How do you discourage tankiness?

Elindiir·May 12, 2016·9 votes·1,482 views

People are still complaining about TANK Ekko, and so I started wondering, "How do you DISCOURAGE building tanky?" For AD, it is easy with encouraging crit builds and the direct nature of AD... But with AP, there are so many rather tanky AP items, and AP is a much more abstract number. With AP scaling abilities, there is always a large base damage number that without such a high base number, the champion gets stomped early on. Also, AP champions are more likely to have a lott of CC in their kits, which, by their all-or-nothing nature indirectly encourage tankiness.

So... How do you discourage building tanky on a CC heavy champion?

70 Comments

Chaos689May 12, 20164 votes

By nerfing tank items. The tank meta is a bad meta, as it is even less fun than teh early s6 "everybody oneshots everybody" meta. It is boring and unengaging, and really needs to be stopped... Garen DrMundo

RalanrMay 12, 20166 votes

Those aren't tanks.

Chaos689May 12, 20163 votes

{quoted}

Those aren't tanks.

What aren't tanks? Two of the tankiest champs in the game?

RalanrMay 12, 20165 votes

Tanky =/= Tank.

Chaos689May 12, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Tanky =/= Tank.

THEY ARE TANKS

RalanrMay 12, 20167 votes

They are juggernauts.

ElindiirMay 12, 20162 votes

UGGGHHHHH technicalities........

Tryndamere is a good example of a champion that has been discouraged to build tanky... Tryndamere ACTUALLY has the potential to be among the tankiest champs in the game with his healing, invulnerability and one of the highest innate tankiness stats...

EDIT: What I am also saying is that the Juggernaut classification can easily be drifted away from... You can make a Juggernaut into a vanguard or in some cases a diving fighter....

RalanrMay 12, 20164 votes

As much as I don't like Tryndamere as a positive example of anything, you are indeed correct. Him building tanky would just become detrimental to his intended purpose.

The problem is that he's balanced around a really annoying (and possibly unhealthy) mechanic of not dying. That's the only thing stopping him from building tanky.

Edit: Well to be fair, classifications aren't always so solid. Riot themselves said that some champions can lean towards one or the other despite being in a certain category.

The problem is that people keep thinking that tanks are just hard to kill. Now in a lot of games this holds true, but to be a tank in League requires more than just being tough to kill. You need to find ways to have people focus you, to peel for your teammates, to hold the enemy down, to engage into the fight and survive while your team follows up.

From the blog: -Tanks: Tanks excel in shrugging off incoming damage and focus on disrupting their enemies more than being significant damage threats themselves.

Vanguards: We like to refer to Vanguards as “offensive tanks.” Vanguards lead the charge for their team and are specialists at getting action started. Their explosive team fight initiation seeks to catch enemies out of position while allowing allies to follow-up to devastating effect.

-Wardens: If Vanguards are “offensive tanks,” then Wardens are surely “defensive tanks.” Wardens stand steadfast, seeking to hold the line by persistently locking down any oncomers who try to pass them. Wardens keep their allies out of harm’s way and allow them to safely deal with enemies caught in the fray.

-Fighters: Fighters are durable and damage-focused melee champions that look to be in the thick of combat.

-Juggernauts: Juggernauts are melee titans who relentlessly march down the opposition and devastate those foolish enough to get within their grasp. They are the only subclass who excel at both dealing and taking significant amounts of damage, but in turn they have a tough time closing in on targets due to their low range and extremely limited mobility.

-Divers: Divers are the more mobile portion of the Fighter class. Divers excel at singling out high-priority targets to blitz toward, immediately forcing those targets (and their teammates) to deal with the diver’s presence. Divers are not as durable as the tanks or juggernauts of the world, but Divers can take their fair share of punishment while bringing enough damage to be a real kill threat if left unchecked.

Now of course there are going to be overlaps, but not enough to say that Darius or Garen are fucking tanks. Especially since they were two of the four champions used in the juggernaut rework, which made it an official subclass.

cuddlykitten4May 13, 20161 votes

I forgot that they subclassed it out. So many changes to keep up with lol. I remember when they posted that now that I've reread it though. Thanks for that.

DragonSheaMay 13, 20162 votes

Playing against a trynda, especially as Rammus with Thornmail is one of the best ways of dealing with him. Trynda hits hard and fast and relies on the timing of his ult.

Looking at the juggernauts, I'd say some of them have some Vanguard elements, if you also take into account they have "tank" as their secondary role, so while they are tanky and should tank a bit because of their toughness, they **NOT ** true tanks and playing them as one is just stupid as they are not meant to be played defensively.

cuddlykitten4May 13, 20161 votes

....or a honey badger...

Mecha MaIphiteMay 12, 201611 votes

TYPING IN CAPS WILL MAKE MY SHITTY ARGUMENTS STRONGER

TheRealBazMay 13, 20161 votes

{quoted}

TYPING IN CAPS WILL MAKE MY SHITTY ARGUMENTS STRONGER

WHAT ARE WE YELLING ABOUT!

stealthfox94May 13, 20161 votes

Mundo is definitely a tank Garen is a bruiser.

RalanrMay 13, 20163 votes

How the hell does Mundo peel? How does he get people to focus him?

Damage. Mundo is a damage threat with only one slow and no other forms of CC. He's entire kit is built around selfish sustain, nothing to help his team out.

Mundo is a bruiser. An incredibly tanky bruiser.

stealthfox94May 13, 20161 votes

I can't recall the last time I saw Mundo build a single damage item, outside maybe item 3022 . Bruisers build both offensive and defensive stats. Here's a bruiser build item 3071 item 3053 item 3742 item 3047 , here's a tank build. item 3102 item 3083 item 3075

DragonSheaMay 13, 20162 votes

That is true, Mundo is as tough as a tank but how can he force people to focus him apart from being should a pain in the ass?

DragonSheaMay 13, 20161 votes

If they have some means of CC or protecting their allies then they are tanks. Most Juggs are also offensive tanks AKA Vanguards

RalanrMay 14, 20161 votes

Except most juggs have no way to engage, which is the primary aspect of a Vanguard.

DragonSheaMay 14, 20161 votes

So-so But You are right, Skarner can slow with his E, Garen and rush with His Q and Darius with his E, But yeah it's not reliant and the other Juggs like Shyv and Trundle Don't have the proper means to engage, while Mal, Amumu and Shen do.

Now that I think over it. Most Tanks got some means of mobility that Juggs lack. Rammus roll, Amumu tosses a bandage and leaps to his target, Mal throws a rock and landslides with his Ult, Braum jumps to his allies and Shen can dash and block AA's. Even more Taric is more of a juggernaut compared to braum since he is classified as a fighter instead of a tank and he lacks any mobility, so One could argue that Juggs are slow and tanks lack damage, while both are tough as fuck, so It evens out in the whole "Offense-Defense-Speed" Triangle.

RalanrMay 14, 20161 votes

Yeah, tanks are actually a lot more mobile than people realize, it's just that their mobility is heavily target based instead of more free formed like assassins. There are exceptions (I'm not sure if Singed is really a pure tank honestly) but most tanks have a gap closer they use for engage or peel.

Juggernauts? Have little to none of that. Skarner is a weird case and I think Riot (or so I heard) said that he didn't really fit into the juggernaut class as much as they thought he would.

But like the class blog said, there are going to be odd exceptions.

DragonSheaMay 14, 20161 votes

Never really played Skarner But since Garen also has an MS Boost with his Q but since Skarner Also gains a shield for up to 14% of his max HP on his W and along with his Ult be a suppressant. I think he is more of a Tank really because Not Jugg should having such strong defensive ability.

Singed seems more like a Fighter/mage than a tank as he is annoying as fuck and is a master kiter. And yet some tanks are do have more proper mobility like Shen or Malphite

Also being off subject. I have wondered if Rammus is ever be a more of a juggernaut, because as a main, He got good damage and I usually build him with item 3047 item 3068 item 3748 item 3116 item 3065 item 3075 as his damage scales of armor and TH along with Grasp scales of HP, giving him quite a bit of damage. But as an old champion he seems to be one that could need some polish in the future is his role can't stand the test of time.

DragonSheaMay 13, 20161 votes

True but they rival tanks in durability, but no, they are not true tanks.

CrossetteMay 13, 20161 votes

Right now this is the "tanks oneshot everybody" meta.

Or, as I like to call it, the "tanky assassin" meta.

Fuck this meta.

DragonSheaMay 13, 20162 votes

Well I guess this meta is all about being a juggernaut, hit hard and take a beating. But by fucking god you are broken if you also dodge or dash. like you know who.

SasogwaMay 13, 20162 votes

The problem lies on several things : first off, the tanks aren't that strong in lategame however they're great earlygame because the current system of armor vs damage sucks balls: damage itemization has insane scaling, and tankiness itemization has stupid early-midgame powerspikes, such as 'oh surprise', item 3068 item 3025

Then ekko is good as a tank because LOOK AT HIS KIT. Up to 60% slow for 3 sec and 80% movespeed boost same duration on a simple 3-hit mechanic with also bonus damage ??? Spammable slow with Q Huge AOE delayed stun (implies more easy to place defensively, aka better for peeling) Big damage ultimate that punishes guys that stay in the same spot than Ekko.

Everything in his kit screams peeling tank, and yet somewhat Riot think they made an assassin? Please. A solution would be to put ratios on the utility (slow, stun duration) for instance.

DragonSheaMay 13, 20161 votes

If that is the case then Tanks need better defensive scaling. because having an assassin deal a crap load of damage while being practically immortal is not right.

CaítlynMay 13, 20162 votes

These people getting all technical about the definition of "tank" are as annoying as SJWs.

Tanks are dudes that maximize their potential by building tank gear. The end.

SasogwaMay 13, 20162 votes

{quoted}

These people getting all technical about the definition of "tank" are as annoying as SJWs.

Tanks are dudes that maximize their potential by building tank gear. The end.

Yeah not really. We use the word tank for people that build tanky and have great amounts of CC, while juggernaughts have a good amount of tankiness and OK damage.

In RPG's, tanks are tanky but also have some way to generate menace so that monsters focus them instead of other players. In lol, CC is the way to prevent other people from focusing your squishies, or for some like Rammus, Shen, the taunt/forcing focus is litteral.

Why we use a distinction is because it's 2 very different roles, but we could call it anything for all we care. We could call them CC tanks and call juggernaughts damage tanks. We just chose to call them tanks and to call damage tanks juggernaughts. It would be simpler if we just followed that instead of bitching around terms, really.

A juggernaught can be more tanky than a tank, and I don't see any problem in that. After all, CC is the most powerful thing in the game.

DragonSheaMay 13, 20162 votes

I am not too happy with the last paragraph. Juggs being tankier than tanks themselves. you might as well give them the CC as well. If anything Tanks should be tougher than juggs in general as they are more likely to take damage and need the tankyness to do their job right while Juggs have enough damage to compensate for being less tanky but still way ahead of squishies.

DragonSheaMay 13, 20161 votes

Well said.

ltmetalMay 13, 20161 votes

Good question. The only answer I can think of is making a champion pay % max health with no way to refund or scale up with amount spent.

ElindiirMay 13, 20162 votes

They did that with Soraka.... With her, she uses 10% of her HP to heal and in order to get it back, she lands an ability that gives a rather small amount of flat hp with AP scaling. She is another example of the issue of people running tanky builds on squishy AP champions.

I personally run AP Soraka and throw massive heals around from behind the backline.... But that isn't what is considered the meta now...

DarthSpectrumMay 13, 20161 votes

It is a pretty peculiar situation. Champions can build full damage with no durability, or they can build tank and still get 1/3 or 1/2 of their original damage from base damage. But without good base damages, most AP champions will have a terrible early game (ie. Syndra's Q nerf) and they would need extremely high AP ratios to deal damage, which will snow ball the game.

The best way to discourage tank items is to give % health shred to champions. Vayne and MasterYi and Fiora are good examples. It is difficult to itemize against their true damage and strong ratios, so it is better to build more damage to fight them off instead. The problem is that people hate % max health damage or true damage as well.

Until the people can decide what they want, we will be stuck with this meta.

CrisisEchoesMay 13, 20161 votes

Wanna fix tank ekko? remove his fking execute and turn his 3 hit passive into a lower flat scaling, so the only point of his passive is mobility.

DragonSheaMay 13, 20161 votes

I don't mind tanks, in fact I love them and that is why I am maining my man Rammus . As for the tankyness issue. My two cents on the matter is that Riot learns to better stop any champion that go outside their intended role in order to not gain an unfair advantage. Like Assassins becoming tanky or tanks dealing a lot of damage. Personally I think that the general order of tankyness should be this:

Tanks > Fighters(Juggernauts > Divers) > Slayers (Skirmisher > Assassin) >= Mages = Support(Excluding Thresh, Taric, Braum etc.) > Marksman

Generally I don't mind having a fast, tanky damage dealer as long as they have some counterplay and are not OP. Ekko is an example of someone that is OP in that regard. He really should be tuned down in regard the aforementioned attributes if he wants to remain as he is or there should be a massive game wide nerf to tankyness to stop or mitigate anyone from becoming OP via tankyness.

On the Flipside we have someone that is suppose to be tanky as hell, hits as hard but is slow as hell. And that is Morde, but he is a walking, camping machine. The opposite of ekko, he just plain sucks. If Riot fails to make Morde a proper Jugg and then lets loose this catastrophe of an ekko, then they really need to rework the game's mechanics. If Assassin are tanky while a jugg like morde is slow and frail, then some is seriously wrong.

LaserDeathBladeMay 13, 20161 votes

The game already discourages tanks, Ekko's only played because he deals absurd dmg and has high mobility which are not generally traits of tanks.

ElindiirMay 13, 20161 votes

Its about tanky builds, not tanks...

deadlychuckMay 13, 20161 votes

Literally do what they did with the mage rework for tanks. That's really the only way to fix it without actually adjusting all offensive stats.

If you made tanks scale with defensive stats, rather than the defensive stats having raw power, then you could balance the items in a way which makes them less efficient on non-tank champions.

That said i'm very against riot directly dictating which champions should be built what ways. So i'd rather see larger changes done to physical and magic offensive stats, than the defensive stats. Though i doubt riot would want to go with this better option, because it'd be more work.

Teridax68May 13, 20161 votes

Design, balance and itemization can all affect this:

Generally, if you want to discourage a CC heavy champion to build tanky by design, you'd want to give them enough tools on their kit to not need to do so. Obviously, Ekko proves that you can make literally every ability in a champion's kit provide some kind of escape or save potential, and still have that champion go for a tanky build, but on the flipside many CC-heavy ranged champions like Ashe, Fiddlesticks or Vel'Koz have no qualms going for minimal tankiness, mainly because range is extremely effective at letting squishy champions survive. Melee champions are trickier, and Rito hasn't really gotten the formula quite right yet, but a common solution is "hard" damage mitigation like untargetability, invulnerability, or other mechanics that dodge or block incoming fire completely. One of the reason Ekko's successful as a tanky champion, for example, is because a lot of his defenses are "soft": his shield's durability scales with resistances, as with any other shield, and his ult can let him heal for more as he stacks more health, so his kit actually naturally synergizes with tanky builds.
There aren't really that many ways of balancing champions to be squishy, and currently the only course of action has been to nerf the base power of problem champions and instead give them much better AP/AD-based scalings. Tank Fiora was a thing until she got her bases slashed and her early ratios buffed, for example, but she's not really a CC-heavy champion. A change Riot's been considering for Ekko is to slash the base slow on his Q and make it scale with AP, and that could probably nerf his tanky build appropriately, though the biggest tradeoff with any kind of change like this is that it risks making the affected champion more snowbally, since they'd be much more item-dependent. Assassins and light fighters are among the snowballiest of champions, too, which is why these changes are likely to not be as healthy as intended in the long run.
I'd say itemization should probably change in order to discourage tanky builds on squishy champions. Tanky AP items are in an okay spot because they mostly provide CC as an additional effect, meaning most AP champions with a lot of slows or hard CC will avoid them, but other tanky items are just far too generically good. Most "tank" items don't actually reward proper tank gameplay, and instead just make champions harder to kill, which is why pretty much anyone can build a tanky item and get the full benefit from it. Tanky items probably need to change a bit in order to cater more specifically to their intended subclasses (we have juggernaut items, but we also need diver items and "proper" tank items).
Also on the subject of itemization, I think the nuclear option for discouraging tanky builds could be to turn tanky stats (i.e. resists and health, though mainly health) into percent base stat amplifiers, a la health or mana regen, instead of flat stats, and buff the health of all champions designed to build tanky items, which includes tanks and juggernauts/divers, but also some mages, particularly Rylai's/Liandry's/RoA users. For example, if Randuin's Omen gave +20% base health and +50% base armor, instead of its current +500 health and +60 armor, but at the same time all "true" tanky champions received something like 400 more health and 30 more armor (at level 18; they'd probably start out with more base defenses at level 1 and scale a little harder from there), then it would provide equal or greater defenses to champions intended to build the item, while only giving 388 health and 39 armor to Ekko, and around the same amount to other similar champions.

ElindiirMay 13, 20162 votes

I am all for this 'Nuclear Option', really.... I have seen it before in Warframe in that base numbers REALLY affect the full build numbers... therefore a squishy will never be as tanky as a tank.

Teridax68May 13, 20161 votes

I was surprised and pretty happy to see a system like that when I played Warframe. There's a certain amount of "mandatory" upgrades, namely increases to health and shields, that everyone picks, yet even with those there are characters who are universally recognized as squishy or tanky, as well as weapons whose damage, fire rate, etc. remain defining qualities even after you mod all of them heavily.

Going further on this, I think it might even be a good idea to just make all items amplify base stats in League (except for AP, which by nature is likely to always be its own stat). Base stats and growth could then end up giving champions much clearer definition, items could potentially be much easier to tune for their intended classes (e.g. tanky items working best on naturally tanky champions, AD items working best on high-AD champions, etc.), and champions could end up being much easier to balance, since they'd need comparatively smaller nerfs to their bases or growth if they synergize too well with a certain stats, or vice versa. It could also potentially be a lot more intuitive: right now, some champions have deliberately poor bases because they're expected to fill up on stats to compensate for their deficiencies, which creates bizarre stat situations where, for example, some of the game's tankiest tanks have some of the worst base health values (Shen, for example, has a piddly 1781 health and 69.2 armor at level 18, respectively the ninth and fourth worst values in the game). These examples don't need to have the highest values around, but shouldn't be deficient in stats that are necessary for them to function properly.

MealReadytoEatMay 13, 20161 votes

They'd need to make nearly all stats based on base if they made defense based on base, otherwise it's hugely throw off the balance between them, eg if HP was based on base but ad wasn't, AD builds would smash HP builds early game.

Teridax68May 13, 20161 votes

I don't think that's necessarily the case, since you could always offset the relative loss in health with buffs to affected champions' base health or growth. For example, if Ruby Crystal were to be changed to, say, a 10% base health amplifier, but you didn't want Dr. Mundo, who tends to build one at around level 4, to lose out on 72 health, then you could tweak his bases, e.g. +50 base health and +10 growth, so that he'd end up at similar levels at that breakpoint. I'd very much like stats to turn into amplifiers all at once, but I don't think it really comes down to one stat specifically dominating over the other.

ElindiirMay 13, 20161 votes

One thing this made me think of is how the line between battle mages and vanguards is starting to fade... I am starting to play Lissandra like a Leona because Lissandra functions well as a tank with AOE roots and a stun that damages and slows everyone around whoever got hit with it, all along with arguably one of the best engage dashes...

Champion SkinMay 13, 20161 votes

Lowering base damages Increasing Ratios (This makes a damage focused build more appealing but doesn't nerf the tank build) Reducing utility/CC... not much point in building tank if you dont have utility/CC or base damages to back it up

MunchCrunchLunchMay 14, 20161 votes

well. only tanks should be cc heavy. nobody is building tank on a champion with 1 cc ability that isn't meant to be a tank. i dont see tank leblanc. ekko has too much cc and utility thats why hes being built into tank. also sustained damage because hes a good auto attacker.

ElindiirMay 14, 20161 votes

Well, under that, its also natural for Lissandra to be a tank.

MunchCrunchLunchMay 14, 20161 votes

not really you don't build tanks out of ranged champions because they have lower base stats often and hard to pull off

L0ve Is BlueMay 14, 20161 votes

Tbh ekko is the problem itself.

When you have an AOE slow, a shield, an AOE stun and passive %missing health damage on AA all in ONE ability you can pretty much build whatever the fuck you want.