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Tank itemising needs some love!

Infernal Taric·11/6/2019, 2:51:37 PM·10 votes·5,537 views

Hello Summonners and Rioters!

Ill go straightforward: tank itemising is weak. The price of items is very huge but this is not the case. The case is they dont keep up with current meta. And the real reason is early game itemising. Tanks lose early game to bruisers mages and carries. And they were meant to be counter for mages! Currently tanks have two dedicated laning items:

Sunfire cape (waveclear, anti ad melee bruiser)- Issues : Bami cinder has too low gold efficiency/ and you cant perform precise wave menagement with this item. It makes pushing easier, but it makes last hitting under turret/ freezing and punishing enemy under his turret MUCH harder! Also, new players might struggle with executing minions with bami passive. And the last problem is the passive falls off in late.

Solutions: (pure QOL 0 number changes) -make unique passive a toggle like old muramana -combine it somehow with dead mans plate (toggle/ swap in shop like tytanic/ ravenous hydra in the past) so the item is still good in late. -make dmg to minions scaling with missing health. This way, the minions that you want to freeze wont get dmgd that much while pushing will be a bit more efficient.

Spectre's cowl (anti ap poke) Issues : its totally useless. Yes you solve the issue of enemy poking you but you spend early gold on sustain, which affects your early waveclear. Enemy mage buys lost chapter, you buy spectres cowl and the results are: -Maybe you will sustain it -You shall not last hit minions under turret boyy. You shall not shove/ reset the wave if you kill the enemy -You have 0 kill pressure.

Solution: totally rework the items unique: X% of the pre mitigation damage dealt to you is stored up to lets say 10x lvl charges that last 30 seconds. The next attack/spell you perform unleash this damage, increased versus minions. The excess stacks that you cant store are healing you back over time/ or you heal from damage dealt from this item.

Other items that I guess were meant to be used in tank role:

Iceborn gauntlet This item issue is that it has a horrible mix of stats : mana and armour. I imagine the tank desires that item when he wants to stick to squishy, ranged enemy toplaner. This item is it doesnt grant health. It means that unless enemy is full ad, the item has very very low real gold efficiency. Moreover the item rewards champions who own high base attack damage(yorick has TF anyways) and have many opportunites to deal damage(ezreal). Lets say You play ornn top versus quinn. You buy it becouse it will help you with sustaining your mana, and adds some stickiness and waveclear. However, you reach 20 min game phase with this item and you realise that with tabi iceborn the gold value you have invested to adapt versus enemy syndra mid equals 0.

To make the purchase any worth for tanks: add any health to it. add bonus hp and armour (melee only) scaling to damage dealt. reduce mana and cdr, maybe armour.

Thornmail: This item barely protects, and barely deals any damage! Currently, it cant be used in first 2 items becouse its to specialised, like iceborn. Icrease its damage scaling to compansate and remove cripple becouse this self anti synergy is so dumb.

Frozen heart: Not only useless (0 health) but also... boring. My solution: NEW UNIQUE: The longer, and the closer the enemy stays in range, the more he is crippled and slowed deceying in 2 seconds. 50% effect in outer range(700) 75 % middle circle(500) 100% effect 300 range. applies 10% + 2 %slow and cripple per second increasing up to 30% after 10 seconds. Enemies dashing in 300 range from you have lower dash range.

THANKS FOR READING!

4 Comments

Infernal Taric11/6/2019, 5:55:55 PM3 votes

TLDR: very simple, example of how unhealthy is tank and toplane condition right now. Ornn top versus cassiopeia. Ornn top rush adaptive helmet, gives up wave menagement and river control before he obtains pure anti cassio item.

His all hope is in jungler becouse of enemy mechanics, and range adventage. 1 His bot won in 12-14 minutes, and he rotates bot. He face enemy bot and performs very brainded and unsatysfying laning versus botlane and protects this half health turret to stall their comeback. 2 Enemy bot won in 12-14 minutes and he face fed lucian. His all 2900 gold dedicated to enter midgame has~less than half value versus him - 1000 gold worth health. He falls behind furthermore, and get denied furthermore. in 20 minutes all enemy outer turrets are fallen and he finally can show his teamfight skills. However his itemising wasnt dictated by his teamfight needs, but by laners pressure. To adapt as fast as possible to enemy lucian he rushed tabi thornmail. He barely reached this boots adaptive helmet and half of thornmail in 20 minutes. But oh god. Enemy vel koz in aram mid deals 1000 true damage to him in combo that he cant dodge becouse he is too big and pyke deals another 1000 true damage to him. But his itemising against this type of damage was just 350 health from adaptive helmet. Only 1000 from 4900 gold spent directly helped him versus this type of damage.

From the other side: Game 2 Ornn top lanes versus quinn top. She denies him till he reaches item powerspike. He rush thornmail and laughs from her damage output. Enemy bot wins, and roams in 12 min: enemy bot has trouble with ornn. Ally bot wins: Ornn can buy more health. He will survive pyke+ vel koz ult becouse he will follow his thornmail with health item ( rightous glory/ dead mans plate). Feeling confident, he sloughters enemy team with super precise ultimate, that allows his teammates to do the job and end the game fast.

OK so actually, where is Ornn player impact till 20 minutes of the game? In my opinion not a champion should auto win/ lose matchups like that.

Warriors and warriors items are balanced enough to rely on ad health items. It doesnt matter so much if the enemy laner has magic or physical source of damage. Tanks however, are forced to itemise against enemy laner. And it makes a feeling of totally coinflip games/ games lost in draft. If enemy go full ad, it's rare but u insta win. If enemy has balanced team, U have to enjoy first 10 minutes of being denied, then 100 % coinflip game til 20 minutes.

Where is your influence dear tank player? RIOT!

AikidoPainTrain11/6/2019, 5:30:46 PM2 votes

Interesting discussion. I love playing tanks so I never thought about this before in terms of items and worth. Thanks.

Grumpig11/6/2019, 9:27:02 PM2 votes

itemization in general needs to be reworked. Back in the day building took a lot of skill ,now a lot of champions have one optimized build and the only changes come down to boots. I know this isnt the case for every champion, but most ap mid lanes are gonna go ludens first.

Infernal Taric11/6/2019, 5:07:39 PM1 votes

I mean currently if tanks counters/ sustains poke its bcs of base champion power not becouse of player performance. U reach level X when enemy laner cant shit against you. I still remember the game when inting sion was OP (it was fiew months ago) . I was playing camille and I got like 5 solo kills against him. He decided to go inting strat, and after 8 deaths he began to... win short trades and all ins. I guess that game was super frustrating for both of us. I auto won early in pick, he auto won mid in pick. Actually, our lane condition was decided by other players. I d love to see tanks with better items, and less champion power. So a tank playing wise will get rewarded and will be granted chance to impact the game from beggining. No more auto lose early and auto outscaling opponnents.

Its currently same shit with tanks versus mages and ad ranged tops : pre 10 minutes ranged champions have insane kill pressure and force shit itemising on tanks. And this timestamp is barely affected by toplaners skill diffrence.

And what happens in 10 - 15 min of the average game? winning bot is rotating. So, a losing tank has to deal with enemy botlane, while still having itemising dedicated to enemy laner. This isnt issue of warriors who follow always same build path trinity sterak or black cleaver deaths dance sterak.