Toplane tanks are unhealthy and terribly designed

Got your attention? Great, clickbait is still working. This is actually not a 'bohoo, toplane tanks are OP' thread, this is actually a 'toplane tanks are unhealthy when strong' thread - of course #notalltanks.

See, tanks can be exciting: just think about or botlane, they will get bullied by the superior range of their opponent but in exchange for that have a strong all-in that is constantly threatening the opposing lane. Both parties will have to play around their respective ranges and cooldowns as the stakes are high. Other variations of botlane tanks were somewhat pokeheavy ( , sapling and somewhat ) which is also fair enough as dodging their skills is interesting and meaningful.

Now compare that the likes of , , and - they always clear the waves until they see the opportunity to TP and then do that. They typically avoid to interact with their opponent as much as possible, sure, is going to use his Q on opponent and wave at the same time if possible but interacting with their opponent is only the secondary goal. This means that the laning phase - which is a large part of the game - is going to be incredibly dull and lame.

I believe the best example for why this is a toplane tank problem and not a tank problem is . When was botlane meta he played like a mixture of Alistair and Blitzcrank, constantly threatening the opponents with his engage tools and playing around his Q cooldown. Now compare that to when Nautilus top was meta: he stacked in the beginning so that he had enough mana to constantly clear the wave, afterwards he went full tank to invalidate the damage of his opponent. He opposed the likes of Gragas and Maokai who did the same exact thing, resulting in arguably the most terrible toplane meta we've ever had.

But as I said, #notalltanks - the positive example here is . This guy does not have any inherent waveclear, no way to easily farm safely due to sustain or range but instead has interactive laning patterns thanks to his sword, E and W. He is highly gated by cooldowns and has to use his shield efficiently or will otherwise be bullied. He obviously needs to waveclear in order to impact the map which results in him buying and which means that he has to spend quite a lot of gold before being able to itemize against his opponent. This means building or comes with a high opportunity cost, he doesn't get to invalidate his lane opponent that easily without losing anything.

Again, I am not saying that toplane tanks are OP - what I am saying is that toplane tanks often have strengths that result in unhealthy gameplay when the strategy is strong.

tl;dr: tankiness + waveclear = unhealthy toplaner