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Things to watch for in the tank update

Big Lincoln··10 votes·1,060 views

Adaptive helm interaction with multi hit spells. Champions like Viktor who have their damage split into segments may take an unfair hit when it's meant to counter DoT and DPS. Possible make some special interaction where 2 part spells are counted separately?

High flat true damage. I expect Darius, Cho'Gath and Vel'Koz to become extremely good with the HP lowered in favor of resistances. Darius and VK in particular may become too good in response to the resurgence of tanks and resist stacking.

Mages. I don't think they will be greatly weakened as some predict but the boost to MR items will make Galio an extremely good counter pick, especially with the new Abyssal giving tank stats. Utility mages may become even more overbearing in the mid lane than currently.

Non-mage magic DPS. Champions like Mundo and Mordekaiser, Jax, Kog'Maw and Corki, are going to take a hit from Adaptive Helm. I doubt the latter three will become trash but now that a proper counter item exists for their relentless magic damage output, buffing them won't be as much of a risk.

Let me know what you think.

33 Comments

FantasySniper4 votes

Also watch out for tanks becoming less durable.

Not even Poppy, who has a massive bonus resist passive, is becoming more durable given the current stats out on the PBE.

Ralanr1 votes

Though Sion might be better appreciated.

FantasySniper1 votes

Not really. He already has fairly low health and armor values early in the game. (Compare him against Mundo, for instance.)

I don't expect his late game to be properly "compensated" by any measure. Especially since ADCs are getting shit-tons of buffs to their critical damage items.

Ralanr3 votes

I'm much more worried about Cho'gath over Darius on the stoneplate abuse (though Darius is going to be a pain).

Honestly the simplest way is to make it so true damage can only not be reduced by enemies.

Big Lincoln2 votes

I'm not talking about stoneplate but it is a good point. The easiest fix would be to have it remove all scalings from abilities while active. Possibly hit your attack speed too if Yi becomes a concern.

I mean in general, lower health but high resists is a huge boon to these three who are already quite strong.

Ralanr1 votes

I don't think Darius's true damage has much of a scaling. If I remember correctly it does more damage based on bleed stacks.

Big Lincoln1 votes

The bonus AD ratio scales with your bleed stacks.

So this change would make it so you'd only do the base damage.

JavelinJoe1 votes

Possibly hit your attack speed too if Yi becomes a concern.

While I am not opposed to this, it basically would be like exhausting (before it was nerfed) yourself lol.

fuffychan2 votes

Lets keep nerfing mages further, while also giving GA to all the AD characters as well!

Because Riot would never favor one class of champions

JavelinJoe2 votes

Because Riot would never favor one class of champions

One class? How about their 4 babies Lucian Yasuo LeeSin Ivern who will never see any sort of significant direct nerf, just maybe a small tweak here and there to simply "move their power around" without actually hitting their power.

But yeah, it seems that RIOT really likes making things hard for Mages and all but 3-5 ADCs lately.

Big Lincoln1 votes

to be fair, mages were the top picks for all of season 6 and pretty good for season 5 bar the juggernaut FOTM

we should already know by now that riot does things in cycles

JarvansWAR1 votes

It's been almost 2 years since the last tank meta. I want it back.

LankPants2 votes

I think it's fair to say that a squishy AD centric meta is a fairly likely outcome of these changes. The changes to GA are just far too much and with every armour/HP item getting fairly significant nerfs I'd be surprised not to start seeing champions like Graves, Lucian, Lee Sin and Jayce get even more out of hand than they already are with some newer assassin/marksman champs mixed in as well. Either way, I doubt the tank rework will be a good time for tank or mage players at all.

JavelinJoe1 votes

All I see is yet another indirect and unnecessary Karthus nerf. I assume that Adaptive Helm was more aimed for Brand Anivia Amumu Cassiopeia Malzahar and item 3751 items which are common in a lot of games throughout the ELOs. Karthus sees like 2 LCS games and already a new item to counter 2 of his 3 damaging abilities is introduced.

Big Lincoln1 votes

Karthus at least has MR shred to mitigate the added stats

I am surprised Riot is eager to prevent him from getting picked often

JavelinJoe1 votes

Karthus at least has MR shred to mitigate the added stats

True, but it is only a 15% at all levels and has an 18s cooldown. Not to mention that the item itself has 70 MR. Basically you need to land your W to just break even, then have the damage reduced by 70 MR. All I can say is that item 3135 is going to likely end up being built second if not first now, even sometimes over the scaling items because you just are going to need it to even deal damage with Karthus.

Tahminatrix 1 votes

item 3070 Azir item 3070 he will do no damage to tanks.

and i think Karthus is fine, anyone who does not build it will have to avoid you even after you die so you do still zone part of the enemy team unless this actually becomes league of tanks

DeathBurst1 votes

Karthus is definitely in the same category of champs as Anivia and Cassio. Yes Adaptive Helm is aimed at champs like Anivia and Cassio, but Karthus is just one of them too.

Tahminatrix 1 votes

Adaptive helm should still be more useful to mundo and morde than the enemy squishies...

It has high resistance stats and it reduces incoming sustained damage so they can out heal / out shield the enemy easier so it is a big trade off and now they only fear burst damage or adc crits.

I think the new gargoyle item will buff TahmKench just because he needs sustained fights to do anything, now he can get big and tank with his 4 healthbars ...get stacks on the enemy team / stack his rage blade....do alot of damage as soon as he shrinks and cc whoever he got stacks on.

He can also eat the enemy before his gargoyle ends and isolate them from his team, then just wait out up to 3 seconds then spit out for full damage after shrinking back. *the damage is not done until the enemy leaves his belly , either spit, tahms death, or any item or ability that stops cc/supression

DeathBurst1 votes

The new gargoyle active only last 4 seconds. Clearly not enough time for TK to "load" 2 health-bar worth of grey health and then have 2 health-bar worth of shield. And then on top of that, his shield from grey health is also a decaying shield. No way TK will have anything near 4 health bars in practice. More like, 2 and a half, top.

Tahminatrix 1 votes

Ive been focused and deleted as tahm kench actually...I used E when I was low like a tryndamere and they ended up bursting through that shield too....this will help...

DeathBurst1 votes

It will help, just like it will helps for all Tanks, but it won't give TK 4 health-bar worth of effective HP. I do not disagree on the principles of what you're saying, simply on the magnitude.

Tahminatrix 1 votes

His E does not decay over time btw, it just lasts 3 seconds and then disappears.

Say you double a tahm`s 4000 max hp to 8000 and the entire team bursts that down to 1000 then press E....thats 7,000 damage they have done and another 7,000 for them to tear through or wait 3 precious seconds while he annoys and disrupts anyone without a gap closer this is best case scenario if the entire enemy team does alot of damage which is often cause right now it is league of damage but the meta might shift

Also it does not matter if the gargoyle active only lasts 4 seconds, Tahm can press E right before it ends and he would get to keep his super shield for a full 3 seconds....thats over 6 seconds of Tahm getting to do whatever he wants without dieing. best case scenario, who would waste cc on a tank

I should have addressed that sooner, tk`s shield does not decay , it used to when it lasted 6 seconds, but they changed that and also gave it a lower cooldown so you could e with half your hp left, then once they break through that you can e again once you are almost dead but usually that only happens when only the adc or apc or hyper carry is focusing you and nobody else.

DeathBurst1 votes

Ah my bad, they tested the decaying shield change on PBE and it didn't go to Live. Still, most team-comp can't tear through a 7K shield in 3 seconds, so your shield will not actually absorb 7K worth of damage, which was my initial point.

Yes, in theoretical conditions, TK's E plus Gargoyle's Active can give him 4 health bar worth of effective HP. But in practical conditions, that will almost never happen.

We cannot know for sure before the item is actually released, but imo the practical numbers will be close to 2 health-bar for most Tanks and 2.5, maybe 3 for TK, but definitely not 4.

Tahminatrix 1 votes

Mostly just considering how often I have been bursted by Ahri Brand Katarina Kassadin Malzahar Annie with item 3135, MonkeyKing MissFortune Lucian KhazixRengar withitem 3071 , hp stacking really feels like it does not work against these champs. And adaptive helm wont help against them because the only ones that burst with multiple hits from the same spells either are ad or do true damage ahri wukong malz unkillable voidlings etc.

Petranese1 votes

Velkoz is already over the top (coming from VK main). Even if he gets more power he wont be fotm/meta due to his kit (which is goood).

Rebonack1 votes

I'm a Koggers OTP and I was pretty excited to see the addition of the scaling MR and Adaptive Healm. Of all the buffs Kog got, both direct and indirect, the removal of the Legion MR aura had the biggest impact on his success rate and frankly it has left him a bit on the over-tuned side of things for a while now. Soft targets getting a little harder combined with an item to actually combat his damage will nudge him down a bit without having to nerf him directly.

It was mostly indirect buffs that put him where he is right now in the first place. All he got was a nerfed R and E in exchange for an extra 20-30 OnHit damage late game.

Silverjust1 votes

wait, does adaptive helmet reduce kog'maws onhit?

Rebonack1 votes

{quoted}

wait, does adaptive helmet reduce kog'maws onhit?

It should? I mean, it says it nerfs any magic damage source. Not any spell. So that should include things like Sunfire's burn effect and Kog's OnHit damage.

It's a good thing. There really wasn't any item-based counter to Kog's heavy magical DPS previously.

Silverjust1 votes

It says spell or effect, I dont't think kogmaws onhit is in that category, but I dont know

DarkRitual1 votes

item 3026 will become a problem.

DeathBurst1 votes

You forgot to mention Singed and Warwick in your last point. I get it wasn't meant to be exhaustive, but Singed especially is the very first champion that springs to my mind when you mention "non-mage magic DPS".

I very much agree with your first point, and I was looking for a good example, and Viktor is a great one, thanks ;) This is actually my very top concern about this Tank Update, even above Guardian Angel getting AD. Do you see other obvious cases of such unintended nerfs?

Vel'koz may be buffed by lower health pool, but at the same time he's also very impacted by Adaptive Helm the same way Viktor is. I'm much more thoughtful about Cho, even if it's the one you dismiss. His new non-decaying HP stacking let him focus on the reworked items with higher resists and lower HP and still have a decent health pool, he shouldn't be impacted by Adaptive Helm, he has high Flat True damage, and I think he will really like the new Abyssal with Tank stats.

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

A massive . . . 10 extra armor per item, each loosing nearly 100 health. Yeah tanks are going to be more frail than ever; yet another fail of an update.

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