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PSA: Don't buy Merc Treads on tanks

thinking man··5 votes·646 views

I mean a tank as in somebody who will generally build 6 items dedicated to taking less damage and has innate tankiness, but this holds true for any champion that wants tanky boots whose primary method of staying alive isn't by using mobility.

I'm going to use the pre-S5 change costs since I feel it puts it into perspective better. The total cost has not changed at all.

Before the change, it was 400 for the mantle and 475 for the upgrade. You went from 20 MR to 25 MR. As you can see, this is completely shit for defensive itemization and will never really make a massive difference.

Comparing this to Tabi, which reduces all AAs by 10% in addition to 25 armor at a lower cost, you are getting a lot more bang for your buck since you are all but guaranteed to have at least one enemy that will feed into the 10% reduction of the boots. Considering that the champions who would be affected most by the removal of Tenacity on Juggernaut are all tanks, these are all champions that are better off with the 10% reduction. Even on bruisers like Jax/Irelia, you are probably better off with Tabi unless they have some stupid comp that has Veigar/Fiddles/Rammus and they all like CC'ing you.

tl;dr merc treads suck for tankiness and you should get tabi unless you're something like Kass/Zed who need the CC reduction to stay ahead of their opponents and survive

21 Comments

Durzaka5 votes

Also, on a separate note, there are very few good options for an MR item in your full build, whereas Armor is very easy to get. So that MR on the boots slot is really important for slot efficiency.

thinking man2 votes

{quoted}

Also, on a separate note, there are very few good options for an MR item in your full build, whereas Armor is very easy to get. So that MR on the boots slot is really important for slot efficiency.

You can easily get 200 armor by going Tabi/Randuin's and then just getting the 3 MR options for the 200 MR.

As said in the OP, you are not going to get very much tankiness from Merc treads. The last thought on your mind when buying them should actually be tankiness.

Durzaka1 votes

{quoted}

You can easily get 200 armor by going Tabi/Randuin's and then just getting the 3 MR options for the 200 MR.

As said in the OP, you are not going to get very much tankiness from Merc treads. The last thought on your mind when buying them should actually be tankiness.

And those 3 MR items are not slot efficient for a majority of tanks. They dont want the healing from SV. Or the AP from Abysall, or Athene's. Or the AD from Maw, or the pitiful amount from Aegis (situational at best),

Yeah, no. Getting 3 MR items is shooting yourself in the foot by losing the amazing passives that armor items have in comparison.

There is a reason most tanks only get a BV. Because the other options are just plain BAD for them.

Durzaka4 votes

You arent building merc treads for the tankiness, that is just a bonus.

The tenacity is an absolute must-have. There is no argument about it. Doesnt matter what tank you are playing, CC being less effective against you will help you do your job of disrupting the enemy team better.

thinking man3 votes

{quoted}

You arent building merc treads for the tankiness, that is just a bonus.

The tenacity is an absolute must-have. There is no argument about it. Doesnt matter what tank you are playing, CC being less effective against you will help you do your job of disrupting the enemy team better.

The tenacity is not necessary at all.

If they are blowing CC on you, you are going to be tanky enough to survive it anyways. Having those boots so that they always do 10% less damage to you from their primary damage source instead of situationally being able to move more is more valuable for a ton of champions.

Durzaka2 votes

{quoted}

The tenacity is not necessary at all.

If they are blowing CC on you, you are going to be tanky enough to survive it anyways. Having those boots so that they always do 10% less damage to you from their primary damage source instead of situationally being able to move more is more valuable for a ton of champions.

The longer you are CC'd the less you are disrupting the enemies team.

There is a reason Zac got fucking destroyed by the Tenacity change. When you cant CC/damage the enemy carries, there is no reason for them to put any damage towards kill you.

thinking man2 votes

{quoted}

The longer you are CC'd the less you are disrupting the enemies team.

There is a reason Zac got fucking destroyed by the Tenacity change. When you cant CC/damage the enemy carries, there is no reason for them to put any damage towards kill you.

Zac got destroyed by the tenacity change because the slow resistance was a definite nerf. You cannot use that as an example since they did not give an equal exchange of power in any way. He was also dumpstered by the several other nerfs to his passive and general damage but I guess we can ignore that.

Durzaka1 votes

{quoted}

Zac got destroyed by the tenacity change because the slow resistance was a definite nerf. You cannot use that as an example since they did not give an equal exchange of power in any way. He was also dumpstered by the several other nerfs to his passive and general damage but I guess we can ignore that.

He was destroyed because a single slow made his ult useless, not to mention a stun.

The same explanation can be applied to any pure tank. The longer youre stunned as Sej or Amumu, the less AoE damage and CC you are putting out. Same with Naut. Etc. etc.

thinking man2 votes

{quoted}

He was destroyed because a single slow made his ult useless, not to mention a stun.

The same explanation can be applied to any pure tank. The longer youre stunned as Sej or Amumu, the less AoE damage and CC you are putting out. Same with Naut. Etc. etc.

Sej and Amumu both have methods of applying damage while CC'd. They will also not die during the duration of one CC effect so it'll just let you place out another rotation after it comes down.

Naut was never meant to be diving in and putting out damage. He's supposed to mainly just be applying CC, and all of his CDs are long enough that one CC will not seriously throw him off. You need a very long time of dedicated CC before a tank will begin to be fucked by the lack of tenacity and not having Merc treads.

Kouga1 votes

In favor of the Tenacity argument, Singed also got hit when they removed his Ult's tenacity boost. I side with the Tenacity Camp because I agree that the less a tank is CC'd the more potential use he has.

To back up my argument because I don't like just throwing out rhetoric - let's look at Tanks. Riot currently labels 33 Champions as "Tanks" but let's focus on what I consider a "pure" tank (rather than Fighters, etc). A proper Tank does the following:

  1. Initiation
  2. Soak (damage/CC)
  3. The ability to lock down enemy carries -or- To protect their own carries. Generally these are both accomplished via CC but can also be accomplished in other ways (i.e., Shen's Ultimate Shield or Maokai's Ultimate damage reduction)

Tenacity will more readily allow a Tank to do all of these better.

  1. Not all Champions can bust in like the Kool Aid Man like Malphite can. Some need to reach their target - Singed runs, Rammus dashes, and so forth. So if one of them gets hit with, say, a Morgana snare when they try to initiate, the longer they are CC'd the more time the enemy has to counter-initiate or disengage. Remember trying to stop Singed back in the day? Back in the FoN days? He would Chase. You. Down. Stack the tenacity between merc treads and his boots and there was no stopping him. Without it, its a lot easier to just Zap him with Jinx and skip away.

  2. Admittedly, being able to Soak is basically just durability, so on this account I will agree with you.

  3. It also impacts their ability to lock down or protect carries. Tenacity can mean the difference between being able to dash/flash/jump in the way of a Cait ult aimed at your carry, or being able to apply a Shield to them to try to save them from a targeted spell. It can mean being able to lock down Ahri sooner with a stun or a hook instead of letting her get away.

thinking man1 votes

{quoted}

In favor of the Tenacity argument, Singed also got hit when they removed his Ult's tenacity boost. I side with the Tenacity Camp because I agree that the less a tank is CC'd the more potential use he has.

To back up my argument because I don't like just throwing out rhetoric - let's look at Tanks. Riot currently labels 33 Champions as "Tanks" but let's focus on what I consider a "pure" tank (rather than Fighters, etc). A proper Tank does the following:

  1. Initiation
  2. Soak (damage/CC)
  3. The ability to lock down enemy carries -or- To protect their own carries. Generally these are both accomplished via CC but can also be accomplished in other ways (i.e., Shen's Ultimate Shield or Maokai's Ultimate damage reduction)

Tenacity will more readily allow a Tank to do all of these better.

  1. Not all Champions can bust in like the Kool Aid Man like Malphite can. Some need to reach their target - Singed runs, Rammus dashes, and so forth. So if one of them gets hit with, say, a Morgana snare when they try to initiate, the longer they are CC'd the more time the enemy has to counter-initiate or disengage. Remember trying to stop Singed back in the day? Back in the FoN days? He would Chase. You. Down. Stack the tenacity between merc treads and his boots and there was no stopping him. Without it, its a lot easier to just Zap him with Jinx and skip away.

  2. Admittedly, being able to Soak is basically just durability, so on this account I will agree with you.

  3. It also impacts their ability to lock down or protect carries. Tenacity can mean the difference between being able to dash/flash/jump in the way of a Cait ult aimed at your carry, or being able to apply a Shield to them to try to save them from a targeted spell. It can mean being able to lock down Ahri sooner with a stun or a hook instead of letting her get away.

Saying that a tank must initiate isn't entirely true because you don't pick Naut/Rammus/Maokai to engage.

Singed is actually more of a bruiser than a tank, a lot of his job is diving into the back line to disrupt and kill people. He's one of the few that is largely exempt from this rule. As for Rammus, you do not need to be diving the backline to play Rammus, and if you don't have a good stampede comp, Rammus can still function as an anti-assassin while using his mobility to chase if his team begins to win a fight.

The flaw with saying that tenacity will make all of this always better is that you are not always going to be CC'd because you are almost never a priority target. While you will eventually be hit by CC, it should never be enough to actually get you killed within CC unless your team is so behind or got AoE'd so quickly that it wouldn't matter. I guess I can agree with you on the Ahri part since Ahri's charm is stupidly long, but for the most part, 40.25% tenacity is not going to make a massive difference on something that will generally be immobile/low threat.

Pryotra2 votes

{quoted}

The tenacity is not necessary at all.

If they are blowing CC on you, you are going to be tanky enough to survive it anyways. Having those boots so that they always do 10% less damage to you from their primary damage source instead of situationally being able to move more is more valuable for a ton of champions.

It's not about living longer. It's about requiring them to throw even more CC at you to keep you from disrupting/peeling the enemy team. Think of it as a resistance to them saying "Stahp!"

thinking man2 votes

{quoted}

It's not about living longer. It's about requiring them to throw even more CC at you to keep you from disrupting/peeling the enemy team. Think of it as a resistance to them saying "Stahp!"

You will take more CC if you don't die long enough for it to come up again.

Pryotra1 votes

{quoted}

You will take more CC if you don't die long enough for it to come up again.

Unless it's super spammy CC, this will not happen in a team fight. Useless.

SouL1ess2 votes

Ninja Tabi is probably a better late-game boots choice for a tank who will have high armor anyways.

The more armor you have, the more efficient Ninja Tabi's passive is.

I do think Mercs can be better for bruisers who can actually output damage as threat, but not as much for tanks.

thinking man2 votes

{quoted}

Ninja Tabi is probably a better late-game boots choice for a tank who will have high armor anyways.

The more armor you have, the more efficient Ninja Tabi's passive is.

I do think Mercs can be better for bruisers who can actually output damage as threat, but not as much for tanks.

Mercs are situationally better on bruisers if they have a lot of CC while almost universally terrible on tanks.

You need the AA reduction to play an immobile tank. A bruiser is essentially a tanky, slower assassin so you don't need it as much to survive. Even then, Tabi are still far superior in many situations since the meta by itself (ADCs being mandatory) is going to be enough reason for Tabi, much less the rest of their comp. I will generally only get mercs if I'm playing a bruiser and against something like Fiddles or Rammus and they're casting CC on me a lot.

Kiyoish2 votes

Generally you are absolutely right

In this meta Tabis is absolutely needed for tanks atm, I've tried it several times with both boots

You just can't tank enough of ADCs without it as a tank, bar some bruiser assassins like Vi

Generally unless you see heavy stacking CC like Fiddles Rammus who focus CC to stop you from either initiating or prevent you from finishing your skill rotations you HAVE to get tabis, it's simply the difference of dying to autos in the mid late game, and generally itemizing armor is more valuable since HP is more effective to counter most mages.

pE4CbxDPQO1 votes

suppose I wanna peal for my "carries"?

thinking man3 votes

{quoted}

suppose I wanna peal for my "carries"?

You are not going to be the one getting CC'd if you are peeling for somebody.

The Irelia is not going to think "I should try to stun the Nautilus instead of stunning the ADC, that'll help me kill them faster!"

You need to think in the grand scheme of things, who is going to want to CC you if there are better targets to CC? You are very likely to be AA'd because ADCs usually just hit whatever is closest to them, but you will usually use CC a bit more strategically, and you are very low on the totem pole for who should be CC'd if you are playing a tank.

Malix Farwin1 votes

Good luck tanking stuff when you are hard cc multiple times with no tenacity. There is no other mr efficient item that gives that.

thinking man2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malix Farwin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oAMRqFsU,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-03-01T08:33:24.296+0000)

Good luck tanking stuff when you are hard cc multiple times with no tenacity. There is no other mr efficient item that gives that.

Mercs aren't MR efficient at all.

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