Maybe I am just delusional but it honestly seems that easy.
Tanks are bad because they die too quickly. Adcs are bad (ish) because they explode within two steps of another champ.
Riot: "Nah let's just buff ADCs and their damage and not actually fix the problem!" [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]
Id love to go back to losing because I didn't want to play tank stack comp and exist solely for ADC
If we're reducing damage from the game then ADCs damage need to be first on the chopping block.
As long as the tanks themselves get a damage nerf. That was the whole problem with the tank metas - tanks were dealing far too much damage AND were tanky as hell.
Tanks should simply outlast their enemies, rather than being unkillable while bursting targets down.
ADCs too. ADCs should be able to survive longer than a nano-second but they should also have to actually fight, rather than auto-attack once or twice and delete targets as if they were a burst mage.
You aren't delusional. It really is that easy.
Unfortunately though, Riot has a penchant for occasionally delivering over-engineered ideas to solve simple problems.
Look at the introduction of Lethality into the game. What problem was it trying to solve that Armor Penetration was unable to accomplish as it was? The lethality statistic is not only hard for most players to understand at a glance, it's also shaped the meta into a season-long damage-fest that so many people hated.
Look at Runes Reforged. We spent an entire season with these bonkers ass additions, only to take two steps back and return to the old stat runes we had in the first place. They could have just replaced the talent trees and left us with the stat runes in the first place, instead of entwining them into each other.
I do appreciate Riot trying to push the envelope with their design choices, but you don't have to take every staircase by trying to jump 4 steps at a time.
The community has been saying that all season, but I guess it's too hard to execute over at Riot Games.
yeah but if adcs are relevant again
it will mean support will be an appealing role
which will mean queue times will decrease since waiting for supports will be shorter
which will mean you will be able to play more games per hour with less autofill
which will mean our shitty excuse of "making games finish quicker" for all of our questionable balance decisions will disappear
and we can't have that can we
As a top laner I dread tank meta, but last week I was playing my full build jayce and bursted a full build alistar that had ult in less than 3 seconds. Made me realize how truly stupid it is to play a tank right now.
"Wow this can't be true or we would know of this solution" - Balance team.
You are delusional if you think adcs and mages will let anyone touch their damage to lower it. which are the main offenders. then you guys are gonna talk about compensating them with defense for the 6th time in 4 years as whenever the lose 5 ad they gain 100 hp and 8 armor then they get that 5 ad they lost back as 12 ad and .3more attack speed without taking away the defensive buffs they got.
and suddenly assassins disappear because they can't burst anyone before a tank stun locks them and they get 5 man focused. Lowering damage on its own without changing any structures in the game just means that tanks and adc's would death ball to baron team fight then win the game. ADC's and tanks as roles invalidate others because of how riot balances them, its not even like tanks are that bad in late game team fights, 
is still insane, its just they will never get there on even gold and are getting melted in lane and after they fall behind.
Pretty much. I don't want to do more damage when I'm a tank. I want to survive.
Slight problem of that simple solution: The evolution of the meta. A Marksman focused meta will make tanks and enchanter supports strong. Enchanters are good->Engage/Hook support like Thresh become good because they counter enchanter supports. Enchanters are good->Poke is good to bully and kill the enchanters (same as engage, just with an even harder fall-off) Marksman are good->Assassins are good because there natural prey are impactful high priority targets whos death will allow your team to win team fights. Tanks are good (because they also protect marksman and offer engage)->Tank counter/bullys will become good again (mostly fighters, bruiser, juggernauts and whatother sub classes there are with lane dominance over tanks) so the tanks in the top lane are going to be not as strong in team fights. Tanks are good->Tank abuser (ranged Klepto top like Viktor, Vlad,...) are good because they get free lanes, same applies to Gp as he gets less risky lanes and time to stack and farm up.
So from my point of view a meta in which marksman are [really] good is the best state for the entire game because nearly everything becomes good or at least playable in some way if Riot does not interact with the meta through forcing certain champs into it with massive buffs. Remember how Worlds? Started with tanks top, Klepto Viktor came, Viktor counters/laners that did decent against him came into the meta. The exact same thing will happen in every meta where certain things are good because that makes their counters good and effective too. You can and will see this reflected in Threshs/Blitz/potentially Nauti Support/Pykes/Alistar/Leona/... winrates: A few patches after enchanters like Lulu, Janna, Nami, maybe Rakan are good and high win rate they will also be good as "early/mid game" counters where you try to win lane against the enchanters (who will still have a better late game win rate when they and their adc have their full strength).
So making such a meta would result in a somewhat perfect game state and that would be boring to watch in pro play and...other reasons Riot always came up with to change them.
Then it's gonna be tank meta all over again with everyone playing 3-4 tanks per game. Even now, when tanks are supposedly "weak" once a tank gets ahead there isn't enough damage existing on the enemy team to threaten them until carries get some penetration items. Having a 
run you down, tanking 5 tower shots and your full combo only to shrug it off with like 50% health feels terrible. That's only gonna get worse once tanks are viable again. I like tanks as much as the next guy but you reducing damage isn't a real solution.
All in all the problem is early game actually. In my mind this is the situation: 1.Tanks struggle to lane due to too much early damage and ussualy fail to be on even gold with enemy fiora/jax or any other semi decent toplane like Darius due to early game damage boost and runes like conqueror etc. it leads to-> 2. Tanks on lower end of gold can no longer tank due to tank item changes. So now tanks need to be on even gold to tank and shutdown that enemy which they could actually deny before the changes to tank items and runes. 3. 1st 2 points mean tanks need to be a little bit ahead during team fight phase to actually tank more then 2 people at a time while surviving. 4. Solo tank is no longer viable strategy as you need to actually be on the winning position in lane or ahead in farm to do your job. 5. Pro teams seeing that actually either go with multi tank strategy and 1-2 good dps or go withouth a tank, since betting on 1 tank surviving is too risky now.
And in solo que this means tanking and surviving lane on equal gold, which got harder then before. Actually means you lost lane as you won't be able to tank team fights unless enemy got no AP or AD, or their only carry with AP/AD damage failed heavily and is behind.
And AD carries are just victims of the meta in this, though not all of them, Lucian is still fine tbh. With tanks out of the picture, they have less people peeling for them and protecting them. At the same time they lost main targets who are rather safe to dps, tanks, it is much harder to dps a jax top who can burst you down and counterstrike rather than a top maokai who if you make a mistake does not have enough dps to solo kill you anyways, but will cc you and disrupt you while creating chances for others to engage. In 1st case you just get bursted and die if you make a mistake. In 2nd one you get chain cc'ed and taken to maybe half hp with chance that enemy fallows that up to finish you off. But with your own tank diving their adc or peeling for you you got more safety and better chance to survive and keep fighting.
Essentially, the fault I see with this can be fixed rather easily with some changes in these fields. Reduce early game damage giving more safety while laning as a tank and this can lead to tanks beeing relevant 1v1 at least this can be done via rune changes. It does not necessarily mean nerfing runes. Boost in tank primaries and runes only relative to tanks would help too. 2. Boosted tank items would mean you do not need to be ahead in gold during team fights to actually do your job.
the result would be : 1.diving is more punishable mid/late while protecting your carries easier. 2.Adc's have more safety during lategame while still leaving them weak during early expecially with mages down bot as supports. 3. Actual team fights would be back to normal where getting 1 shot as squishy is still possible as damage mid/ late would be the same, but you would have some safety padding, to at least defend you from blatant combo coming from that zed/talon/neeko etc.which right now no one wants to step up to as it 1 shots majority of champions.
Nerf conqueror and tank are viable. Tank become viable and adc get better (Yes better, stop pretending they are not viable).
It is so sad how Riot does not realize this.
