Tanks: their role in the game, the evolution of them and why they're still very much alive

It's no secret, one of the hottest topics as of late aside from your "nerf Lee Sin, why u kill Veigar, zed op" mega threads. Many people say tanks are dead. The fact is, that couldn't be further from the truth. They're not dead at all, they're going through changes in some ways directly and other ways indirectly.

Before we get into this, we first need to define what a tank actually is. Some peoples definitions vary greatly and that's okay, after all it's never really been made clear what a true tank is. Part of it is because in theory, anything could be a tank because they can itemize in a way that meets half of a true tanks credentials: becoming incredibly hard to kill. But that doesn't innately make them a tank. I would define a tank as a champion that has some sort of innate defensive steroid, lower damage output and extreme disruption in the form of crowd control or damage significant enough that they can't be ignored, but nothing overbearing either (think Garen or Mundo).

If I had to list off champions I'd define as true tanks, in an incomplete and non particular order, these or some of the champions I'd name. Alistar, Braum, Leona, Cho'Gath, Nautilus, Rammus, Mundo, Maokai, Shen, Malphite, etc.

What's unique about this list? Some of these champions have build paths that make them anything but tanks: Full AP Cho'Gath, AP Bruiser Cho, AP Malphite, AD Malphite, botrk/triforce Shen, etc. Some of these champions only have the true role of tank, others have more versatility. Some of these champions are extremely strong at the moment, some of them aren't. I can promise you this, it has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of "tanks are dead, it's impossible to be a tank in league of legends." It's more meta and weaknesses in certain phases of the game where they are far too exploitable to ever be safe.

Many of these champions are super tanky innately but as a result, do significantly less damage. Alistar with ult (his damage is significant here but he's still by far more of an unkillable bull than a damage dealer), Leona and Braum. Even Maokai. Others have more capacity to deal more damage but require items to be tanky as hell (nautilus, Rammus and malph are good examples). There's a fine line here you see, you can't give these champions too much damage while making them innately durable. They have to have roles, whether it be more of an unkillable crowd control monster that can't be ignored or a really tanky champion that functions much the same with crowd control and disruption but probably isn't as tanky as an ulted Ali, a Leona with maxed W and a few items, a Braum with items etc.

So why is it like this? As I stated, there's a fine line. There's a reason Alistar has been nerfed to hell and back, basically all of his damage and ability to trade have been gutted and rightfully so. Solo lane Alistar is stupid, what's even stupider is jungle Alistar for any of those who remember s1 and s2. You literally weren't safe anywhere if the enemy team had a jungle Ali and the jungle was so easy to clear, it wasn't an issue. Riot literally changed the jungle from s2 to s3 going from a favoring of AoE clearers like Mundo, Shyv and Ali to more single target based junglers because they cleared too easily while being gank monsters: let's be honest, this was a targeted change to make sure champions like Alistar can never jungle again and rightfully so.

But Alistar is still a god damn decent support and with his strengths, he's more niche than he is must pick/must ban. He has to be, he can't be that good because you'll see exactly what we saw in season 2 and the end of season 4: he will be banned literally every game, no team wants to chance letting him go. This is the fine line, if tanks like this have any means to acquiring solo lane farm, jungle or be safe first picks as supports, they literally break the game. They have to be more niche picks or have drawbacks. Maokai is an example of a champion who received changes that forced him out of the jungle but made him a strong solo laner because of mana cost reductions and improved damage at all phases of the game, this was probably not intended to happen but it did and riot has embraced it.

So where does this leave other tanks? Well, Mundo and Maokai are safe strong picks as top laners. Braum and Leona are strong supports, I'd consider Leona a tier 1 support currently. Champions like Nautilus and Rammus are beaten down early in the jungle, part of it because they need some help and the other part is these two champions have to have weak as fuck early games because otherwise they're broken as shit. Riot let's AD junglers like Lee, Vi, J4 etc dominate because as much as you might hate Lee and J4 and Vi, what they become with items pales in comparison to what a full build Rammus does and the frustration that he can bring. In some ways, it's a lesser of two evils but in others, these bruiser AD junglers are way too strong early on too.

So what's he answer? You can't just keep nerfing them, we don't want to make picks weak for the sake of making them weak. This doesn't accomplish variety, this kills champions unnecessarily. If you killed Lee and Vi, Xin and Pantheon would just take their places. If you killed Xin and Pantheon, Wukong and some other ad bruiser would take their place. What riot is doing currently is trying to make tanks have strong itemization in the jungle while still making them have exploitable early games: this is the correct and appropriate response. I'm not a fan of making Nauts W do less damage however, he's weak as it is, I don't think he needs more weaknesses. But either way, this is a correct approach. Buff them in areas that make them more durable in dirsruptive but make sure they don't have the capacity to have free durability and build one damage item and solo everything. I hope the Naut changes become less restricting on his W and I think he will be perfect.

As for other tanks like Cho, he's strong as shit in the jungle right now and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. When this new jungle item comes out, he will be even stronger. Chos biggest drawback has nothig to do with his tankyness, it's that he's easily outplayed. But if he can get even tankier mid game and late game than he does now, that could alone be reason enough to make him go to.

As it stands, the tank role is evolving. It's incomplete in some areas (like jungle, but it's a work in progress and I like what I am seeing) and in othe areas, it's strong as fuck (support). Innate durability is a great tool for supports but it has to come with drawbacks so they can never be solo lane or jungle gods. And the jungle role is having a change too, which means we will hopefully be seeing roles of tanks be exactly that: tanks. And fighters/bruisers are having their durability scaled back (like Jarvan) or even their damage to solidify them as more bruiserish and less tanky. As far as Lee goes, I don't think he's by far the best jungler atm, that's probably Vi. To address him though, he's going to need a rework. But aside from that, the tank role is a various rule currently and I suspect the jungle role will be seeing it introduced to it more and more so don't worry. It's still in its process of change, give it time.

I am excited for some of the changes and I think we are close to seeing tank junglers being really good again - there are a few strong ones now but I think in general it'll be common to continually see more and more of them. This was a long rant and I probably didn't convey my points as cleanly as I'd like to so if you aren't clear, I will try to explain things as best as I can