All their damaging abilities were very telegraphed or had a long windup time. personally the concept of a huge tanky champion that hits you for lots of damage if you get caught in his abilities (think sion q) sounds really cool. I just get frustrated with tanks when they have easy point and click cc so they just slowly beat you up with no counter play (think 
)
Something like that would likely be hard to balance across all ELOs. (if you dialed it to 11) In the Pro scene, your opponents are going to know what their doing, and almost never get hit by those abilities. Unless say, their abilities were sure shotted due to lock down from say, the Jungler.
And in lower ELO, that wind up period does offer plenty of counter play on paper, but what happens when your attacking from the fog of war? (Again dialed to 11) You would practically turn Tanks into one of the most capable bushwacking champs in the game. And low ELO would fall for it due to the lack of vision.
The last issue would be, if your going to be relying on your damage, you will need to adapt that play style to pull it off. And if you adopt that style, your not really playing a tank anymore. You may be Tanky, but your not really performing the roles of primary engage, if you needed to rely on sure shotting your abilities and bushwacking.
Then again, this claim is a bit hyberbolic. High, Unreliable damage can be used pretty reliably on the minion wave or jungle camp, and that's pretty much all you need to lane/jungle effectively as the tank, so your never particularly reliant on your damage against champs to begin with.
The problem there is that tanks are supposed to help counter assassins; some of them so slippery that they require point-click cc.
Tank main (Sion enthusiast): Agreed amigo.
Tanks being these big heavy guys that hit like a pillow of feathers never made much sense to me, especially when some get fluffed as walking mountains. Mountains are heavy my friends. Real bloody heavy you see. But I can't imagine a walking one to be fast.
See these big beefy tanks? What they have in strength and durability, they lack in speed and grace. They are slow, cumbersome, and can be seen from miles away. You should get plenty of time to dodge em, but be punished hard when you don't.
But what would make them different from juggernauts since they are tanky and deal damage?
Juggernauts me amigo are a lot more reliable in their damage. They are more accustomed to battle, know how to swing their weapons properly for hits instead of putting everything in one blow. They're more accustomed to fighting alone, tanks are better suited to fighting with people.
Hence why I am ok with heavily telegraphed but good damage abilities on tanks and dislike it when they have damage abilities that are too reliable.
I can see where it could be a blance issue but also I don't think the tank has to rely on doing damage either. Thinking again to Sion q (I really like how this ability was designed) you theoretically never miss this ability because it has a huge range and is instant cast however it has reduced effectiveness. I think this is the model they should use for more tank abilities. They should have the option to charge massive attacks that operate really well in a teamfight scenario where they are suppose to be strong and are weaker in the 1v1.
