Lissandra: A tank in mage clothing?

Elindiir·May 15, 2016·2 votes·1,060 views

After hearing a lot of talk about Ekko's tank builds and their merits, I started to think about another high CC mage, Lissandra. People (and Riot) tend to consider Lissandra a 'Battle Mage' but her kit has a LOT of parallels with the Vanguard, including a strong initiating dash, AOE hard CC, and multiple hard CCs. Interestingly also, Shen (a Warden) does not have a lot of base tankiness (something else I saw brought up)... And Malphite (a Vanguard) often builds to be a battle mage...

Should Lissandra be allowed to be a tank?

5 Comments

MLDzXnRRRMay 15, 20161 votes

She is initiator, not a tank. Check puck from dota - liss is port/inspired by the faerie dragon...

lilpokflufMay 15, 20161 votes

I get what you're saying and lissandra does build pretty defensively but going full tank the way you go full tank on ekko or malphite wouldn't be "AS" effective.

The reason being in my opinion that while she provides great CC and many disruption tools without ap she provides much less than what ekko or malphite does. Malphite can increase his damage with both armor and ap and has incredible engage and utility. ekko has his execute damage and base damages which makes up a majority of his damage. Lissandra has neither of those and can only lock up one target while ekko and malph can stun lock an entire team.

Obviously I'm no expert, while I'll admit I bet it would work early game you would have to work twice as hard as you would with malphite or ekko, also I think she would be more team reliant than they would be.

ElindiirMay 15, 20161 votes

I like to try to compare her to Leona when it comes to similarities... but Lissandra's dash is easier to land. Lissandra's AOE hard CC is on a shorter CD and covers a wider area but is based around her so she can't lead with it.

Lately I have been playing around with Lissandra support and JG with interesting results... I usually can root both the ADC and support when I use it and can push towers really well because my ult resets turret aggro. The wide area of my root also makes getting pulled punishing to the enemy and if I get wailed on after getting pulled, I can ult-dash away. The only bit of awkwardness I get with Lissandra as a tank is that she isn't innately tanky so it takes creativity with her CC to survive very early on. I often start a Ruby Crystal+2 health pots because she IS in fact ranged and Relic Shield doesn't proc easily. I also SOMETIMES start Spellthief's Edge if it is a passive lane but that's rare... In order to counteract my early squish, I might play super aggressive at first because my root is WAY easier to land than any support's root, and hope for an early kill or to force the bot laners to play passive until I get tankier.

Espy PsycheMay 15, 20161 votes

Tank Lissandra is absolutely viable, and I've played it to some success.

Mid lane tank Lissandra (or top tank Lissandra) can rush Frozen Heart very easily, giving her mana in addition to armor to withstand physical damage. This is especially useful into Yasuo and Zed mids because she can both poke and withstand damage (and Liss can self-ult to negate Zed ults too). Frozen Heart into RoA is usually how I build this (since I specifically pick Lissandra every time I see a Zed picked against me).

Into a magic damage opposite laner, I'd likely just rush my RoA into Abyssal.

And never underestimate the damage put out by a Liandry's Torment tank Lissandra.

ElindiirMay 15, 20161 votes

Interesting, I usually go item 3025 rather than item 3110 for literally the same reason you run Frozen Heart... The mana, armor, and CDR, but I think Gauntlet might be better for them since they are more raw damage based rather than attack speed based and weaving extra AA damage into your casting is nice, especially when they rush a item 3155 ... Now for Master Yi or Xin Zhao or Tryndamere, a Frozen Heart and/or Randuin's Omen are really nice....