Tahm kench is ruining top lane

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In order for Kench to get anywhere near that level of damage, he has to 3 stack on you and drop the W.

That W has a long af cooldown, and if Tahm is 3-stacking you consistently to the point he's outdamaging you on Fiora (who can deal similar %hp true damage from just proccing her passive 2-3x, not including all the regular damage that comes with that) or Jax (who can literally dodge his autos to ensure Tahm can't 3-stack during trades), then I'd have to say it's poor positioning.

The problem is he can do this while building full tank. If he wants damage he should build damage but be squishy not tanky.

{quoted}

In order for Kench to get anywhere near that level of damage, he has to 3 stack on you and drop the W.

That W has a long af cooldown, and if Tahm is 3-stacking you consistently to the point he's outdamaging you on Fiora (who can deal similar %hp true damage from just proccing her passive 2-3x, not including all the regular damage that comes with that) or Jax (who can literally dodge his autos to ensure Tahm can't 3-stack during trades), then I'd have to say it's poor positioning.

Also Fiora can deny his whole W, if she is smart....

Tahm gets a lot of base damage from his kit - q, w, and passive. His w is only on a 10 sec cd if used on an enemy. His q applies a stack of his passive, so it's more like aa, q to slow enemy and get another stack, aa, w.

He actually beats most bruisers and fighters until they get 1 or more items in laning phase.

If you were around long enough, perhaps you recall a "tank meta" where maokai could go sunfire and frozen gauntlet, jump on an adc and smack them around like he was some burst mage - killing them from full hp by the time he'd done his second q, and take no damage from adc or the tower they were hiding under while being shielded by their support. It was awful and completely unfair for adc's, which is why we saw adc's and bruisers buffed and tanks nerfed to be more focused on their defensive capabilities. When kench gets out of hand with overbuffing him, he treats melee toplaners like maokai treated that adc.

The problem isn't his durability... it's his crazy high base damage with minimal-to-no skill required in combination with said durability. And the fact it is spammable because it costs no mana. Maokai does less damage with his kit. Malphite could build ap bruiser and match kench's damage perhaps, but he'd sacrifice durability... and malphite can't spam his abilities the way kench can or he'll go oom much sooner.

If you beat a kench as a melee before you get any items, chances are you had help or he's really bad - not simply because you're good.