also don't function as proper damage soakers, and instead focus on grabbing people out of position rather than tanking for their team.

  3. Tanks function in a very different role than they used to, hence why tank players complain about not feeling tanky. Currently tanks function by being a decent damage threat or having a buttload of CC. Namely instead of focusing on survival damage is high enough in the game that they instead focus on either killing enemies (Almost more like the classic bruiser) or ccing enemies so they get blown up instantly.

While there were tanks that DID do that in the past, this now applies to the class as a whole. With teamfights having grown shorter due to damage increasing by a %, different champions are affected differently. If in previous seasons a squishy dies in 2-3 seconds from a bruiser jumping on them when you cut it in half they only live 1-1.5 seconds. However if a tank used to have lived for 10 seconds they now only live 5 because fights aren't shorter by a flat amount, they are shorter by a %.

This means that tanks feel far squishies than they used to, because even though they are still on even ground with other champions they lost far more flat lifetime in fights.

Season 5 also wasn't that long ago, and tanks hit a high point in survivability back then, so every tank player who has been playing since then feels like they lost a lot, because they have. Tanks have lost more flat lifetime in fights than any other class because every class lost a % of fight lifetime and tanks had the highest lifetime in fights.

While Season 5 was a bit extreme as far as tanks were concerned I specifically remember being able to walk into 5 people as Nautilus/Taric and survive for a good 5+ seconds, especially in Taric's case where he could often live for 10-20 seconds if he was dodging shit too. Now a days that just isn't possible. We were rewarded with more kill potential and our CC having more effect due to enemies getting blown up, but that isn't actually why most people played tanks. Tank survivability has been severely cut, and though tanks are balanced, that does not mean they feel tanky anymore compared to what they are used to.

Again, I think tanks are in a good spot, but it is easy to understand why tank players don't feel tanky anymore. Cutting 50% lifetime off of every champion when being attacked might be balanced, but as humans we tend to register things in flat time, and in terms of flat lifetime when being attacked tanks lost the most by far.

Ahristocats12 votes

only tanks that are ever played in high elo are sejuani zac shen galio (if we consider him as a tank as he is played bruiser ap in soloq)

i'm starting to see some sion but that's it

don't come and tell me that nunu is fine when he's never picked, same for malphite

and some things are questionable, how is blitz a tank? how is ivern a tank?

both never build any tanky items, blitzcrank role isn't even to tank damage, but to nuke while hooking someone i guess thresh is a tank even if he's almost as squishy as a ranged support

Mira Arya Enthe3 votes

However. Wouldn't you say in high elo that there are only ever 3-4 viable options from each class anyway? Genuinely asking because that is what I have seen.

Ahristocats10 votes

wanna know the adcs that are played above master? Ashe Caitlyn Draven Jinx Lucian Twitch Varus KogMaw Kalista Ezreal Xayah

the tank class does not have that many viable picks even in the mage class you see more viable picks , the list is too long but it would be faster to list unviable mages that are lux karthus and ryze

the problem with tanks is often mana costs laning with them is almost impossible due to mana costs being high

the best example is Nautilus who has 46% win rate atm, and will drop even more after doran ring nerf they nerfed his mana regen+mana cost before the tank rework and now he ends up oom after 4 or 5 E

if they gave to malphite/poppy/nautilus ect... decent mana cost and mana regen they would have no problems

Mira Arya Enthe7 votes

Fair enough. I can agree tank mana cost is a bit absurd. Hey I appreciate your input, nice to have the high tier here!

Ahristocats8 votes

by the way i didn't downvote you, i saw that you talked about downvotes but i never downvote people like you who try to make a point

i only downvote agressive people or people trying to bring other people down

Mira Arya Enthe5 votes

I know you did not. And even if you did that is your right.

My problem is all my posts have been hit by an initial -5 exactly right after being posted only since last week. Even comments in memes. But the ones here disappeared. My guess is somebody who dislikes me has 4 smurfs or asks their friends to downvote me.

I guess this because I have seen the same directed at other people. Somebody even begged me to downvote your Thresh post and I thought "wtf why? The post looks fine."

Targeted downvoting is part of why I want boards visibility to shift away from upvote totals and more towards overall traffic by IP addresses. Like total views, comments, votes(either way) and recentness of post.

I find it a disgusting problem when people try to control boards visibility with the votes that should mean nothing more than "Agree" and "Disagree".

AMYS GRAVE3 votes

Yeah, i'm pretty sure some member of GD has a script that once they downvote one person's post in a thread it auto downvotes with their smurfs as soon as that person posts again in that thread. I found this out by refreshing the page after each time i posted in a conversation and instantly got exactly 3 downvotes every time. Posted again a week or two later just to test it after the conversation had died down a bit, exactly 3 downvotes by the time i refreshed the page.

Pretty petty if you ask me.

The Yetii Rider11 votes

The main people who complain about tanks are complaining about tanks that go top like Mao, Sion, Poppy, Shen and Nautilus.

This is because laners are more dependent on single item power spikes than junglers or supports.

Your data proves that tanks can work well but it does not address the actual decrying by the board. You have the right answer to the wrong question.

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

Okay meanwhile top lane tanks were a problem earlier this season so it sounds like perhaps laning tanks need better mana costs like Rubick said.

The Yetii Rider9 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=XJ9m6fdf,comment-id=001e0000,timestamp=2017-06-05T18:54:39.865+0000)

Okay meanwhile top lane tanks were a problem earlier this season so it sounds like perhaps laning tanks need better mana costs like Rubick said.

I doubt that's the solution. As long as tanks have no item to rush that defends them well against The Black Cleaver, they probably won't be viable top lane.

PePsiLemoNN8 votes

Nah , they're so weak , I always get oneshoted by Diana while having 700 MR. And I can't even tank 5 people for 30 seconds wtf is that? /s

Nymzo7 votes

Since when is Ivern a tank, Mira? I know he has a lot of tank stats from his items (that are going to be nerf real soon anyway) but that doesn't make him a tank.

Also Thresh and Blitzcrank are not tank supports, they are disrupters (or catchers if you prefer). They can build tanky but they are far less tanky than Ali, Braum or Leo.

I'm not saying you are wrong, just be careful when throwing champions as example because you can get a few wrongs by accident.

50Shades0fTrynda7 votes

i would say tanks arent weak , but they seem as an archetype which people abandoned masively due to the damage meta

Lets just say tanks have much less influence in this game than they had before thunderlords (and other keystones) and the damage buffs on many champions which actually needed skill to play :P,like veigar..case closed, we dont need statistics to see that tanks are eaten by damage and self reliable champions

Have a nice day

THE RlVER KlNG6 votes

I'll say what a bunch of people have already.

You included a bunch of champs that aren't actually tanks, or in the very least don't represent the current tank playstyle, e.g. in that they are only successful because they build bruiser. You also left out a TON of tanks as well to skew your own data:

Shen, TK, Poppy, Alistar, Skarner, come to mind. You've included characters like Gragas and Galio, who often build damage, so why not throw in champions like J4, Singed, Trundle, Volibear, etc. who also aren't true tanks but can draw aggro and CC targets?

I didn't downvote your post (I rarely if ever downvote one that is at least well-structured, and I have had my own problems with targeted downvotes, so I feel sympathy), but you skewed data, ignored pick rate relationships, forgot several key facts about tanks the last few seasons, and even randomly threw in some champions that aren't even tanks just to prove an incorrect point.

Darkdemon6535 votes

The issue is the cost of items and, by extension, their stats.

Tank items cost significantly less (up to 38%) than RAD/mage items, and therefore have fewer stats. This ultimately means tanks get powerful in the mid/mid-late game, and then become paper in the late game (especially to RADs). This was obviously done on purpose, though I have not been able to figure out why.

Mira Arya Enthe5 votes

Well the goal misguided or not is to make sure that the end game is not overly stalled buy walls of tankiness.

Darkdemon6534 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=XJ9m6fdf,comment-id=00070000,timestamp=2017-06-05T13:37:24.847+0000)

Well the goal misguided or not is to make sure that the end game is not overly stalled buy walls of tankiness.

I guess, but even when tank items had more stats and costed more, such a thing never happened.

Mira Arya Enthe2 votes

Oh I agree. I would not mind one bit if tanks had costly late game options or tank items whose effectiveness scaled. It just has to be done right.

Ralanr3 votes

I personally would, mostly because tanks aren't normally built to snowball and because of how their durability falls off.

If you could find a way to prevent that, then I wouldn't mind late game focus. But that's just me.

Pyro5 votes

You're not taking one factor into consideration.

Tanks have higher winrate because tanks are often less "fun" champions. How many times have you seen it in champ select: it's the 4th or 5th pick, and the team raises concerns "We need a tank", yet the toplane locks in their Fiora pick, the jungler doesn't plan to change their Kha'Zix pick, and the """support""" is going full AP?

Tanks have higher winrate because people picking tanks tend to be more teamwork-focused and less 1v9 focused.

Melledoneus3 votes

So... what about Shen? You forgot to mention one of the most popular tanks in LCS for the longest time who was known for being sub-par in most tank metas and is somewhat suffering from the sunfire changes.

I want to know your thoughts, Mira.

Mira Arya Enthe1 votes

Shen historically, like Vlad, is always stronger in LCS than SoloQ. He is weak in SoloQ right now sadly.

Also the sunfire nerfs were harsh I agree.

Mister Support1 votes

Funny enough he's weak in solo Q up until the extreme elos. If you look at Challenger top lane streams they'll usually say when is strong in solo Q right now if you know how to properly be aggressive in lane and manage the wave to optimize for his shit waveclear. The next biggest skill gap shows in those who use their ult at a prime time or recognize when an ally is doomed either way and it isn't worth to ult them.

Melledoneus6 votes

Actually he's popular in super high elo because people there are more communicative and Shen shines in that environment. In low-high elo people have no idea what they're doing.

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