Does anyone else feel like Riot doesn't know how to handle Tanks anymore?

Forhonor321··106 votes·24,095 views

Let's just do a quick review on some tanks this past season(s) and some changes coming to others:

Ornn - lost his unstoppable (which to me made him unique) because it was making him too powerful, but now regaining it in loss of his shield, but more importantly getting an insane boost to his Brittle and Q damage. (think there was a post about doing 73% health damage with these buffs)

Sejuani - before her mini rework was OK. Afterwards was doing insane damage, got nerfed, continued to get nerfed due to her power in pro play then fell out (still got nerfed). Now losing some CC in favor of more damage to most of her abilities.

Zac - basically has fallen out of most play from my experience after a while.

Nautilus - changed his damage from sustain in W to burst in E from what I recall and now is just...where is he?

I know there are more tanks that other people can give examples of and there's more details that I'm not going over for the ones I listed, but this is just the pattern I'm constantly seeing with tanks. They constantly feel like these champs, almost specifically the Vanguards, need to be dealing damage rather than providing good combat CC. Why though?

Why does Ornn need to be dealing crap amounts of brittle damage? Why does Sej, after the failure of her rework, need to lose CC in order to get more damage? Wasn't that the main complaint about her rework?

I don't know, it just feels like Riot doesn't know how to handle these kind of champs and they just try to shift them over to more damage dealer roles while still labeling them as "tanks" when they can almost deal as much damage as a fighter or assassin can (maybe not as fast as them, but just as much).

Discuss, talk, do whatever on this subject. I'm just going to be in the corner and start thinking about all the ways season 9 will somehow go south, because League just feels that way nowadays to me.

150 Comments

Death by Glamour77 votes

they seem to be morphing into semi mobile bruisers and the old semi mobile bruisers are transforming into assasins

SpeIlthief11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Death by Glamour,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uFVhAnww,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-11-13T15:48:12.619+0000)

they seem to be morphing into semi mobile bruisers and the old semi mobile bruisers are transforming into assasins

∆ My thoughts as well ∆

ZackTheWaffleMan13 votes

I'm scared for what assassins will become

zlumpy5 votes

Enchanter supports

rtbf22561824116 votes

"Introducing a new class - The Reapers"

"We at Riot decided an assassin is someone who is capable of quickly getting behind enemy lines, and with good outplaying, can get out with a kill in his (or her) pocket. Depending on their escape route. Despite this, there have been complaints about some champions not being able to put these general rules for an assassin in use so we're amping up the damage and the escape potential of every single assassin under such criteria. Now you may wonder "But Riot, what will happen to all the strong assassins?" Well, you propably read it from the title.

Those will become true harbingers of doom. Death's very emissaries. They will be squishy but have tons of mobility and near-one-shot potential with 1 or 2 abilities, at the cost of zero utility and crowd control.

Regardless, they can basically 1v5 if played correctly. And with it, we are proud to announce the newest Reaper and our newest champion - Zenji: The Lost Dragon

Zenji's backstory is that he is the long lost brother of Zed who never knew him, being adopted by the Kinky order. He fought through poverty and the cruelty of Ionian slums for years until he found Zed, distant and mad with power after a lifetime of nobility and comfort from parents he never knew. Now, he seeks to right the injustice not in the world, but in his heart and bring Zed down to his level, which they both were born out of.

Zenji's skillset is that he can cross walls with a dash that refreshes upon contacting with any wall and does 20% max hp true damage. He can also become Obscured and mark targets with Eye of Zenji (a new vision type that cannot be hidden from. Not even you, Akali.) and he has a 3 hit passive, that when you hit a target with 3 Q-s, they die. No questions asked. His passive is +5 armor.

He is also ranged and melee, dealing more damage at melee range being a Reaper (wouldn't want to make him too op heh) and his ultimate is that he marks up to 3 targets, and deals 30% max hp physical damage for each of the amount of targets marked (up to 90%).

Oh and he has 500 special interactions which nobody will ever hear because they're quiet as hell and most people won't remember to use them in specific situations or won't know about them at all."

Cue League of Legends logo

Velzard of Koz7 votes

Kinky order. Founded by Tryndamere with his undying furry.

RIP Tahm Kench3 votes

As with all members of the clan, Fiora never goes anywhere without her raper.

Aionius50 votes

It's the reason I said Season 5 is the most balanced between Seasons 5-8. Tanks, Fighters, Assassins, Mages, and ADCs were what they were supposed to be. Sure you had your strong oddities like TankEkko , but they were only broken in effectiveness towards actually being able to tank and peel. It aint no Inting Sion bs where you can feed and still win because you can chug turrets, and be worthless to the enemy as far as kills, then there's Tank Viktor who had more range, can kite, and has more sustain than Tank Ekko ever had, all the while doing more or the same damage. Season 8 is the worst in balance period.

Forhonor32129 votes

{quoted}

Season 8 is the worst in balance period.

Oh absolutely, not argument there. It's just been hell trying to play this season. Really glad that it's finally ending but at the same time I'm genuinely worried about what Riot has for season 9.

chipndip12 votes

{quoted}

It's the reason I said Season 5 is the most balanced between Seasons 5-8. Tanks, Fighters, Assassins, Mages, and ADCs were what they were supposed to be.

Between everyone but tanks and hyper carries being useless in season 5, then everyone but Sated Devourer junglers being useless in season 5, then everyone but juggernauts being useless in season 5, random crap like Annie and Malzahar support, tank assassins, and Relic Shield marksmen...why do people like you get upvoted?

GayFluffyUnicorn8 votes

Devourer? Lol, was only really a problem in low elo.

chipndip13 votes

Say that to Kayle and Trick2G.

GayFluffyUnicorn6 votes

Okay one champ one player. What now?

Doesn't change the fact that counterplay was there and used by playing early aggressive junglers? If low elo doesn't do that they need to get better at the game.

Also pro play used devourer because stalling games was easy back then.

But yeah one champ and one player that maybe did something to determine that an item was overpowered/broken?

The Whamboozler25 votes

I'd say it's more that Riot doesn't know what they're doing with the game OVERALL, so they've been juggling power back and forth between role archetypes for a while now. Tanks are buff, then ADC's are buff, then mages are buff, etc etc. If they do it often enough it feels like the game is evolving and people who main a role are encouraged to just stick it out until they're on the upswing again... but things never actually get balanced well and the game is never actually in a decent state overall.

GigglesO22 votes

Tanks invalid assassins, so they decided that tanks should be fighters I guess. They basically remove rotational balance too then.

It’s the same thing we saw with adcs moving into burst champions because otherwise assassins invalidate adcs. Again by turning everything into high damage we remove rotational balance.

I would dare to say it’s why everyone is so angry with the current game and why mobility is winning games. Mobility champions have no real trade off from any other class since everyone has similar time to kill.

GundayMonday19 votes

Yeah, I love playing tanks and helping my team. S8 was not fun. Hope Riot figures it out.

sixths9 votes

Their problem imo is for some reason people think tanks need to be able to scrap against bruisers and clear the jungle easily. If people (and riot) could just accept the identity of tanks as low damage hard-to-kill utility champs (that end up doing decent enough damage just because they take longer to kill) I think it would solve most problems. But then people say "not fair I can't take a tank into a jungle" and "not fair a champ that is built to kill tanks outdamages me in lane" so tanks get damage buffs and either are broken or get their utility and survivability nerfed to compensate and become bruisers.

Ralanr8 votes

If all tanks were meant to be played in bot as support, you would have a stronger point. That’s sadly not the case.

TheSingularity6 votes

Problem with that view, is that outside of alistar, taric and leona. Tanks were played predominately in the jungle. Hell nauts first home was the jungle. Zac, sej, maokai, all junglers. Malphite was probably the only tank who saw top lane play before mao top became a thing in pro play

Not saying tanks should be beating fighters 1v1 But tanks need enough damage to function independently. Because they need enough damage to not be ignored. But they need no more damage than that, than absolutely necessary.

Iota Theta3 votes

{quoted}

Their problem imo is for some reason people think tanks need to be able to scrap against bruisers and clear the jungle easily. If people (and riot) could just accept the identity of tanks as low damage hard-to-kill utility champs (that end up doing decent enough damage just because they take longer to kill) I think it would solve most problems. But then people say "not fair I can't take a tank into a jungle" and "not fair a champ that is built to kill tanks outdamages me in lane" so tanks get damage buffs and either are broken or get their utility and survivability nerfed to compensate and become bruisers.

Tanks do ultimately need some damage in order to survive their respective areas, or they end up relegated to support only. There are ways to tune that might give them less damage in trades, but if you don’t want tanks to only support, they’ll need some damage and clear.

I think many can accept having less damage, so long as they aren’t forced to support to get their gold.

GayFluffyUnicorn1 votes

Then relegate them to jungle and support. Get them out of toplane.

Iota Theta4 votes

{quoted}

Then relegate them to jungle and support. Get them out of toplane.

What’s wrong with them in toplane? Ornn on release was just fine in toplane, little to no complaints. Maokai does ok up there without destroying. Malphite as well, especially now with Conquerer. Why should all tanks be jungle or support?

GayFluffyUnicorn2 votes

Because they are shitty designs and either: Are very uninteractive and just stonewall the laning phase so that bruisers with the most expensive items don't get to influence the game. Maokai with his interaction button being Q. Ornn with his interaction button being E. And so on. Or they are stupid enough like ornn, cho, sion and maokai too that they autowin the laning phase by beating most champions who are not full early game lanebullies (and even then darius gets beaten by some of them) and then scale into teamfights. It clearly doesn't work balancing them around toplane. They either have enough dmg to win the lane, then there is no reason to pick a bruiser or they don't and make it an uninteractive farm fest.

Also i'm sorry but noone enjoys getting Q spammed by malphite until you are forced to back or get RE killed. Noone enjoys ornn pressing W off cooldown until you are dead and right now he can even full combo you at lvl 6 thanks to his retarded dmg output which is about to be buffed. Noone enjoys maokai with his ridiculous base AD and AS rightclicking bruisers to death.

So you put them into jungle or support as the supportive class they are OR you have to nerf them in a way so that they can not stonewall the laning phase even when they missplay like mao can, like sion can, like ornn can. So you hit their waveclear, their sustain (which includes shields) but then noone plays them anymore and riot cries again because for whatever reason this stupid class NEEDs to be played soloQ and in toplane. Just no, put them support and jungle. That's where supportive classes belong. Whenever tanks where good they crowded out toplane bruisers the only lane where they can go anymore. This season, last season, the season before with IBG and sunfire.

Ralanr3 votes

Stonewalling the lane means that no one is making headway. Old Shen was Stonewalling the lane by just perfect farming under tower with his Q, all the while he could teleport to bot, then back top without you getting an advantage.

It’s literally a zero interaction lane. Ornn’s interactivity revolves around his abilities being avoidable and locking. He can’t move in his W so it allows players to better reposition. And given the long cooldown on it (17 seconds rank 1) this gives people an opportune time to punish him after.

As for fun, a lot of people don’t find Darius fun to lane against due to his bully nature. A lot of people don’t find Jax fun because of his stun combo. It’s generally not about fun, but about how you can play around it. That’s why tank designs like Sion or Poppy are generally good because they provide windows for opponents to abuse and skills that reward proper play on the player of the champion.

And sadly, as much as you disagree with the idea of tanks top lane, Riot has been consistent in trying to balance some tanks in top. And they’re going to keep trying.

NoIWontBuySkins8 votes

Yes but they cannot balance period

Sire Hippington6 votes

Anymore? I don't feel like they ever did past S4...Actually, since S6 i hardly feel like they know how to handle anything in this game...

SobeDragon5 votes

Hey remember all those posts like 3-4 years ago warning about power creep and as they add more champions and rework they are going to have to put more power into older champions? And how as they do this they will add more and more bad designs like a champion who is permenently untargetable in shroud as long as they don't cast anything like Akali Or can put up a wall every 15 seconds that negates everything thrown at it like Yasuo. Why wouldn't it only negate the first item thrown at it? Then you could put more into his damage, maybe reduce the amount of dashes or make it so the dashes have a way longer cooldowns for Yasuo who can multi stack dashes on multiple people and still two shot people. How can you balance a game when there are toxic design choices in your champions is a better question in my opinion. You can't tell me a champion with AA resets, Multiple dashes, huge stun range that can hit an entire team, an ult that disables enemy champions and reduces damage taken and has a w that greatly reduces damage taken.

You want a prime example of Riots Balance? Anivia. They removed her "toxic lane domination" by removing her E/R combo in lane. It was her primary way of trading in lane. Now you gotta land multiple spells to even trade properly. Meanwhile champions like Zed can move in and out and even 100 to 0 her easily if she misses her spells, but if she lands hers, it doesn't kill him.

Balance can be awful with these games because one champion can literally break the meta and completely flip the balance.

Done254 votes

You want to really know? It's because most people suck at team work. In pro play they can squeeze 110% effectiveness out of tank CC. Everyone else though? They barely know how to CS, less alone how to CC.

DeusVult3 votes

Nautilus is fine as he is. I wouldnt call his E burst either. It does 175 damage at max rank, unless you get hit by 2 waves (which you would have to walk into) which would deal 262.5 damage. Add 15% once he completes Abyssal. Thats not a ton of damage, and Naut builds no Mpen.

Naut is what tanks should be. Good CC. Good survivability. Damage is low, but adds up if they can get off multiple rotations of their kit during a fight. (for Naut, this is Q, E, auto, W-auto reset, Ult, more W autos, another E off of CD. Sunfire on top of that. Not a ton of burst, but if you let him onto your backline and get all of this off, he will deal damage.)

chipndip127 votes

Naut's survivability is actually really shit in comparison to other tanks if you ask me.

Usefully Useless7 votes

{quoted}

Naut's survivability is actually really shit in comparison to other tanks if you ask me.

Did you see the graphs they did at worlds that showed the tankiness of Nautilus compared to Urgot? Urgot was competitively close and along with the rest of his kit, the main reason Urgot play spiked. So basically Urgot does almost everything Nautilus does minus the knockup ult - insert execute with fear.

TLDR: Nautilus is a weaker, melee version of Urgot.

TheSingularity13 votes

In patch 5.5 naut had power taken out of his w and shoved into his e. This made him and afk waveclear powerhouse in pro play and he saw nothing but nerfs because of it. His W is garbage compared to what it used to be. Used to have a way higher base value, a way higher scaling ratio. His shield is nothing compared to what it used to be.

Have played him since s3 and have gotten to watch riot butcher this champ. He's shell of his former self.

Minimac20001 votes

{quoted}

Nautilus is fine as he is. I wouldnt call his E burst either. It does 175 damage at max rank, unless you get hit by 2 waves (which you would have to walk into) which would deal 262.5 damage. Add 15% once he completes Abyssal. Thats not a ton of damage, and Naut builds no Mpen.

Naut is what tanks should be. Good CC. Good survivability. Damage is low, but adds up if they can get off multiple rotations of their kit during a fight. (for Naut, this is Q, E, auto, W-auto reset, Ult, more W autos, another E off of CD. Sunfire on top of that. Not a ton of burst, but if you let him onto your backline and get all of this off, he will deal damage.)

Wait... where are you getting this auto reset from.... are you building titanic hydra on nautilus? If not I really want to know, bc I didn't know nautilus has an aa reset in his kit

Slythrin Umbreon1 votes

I think they added one to the shield in the rework, but they might have taken it off since then

Minimac20001 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slythrin Umbreon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uFVhAnww,comment-id=000600030000,timestamp=2018-11-15T02:26:04.351+0000)

I think they added one to the shield in the rework, but they might have taken it off since then

holy... you are right it is an auto reset and it's still there. How have I played as much nautilus top as I have and never realized this? And why is it on his shield that's so unintuitive? This changes everything lol

fire2633 votes

It's just for pro play

Thing about pro play is they work as a team, and are able to use the tankiness and cc of tanks to their fullest extent, and combine it with damage of adc. In soloq, people don't know how to work together, so no one likes tanks as much as they can't carry if there's no one on their team that's actually doing damage. I guess the point of this is to make it so tanks can somewhat carry in soloq and make them viable, but then while doing that just removing the term tank. Idk, ask riot

Strawberrycocoa3 votes

The problem with tanks is that their job is shutting Big Plays down, and Riot has shown a very biased stance over the last few years against anything that isn't flashy Big Plays. They seem to prefer everything being a bloodsport arena instead of tactical combat, which means more burst and less lockdown, which means Tanks become bruisersassins.

TheSingularity2 votes

I wholeheartedly agree and have a gp+ post that should be up by the end of the week addressing tanks as a class, and how to fix them.

The biggest issues outside of the champs themselves imo are runes, pro play and itemization

Forhonor3211 votes

Hey I'd be happy to read that post when it's finished.

As to everything else you mentioned, I do feel like they also play big factors into the game state as a whole. Maybe in my opinion pro play a bit more than most but that's me.

TheSingularity1 votes

Unsure where the heralds are tripping me up. Threw it up on regular GP if you wanna catch a squiz

Iota Theta1 votes

{quoted}

I wholeheartedly agree and have a gp+ post that should be up by the end of the week addressing tanks as a class, and how to fix them.

The biggest issues outside of the champs themselves imo are runes, pro play and itemization

Amusing, I recently had another tank related one approved, although mainly trying to stir discussion around Riot’s reasons for their balance choices and less around how to balance. This whole situation sparked massive discussions around tanks and what’s healthiest. Love it. Looking forward to readingg your post.

TheSingularity2 votes

Yours was a really good read and I agree with the overall message. We've seen this direction go wrong in the past, eg nautilus' powershift in patch 5.5 which saw him nerfed into oblivion over the course of 2 years. Was going to pop in earlier than today (will pop a response in a bit) but got G+ rejected twice, one was too long the other too short XD. So will chat more in there <3

TheSingularity1 votes

Not sure what their problem twas dis time as the update tab is down. Have popped it up in normal GP

K3ars3n2 votes

{quoted}

Let&#039;s just do a quick review on some tanks this past season(s) and some changes coming to others:

Ornn - lost his unstoppable (which to me made him unique) because it was making him too powerful, but now regaining it in loss of his shield, but more importantly getting an insane boost to his Brittle and Q damage. (think there was a post about doing 73% health damage with these buffs)

Sejuani - before her mini rework was OK. Afterwards was doing insane damage, got nerfed, continued to get nerfed due to her power in pro play then fell out (still got nerfed). Now losing some CC in favor of more damage to most of her abilities.

Zac - basically has fallen out of most play from my experience after a while.

Nautilus - changed his damage from sustain in W to burst in E from what I recall and now is just...where is he?

I know there are more tanks that other people can give examples of and there&#039;s more details that I&#039;m not going over for the ones I listed, but this is just the pattern I&#039;m constantly seeing with tanks. They constantly feel like these champs, almost specifically the Vanguards, need to be dealing damage rather than providing good combat CC. Why though?

Why does Ornn need to be dealing crap amounts of brittle damage? Why does Sej, after the failure of her rework, need to lose CC in order to get more damage? Wasn&#039;t that the main complaint about her rework?

I don&#039;t know, it just feels like Riot doesn&#039;t know how to handle these kind of champs and they just try to shift them over to more damage dealer roles while still labeling them as &quot;tanks&quot; when they can almost deal as much damage as a fighter or assassin can (maybe not as fast as them, but just as much).

Discuss, talk, do whatever on this subject. I&#039;m just going to be in the corner and start thinking about all the ways season 9 will somehow go south, because League just feels that way nowadays to me.

The problem with tank identity is as simple as it was for supports.

  1. People want to feel like they are having an impact and most folks are too dumb to realize a tank going 0/7/34 with a ton of lockdown and peel for their carries was the driving force of the win. Supports wanted to feel the same.

  2. Riot is too dumb to grant people vision of these things so JUST LIKE THEY DID WITH SUPPORTS, they are just giving them more damage, Presto!

The Highest Noon1 votes

Wait, I have a loaded reply but first I need some clarification from you. Is your problem with tanks themselves or just that champion changes are all over the place? Those are completely different issues far more complex than you're letting on. Not every champ with every class will play the same way, because not every champ of every class solely exists in that class. There's a reason why, to my last memory, a champion had about three or four classes to their name. Some tanks were casters, some were bruisers. Some casters were assassins, some were rangers. Some assassins were sustainers, others were rangers. Some mix of them all. Some tanks value CC, some tanks value damage control in some way.

Forhonor32110 votes

I guess my problem is the changes Riot are making to these champs if that helps, because it feels like they want to do this to every tank. Sej and Ornn are becoming more damage focused and with past reworks like Mao and Zac just becoming more absent in regular play (from my experience), it just feels like it's getting worse. It just feels like anytime Riot tries introducing, reworking or even touching a tank they don't know how to handle them so they turn them into these super bursty champs that can also CC enemies/teams down while getting damage off.

The Highest Noon2 votes

Ah, ok. Well, you can't entirely blame Riot for that. If you didn't know, champion balance involves about as much math as it does practical gameplay experience. When factors are added, that means factors have to be taken away. As health increases, defense decreases. As defense decreases, damage increases. As damage increases, modifiers decrease. Then there's an entirely different set of adjustments required if a champion has CC, and then it depends on which CC the champions has, and then it depends on which CC the champion has access to regarding items, and then it depends on which items a champion typically builds, and then it depends on what those items apply when used.

It's easy to think that all Riot has to do is increase a number and bam problem solved. New problem: That's not the way balance works. Every factor of a champion has to be considered when balancing them. Not just that, but they have to consider the state of the meta as well as at which point in a game certain adjustments apply most significantly. Not only that, but they ALSO have to consider how their playerbase reacts and responds to changes AS WELL AS gameplay feel at certain points in a game.

I think Riot indeed knows what they're doing, just not how they want to go about doing it. If they're buffing Tank damage, it's probably because people have been complaining about how Tanks die too easily against something or other. The simplest solution would be to give Tanks increased damage against those somethings or others.

It's a painful process, balancing champions.

Highvoltage9995 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Highest Noon,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uFVhAnww,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-11-13T16:06:51.423+0000)

Wait, I have a loaded reply but first I need some clarification from you. Is your problem with tanks themselves or just that champion changes are all over the place? Those are completely different issues far more complex than you're letting on. Not every champ with every class will play the same way, because not every champ of every class solely exists in that class. There's a reason why, to my last memory, a champion had about three or four classes to their name. Some tanks were casters, some were bruisers. Some casters were assassins, some were rangers. Some assassins were sustainers, others were rangers. Some mix of them all. Some tanks value CC, some tanks value damage control in some way.

It could just be the changes that a Garen building full tank can q r one shot an adc and Garen won't be punished

The Highest Noon14 votes

{quoted}

It could just be the changes that a Garen building full tank can q r one shot an adc and Garen won't be punished

8/10 players agree that Garen isn't a tank.

Romans VI XXIII5 votes

No Garen building full tank will 100-0 any one, even if they are the Villain. Let alone Q > R 1 Shot.

item 3071 item 3053 item 3748

Are not Tank Items.

Full Tank would look like something like this.

item 3047 item 3742 item 3065 item 3075 item 3194 item 3193

Which would mean roughly 200 damage Q and 525 Damage R, minus resistances. So who exactly is he one shoting? Shacos lvl 6 Clone?

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