Why are defensive stats so useless? I want to actually tank again.

Cheesybox·Jan 18, 2015·119 votes·10,444 views

The past 2 games I've played I've built a plethora of defensive stats and no matter what, I will get destroyed instantly. Does not matter if I stack resists, stack HP, follow the perfect gold efficient balance of the 2, I cannot survive any engagement at all for more than 2 or 3 CC'd seconds. Penetration items are so stupidly gold efficient that one LW or VS can negate a couple thousand effective HP, and there is so much % HP damage in this game now after your resists are shredded to nothing. I know all you do is buy yourself "time" with defensive items, but when they're negated so easily, why bother?

156 Comments

RebonackJan 18, 201533 votes

The issue is that defensive items are horribly cost-inefficient compared to their offensive counter-parts. To make matters worse, there's no sufficiently beefy HP item to provide a soft-counter to %Pen (+25% bonus HP item, Rito plz). To make matters even worse %Pen is a double-dip stat. It scales off both YOUR damage AND the enemy's resistance. If it were changed to scale ONLY off the target's resistance (like, say, bonus True Damage based on how much Ar/MR they have) then it would be much more manageable as well as making it clear to players that the counter is building HP instead of more resist.

PyroJan 18, 20159 votes

The issue is that defensive items are horribly cost-inefficient compared to their offensive counter-parts.

MR items like SV are pretty cost efficient. So is FH, actually. It's the stuff like Sunfire, Omen and Thornmail that's under 100% due to immense power of their unique effects.

To make matters worse, there's no sufficiently beefy HP item to provide a soft-counter to %Pen (+25% bonus HP item, Rito plz).

That would feel bad for any Thornmail/FH users. +15% total HP would've been much better here. Anyways, the problem here is BotRK, which is so good on its own it's picked up even if nobody builds any health at all. It invalidates any HP stacking before it can even happen. IMO BotRK needs to get split into two items, one for the passive and one for the active.

To make matters even worse %Pen is a double-dip stat. It scales off both YOUR damage AND the enemy's resistance.

This one I don't agree with. It takes your damage, which you would deal if the enemy wasn't armored, and then reduces the number (armor, MR) that is used to mitigate this damage. The problem with %penetration is that it's more effective against squishies than it should be. LW and VS should have 50% bonus penetration, not 35% total.

FantasySniperJan 19, 20151 votes

BoTRK is countered pretty easily by Warden's Mail's passive, if not armor in general. Just having 100-160 armor - easily attainable - invalidates half that %HP damage and already blocks a good chunk of their initial damage output. I wouldn't mind seeing the active disappear, though.

Making them bonus penetration makes "the problem" worse. Squishies get slightly less squishy while tank items become horribly inefficient.

PyroJan 19, 20152 votes

If LW has 50% bonus armor penetration instead of 35%, the difference kicks in above about 150-200 armor.

Let's say you're a tank with 400 armor and the enemy got LW. Sure, your armor stacking got halved, but you've still got some of it and the enemy ADC has sacrificed an item slot just for you. This version of LW does not amplify their damage against your squishies. So in a way, you're indirectly saving your team :)

Rew711Jan 18, 20152 votes

Fix:

Raise the armor and magic resist on items. Bring in an added feature to select items that blocks 40-50% of critical strikes. And lastly, raise tank item HP bonus. item 3105 - from 200 to 300 bonus HP item 3151 - from 300 to 350 bonus HP item 3143 - from 500 to 600 bonus HP item 3027 - from 450 to 500 bonus HP (and mana) item 3065 - from 400 to 500 bonus HP item 3083 - from 800 to 1000 bonus HP item 3050 - from 250 to 300 bonus HP item 3116 - from 400 to 500 bonus HP These changes will help champions by so much in the long run. Especially champions that because of health, armor, and magic resist nerfs Zac will be able to be played again.

AuryielJan 18, 201521 votes

So basically make damage items irrelevant

Gotcha

Rew711Jan 18, 20157 votes

It depends on what it should be for. But, I'm glad you sort-of get what I'm try to say. Yes, I want damage items to deal less damage to Tanks. Why? Because, if I were to tank as a Alistar or JarvanIV I would need some serious health or armor/magic resist for all these new champions that can critical like no tomorrow.

If we gave Tanks more health in items like item 3102 item 3143 and item 3068 then we might see more of it in game. But, with decreased health means Tanks become less powerful and more vulnerable because of their low ratio's and how the kits are.

For someone like Draven JarvanIV Jinx or LeeSin , they deal a lot of damage with little effort. And with the measly amounts of Armor, we can't seem to be able to cope with the damage they can give. Being, they each give out tons of AD damage, really fast.

And, when up against Ahri Fiddlesticks Fizz Lux or Malzahar there isn't much Magic Resist to stop the immensely more powerful attack from coming.

Now, we see that items like item 3035 and item 3071 can just go through what you have and the same goes for Magic Resist with items like item 3151 and item 3135 that basically make getting Magic Resist not only a must but something that shouldn't be so worried about.

But, what blocks critical? Especially when all critical items give either bonus AS or AD (1 gives Armor Penetration).

So, as much as sarcasm is lovable, please understand that damage will always deal damage. But Tanks should be able to take the damage and still continue living.

Why is it that when I get a lot of HP and MR and Armor and yet, I still died because the enemy Jinx decided to get some critical and Armor Penetration? Why is it, that every Tank's early game starts out squishy? Why is it that Tanks are needed, but only as shields to take all the damage? Well, Tanks won't be able to do this when all the HP/Armor/Magic Resist items get nerfed so that it won't be as hard to kill a Tank like it used to be.

ValyrianBladeJan 18, 201516 votes

The only problem I see is with LW and VS. Even against low amounts of armour/mr they are as strong or stronger than other penetration items, and they are ridiculously cheap.

Their effects should either be reduced to around 20% (I don't like this though because their should be a way to deal with tanks), or their gold cost should be increased to the 3000 range (meaning they need new recipes because the combine cost would be insane).

I just think it's wrong that LW is core on every adc even when no one on the enemy team has even bought armour, and void staff the same for ap against no mr.

I guess a third option would be to leave the price but change the stats to be ONLY penetration. So the item is really slot inefficient if the other team doesn't have a tank at least.

SmokingPuffinJan 18, 20157 votes

I think VS is probably ok, because it is terrible against squishies.

However, squishies still get armor per level, so LW is still pretty useful.

I think reworking both items to use %bonus rather than %total is the right answer.

HawkefireJan 18, 20158 votes

Honestly all armor pen items need at the very least some soft reworking done.

Every single AD champion can build all 3 of the armor pen items, and not have a single problem because of the sheer amount of stats and power each one gives.

This basically means that they not only invalidate the squishies, but they also invalidate he tanks as well despite the fact that their build should only be countering tanks (because the squishies are not building armor, and if they are it is in very small amounts, IE zhonya or Guardian angel)

VerandureJan 19, 20153 votes

{quoted}

I think VS is probably ok, because it is terrible against squishies.

However, squishies still get armor per level, so LW is still pretty useful.

I think reworking both items to use %bonus rather than %total is the right answer.

A short bit of math to show why VS is -not- terrible against squishies.

Circuit BearJan 18, 201512 votes

Because Riot hates tanks. They aren't flashy and they have proved it time and time again. LCS Big plays are all that matters to them now

HawkefireJan 19, 20152 votes

See.....I don't understand that argument of Tanks not being as flashy as things like Lee Sin.

Alistar can make plays easily (hell, his headbutt is basically lee sins ult), and looks pretty flashy while doing it to me.

Nautilus makes plenty of plays with his kit.

Maokai can do some pretty cool stuff and make plays.

Cho'Gath can make some plays (not as many as other champions, and not quite as flashy, but the whole not flashy party would probably be solved in his soonTM visual update)

All the above champs I mentioned up there can make around as many plays as Braum (well....except Cho, Cho can't make quite as many plays but is still quite capable).

And there are plenty more that I haven't. Just for some reason people only want to see things blown up....in interesting ways

I mean honestly the only tanks that I can actually think of offhand that DOESN'T make flashy plays would be Nunu (well, I suppose if he manages to get a fully charged ult off from a bush....but so few fall for that once you actually start climbing the ranks), and Mundo (he doesn't have any playmaking abilities in his kit really, just stats.....stats....some more stats....and a spammable skillshot)

CheesyboxJan 18, 20158 votes

I agree, I don't want 400+ resists being impossible to deal with, but why is a 2300 gold item core on any damage dealer and gold efficient throughout the entire game?

Lord LohengrammJan 18, 20158 votes

Even if you're a full tank, you can't just enter inside 5 people without your team's backup. As you will get CC'd so hard and probably won't make it out.

If we supporse that you're a full tank, you have at least double health of others and about the triple of their armor and mr. We assume that you're three times harder to kill than any squishy. If we suppose that your team have the same damage as the enemy team, then your team should have killed three squishies while the enemy team only kills you, and we can suppose it's a won teamfights, no?

Tankiness is for teamfights not for duels.

HalmanJan 18, 20156 votes

One thing is being CC'd to uselessness and another is being instagibbed in under 2 seconds by your enemy ADC sorry MARKSMAN (cuz that makes a difference right?) right clicking you. Obviously you are not really a threat if you build full tank anyways.

Yes you have double health and triple armor, but that armor does nothing. An enemy adc can two-shot another adc in 0.7 sec, but you are not a tank if it takes him a whopping of 1.5 seconds to kill you. It's ridiculous.

Now the goal is not to make tanks unkillable, it is to make tanking a viable role again. Right now, you are often slaughtered by occasional aoe in teamfights, this is a joke of a balance.

Also lifesteal should be removed from the game, it's a toxic stat that negates any thought involved in playing adc and actually watching your health bar.

StephenizgodJan 18, 20153 votes

Lifesteal is useful on other champs other then ADC's though, so while i agree with everything else you said i will disagree there. Most melee champs, who dont have the advantage of being ranged and yet are still outdamaged, need the lifesteal to stay relevant in a teamfight.

I think a large problem with ADC's is Crit, ideally it would nice to just remove it but i know it has a very important role in the game (I just hate RNG lol). It would be interesting if Armor had more of a reaction with Crit, armor pen + Crit is part of the reason ADC's dominate Tanks so hard. I think Crit should be for squishies and armor pen for tanks, building more against one lessens the damage done to the other, force ADC's to decide who they want to kill, force their teammates to actually peel for them, force them to actually care about their placement. Their lifesteal has no impact on you if you cant hit them because they killed you in less then 3 seconds.

DracosKasuJan 18, 20153 votes

Since they remove item 3128 , i will not mind if they remove the crit item. Also if you want to be tank with hp you can counter it with item 3153 . So yeah Ad right now are actually in better spot than any other role mostly.

ProfDrDeathJan 19, 20153 votes

I'm just leaving this here:

Tristana pre-Armor DPS with max damage build (BG, IE, PD, BotRK, LW, Scimitar) against said tank: 1905.3 with Rapid Fire 1354.5 without

A tank's (450 Armor, 400 HP, Ninja Tabi) EHP against LW Tristana: 4000 * (100 + 292.5)/100 * 10/9 = 17444.4

It takes Tristana, on average, 10.8 seconds of uninterrupted wailing onto him to kill said tank. And I did not even factor in Randuin's and Frozen Heart, nor other AS slows, reinforced Armor or Oppression. 5 seconds of Rapid Fire: 9526.5 Remainder: 7917.9 EHP Time to kill that: 5.8 seconds

With Frozen Heart and Randuin's calculated in: Each reduces DPS by 15%, stacking multiplicatively to 27.75%. Hence, Tristana's DPS while affected by both: 1376.6 with RF 978.6 without

5 seconds of Rapid Fire: 6883 Remainder: 10561.4 Time to kill that: 10.8 seconds

So, in total, 15.8 seconds of uninterrupted wailing onto that tank. While he does nothing at all (important!).

TreebornfroggerJan 18, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Even if you're a full tank, you can't just enter inside 5 people without your team's backup. As you will get CC'd so hard and probably won't make it out.

If we supporse that you're a full tank, you have at least double health of others and about the triple of their armor and mr. We assume that you're three times harder to kill than any squishy. If we suppose that your team have the same damage as the enemy team, then your team should have killed three squishies while the enemy team only kills you, and we can suppose it's a won teamfights, no?

Tankiness is for teamfights not for duels.

yes! thank you! this is the point that needs to be emphasized. tanks should not be immortal walls that take half a minute to kill, they are important team members meant to provide cc and protection for squishier teammates.

Meep ManJan 18, 20157 votes

Play Alistar , he never dies.

But in all seriousness, there needs to be better defensive items.

Unironic SJWJan 18, 20156 votes

Gotta keep defensive stats weak to prevent the game from being League of Mobile Bruisers which happens everytime defensive stats are strong. I'm sorry, tank mains but until Riot accepts that champs need to be tanky OR do damage and not both (only exception to this rule is shit like Nasus who is irrelevant for the first 20 minutes) , we're going to have this issue. That's why every tank item got chain nerfs

HalmanJan 18, 20152 votes

Yeah because rito logic:

At this stage, there is actually a good balance (s0-s1)
Buff adcs cuz tanks stronk (late s1-s2)
Buff bruisers with tons of free stuns, mobility and CC in their skillsets cuz adcs too stronk and need a counter (Why not nerf adc instead? Ask s2 developers)
Nurf health itemisation cuz bruisers too stronk (late s2-s3)
Huh bruisers still stronk cuz they get too much for free in their skillsets, maybe nurf that a bit (s3)
Nah buff adcs even moar
Nurf adcs cuz its ridiculous (early s4) and suddenly the balance is not all THAT bad at this point either!
Nurf health itemization cuz league of assasins (tm) and BIG PLAYS (c)
Balance is crap again

DrukyulJan 18, 20154 votes

Having 100 Armor/MR with a ton of damage on top is way stronger than having 200 Armor/MR with mediocre damage. Because Lifesteal is OP.

Arcade AndrewJan 18, 20154 votes

{quoted}

The past 2 games I've played I've built a plethora of defensive stats and no matter what, I will get destroyed instantly. Does not matter if I stack resists, stack HP, follow the perfect gold efficient balance of the 2, I cannot survive any engagement at all for more than 2 or 3 CC'd seconds. Penetration items are so stupidly gold efficient that one LW or VS can negate a couple thousand effective HP, and there is so much % HP damage in this game now after your resists are shredded to nothing. I know all you do is buy yourself "time" with defensive items, but when they're negated so easily, why bother?

item 3075 As somebody who played mainly AD to escape bronze I swear if a tank got a thornmail I hated life

junglerboy16Jan 18, 20157 votes

item 3153 + item 3035 + item 1057 counters thorn mail with ease. Lifesteal negates the return damage, armor pen negates the resistance, and the MR makes the return damage hurt even less

Arcade AndrewJan 18, 20152 votes

{quoted}

++ counters thorn mail with ease. Lifesteal negates the return damage, armor pen negates the resistance, and the MR makes the return damage hurt even less But the question is why are you 1v1ing as a tank? normally youd be with you team, and if they focused you with all that? theyd be so low and your team would clean up and win the fight, even if you die, its 1 for 5 because they focused you

JamenerJan 19, 20152 votes

Upvoted. item 3075 is pretty worthless right now. I never build it anymore.

RTX WarnoiseJan 19, 20152 votes

This.

Thornmail is only good early. But once they build lifesteal it is useless.

I suggest they buff tank offensive items like thornmail and Sunfire cap to be useful even late game

GinnyJan 18, 20154 votes

The problem stems from the fact that it's much easier to build high amounts of AP than AD, and yet for some reason even easier to build higher amounts of Armour than Magic Resist.

Barring additional effects, MR items have a very noticeable smaller amount than their friends in the Armour section. There are two armour items that give +100 armour while the highest amount of MR an item will have is 55 - almost half of the amount of armour. Not to mention there are several MR items that aren't necessarily relative to tanking - Mercurial Scimitar, Wit's End, Abyssal Scepter, Athene's Unholy Grail, Maw of Malmortius, etc. while most armour items are build to tailor to the needs of tanks - Frozen Heart with its mana and passive, Thornmail with its passive, etc.

I think that sometime this season, we need to see Armour and MR being addressed.

junglerboy16Jan 19, 20154 votes

Ah, but you forget that mages abilities rarely scale over 100% AP, while most ADCs build crit, which gives them potential for over 250% AD of damage per hit, at sometimes over 2 attacks a second. The difference is that most mages can dump several hundred percent of AP ratios in the blink of an eye, while ADCs take more than 2 seconds to kill you but don't need mana or spells nearly as much.

GinnyJan 19, 20152 votes

That's an excellent point I hadn't really considered - the imbalance still exists, though, especially given your point of burst vs. sustained damage. Someone mentioned an Armour item that has the additional effect of either reducing crit damage or crit reduction. I'm curious as to what your thoughts on that might be - I personally didn't think much of it, but now that you bring up this point I'm understanding the reasoning behind it more.

Personally, I'm still in favour of increasing magic resist on such items but I do thank you for pointing those things out. I've thumbed up your reply!

junglerboy16Jan 19, 20152 votes

Bring back Force of Nature. Back when it was removed, the game had very weak % HP damage items and Armor pen and MRpen were very weak. Now that those things are here, it wouldn't be overpowered anymore and could help out against mages a LOT.

As for the Crit damage reduction idea, it is ok, but I would prefer some sort of physical % damage reduction item over a crit reduction item, since the crit reduction would only be helpful about half the time, with only Yasuo being able to reliably attain 100% crit.

HawkefireJan 19, 20152 votes

Actually I can answer that whole being really easy to build armor with a very nifty rebuttal.

Armor Penetration is incredibly easy and I would argue that it is EASIER to build than magic pen (not all champs effectively use item 3151 , not very many champions get close enough to use item 3001 , and only a select few champions can even build item 3091 ), and yet nearly every single AD champion can build all 3 of the armor penetration items because of the sheer power of their stats AND the fact that they are all fairly easy to get!

Philbo BagginsJan 18, 20154 votes

You should only expect to be able to take FULL attention for around 3-4 seconds. That is normal. Your team should be drawing attention too. If they aren't, then its a teamwork issue not a tank issue.

Painted CeltJan 18, 20154 votes

I agree that tanks (especially health stackers) haven't been feeling especially tanky for a while now, which is kind of a loss of fantasy for players of champs like Nautilus, Dr. Mundo, Singed, Zac, etc.
How would you guys feel about...

Blade of the Ruined King Cost: 3200 (900) ~~+25 Attack Damage~~ -> +20 Attack Damage ~~+40% Attack Speed~~ -> +35% Attack Speed ~~+10% Life Steal~~ -> 8% Life Steal

UNIQUE Passive: Basic attacks deal 8% of the target's current Health in bonus physical damage (max 60 vs. monsters and minions) on hit. UNIQUE Active (90 second cooldown): Deals 10% of target champion's maximum Health (min. ~~100~~ -> 150) as physical damage, heals for the same amount, and steals the target's Movement Speed for 3 seconds (melee champions steal 25% Movement Speed, ranged champions steal 15% Movement Speed).

Bilgewater Cutlass Cost: 1400 (240) ~~+25 Attack Damage~~ -> +20 Attack Damage +8% Life Steal

UNIQUE Active (90 second cooldown): Deals ~~100~~ -> 150 magic damage and slows the target champion's Movement Speed for 2 seconds (melee champions slow 25% Movement Speed, ranged champions slow 15% Movement Speed).

Would this be a potentially healthy tweak? It would remove some of the extra power on BOTRK to make it clear that the health shredding is the reason to upgrade it from its components, with slot efficiency and other tacked on bonuses just being icing. With these changes, it might become less of a must buy, especially on ADCs, and more of a strategic counter against heavy health stackers. All in all, this wouldn't change much, but I think it would probably be a healthy nudge and it is slight enough that it wouldn't require other major rebalancing alongside it...

Also, here is an idea for a change in defense masteries:

~~Runic Blessing: Start the game with a 50 Health Shield. The shield regenerates each time after respawning~~ -> Mastery removed; Legendary Guardian shifted into its position on skill tree.

Tenacious: Reduces the duration of crowd control effects by 15% -> Effect unchanged but mastery moved down a tier in the skill tree (into Legendary Guardian's previous position). Requires 1 point in Swiftness.

*NEW* Unbreakable: Reduces the effectiveness of Armor and Magic penetration effects by 25%. Requires 20 points in Defense.

I feel this would be a much more suitable final mastery for Defense (I don't think many people will mind Runic Blessing being phased out either) while providing a much needed buff to one of the non-offense trees. Obviously, players using this mastery would need to be quite invested in defense (IE., a real tank) for this to be effective due to the 20 Defense mastery points requirement.

Here are examples of how this would play out in a game:

Player A - 300 Armor (no Unbreakable mastery)

Player B - 300 Armor (with Unbreakable mastery)

Player C - Last Whisper [35% armor negation] + Brutalizer [10 flat armor pen]

Example 1 - Player A is attacked by Player C -> 300 Armor - (300 * 0.35 [Last Whisper] + 10 [Brutalizer]) = 185 effective armor on Player A

Example 2 - Player B is attacked by Player C -> 300 Armor - ((300 * 0.35 [Last Whisper] + 10 [Brutalizer]) * 0.75 [Unbreakable]) = 213.75 effective armor on Player B.

In this case, this is equivalent to Last Whisper's armor penetration effect being reduced from 0.35 to 0.2625 and Brutalizer's flat pen being reduced from 10 to 7.5.

stealthfox94Jan 18, 20154 votes

I agree tank itemization could use some help however I don't want to go back to early S4 when tanks where unstoppable.

OleandervineJan 18, 20153 votes

I personally think the VS and LW should drop the percentage altogether and get a flat penetration instead, like the Haunting Guise and Brutalizer have. Give a smaller percentage, like 10-15% to the Sorcerer's Shoes and make a physical version of the boots for AD characters as compensation. Plus, boots like that would force ADCs to pick between Beserkers and %Pen instead of having both with the current LW.

Lord LohengrammJan 18, 20153 votes

Then how would you deal with a 500 armor malphite? It does make no sense.

For the information I reached around 600 armor once vs a full AD team with Malphite using the W active.

How are you supposed to kill him?

Lajinn5Jan 19, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Then how would you deal with a 500 armor malphite? It does make no sense.

For the information I reached around 600 armor once vs a full AD team with Malphite using the W active.

How are you supposed to kill him?

You use magic damage. That's the point of having two different damage types(Three including True Damage) in the game, if your team is entirely one stat and somebody counterbuilds it, you SHOULD have a shit ton of problems dealing with them. And at that point it becomes your fault for not having a balanced team

maikokkJan 18, 20153 votes

if item 3035 and item 3135 provided a % increase (pre-resistance) in (physical/magic) damage instead for providing %penetration it would make the situation a bit more managable.

they could be valuable early game, as the affordability should reflect, and dull down as tanks mass resistance

FantasySniperJan 19, 20151 votes

This is a good idea.

Although, squishies dying even faster may not be the most desirable consequence.

maikokkJan 19, 20152 votes

actually i didnt think this through far enough. im fine with squishies dying faster, but it would make tanks incredibly OP. not only would it reduce the potential damage aimed at them, they could build it to amplify high base damages for cheap.

AkeneroJan 18, 20153 votes

Being tanky in this game IS easy. % health things suck, yeah, but that makes someone have to make the choice of either using their abilities or actives(aside from gnar) to try to take down the tank, a non-damage dealing character, or use them on higher priority targets. Being a tank means you break the front line, take the hard cc the enemy gives you, and let the rest of your team attack the enemy. If a fight goes in your favor, you're either dead, having taken a LOT of CC, but your team has won the fight, or you're being ignored and are disrupting the enemy team from the interior.

JamenerJan 19, 20153 votes

I agree with this. There's this misconception that just because you are tanky you're supposed to survive everything when, in reality, if a team invests all of their resources into taking you down then you should die--but that would still be worth it because all of their abilities are now on cooldown and the rest of your team can mop them up with ease. Tanks are there to soak up damage so it doesn't land on your squishies and to disrupt the enemy team by forcing their carries away from the fight.

Tanks are strongest right after the laning phase when the carries haven't built their penetration items yet and by late game you should be transitioning into at least one damage item. Most tanks without reliable hard CC these days need to have at least one damage item by late game so they can chunk enemy carries before they're killed, then your own carries will hopefully be able to finish the enemy off. If you build pure tank then you should at least have some form of hard CC to keep them from dumping on you right away and give your carries the chance to delete them.

AkesgerothJan 18, 20152 votes

I absolutely agree with this. Even 6 slotted in tanking items, you'll be dying in no time while doing no damage. AD characters in particular are out of control right now.

TreebornfroggerJan 18, 20153 votes

{quoted}

I absolutely agree with this. Even 6 slotted in tanking items, you'll be dying in no time while doing no damage. AD characters in particular are out of control right now.

I thought tanks were for cc and protection. If you can build pure tank and still do dangerous amounts of damage you're probably a.) not a tank or b.) nasus i think this might be a confusion on the purpose of a tank. if a tank could kill ADCs/APCs easily while still soaking a team's worth of damage, there might be a problem.

AkesgerothJan 18, 20155 votes

They are for CC and protection. A job you can't do while dead. I added the "while doing no damage" to point out how useless they become. I mean if you're going to die in no time and do no damage just so you can have some CC, why not grab a character who can do damage WHILE also having CC?

That's the thing about tanks. They're supposed to be able to get in there and take hits. They can't.

FiniteAppleJan 19, 20152 votes

When i play tank: http://media.lolusercontent.com/api/embedly/1/image/resize?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapollo-na-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1416371229635%2Faddtext_com_MjIyNjMyMTgzNjMw.png&key=f0abbd34f14549f3a15cd94dd9970851&width=150&height=150&errorUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.leagueoflegends.com%2Fapollo%2Fassets%2Fdiscussion-thumbnail-ward.png

BastionKrossJan 19, 20152 votes

Two major problems with tanks:

Bruisers have slightly less survivability (they die in four seconds instead of five) while bringing significantly more damage than tanks. Why play a tank when you can be a tanky champ that also does damage? The two classes need to be separated more to prevent one from doing the other's job and then some.
Penetration itemization needs to have a downside. When a carry picks up they gain tons of damage against resistant targets like tanks and bruisers, while also still gaining quite a bit of damage against squishy targets as well. When you have tank buster items like that, buying them should be a big decision since they should greatly increase your damage against tanks, but don't give enough offensive power to let you continue to murder anyone who isn't a tank like you bought another damage item instead. You should have to choose, either do lots of damage to tanks but leave your tanks and bruisers to clean up their carries, or be able to kill their carries in two autos but leave someone else to deal with their tanks and bruisers. Not both with the same items.