Repairing the tank class.

The tank class has been a problematic class to balance and keep in a relevant but not overbearing state. They're then a rather controversial class, almost on par with assassins depending on who you talk to given their relatively low skill floor and high reward to risk ratio. Unfortunately since tanks are not part of Riot's skin sales champion group, for example lee sin, yasuo or ahri, they see minimal attention unless absolutely necessary.

A good thing to establish is what a tank truly is, as I've run into quite a few people who classify tanks as they are in MMORPG's, as a champion with allot of health or one that's hard to kill being the common 3. This simply isn't the case. By riot's class classifications tanks are most accurately described as beefy melee champions who sacrifice damage in exchange for powerful crowd control. The clearest different is between tanks and juggernauts. Both beefy, but they have very different tools. Based again on riots classifications, we're talking about these guys:

Through this massive wall of text I have a few goals in mind:

1. Describe what I view to be an optimal and balanced tank
2. Address common concerns/complaints about the tank class
3. Address times where tanks were overbearing
4. Describe the current external factors negatively affecting the tank class
5. Address something wrong with tank stat allocation
6. Assess every tank and suggest changes based on their current state
7. Assess tank items and offer suggestions if necessary
8. Assess the resolve tree and offer suggestions if necessary

1. Describe what I view to be an optimal and balanced tank All tanks generally have a few traits shared between them: their innate durability, defensive stat ratios on spells and then a solid crowd control arsenal, often 2-4 reliable spells. Now a few tanks don't fit this as closely as others, being shen, rammus and taric. A tank needs to achieve 4 things in a balanced situation in order to be considered effective:

1. be durable
2. have effective tools to support ones team (so usually reliable CC)
3. deal just enough damage so that they can function somewhat independently.
4. as a result they should be team reliant unless drastically ahead. By achieving these 4 goals they then lack the opposite, this is what makes them different to say a juggernaut like darius or a skirmisher like yi.

2. Address common concerns/complaints about the tank class There're 2 predominant concerns I've seen pop up, and they're the damage output of certain tanks and the possibility of them becoming unkillable behemoths. The first one I will support, as I believe certain tanks are definitely dealing too much damage for no investment however damage to an extent, is required for any champion to function. The second I doubt will occur, as allot of things will have to happen and also go wrong for us to end up with tanks that can't be killed by anything. > A big problem is the removal of MR runes, as most champions took them but didn't recieve MR buffs like they did armor buffs in patch 7.22. A magic resist buff could be in order for mages/marksman. Hesitant on giving it to other classes as mages/marksman are generally (so not all of them) easier to catch and pop. Another solution is to reduce the damage:beef ratio of certain tanks, namely amumu, gragas and sion.

3. Address times where tanks were overbearing I think back to season 5 for OP tanks, the reign of cinderhulk sejuani. During this time sejuani, zac and maokai really were stupendously powerful and overbearing. However many bring up "tank" metas that were really just busted champions abusing their obscene base damage with beefier builds. A few examples I've been given are: the juggernaut meta of season 5 worlds, the bruiser assassin meta, the tank stall meta of season 6. Unfortunately these metas mostly involved juggernauts, assassins and fighters abusing their obscenely high base or damage stacking (eg nasus) by building tanky, rather than tanks themselves being the problem.

4. Describe the current non-tank factors affecting the class The biggest factor in tank balance is pro play. If we look back in time, Riot has an awful history of crushing tanks purely for pro play. relentless nerfs to his entire kit over several years, and became a slight improvement with his ult rework Riot decided to move power from his shield into his E. This made him an AFK waveclear machine in top lane. He was also relentlessly nerfed over the course of the year. After giving her the most CC spells in the game, sej became a monster in pro play and has recieved nerfs because of it. And now she's losing CC... for damage... RIP. I think most are familiar with what riot has done to this poor champion. Recently nerfed purely to make pro play less safe and more exciting. Nerfed in season 3 due to his power then again post rework due to pro play performance with a small compensation buff. Most of these champions were gutted and left to rot, some sneaking into the meta as it changes. That's the difference between pro and casual play. Utility breaks a tank in pro play, innate stats break them in casual play. The easiest solutions for shen, zac, sej and naut are reverts (so we change nauts' W to pre 5.5 values).

Across all levels of play, runes and new items are also a factor. Conqueror is an obscenely powerful rune, overbearingly so allowing champions to shred tanks with zero anti tank investment. With "cut down" also available for a boost. We've then seen the addition of 2 lethality items; edge of night and duskblade as well as the recent infinity edge change. With rageblade then in the game, that is an obscene amount of true damage that can be accessed. A full lethality/pen build, can shred a full armor nautilus down to under 80 armor, and then deal 4500 in a fight lasting until his ult damage procs+ignite. That's enough to kill 2 squishies. That's without conqueror/cut down, no BOTRK and without full cleaver stacks at the start of the combo. That is almost enough to one shot a tank. (More than happy to link the vid and offer more detail if wanted) A common point I see is "zed wasted R on tank". But that isn't the problem, the problem is that zed even came close to killing a full build tank lategame. I stopped attacking after R dmg proced, in game the zed could always keep going A more minor, but frustrating issue is cleaver synergy with darius/graves, who can almost instantly stack it with no efffort at all. I feel these interactions are unhealthy and could use changes.

5. Address something wrong with tank stat allocation One thing I have noticed, is that tanks pay for their spells with their base stats. For example, nautilus, ornn, shen, skarner, maokai and sion. Pay for their shields by having less base HP than amumu, nunu and zac to name a few. Zac, taric, tahm pay for their healing spells by having less base HP regen than almost every other tank. Sejuani pays for her passive by having less MR and armor. IMO, what's the point of giving champions specific kits to make them specialize in something, and then nerfing them for it? Because we then have a double standard compared to other classes. Where jhin for example, sacrifices almost nothing stat wise for his obscenely powerful auto attack enhancement. Vlad, despite having stronger healing capabilities has better and more reliable health regen than zac after a few levels. Tryndamere, despite having his crit passive has higher AD than shyvana at every stage, despie shyv having relatively garbage ratios and no pre 6 CC. This pattern goes on and on. I will admit I haven't checked everyone, so there are likely quite a few champions who do have a trade off akin to the tank class.

**6. Assess tank items and offer suggestions if necessary ** Over the years tanks have lost 850 HP and 55 armor due to item nerfs. Tanks also lack a big boi item, like rabadons, tri force or infinity edge. The game has then seen the addition of several armor removal items and an obscene abundance of true damage. As a tank main, I want powerful items, I want expensive items. But riot has been pushing this "cheaper and weaker is better" change pattern for a very long time. Mostly these are health and armor increases, as tanks have magic resist options in spades. Some of these changes may seem crazy, however the goal is to restore them to a state closer to their former glory.

Health increased to 400, cost increased to 3100 Removed or reworked: DPS mages are supposed to COUNTER! tanks. An item than can't be countered (unlike thornmail) that in turn counters DPS mages is unhealthy in design. Perhaps make it a shield enhancing item. Or maybe it offers DMG for bonus MR or bouns armor, which ever is highest. The bonus part prevent abuse by other classes. Armor and magic resist increased to 50, cost increased to 2700 No changes Recipe changed to: Respective smite+ +. Cost increased to 2800. Stats changed: Now grants 300 HP, 15 armor, +20% bonus health. From 300 health, +15% bonus health. Cost increased to 3000-3100. Now grants 500 HP and 90 armor. No changes No changes HP increased to 500, cost increased to 2900 No changes Armor increased to 100 from 80, cost increased to 3100 Cost increased to 2900, now grants 1000 HP No changes I left Sunfire cape and deadmans alone because they are common buys on juggernauts, and I didn't want to break them as a class. I was unsure on righteous glory and frozen heart.

7. Assess the resolve tree and offer suggestions if necessary The resolve tree, is meant to be the tank tree. Yet almost half of them offer an offensive boost being: grasp, aftershock, demolish, chrysalis (shield bash) and unflinching. Then one that is beyond useless and almost never used, font of life. If we want damage we have domination, precision and sorcery. So I really feel this should be purely defensive boosts. http://abccbaandy.github.io/league-S4mastery-calc/#dGkhjhBvd Look at that defense tree. Just pure beef enhancement. A single mastery on that page, grants more health than crysalis and overgrowth combined. That is what the resolve tree should be trying to be. A tank tree, not a "damage in disguise" tree So to change things up: existing keystones unchanged. Demolish: unchanged. New rune "courage of the colossus": when disabling an enemy champ (so using hard CC) you gain a shield equal to 5% of your max health. Font of life, removed and replaced by the new shield bash rune. Bone plating remains. Conditioning: now grants 5% bonus armor and magic resist, increases to 10% at 10 minutes. Second wind changed: Now increases all healing affects by 10% while below 25% health. Chrysalis: Grants 50 health, every take down adds an additional 50 health. Can occur up to 3 times for a total of 200 health. Final row: existing runes unchanged.

Why fix tanks? Why care? Because they're enablers. After they were toned down, I experienced the best meta of all time just before pre season 6. Tanks are viable so we need anti tanks (DPS or juggernauts usually) to counter them. We burst to counter DPS, we need heal/shield to help carries then we need tanks to protect everyone else. Remove tanks and you get what we've had for 3 years now, an obscene nuke meta where everything dies in 3 seconds. Every champ, with every build, in every role, was viable. For me at the very least, that's lol paradise

Gimme them thoughts of yours would love to have a discussion

Edit: Oh my forgot I cut out an entire section. More wall inbound Despite a rather unhealthy play pattern with a 100% point and click kit, he does have some degree of error in the combo timing and he trades more AOE CC (eg naut, malpite, ornn) for the reliable single target CC. If he did need nerfs, I'd hit his ult damage reduction value at rank 1 Currently plays more like a mage and is getting too much free value out of his kit. His Q hitbox needs a little bit of tuning, his passive should be changed to deal 10% of magic as true damage, instead of an additional 10% true damage (current) and his tantrum defensive value should start weaker and scale. He's braum. After 3 patches of nerfs he's kinda just there? He needs a boost to his innate beef, perhaps a revert of his health nerf. very weird spot, similar to pre rework. He's trapped between mage and tank, to please both audiences but fails to achieve either of them. I feel his ult is way to niche, and that he should be able to potentially ult wards (as they'd have to be pre placed. This would allow him to ult in lane or to set up some epic flanks. He's fine as he is but could use some refinement. Relatively weak right now, could probably use a buff to mega gnar's base spell damage (excluding R), and a compensatory nerf to the ratios. It's meant to be his stronger form and will avoid buffing his mini irritation form. Probably the one tank I take issue with. The issue is kit value: large hitbox, reliable damage spells with a rather ridiculous damage reduction. While his Q damage is identical to most tanks, it's one of few spells that can go through minions. Nerf Q base damage at early ranks, reduce damage reduction by 2% at all ranks and then: change W enemy max health value to gragas' max health value, reduce value to 5%. Balanced at the moment. Rather telegraphed kit. A qol change could be allowing her to proc her passive on her own against monsters, potentially allowing her to jungle. Or perhaps she unlocks the ability to proc her passive at level 11? I feel she's more locked into support than other tanks. Meta dependent. He really doesn't get much wriggle room at the moment so I'd leave him alone since he's so volatile. As once the meta shifts he'll be back in the contest with ease. He could use a less point and click kit, perhaps make his twisted advance a skill shot? His ult could use allot of work, it's so slow and underwhelming. Oh suggestion: R Fury of the Forest: new First cast: Maokai roots himself in place and sends thorny brambles surging out in all directions, rooting+damaging champions they come into contact with, revealing and marking them as caught for the root duration. Second cast: Maokai brings his branches to a halt and hauls all "caught" enemies towards him. Stopping halfway between Maokai and the point at which they were caught. This cast prevents anymore champs from being caught. Damage: unchanged so 100/200/300. Will deal no damage on second cast. Will be pretty quick. He's mostly fine. His W could use a base shield value buff at early levels to help him jungle. A bonus would be a max rank health ratio increase. Partly to make up for the silly nerf from years ago, and partly to bring back that juicy late game shield from season 4. You can't see any bias here can you? Good :P haven't seen/played enough to have a concrete opinion but his statistics seem pretty poor. He could use a base and scaling armor buff. His W hitbox needs to be fixed. He's breathing fire out of his mouth not out of his but, so it shouldn't hit me behind him. A Q missile speed increase would make him feel better but is unnecessary. Potentially move his damage around so it isn't all front loaded into his brittle proc? Personally would change her E to a skillshot or nerf her Q damage a tad. Her kit is almost purely a point and click stat stick and with her W it isn't overly difficult to get a wall slam combo. I just feel dirty when I play her because there's so little anyone can do. An admittedly very unhealthy champion but so niche that it isn't really a problem. He probably needs a rework to flesh him out a bit. She needs a partial revert. Her rework gave her too much innate power, by making her the CC god with the most CC in the entire game. I would do the following: Winters wrath: unchanged, it's a fun and interesting spell. Permafrost: reverted. Glacial prison: reverted. This removes 1 hard CC spell and removes 1 CC component from her kit entirely (she has a displacement, slow, stun, stun+slow) We replaced E stun with a slow, and removed the ultimate secondary slow field. Making her way easier to balance between pro and casual play. I honestly have no idea. Revert him completely? Remove and replace his ultimate? Maybe give him a kalista system so he can only TP to one pre determined champ at a time? Very tricky champ to fix. He needs a nerf to his early game durability as well as his damage. Nerf low charge Q and point blank R In my opinion, crystal venom skarner was more flexible and more enjoyable. Because he wasn't locked to the jungle with his current passive. Crystal venom skarner came before spire skarner. So I would suggest a full revert and back to the drawing board. His main issue is an oppressive attack pattern. He runs at you, and if you choose to fight you will lose the trade in most cases early on in top lane. Isn't a huge issue as you will outscale him as almost everyone however it's far from enjoyable to deal with. Not sure how I'd fix it. A well balanced, high skillcap and floor support. I'd leave him alone. similar problem to sejuani. I would also partially revert Zac as he gained a hard CC spell and a very power hungry ultimate which has made him a balance problem in pro play. The one aspect I am certain must go is his ultimate. His old ultimate was more useful than current, as you had more opportunities to displace enemies however was easier to balance due to the large room for error and the fact that he wasn't immune to CC during his R (when he is "unstoppable during R currently). I am unsure on the Q. Keeping it is great for jungle zac but horrid for top lane zac. Meanwhile old Q is fine but not great for both. I'd probably leave it alone and settle on R revert.