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Unpopular opinion: Buffing CC/Tankiness isn't a viable way to balance tanks and it shows with Zac

Disembark·5/2/2019, 3:02:12 AM·15 votes·4,037 views
  1. Tanks have never been good because they "did little damage". If you seriously think that tanks were good and did little damage then you simply didn't play in Season5/Season6 tank meta. Tanks did a lot of damage back then. Not to mention even in S3/S4 Mundo/Shyvana top meta people bitched about how tanks just 1-shot them without taking any damage.

I will agree, tanks were tankier, but they were still clapping squishies with ease in the early-mid game. And that's what made playing tanks then "so fun". I remember player Nautilus and just building full tank, and absolutely decimating the enemy ADC while I took 0 damage. Same with champions like Volibear, Maokai, (rework) Poppy etc.

  1. We can see what happens when a tank trades their damage for CC in Zac. It feels absolutely awful to play. You can't kill shit after a certain point in the game, and you have almost no potential to carry or punish poor positioning unless your carries are in position or have the items to punish.

In any coordinated environment where you can rely on your carries (such as Clash), not just LCS/pro play, Zac will be super good. However, in SoloQ? Zac will be trash and super unfun to play. Old Zac used to be super fun because you actually had carry potential. I could snowball and have the ability to 1v1 people in the enemy jungle with my lead. Zac did way more damage and that's part of what made him so much fun. Now even as a 3/0 Zac it'll take me 20 seconds to kill the enemy jungler. It just isn't possible if my carries aren't with me.

  1. Tanks doing 0 damage just isn't going to work (at least with top lane tanks). Tanks will never be viable in the top lane if they don't have any power to 1v1 in lane or get push priority at any point. "Just make em tankier lmao, they shouldn't be able to 1v1" will not work. A tank can never group in a 5v5 if they can never outshove/outtrade/out 1v1. So either you give them extra minion damage and make them have a super uninteractive lane phase where they just afk shove the wave, or the tank is forced to sit under their tower all game hoping to god that the enemy laner makes a mistake so he can group. Cause otherwise he'll lose too much XP/towers for any roam.

The way tanks used to work is that they actually usually won lane, and had to impact the map before they fell off and would lose pressure in the side lane. This Hashinshin-style "they should never win 1v1" doesn't work in League. Unless ofc you want tanks out of top lane permanently (like Hashinshin).

**4) Making tanks viable by buffing their damage actually lowers net damage. ** People are acting like the game is 72 champs vs 72 champs. It's not. It is 5 champs vs 5 champs. A top lane Maokai even with a 30 damage buff on Q will do less damage than a top lane Renekton/Darius/Riven/Kayle at most stages of the game and be more durable. The 30 damage buff could make him more viable and more fun to play which'll put him in the meta and actually lower damage in your games.

If anything Riot did try and make tankiness/clear speed buffs to Sejuani/Ornn after gutting their damage, but quickly realized that in SoloQ they still wouldn't be popular until they did more damage. And the only way to lower net damage is by making more people pick tanks. So counter-intuitively the way to lower damage is by raising the damage on tanks.

21 Comments

ukog nos5/2/2019, 3:06:36 AM4 votes

Idk man, I think tanks need to be nerfed as far as damage goes. Shen for example melts people. Rammus (kind of touchy because of W) but nonetheless melts people. Tanks aren't meant to deal a stupid amount of damage. They're meant to take the damage and let the damage dealers deal the damage.

2Charmnot2Charm5/2/2019, 3:17:42 AM4 votes

There needs to be a balance, if riot is just buffing tank damage when damage isn't the issue we'll end up with tanks killing players in 1 rotation and still being too useless to fulfill the tank role.

If they do the opposite players can just scale for free in laning phase vs tank players and do whatever they want in 1v1 split pushes.

Ash Lockheart5/2/2019, 3:46:53 AM3 votes

{quoted}

  1. Tanks have never been good because they "did little damage". If you seriously think that tanks were good and did little damage then you simply didn't play in Season5/Season6 tank meta. Tanks did a lot of damage back then. Not to mention even in S3/S4 Mundo/Shyvana top meta people bitched about how tanks just 1-shot them without taking any damage.

I will agree, tanks were tankier, but they were still clapping squishies with ease in the early-mid game. And that's what made playing tanks then "so fun". I remember player Nautilus and just building full tank, and absolutely decimating the enemy ADC while I took 0 damage. Same with champions like Volibear, Maokai, (rework) Poppy etc.

  1. We can see what happens when a tank trades their damage for CC in Zac. It feels absolutely awful to play. You can't kill shit after a certain point in the game, and you have almost no potential to carry or punish poor positioning unless your carries are in position or have the items to punish.

In any coordinated environment where you can rely on your carries (such as Clash), not just LCS/pro play, Zac will be super good. However, in SoloQ? Zac will be trash and super unfun to play. Old Zac used to be super fun because you actually had carry potential. I could snowball and have the ability to 1v1 people in the enemy jungle with my lead. Zac did way more damage and that's part of what made him so much fun. Now even as a 3/0 Zac it'll take me 20 seconds to kill the enemy jungler. It just isn't possible if my carries aren't with me.

  1. Tanks doing 0 damage just isn't going to work (at least with top lane tanks). Tanks will never be viable in the top lane if they don't have any power to 1v1 in lane or get push priority at any point. "Just make em tankier lmao, they shouldn't be able to 1v1" will not work. A tank can never group in a 5v5 if they can never outshove/outtrade/out 1v1. So either you give them extra minion damage and make them have a super uninteractive lane phase where they just afk shove the wave, or the tank is forced to sit under their tower all game hoping to god that the enemy laner makes a mistake so he can group. Cause otherwise he'll lose too much XP/towers for any roam.

The way tanks used to work is that they actually usually won lane, and had to impact the map before they fell off and would lose pressure in the side lane. This Hashinshin-style "they should never win 1v1" doesn't work in League. Unless ofc you want tanks out of top lane permanently (like Hashinshin).

**4) Making tanks viable by buffing their damage actually lowers net damage. ** People are acting like the game is 72 champs vs 72 champs. It's not. It is 5 champs vs 5 champs. A top lane Maokai even with a 30 damage buff on Q will do less damage than a top lane Renekton/Darius/Riven/Kayle at most stages of the game and be more durable. The 30 damage buff could make him more viable and more fun to play which'll put him in the meta and actually lower damage in your games.

If anything Riot did try and make tankiness/clear speed buffs to Sejuani/Ornn after gutting their damage, but quickly realized that in SoloQ they still wouldn't be popular until they did more damage. And the only way to lower net damage is by making more people pick tanks. So counter-intuitively the way to lower damage is by raising the damage on tanks.

The question you should be asking is does Riot want tanks? Do they want a front line strategy, and if no then all tanks need to be reworked in order to have a place in the meta. Its not rocket science.

Thingamajig5/2/2019, 3:48:40 AM3 votes

Zac is one of the best designed true tanks

He has his own skill expression in order to remain alive

Unlike Sion for example that just has a button to press to stay alive Unlike current Ornn that just gets 2-3k gold worth of tank stats just because he can't have a shield Unlike Mundo that has to hope that the enemy can't 1 shot him and at some point there is no preventing being 1 shot (i had a game at 6 items 5.5k hp with steraks and i died in the cc combo of nautilus while i had my ult ticking) Unlike Sejuani that has a redundant passive that is there only so she can facecheck things

Zac on the other hand has his blobs that he has to pick up to stay alive and that is the kind of gameplay patterns tanks need to be interesting to play not buying sunfire and gauntlet on ornn and suddenly being immune to physical damage

currently tanks only survive while they are actively ccing people if the enemy carries can't hit you then you live if they can hit you you are just another squishy

Shen is another well designed tank like Zac

Damage isn't what we tanks want yes eventually due to base damages we will be capable of 1v1ing a squishy but thats not the point of a tank if the enemy tank solos your backline then you dun goofed

ModAcademy Kayn5/2/2019, 4:32:00 AM3 votes

Good post, and use of the "Unpopular Opinion".

Soul Dealer5/2/2019, 4:35:30 AM3 votes

Malphite is the best example of a tank for me. Builds tanks items and still does damage but in order to do that he needs to build a lot of armor so ap can crush him.

Bob the Toastr5/2/2019, 6:27:55 AM3 votes

I think you're creating a false dichotomy of tanks either doing lots of damage or being unkillable.

There's a lot of room between those two extremes. One good example is Malphite when he builds tanky. He can probably kill an ad champ because he gets lots of armor, but it takes a long time. It could take him upwards of half a minute to kill another tank or bruiser.

Maokai is another decent example. Unless he stacks a bunch of saplings in a bush, he doesn't have a lot of burst damage, but if you take an extended fight with him, you might lose because of his sustain.

In my ideal world, tanks should be tanky enough to get in the enemy team and disrupt it without being bursted in 3 sec or less, but shouldn't deal enough burst damage to threaten a squishy unless they are able to stick to them for 10 seconds or so. (perhaps two full spell rotations)

The thigh guy5/2/2019, 6:43:27 AM3 votes

What tanks need if for this stupid amount of high efficiency armor pen and magic pen to be toned waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the fuck down and for true damage to be toned waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay the fuck down.