The reason why we hated both damage meta and tank meta.

Quite true. And its funny now to think back and remember that tanks were meta not because they we're good at tanking, but because they were good at doing damage.

No? In the tank meta they would need multiple rotations to kill anything, the problem was since they were unkillable and they could stick, they WERE going to get all those rotations off. Even Red Smite didn't give them enough damage to burst the way they do nowadays.

If only there was a "team" whose job it was to search for some middle ground between these two extremes. A "balance" team of sorts. Holy shit, what an idea. Riot, get on it and create a "balance team" to find that middle ground and sort this shit out!

Long time to kill = more time to play and outplay your opponents.

First we had Tank meta.

Then we had one-shot meta.

Right now we've got a meta where tanks one-shot you.

Riot never learns.

Riot doesn't understand what a middleground is.

Riot only sees damage when balancing

i dont get what riots problem is either... is it really so hard to just nerf damage?

Ever since tencent took over Riot completely LoL went from a strategy game to a reflex game.

Yes please, less damage across the board Riot, thank you.

Sylas has the kit of a tank, but they feel everyone just wants to mindlessly fight. So he is a fighter despite the fact that pulls and knockups with tactical ults are the tools of tanks, not to mention his in built sustain.

i still think turrets are a big part of all this, they are just to difficult to defend, and dives are too easy to execute, if turrets actually deal any damage after 20 minutes then tanks would be strongers to dive them, then ppl could start defending them, then poke comps would rise again, while crit adcs will see their spot as tank killers, follow by assasins to kill the old "protect the carry" comps, and so on and so on, but right now everyone does so much damage early that theres is no need for scaling

tanks weren't meta because they dealt too much damage, they were meta because nobody could kill them and getting to the late game was literally a given since literally NOTHING you did in the early game mattered in the slightest. So all that mattered was literally that SINGLE teamfight that would decide literally the entire game. Leads were nonexistent before, being "punished" for playing bad was a myth. You could play like a literal monkey before and it wouldn't matter a single bit. So why bother playing early game champs before if the early game meant nothing? might as well pick what was strong in the late game every single time. That was the "tank meta" nothing but teamfight reliant and hyper scaling champions since nothing you did meant anything whatsoever. No tank dealt a bunch of damage in the tank meta, not a single one

yeah it aint really fun to be playing ADC when literally anything kills you. i can dodge most of the spells and still get killed by the one that does hit. and no "pick (insert any support champion)" isn't really consistent enough.

A few changes would do well to repair the meta without overpowering tanks, heals/regen, or diminishing the role of assassins.

1. Slightly buff the stats on all tank items. Slightly. Also, I'd be curious to see a few tank items buffed to ridiculous levels, but attach a -15% damage penalty to each. Say 1 armor, 1 mr, and one support type item(FH, SV, and Aegis maybe?). These items would be reserved for players truly looking to be meatshields, not the bruisers who want to simultaneously deal damage and live longer.
2. Reduce the damage done by every champion but also all shields, heals, lifesteal and regeneration. This will make swings between 100% to dead less common, but also makes a near dead champion less able to fully recover to full health- thus rewarding attrition play, properly backing, etc. and ultimately increasing fight lengths. (Yes, it will hurt some champions more than others, but increased fight lengths will as a side effect give them more opportunities to utilize heals, shields, etc. cooldowns more in a given fight)
3. See how #2 affects assassins and burst mages. I'm assuming it will, and if so do a balancing pass not on their damage, but their cooldowns- particularly mobility and evasion skills. Taking someone from 100-0 should be much tougher, but safely finishing off a low health enemy should be much easier than it currently is. This will simultaneously make them a little more team reliant, yet much stronger in a niche that is probably better for the overall state of the game (cleanup)
4. Increase tower damage beyond the first hit. Part of the problem is when playing from behind it can be very difficult to stage a comeback, especially if facing a fed champion who can easily tower dive you. It's one thing if you're low(see #3), but flat getting 100-0 under your own tower is both demoralizing and unhealthy for the game if you can't even take the time to recover and move the momentum back in your direction.
5. If games start taking too long either A) buff the effects of baron/drakes and/or B) implement a stacking damage buff to all characters that adds a stack every 5 minutes starting at the 30 minute mark.

Overall, burst should have a place and being caught out of position should at the very minimum result in being so low you're forced to back- (if not a death depending on the situation), but since Runes Reforged other gameplay elements like efficiency, sustained teamfights/chases, objective focus, split pushing, etc. feel like they've massively taken a backseat to simply deleting the enemy from the screen. I feel the past couple of years have taken the rich depth of tactics the game once had and made it rather shallow in comparison. If particular champions are living forever then address it, but Riot really needs to stop assuming more damage = better gameplay because this is completely false.

I think some of you are talking about different tank metas. There was one in like season 5?ish where tanks were actually hard to kill and basically ran you down over the course of 30 seconds to kill you, but at least you had time for your team to help you. Then there was the bami's cinder "tank" meta where tanks picked up a bami's cinder and proceeded to 1shot everything for the rest of the game. Riot quickly realized how awesome that was so they began making it so everything else could consistently 1shot their enemies throughout the game too!

The issue with damage meta vs tank meta is that they often go straight to the extreme. It's like setting someone on fire if they complain that they're cold. When the damage meta is around, there are often 5 champions on each team whose only aim is to deal as much damage as possible, but on the other hand, when there's a tank meta, then there's often 3/4 tanks per team. They just need to find a way to balance the two ideologies to make both as appealing as the other.

And then there are champs which u cant kill and do a lot of dmg like riven and jax

In damage meta we have ... well quite a lot of damage. Mostly done by assassin.

Assassins haven't been viable in over 2 years. I think you mean mages and occasionally AD carries.