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Could New Tank Items Ease The Damage Meta?

ModCaliCoastReplay·12/2/2018, 7:52:15 PM·30 votes·13,693 views

Just some thoughts:

I've often thought in recent seasons that the game needs more effective tank items. item 3095 item 3147 item 3124 item 3078 all fundamentally altered the game and helped usher in the modern damage meta, but I can only think of one still-legal tank item - item 3075 - that actually changed the meta itself since Atma's was removed. There's a lot of front loaded damage now, and the options to survive it don't often feel compelling.

What about better options for tanks and stuff to survive upfront burst - just some ideas I've kicked around for a season or two: (EDIT: Thanks to the community for catching scaling/range errors and contributing ideas!)

GRANITE GORGET

item 3211 + item 3082 + 300 gold (2500 gold)

+300 health +50 armor +35 MR

UNIQUE: After taking damage from an enemy champion, gains 200% base health regeneration for 10 seconds. UNIQUE – COLD STEEL: When hit by basic attacks, cripples source's attack speed by 15% for 1 second. UNIQUE - MOUNTAIN TOUGH: After not dealing or receiving any damage for 7 seconds, gain Rock Hard. Rock Hard triggers on the first instance of any damage from an opposing champion, and reduces all incoming damage by 30% + (10% per nearby enemy champion) for 1 second.

LOST SHURIMAN ARMOR

item 3101 + item 1031 + item 1011 + 300 gold (3200 gold)

+400 health +50 armor +10% cooldown reduction

Unique passive - Gain 35% attack speed. Unique passive - ASCENDED SPIRIT: Stack 1 Armor and 1 MR for each time you damage a champion with an attack or an ability, decaying after 7 seconds, with a maximum of 20 stacks.

RUNE-ENCRUSTED PLATE

item 3070 + item 1011 + 1000 gold (2850 gold)

+450 health +10% cooldown reduction +650 mana

UNIQUE – HASTE: Grants an additional 10% cooldown reduction. UNIQUE – AWE: Grants bonus health equal to 12 + (0.5%/level) of maximum mana. Refunds 25% of mana spent. UNIQUE – MANA CHARGE: Grants a charge every 4 seconds, up to 3 charges. Each mana expenditure consumes a charge and grants +8 mana, up to a maximum of 750 mana. At 750 mana, transforms into:

ARMOR OF THE ASCENSION

+500 health +10% cooldown reduction +1400 mana

UNIQUE – HASTE: Grants an additional 10% cooldown reduction. UNIQUE – AWE: Grants bonus health equal to 20% (+1%/level) maximum mana. Refunds 25% of mana spent. UNIQUE – MANA BEING: Any time you are hit with an enemy autoattack, spell or ability, gain a stack of Manasouled (1 second cooldown). Each stack of Manasouled provides +15 health/second health regeneration for 5 seconds at the cost of 1% of your maximum mana. (Maximum 5 stacks.)

Each of these items would solve a damage-related need I see right now. Granite Gorget would provide some easy-to-build defense against the extreme front loaded damage of item 3095 item 3147 item 3124 item 3078, Lost Shuriman Armor would allow an attackspeed/tankiness combo (there are none in the game at all at present except item 3091 which has been purely situational for seasons) to certain mages and bruisers who are in a bad place lately, and Rune-Encrusted Plate/Armor of the Ascension would give a build path on item 3070 for tanks.

These kinds of items could break things too - I'd be worried about unkillable juggernauts on Lost Shuriman Armor, for instance - but maybe they could help people feel less ugly about all the front-loaded damage. I def think something like Granite Gorget in particular, that provides protection against early proc damage spikes, would do a lot to help people feel less rough about the game going into Season 9.

Open to more ideas and suggestions below too, though please make sure all suggestions are properly and reasonably build-path and gold-effectiveness statted!

66 Comments

Tahminatrix 12/2/2018, 7:59:37 PM6 votes

Tank teemo would love the lost shuriman armor.

Also the stats on it seem alittle too good but then again the unique passive isn't strong at all, to compensate I guess but then you could just build multiple..

That's why we have unique passives being the strongest part of any item most of the time so we don't build a bunch of them if the stats are too good for our champ.

400 health and 50 armor, that's 10 less armor than item 3143 for the benefit of 35% attack speed and 10% cdr.

I can already see myself stacking it on tahm just for the giggles after buying a single item 3143 for its unique passive (if its good against enemy team comp, if enemy team has nothing but ad casters then I would just stack that item.)

Make the 35% attack speed a unique passive and get rid of the cdr, now its balanced and encourages building other items.

ModCaptainMårvelous12/2/2018, 9:28:22 PM6 votes

I think a better idea would be changing some component items or buffing them.

Right now, take a look at what a longsword will build into:

item 3144 which gives Lifesteal, an active and some ad. item 3044/item 3052 which give AD and HP (Plus some movement effects) item 3155 for MR, shield. item 3077 for a bonus cleave effect etc.

and so on. But if you notice, a lot of these skills/items have a pretty decent passive or bonus effect. Phage has MS. Hexdrinker gives you a shield. Jaurim lets you stack more ad/hp, cutlass -and- tiamat give you actives. Comparatively, most armor/nr components give you....well, more defensive stats. Or the passive outright sucks or is unoticeable like Warden's mail.

Ironically, the strongest mid-tier defensive item was also the most hated one: Bramblevest. I think if we brought tank components up to the standard of mid-tier AP/AD items, you'd feel better about getting them. Be it buffs or reworks, I feel like giving tanks some better mid-items would make them overall feel tankier/better, even if your base-line level of durability doesn't change drastically.

ApollyonBainer12/2/2018, 8:46:13 PM5 votes

TLDR but I want a tank item that is resistant to true dmg

HÔPÊ12/3/2018, 4:20:44 AM4 votes

To be honset instead of new tank items we need Stormrazor, Dark Harvest and Duskblade removed. The high damage meta would end with that. Those items and keystone (and I am abusing them) are stupid. They are adding burst damage and ... they shouldn't.

It is weird that adc doesn't need 10 aa to kill anybody. They need 3 aa with that stupid Stormrazor.

It is weird that assassins no longer outplay people, they just oneshot them with Dark Harvest and Duskblade.

It is weird that some bruisers can just pick up Dark Harvest, Stormrazor and Duskblade at the same time and 1 aa kill smb.

It is weird that team fights no longer require skill. People are dead after 5 sec.

It is weird that one combo can oneshot somebody that is 100% hp.

League is shit right now and I cannot help it but think of it this way. When I watch S3, S4 or even S5 videos it seems so much better and more fun. People were actually trying to position better, outplay or outsmart somebody. Jungle was very calculated. Laning was about skill and felt like it. You had to use a combo 3-4 times before going for a kill. Only some champions could oneshot (zed), if they used abilities and hit them (now zed doesn't have to hit abilities, he has duskblade).

I am sad.

DesperatePower12/3/2018, 11:07:06 AM3 votes

1st one is a little overloaded

2nd one As a general rule of thumb attack speed on tank items is a no no. Since it can be abused by both Fighters and Tanks alike

Rune encrusted armor

Call me biased as a Ryze main but YES PUT THIS IN THE GAME.

DesperatePower12/3/2018, 11:02:32 AM3 votes

YES RUNE ENCRUSTED ARMOR! MAKE MANA TANK RYZE VIABLE AGAIN!!! ROA > BOOTS > RUNE ENCRUSTED ARMOR > FROZEN HEART > SERAPH > VOID!

1pwny12/3/2018, 3:26:09 AM3 votes

Ezreal, what are you doing?

Ezreal put down that Rune-Encrusted Plate now! Now! Oh no.

Ragnaveil12/3/2018, 4:25:04 AM3 votes

How about we rework some tank items to give persistent damage reduction so tanks can actually soak damage.

Rezorrose12/8/2018, 3:00:32 PM2 votes

how about armor item with a counter heal passive of about 2% of your max hp and increase by 1% for every 30% hp missing highest counter heal scales to 4%.

Reksee12/2/2018, 8:19:09 PM2 votes

I love your ideas! Here's one of mine(no name sry)

item 2423 +item 3067 +1200 gold(2600)

+550 health +10% cooldown reduction active: reduce all incoming damage by 75% for 2 seconds cooldown: 75 seconds.

Is this another idea that could curb the current damage meta?

Kazekiba12/2/2018, 8:40:05 PM2 votes

Wouldn't the Tear item be something like 12-20% or more mana -> health? Imagine having 1.5 items at level 10 and getting less than 20hp from an item passive.

Mimr12/3/2018, 8:57:50 AM2 votes

I like some of your suggestions but Granite Gorget and Lost Shuriman Armor are are probably bad ideas.

  • Granite Gorget is completely overloaded and overpowered. There is a reason Riot took out items that offered all three defensive stats at the same time and giving everyone Malzahars passive (because literally everyone is going to build this item at some point in their build at this pricing point and power level) is not going to just lower the impact of burst damage, it's going to remove it from the game altogether.

  • Shuriman Lost Armor would be a nice idea if ADCs didn't exist. This thing is an ADCs wet dream as a 4th or 5th item, it would be completely bonkers broken on them.

  • Armor of the Ascension: cool idea that doesn't seem broken at first glance but is there even a single tank that is mana intensive enough to want this item?

FilDaFunk12/3/2018, 9:01:47 AM2 votes

The main problem is that squishies ALSO blow up too quickly.

Full Brain12/3/2018, 9:46:46 AM2 votes

Yeah tank items need to be better but one of the issues is Bruisers/Juggernauts abuse them which is probably why there are no AD/armor items other than GA and the armor/CDR items are a collection of eclectic piss poor items that work for almost no one and support items. Probably also one of the reasons Ionic Spark got removed item 3070 Volibear item 3070.

Alzon12/3/2018, 2:50:09 PM2 votes

Solid, easily-balanced items that fill in a lot of holes for tank/bruiser itemization.

Shyvana especially will love Lost Shuriman Armor as an early rush item.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Tegash12/3/2018, 4:36:16 PM2 votes

Even now that Empowered Bulwark isn't in Singed's kit anymore, Riot will never make a tank item that gives that much mana and cooldowns in combination with health rather than armor.

The war against mana has been going on for a long time and giving tanks lane sustain would be a complete reversal of their current design philosophy.

(Not saying I disagree with you, cause I actually love these items. Just that it will realistically never happen.)

UlyssesISR12/3/2018, 4:48:39 PM2 votes

Tank items are fine, it's the large disparity between champions who can actually tank and who can't is what we are feeling. We have tanks that are as tough as Titanium like Malphite. But then we have others who are as fragile as Balsa wood looking at Maokai.

From what I understand, this disparity is due do giving tanks utility, CC, and ect. Some tanks are tank junglers, or tank support as a result to give variety I assume.

But there seems to be a great disconnect of what players/devs think tanks should be like.

This is simply my observation of the issue.

PaffWasTaken12/3/2018, 5:12:44 PM2 votes

Powercreeping resistances to get to the damage's level is a bad idea; it has been done before with the tank meta in S4-S5 and resulted in damage being powercrept to keep up with it once again, and this will probably happen too.

Resistances are ok right now, its damage as a whole who needs an huge plain nerf on every sources

SwiftKitten8812/6/2018, 12:26:43 AM1 votes

no they would not

the only want to ease the damage meta is to remove the extra tacked-on sources of damage from "runes" and the burst items like item 3095 and (now to a lesser degree )item 3147

KnifeCat12/2/2018, 9:59:04 PM1 votes

Nope, buffing tanks resistances won’t stop everyone else from one shotting eachother.

Lower damage instead, that achieves making tanks tankier, as well as stopping everyone else from one shotting eachother, unless they’re really fed.

Abuse me12/3/2018, 9:01:51 AM1 votes

How about, and listen to this, WE DONT FUCKING POWERCREEP TANKS SO TOP LANE IS NOT WORST LANE TO PLAY AGAIN? HUH? EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THAT? Fuck no. NERF DAMGE. And then, nerf fucking tanks already.

Bjørnetjenesten12/3/2018, 1:21:07 PM1 votes

I believe in gender equality so please change "Rock Hard" passive to "Sopping wet" for all female champions.

Jeanne fan club12/3/2018, 9:05:47 PM1 votes

The first one that gives both mr and magic resist + hp, + regen passive is too overpowered, the rest seem completely fine. But yeah, no way you can make the first one work, it would legit be the item every tank rushes first because it would be impossible to die to your lane opponent regardless who they are. You would be completely unduelable, unpokable, and the 15% attack speed reduction and mountain tough would scale too hard into the late game. BUT, the other 2 options are completely fine and would be quite good additions to help give more options to tanks.

Sizzl0r12/4/2018, 4:26:23 AM1 votes

Kayle laughs in Void Staff