Part of the reason why tank supports are dominating

YumaS2Astral··30 votes·4,141 views

I've seen this on the comments of another thread and I was thinking.

Nobody wants to be the tank and to protect the carry. Everyone wants to be the carry themselves, especially at lower elos where you can't rely on your team at all to win games. That's why people tend to pick full AD top laners (Gangplank Riven Tryndamere Yasuo Fiora), mid lane assassins (Zed Talon Leblanc Yasuo Katarina) and damage-oriented junglers (LeeSin Vi Nidalee MasterYi Rengar)

Even when people pick champions that are tanky, those champions tend to be bruisers who are still damage oriented and are lacking in utility, peeling potential, and/or teamfighting presence. Also, many of those champions have balancing issues, and people tend to be attracted by "broken" champions. Examples: top (Garen Renekton Darius Olaf) and jungle (Volibear Warwick JarvanIV Elise)

Generally people only pick champions who are true tanks when those champions are broken, examples including TahmKench, and Sejuani at the time that she wasn't nerfed. I am not saying that people don't use tanks, it is just that most of time they want to carry and thus they pick champions who have the most potential to carry by themselves. The problem is that by doing that, they are left with a team that has lots of assassins and damage oriented bruisers. But they are lacking on utility and teamfighting potential, can't initiate teamfights, and are very squishy.

And due to that, people who go support are forced to pick tanks to compensate. People generally don't care about what the support want to do and thus they leave the "dirty work" of tanking and initiating for the supports.

This may partially explain why tank supports are so popular. If people were less selfish and thougth more on their team and less about just themselves, and picked top/mid/junglers with more utility and/or tanking potential, I am very sure that this would allow the supports to pick squishier options.

I am not saying that this is the entire reason why tank supports are dominating. Of course there are other problems; for example, AP supports are lacking on good itemization, and tank supports can usually survive for more time to use their utility. Also, I am not saying that a support can't carry on low elo; but lets be honest, it is a lot harder to carry when you are on a position where you are forced not to farm and you are forced to focus on utility/tankyness instead of damage.

50 Comments

Bârd14 votes

The reason people pick tank supports is that they are efficient.

Think about it this way.

Supports are generally champions who have lots of utility in each of their spells, so it stands to reason that you want to use those spells as many times as possible in a teamfight.

There are two ways of doing this, CDR to increase the frequency, and tank stats to increase how long you can fight.

So it stands to reason that supports who benefit from a tanky build with CDR would be more effective.

This is one reason Soraka , who deals % HP true damage to herself, and Sona who needs an AP build to be useful, are seen much less often than Nautilus Thresh Braum, whose spells are all packed with utility, allowing them to build full tank.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The True Bard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rjbGPTlE,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2015-10-12T06:35:17.520+0000)

The reason people pick tank supports is that they are efficient.

Think about it this way.

Supports are generally champions who have lots of utility in each of their spells, so it stands to reason that you want to use those spells as many times as possible in a teamfight.

There are two ways of doing this, CDR to increase the frequency, and tank stats to increase how long you can fight.

So it stands to reason that supports who benefit from a tanky build with CDR would be more effective.

This is one reason Soraka , who deals % HP true damage to herself, and Sona who needs an AP build to be useful, are seen much less often than Nautilus Thresh Braum, whose spells are all packed with utility, allowing them to build full tank.

Soraka doesn't deal true damage to herself. Her heal costs her own health, if that was true damage to herself then it could be countered by shields.

That said, Soraka generally builds tanky for two reasons. Because she can heal her entire team and win teamfights by herself due to her ult, she is going to be focused. So with a tanky build she can at least survive to heal more despite healing for less. The second reason is that with a Warmog's Armor she can heal pretty much all of her health costs, so it is a good item for her despite having pure health, and is good when coupled with other tanky items.

Cynika8 votes

Getting enough health on soraka to get the warmogs passive requires a lot of time and gold. Plus she's weaker until she gets there since her heals will cost more health, and she'll also get healed less when she lands q (since the health items she typically builds to get the warmogs build doesn't supply a lot of AP).

RISE Shlack1233 votes

Spirit Visage is much better than Warmogs for Soraka - it has increased healing for when she hits enemies with a Starcall, and it has better stats for a caster Support - health, MR, CDR.

Anidan1 votes

She deals a specific type of True Damage (unmitigated by stats) once called 'HP Removal' in DotA. It's true damage so that it can't be mitigated, but coded differently as direct HP Removal so that shields can't mitigate the cost. All health costs have this mechanic.

She does deal true damage to herself, but a specific kind of true damage.

manbearswine1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The True Bard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rjbGPTlE,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2015-10-12T06:35:17.520+0000)

The reason people pick tank supports is that they are efficient.

Think about it this way.

Supports are generally champions who have lots of utility in each of their spells, so it stands to reason that you want to use those spells as many times as possible in a teamfight.

There are two ways of doing this, CDR to increase the frequency, and tank stats to increase how long you can fight.

So it stands to reason that supports who benefit from a tanky build with CDR would be more effective.

This is one reason Soraka , who deals % HP true damage to herself, and Sona who needs an AP build to be useful, are seen much less often than Nautilus Thresh Braum, whose spells are all packed with utility, allowing them to build full tank.

You realize soraka is seen as a top tier pick right now?

Cynika1 votes

{quoted}

You realize soraka is seen as a top tier pick right now?

And yet people always seem to bitch and groan whenever I pick her QQ

manbearswine1 votes

{quoted}

And yet people always seem to bitch and groan whenever I pick her QQ

On which team? This thing is god awful to play against,thankfully riot is busy making sure sona won't see play.

I'm guessing it's the elo though,as she's mostly considered op in solo q,and not competitive,they might catch on,or she might get nerfed first.

Aeolian Melodies7 votes

Then explain the dominance of tank supports in competitive gameplay.

YumaS2Astral8 votes

[{quoted}](name=Aeolian Melodies,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rjbGPTlE,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-10-12T02:23:11.130+0000)

Then explain the dominance of tank supports in competitive gameplay.

Because tank supports are safer and have better itemization. Also, the longer you survive, the more time you have to take advantage of your utility.

Also, tank supports have the most CC and CC is very valuable on organized, competitive battles.

On SoloQ, their dominance can also be explained by the fact that nobody wants to have utility and tankyness, and thus they leave that work to the support.

sreggad3 votes

The reason tanks are used competitive and in SoloQ is because tank items are over all cheaper than damage items. It has nothing to do with "the rest of the team doesn't pick tankier champions. It has nothing to do with "have the most CC and CC is very valuble on organized competitive play" Now the reason certain tank supports are being used more than other tank supports is because of the CC. Thresh is used more than taric because thresh has amazing CC compared to taric

A good AP support player can be as effective as a tank support in a team fight assuming they have the same strength in terms of items. The problem is the cost of those damage items are more than a tank item.

Itemization is a problem but it's by far the reason tank supports are played way more than others.

Champion Skin1 votes

There are some non-tank supports which are picked in competitive.. like Annie for engage and Kennen But yeah it is mostly tank supports

chipndip12 votes

[{quoted}](name=Champion Skin,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rjbGPTlE,comment-id=00020001,timestamp=2015-10-12T03:34:43.550+0000)

There are some non-tank supports which are picked in competitive.. like Annie for engage and Kennen But yeah it is mostly tank supports

Those two are just mages sent bot lane. They aren't even designed to support, and pro teams just abuse their cc and slap the support tag on it.

The REAL problem with squishy supports is that squishy supports can't itemize into mid-lane mage items, but tank supports get to itemize into top-lane tank items. Squishy supports have to settle for 40-60 ap items and shit ap scaling, while tank supports just stack stats as usual. Squishy supports need better ap per item or have stronger ap ratios in their attack moves. That's the only way to fix it.

Rozzeta6 votes

Dominance of tank supports actually goes back to Preseason 4, when the Utility scaling happened. With more gold to invest in items, yet support options rarely being offensive (I think it was Morello who once said that support items should have crap stats, but godly actives), and reduction on base utility and damage product of the new scaling, the more squishy supports are now unable to poke down their tankier counterparts, all wile granting in general less CC. The tanky supports were mostly unscratched by the scaling utility, and current designs either grant them power for free, or from purchasing defenses.

Janna is the exception since her kit is more defense oriented and, more importantly, is a counter initiator, which prevents the tanky supports from engaging.

manbearswine6 votes

{quoted}

Janna is the exception since her kit is more defense oriented and, more importantly, is a counter initiator, which prevents the tanky supports from engaging.

Kinda have to bicker here and say that janna isn't a counter intiator,but a disengager. Yes there's a difference.

Rozzeta1 votes

You're right. I used the incorrect term. Thanks

Penguin Eclipse1 votes

{quoted}

Dominance of tank supports actually goes back to Preseason 4, when the Utility scaling happened. With more gold to invest in items, yet support options rarely being offensive (I think it was Morello who once said that support items should have crap stats, but godly actives), and reduction on base utility and damage product of the new scaling, the more squishy supports are now unable to poke down their tankier counterparts, all wile granting in general less CC. The tanky supports were mostly unscratched by the scaling utility, and current designs either grant them power for free, or from purchasing defenses.

Janna is the exception since her kit is more defense oriented and, more importantly, is a counter initiator, which prevents the tanky supports from engaging.

The funny thing is that tank support items have both good stats and good actives. Just look at relic shield. Ally healing on a tier 1 item for 365 gold. The coin line doesn't affect allies until the third tier item is built. The frost line never does. The relic shield takes one of the most important aspects of a sustain supports kit and gives it to anyone for 365 gold.

Rozzeta1 votes

Back when League was still battling with HoN for popularity, a LoL game would have the first death at 20-30 minute mark. This was seen as an issue, which is the reason why Riot started weakening supports and empowering ADC, so that Bot lane would be faster and more oriented towards killing.

The tank supports are the epitome of Riot's attempt at making the lane more kill based. Most of these supports are waiting for the oportunity to dive in and cripple someone for a kill, rather than the more defensive oriented nature of sustain supports. It's logical, having this in consideration, that their itemization would be good enough for them to remain the most viable picks for the last 2 years, instead of receiving the traditional nerf for "elbowing the competition".

Lugg5 votes

One reason tank supports are popular is that they don't feed much. That keeps the enemy bot lane from snowballing.

Infiny Mage4 votes

As a support main who's been forced to rethink his champion pick because my teams all squishy Carrys, I agree. Knowing I could just go with my original pick and just crap on the enemy laners, but also realizing that by doing so we'd probably get shit on in the late game. I'm forced to go a tanky support which could honestly just be a coin toss and the landing phase could go either way but making our late game a lot more easier. If we survive that long anyway

Zavern3 votes

This is the sole reason I really play tanks. It is either my team doesn't pick any tanks, so I'm left to pick up the role, or the enemy team is full of assassins are overpowered champions where Nami Janna Sona would get blown up.

Xelvi3 votes

There is no downside to picking a tank support over a squishy Nami or Sona support.

RetroRage962 votes

I personally love tanks and have kind of resisted this meta shift, but that's okay.

Yes, I agree with you though. I don't think there is much to be done about it though - it basically requires a change in the community. The only think I could think of is having a faster version of 5v5 SR, so people might not be so bummed out if they only have to play their off-role for 20-30 minutes rather than 35-45.

Good, well thought out post.

Red Ryu2 votes

For Solo Q it makes sense.

I still play tanks top, Malphite since everyone has a hardon for Riven/Trynd top etc when I get sent top.

BRBGTGBOWFLEX2 votes

Well your team needs at least a tank and a bruiser to have strong team fighting and a real front line.

The goal of mid is to snowball and roam. Mid is a slot for a high damage source. You won't get tanks there. The goal of the ADC is to snowball, push towers, and provide high damage late game. You won't get tanks there.

That leaves Jungle, Top, and Support. Between those you ideally want to get two tanks.

Top currently favors high damage snowball champions. With GP, Fiora, Darius, and Garen being powerful, you can get a mix of tankiness and damage-- but it is a potential damage slot for your team. So people tend to focus on damage. GP/Fiora/Darius/Garen all also lack great initiation.

So that means you need to get tankiness and initiation from jungle/support.

Jungle roams a lot and more damage helps secure kills from ganks and push towers. However, it's also a good potential source for tanks. But you can't be sure you'll get one, since damage is so valuable there.

Meanwhile you have the support role. It's not really expected to produce damage, so instead you want to focus on the other things that help. Making up for the lack of initiation that may be in top or jg is one of those goals. You also can't count on having two tanks-- so the squishier supports are less valuable.

This puts Leona, Braum, Blitz, Thresh as great picks-- they have initiation (hook displacements and/or CC ults). This makes Tahm good if you have initiate elsewhere because he is tanky.

Basically, since you aren't getting big tanks top or jungle as often, it's more valuable in the support role.

If we were lacking damage, then Zyra and supports like her would become more valuable. But we aren't. What most teams lack is clear initiation and tankiness. And there are great support options for it.

This is a case where the highest value use of a support at present is tank/initiate. Because the other roles have so many high value damage options which are needed.

magic pole2 votes

great post. This is why i usually end up playing Braum support (who is fucking ridiculous and I think OP because he is ALWAYS good, and good against thresh to boot). Tanky as fuck even on a poor ass support budget with more reliable CC than a fucking Nami . Really seems out of wack. Also love completely negating Graves (and similar burst projectile champs') entire kit with an E XD

however, yeah, when Top or jungle actually picks utility tanks ill glady roll out the Janna <3 absolutely kills it if you adc knows what they're doing.

also, Braum Kalista Braum Vayne

just fucking nightmares of a duo. try it if you haven't. can easily FB at 2-4 with fucking VAYNE

freeformline1 votes

I have played a lot of Braum lately for all of those reasons (and won a lot, too). Our team needs a tank and needs peel for the carries, so it's Braum, Leona, or Taric for me. My top laner is Darius, Fiora, or Yasuo, my jungler is MasterYi, and my mid laner is Yasuo, so the choice is pretty obvious if I want to win. Braum has basically always been the right choice since the debut of Fiora, the juggernauts, and sated junglers simply because of their popularity, their synergy with his passive, and the Braum-shaped gaps they leave in team compositions. Frankly, I wish those champions (or items) would fall out of popularity so I could play other supports without feeling like I was handicapping myself.

Salidfingers2 votes

Really?

Then again i haven't played tank support in a real long time if i can avoid it. I have found that tank supports are to much of a liability when behind, if you cant tank you cant engage.

Caster/AP supports can still CC at range and can control a fight. Yes! tanks can absorb damage, but to me there is nothing like a Ap/Carrysupport with utility.

Slamurai Jack1 votes

Of course I'm going to go Yasuo mid. I've seen way, way too many adcs be like 0-6 with 100 CS at 30 minutes to just pick a tank and hope my adc doesn't suck ass.

YumaS2Astral1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=rjbGPTlE,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2015-10-12T06:24:33.474+0000)

Of course I'm going to go Yasuo mid. I've seen way, way too many adcs be like 0-6 with 100 CS at 30 minutes to just pick a tank and hope my adc doesn't suck ass.

You can pick Chogath mid. If you build him full AP he is of course not going to be a tank. But he can still be very tanky thanks to his ult and Rod of Ages. He is absurdly powerful and bursty, and has a lot of CC.

Old Man Teeto1 votes

Harder to snowball, lane, and get an advantage as a pure tank. Additionally, pure durability items scale the worst so a 6 item tank compared to a 34 item tank is closer than the difference of a 34 item carry to a 6 item carry.


Also, tank supports are harder to engage onto and kill meaning they can more easily engage fights than squishy supports and tank supports tend to have better engage ANYWAYS [Annie is the literal exception to the rule] (I mean did you see that Flash Zephyr engage by AHQ's Janna Support in worlds? Totally scary ./roll eyes)

Verxint1 votes

I will say about jungling - picking a tank jungle in solo queue is really risky a lot of the time. I can pick Nautilus and lay down hard ganks and get my lanes ahead, but lategame I'm just a wall of meat. If people don't back me up, or don't want to group, I can't assassinate or duel anyone.

DazedOnlooker1 votes

This is one of the reasons i kinda stoped picking tank junglers like Sejuani as often as i used to. I would end up helping my lanes a lot but if its not enough, then building tank almost feels like i didn't buy anything at all because i would end up being the meat sheild who not only is the main tank on the team but is also 95% of the time left to die after an engage because my team was too scared to follow up, or was too slow...and after a short time the entire enemy team would end up shredding through my hp and armor pretty much making me feel like me building tank was the worst descision ever. and that my controbutions mean absolutely nothing to the team and whats worse is that on top of having a useless full tank build, i also don't have any damage to compensate, basically turning me into a walking potato with a "Kill this for Freelo" sign hanging on me..Untill i decide to sell off all of my tank items for damage, in which case i usually get yelled at for doing so -_-

manbearswine1 votes

Nice theory,but it doesn't hold,tank supports dominate because tank supports are stronger,tank supports even dominated when cinderhulk was op,and you see that even in competitive where winning is the most important part,tanks are still dominating.

So yeah,nice theory,but just not true.

As to the actual reason,it's similar to mobility creep,tanks(SUPPORTS) are naturally safer from ganks and can roam more safely,and of course riot refuses to make them give anything up for it,so they just dominate.

Erockandroll1 votes

I don't know how often this happens for other folks. But if you expect your support (with support level gold) to be the teams tank, Your going to have a bad time.

Tanks support have to become more ability reliant to actually soak up damage. But not many tank supports have that. Thresh, Blitz, may be good at pick potential. But they don't really have the ability to soak damage. (I prefer to refer to these as fighter supports)

The one good tank Support is Alistar, Because his ult gives him 70% damage reduction. which pretty much can't be countered. Braum can Directionally reduce the damage he can take. Maybe Leona with her Eclipse, but I think that has less up time than braum shield.

I think what the team really needs is engage, which you don't have to be a tank support to do. Annie is a popular support pick in the LCS. And she isn't a tank. You can also get some Engage from certain top laners like Lissandra or Kennin, Neither of whom are tanks.

But I think the real problem with Favoritism for tank supports (over poke supports) is that Poke supports can't do enough damage to tank supports, without them becoming oppressive against the ADC in the laning phase. (ADC's will have less effective health than the supports because they buy fewer pots) It's also possible that Relic shield offers too much sustain than a Tank support should have.

CISTERN1 votes

Broken are not the fighters but the mobile adcs, the majority of damage is autos (no counterplay) while they nearly take zero damage and they are vulnerable to less threats (endless kite and range), dont u dare to speak about fighters as broken class as long marksmen exist. Counters for adcs exists, counterplay vs adcs doesnt exists

There is not even one fighter more broken than a mobile marksman

Gunslinger7441 votes

B-but... I love playing tanks Sion TahmKench Shen Braum DrMundo Zac item 3070

Feathermane1 votes

I'll tell you why I switched: damage dealt per game. Nami does half the damage Nautilus does, while building some AP. Janna probably does a tenth.

SAGETBOB1 votes

Try Brand/Vel'koz support. Both very underrated but the kill potential/poke is really good.

Yaskamasandwich1 votes

It also doesn't help that tanks are pigeon holed into the support role with every nerf and olafed on every other role. If you take away supports from tanks, then tanks will become deleted. Unless they get compensated back into another lane, only to have it nerfed and olafed again repeating the cycle over and over. I don't agree that utility supports should be deleted or removed, thankfully it kind of doesn't look that way. Morgana Soraka Janna are great counter picks to tank supports but that is not enough nor an excuse.

HentRex1 votes

That and the fact that the meta is all about kite-ability atm, tank supports generally have better peel for the carries. One reason Janna is still a top pick. Then you also have other Utility supports returning to solo lanes. Annie Karma Lulu Lux Morgana So why have 2 utility supports in a game? And when teams do that you NEED the jungler or top laner to go scaling.

ShaftyMegee1 votes

I main support, I don't like being the damage dealer (though I can if I want). Setting up plays is the most fun for me, not cleaning up

TurquoiseYoshi1 votes

But what about the pros?

thePandev1 votes

Tank supports are dominating is because there's no actual way to nerf them without destroying their kits.

Sona? Reduce numbers. Soraka? Reduce numbers. Janna? Nami? All the same.

Tell me, how do you nerf a Thresh, or even a Leona? You just can't, unless you remove part of what makes their so powerful, their CC. And that completely slaughters the champion unless they were to get some sort of massive compensation in a different department, which would completely negate the idea of nerfing the champion in the first place.

They should revert all support nerfs for champions like Janna and Sona if they want to see actual play again. But right now, that's the way it is.

LankPants1 votes

Tell me, how do you nerf a Thresh,

Into the ground is a good place to start.

Partholonian1 votes

{quoted}

Tell me, how do you nerf a Thresh

Riot already answered this: they nerfed his AA range, and it was actually quite a big deal, because if he can't AA, he can't Flay harass, it basically reduces him to trying to zone people with hook threat. And he's squishy in lane (doesn't become decently tanky until he builds several major items that aren't sightstone and boots).

If I thought it was really necessary to nerf him again, I'd probably increase his mana costs. I hardly ever feel mana constrained on him (although I do build coin because I don't like to spend Flay passive on last hitting, so that may be some of it).

The support item changes were also an indirect nerf to Thresh, because he's uniquely (for engage supports) bad at using the tank item. He's ok with coin, but not compared to the benefit the actual tank supports get from relic (which, honestly, may be a big part of the answer to this thread; coin is weak early, frost queen is weak late, but all stages of the relic shield line are pretty damn strong if you have the kit to use them and benefit from the stats they give).

AzureInTheDark1 votes

Unrelated, but.

KATTOBINGU NO ORE!

FluxBound1 votes

Nobody wants to be the tank and to protect the carry. Everyone wants to be the carry themselves,

Gnar Nautilus Sion Udyr Trundle Why not do both?

Bijorn1 votes

If you are saying Top Olaf is broken then there is no credibility in this thread.

I play Brand supp and have had great success on him. Granted at first it was hard to learn how to play bot lane (im a terrible supp but needed to find a champ I did well with in case i was placed into supp role). I eventually learned how to play it fairly well and have been doing great. Me playing Brand supp sometimes makes my team groan as they originally thought I was going to pick a tank but it usually ends up going well.

Mid lane is difficult to get a tanky champ into (besides Diana and maybe Urgot).

Personally, tanky champs are more fun for me than most other types (except for bruisers as their gameplay is just more fun for me). At low elos people just play what they like best, many of them do not really understand the "meta" which I think is good as doing what is more fun for you and works best is really what matters. The last few ranked games I have played have had no tanks on my team yet we have won due to just good teamwork. I wouldn't personally complain about low elos not picking tanks. They are just trying to have fun, why ruin it for them?

Zair Umbras1 votes

Honestly? Do you really want to know WHY tanky supports are BETTER than AP supports? Tank items are much, much cheaper and AP supports, just like mid laners, if they get behind, they lose a lot of usefulness. Unlike Mids, AP supports are on a very tiny, fixed income, so they can't catch back up. Once an AP support is behind, they're behind. There's also the matter of Support items having minimal AP on them and being more tank-oriented, which keeps them gold efficient without opening them up to being items for a mid or top laner. We already see junglers in LCS getting Sightstones. If we gave it AP, we'd see some top laners and mid laners picking them up to play the vision game, especially on champions who have innate damage and usefulness with minimal items such as Rumble, Vlad, Annie, and Veigar.

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