There are a lot of champions that can melt you away is less then a second, plus there are items that cut through armor. Upgraded Armor items are long past due. Please stop nerfing the lil armor we do have in the game and make armor items more competitive.
Frikgeek2 votesIf you think armor itemisation is bad then just look at MR. All the MR tank items have been nerfed into uselessness. Spirit Visage is OK if you can abuse the increased healing and Adaptive Helm is ~ok against champions like Ryze or Cassio. But even then 55 MR, 350 health, and 10% CDR isn't amazing for 2800 gold.
You can buy a kindlegem for 800, ruby for 400, and then a negatron cloak + null-magic mantle for 720 and 450 respectively. That's 2370 gold for 350 health, 65MR which is 10 more than Adaptive Helm, Spirit Visage, or Abyssal mask, and 10% CDR. Of course, that's not slot-efficient but completed MR items are just total trash, way too much of their cost just goes towards passives which you might not even be able to utilise.
Whisper872 votesI think a good idea would just be to slightly increase the hp on the HP with MR/Armor items. That way they allow tanks to come online a touch sooner, cuz the hp is good against both types of damage, smoothing out the curve to 2-3 items where a tank becomes a true front-back dive into 5 people tank.
The other huge problem is that diminishing returns from armor/mr makes these items less effective in terms of guaranteed damage reduction. As you get more items, the value of the defensive stats becomes extremely mediocre, and instead becomes mostly just about the hp and the unique active/passive.
Here's the problem as far as armor is concerned. Items like Thornmail encourage you to stack armor. Like against an AD heavy comp you'd want like Randiuns, FH, and Thornmail heading into the later stages of the game. The problem is that even tho you are getting ok damage return out of the Thornmail, you are getting like nothing out of the armor. And since FH is armor with no HP, you're essentially paying like 2700g for some CDR and a passive attack speed slow.
Myself, I wouldn't mind seeing Riot tune down diminishing returns a little bit. They've made a number of moves that have reduced the amount that assassins and the like get outscaled, and it's pretty hard to get to late game anyway in the current meta. So I don't see any issues with like slightly slightly buffing durability of tanks at like the 3 item. I mean the way the game is designed...at 3 items it's SUPPOSED to be in a state where pretty much just ADC, scaling mages, and scaling fighters can easily melt tanks. At least according to RIOT
Frikgeek2 votesThe other huge problem is that diminishing returns from armor/mr makes these items less effective in terms of guaranteed damage reduction
The "diminishing returns" on MR and Armour are a bit deceptive, in terms of EHP both Armour and MR stack linearly just like raw HP does. Yes, going from 100 MR to 200 MR gets you from 50% reduction to 66% reduction which looks like diminishing returns but on the other hand going from 2000(base) + 1000(bonus) HP to 2000 + 2000 HP by buying 1000 bonus HP is also only a 33% increase to raw health. Armor and MR damage reduction is always armor/armor+100. This means that 1 point of armour or MR increases your EHP(effective health) by 1% of your max HP.
Let's say you have 3000 HP and 200 armor. That's 9000 EHP. If you buy 100 more armor you'll have 12000 EHP(+3000). IF you buy an additional 100 after that you'll have 15000(+3000 again). So neither health or resistances have better scaling but buying them together gives increasing returns compared to linear if you buy only one.
There's a form of actual diminishing returns in Void Staff and the Last Whisper upgrades. Those will get more value the more resistances you have but then again there's also a ton of %health damage in the game and even from items like botrk and Lyandri's.
Whisper872 votesYou're absolutely right with everything above, but the points you bring up actually prove my point that tank items are inherently inefficient.
So like you mentioned buying 1k bonus HP might only be a 33% increase in effective health, but you have to get your hands on some raw HP early because it's the only thing that works agains both AD & AP damage, and you've got AP champs going for pen boots + Morello early on. So until you get some big MR items fully built you need that HP. Additionally you've got fighters taking Conqueror for the true damage, so literally HP is the only thing that matters in that scenario. But then you like have to build Armor & MR too cuz you've got so many items and damage sources doing %hp now days.
So whenever someone procs Conqueror all your resistances are literally meaningless. Then when you look at armor items specfically, they are pretty bad against anything besides the ADC. Deadman's Plate is not in a good place, Firecape damage is negligible after like level 10 so it's effectively just helping you with your push a little bit. Three of the best items for armor stacking are Randuins, FH, and Thornmail, but guess what? Their attack speed passives don't stack, so you have to make your choices and gimp yourself in some fashion.
Every other role in the game becomes more effective as you complete items. Allowing them to synergize well together. For example a mage will likely go Ludens or Archangel first, then they immediately have a bunch of options. If they are doing ok, they could go Morello for the early game power spike, but if there are tanks already stacking MR it might make more sense to go straight Void, but if there are juggernauts on the enemy team who usually stack hp then Liandries might be the buy. Then with your 3rd item you can take like Zhonyas or Banshees for a defensive item that still gives you damage. That will likely get you to 40% cider if you aren't already, but even if you are it converts to AP with proper runes. Same deal with ADC. You Open with a damage + crit or on hit item, then generally go into a zeal item. You have several choices depending on the situation, but no matter the choice the attack speed + crit will scale well with your first item. Tanks right now are super gimped because their itemization is just inefficient. They have super limited options. If I build Fh as my second item because lets say the enemy team has a Irelia and a Xayah, then I want Randuins too for the crit negation and the HP for Conqueror. But guess what? The attack speed passive is wasted. A waste of gold. And then in the early game Aftershock and Grasp are actually pretty important for survivability, but they have CD's so... And if I'm not playing a tank with self-healing, then Adaptive might be my MR buy that game if I'm playing against Cass, but if no one else on the team is a spam caster or on hit damage then it's again, completely wasted passive in any fight where Cass is not present.
TLDR: Riot needs to take a very close look at tank items and think about the situations where people would want them, the order they typically buy them in, and what the most desired combos are. And find ways to optimize those combos and open up options as widely as other roles have.
ZephyrDrake1 votesIf you think armor itemisation is bad then just look at MR. All the MR tank items have been nerfed into uselessness. Spirit Visage is OK if you can abuse the increased healing and Adaptive Helm is ~ok against champions like Ryze or Cassio. But even then 55 MR, 350 health, and 10% CDR isn't amazing for 2800 gold.
You can buy a kindlegem for 800, ruby for 400, and then a negatron cloak + null-magic mantle for 720 and 450 respectively. That's 2370 gold for 350 health, 65MR which is 10 more than Adaptive Helm, Spirit Visage, or Abyssal mask, and 10% CDR. Of course, that's not slot-efficient but completed MR items are just total trash, way too much of their cost just goes towards passives which you might not even be able to utilise.
So what you are telling me is that I need to have 4 components to rival what a completed item gives me? And that somehow makes MR terrible? Ok dude.
Frikgeek2 votesA completed item that costs 2800 gold vs components that cost 2370 gold. Completed items are supposed to give you a power spike as they're more gold efficient than their components.
ZephyrDrake1 votesA completed item that costs 2800 gold vs components that cost 2370 gold. Completed items are supposed to give you a power spike as they're more gold efficient than their components.
4 items vs 1 ENOUGH SAID
Juice2 votesWhat are you talking about? You buy ninja tabi and become invincible to any champ who doesn't use Conqueror
Whisper872 votesI mean, tanks kind of need a super efficient boots purchase whether they go Tabi or Treads. They don't do any damage around the time people are finishing up their first full item. And since they typically face mixed damage teams, they are automatically gimped because they have to choose whether their first item is MR or Armor. So they aren't even really a tank until they get like 2 full items for the HP, balanced resistances, and some CDR to actually be able to reliably lock people up.
If their boots purchase was not super efficient they would just get murdered endlessly in lane and never have the chance to be a tank.
Juice2 votesTanks don't do damage? What game are you playing dude ?
Whisper872 votesFighters are not supposed to out trade tanks until after a buy or two is in the books. Otherwise the tank would be literally locked under their tower for the first few levels. Even like lvls 2-3 a fighter will generally out dps a tank in an extended fight, I'd just say the quick trades are fairly even.
This is by design, not a flaw. The idea is that around the time a fighter beings to outscale a tank in the lane, the tank should have enough items to be able to start grouping and team fighting. This accentuates the specific strengths of the two classes. Early game, you will be pretty much even. Right around the time you transition into mid game, the fighter/dps champ will have the advantage if you let them keep you in a prolonged sidelane, while the tank wants to exit lane and engage team fights where they will have more value.
Additionally glass cannon characters like ADC, Asassins, and Mages have to be threatened by tank damage. Otherwise they can just ignore the tanks and walk up and start dps. The role of a tank is CC and zoning, which is made much harder if they do so little damage that an ADC is just able to stand on top of them if their CC is on cooldown. They aren't going to burst people down like a mage or assassin, and they aren't going to do sustained damage like a ADC or fighter, but they have to be able to do a middling amount of damage to properly threaten squishy characters and control team fights. If you're playing an assassin, you shouldn't be trying to run past a tank. You should be flanking or coming from behind, or waiting out CD's and then diving past. If DPS characters didn't die by getting sneezed on they would be wholly unbalanced.
I find it odd that there are still people complaining about the strength of tanks when pro players and streamers from gold - challenger are all complaining about how tanks have like 0 agency, and even less impact than other top laners in a meta where top lane already feels gimped.
Juice3 votesFighters are supposed to outtrade tanks from lv1 to lv18 since tanks outperform fighters in teamfights and are easier by default.
ZackTheWaffleMan2 votesTell me what tanks do damage
Juice2 votesAny tank you can think of.
