Are tanks in a terrible state?

Probably because of how easy it is to nullify a fifth of tank's defences with a rune.

The and the fact that Riot nerfs them because of competitive and buffs them by giving them more damage, effectively turning them into juggernauts with more CC.

Depends if there is a conqueror user in the game.

its not that tanks are bad, its just that riot scaled down defenses a lot, and damage up.

this includes tanks themselves. they just got a couple changes that scaled utility and defense down in exchange for high base damage.

so they arent neccessarily bad, but they dont feel tanky anymore. the same goes for juggers. they feel like they die way too fast and only participate by itemizing into burst damage.

on the other hand skirmishers and some divers are building juggernaut items and become too close to tanks and juggers in defense while offering a lot of versatility on top of the same damage as juggers.

when champions like buy it becomes extremely hard to deal with them and close to impossible to fight them 1 on 1 even for juggers. fights between juggers and these champions arent dependent on ouplays like theyre supposed to anymore, but they just roll over the juggers at some point because theyre almost as tanky, deal the same damage but are more mobile and have better utility.

Most people are gold or below. Most people at that elo either don't react fast/gauge a situation rapidly, don't trust their teammates or are too busy trying to get solo kills to follow a play.

Tanks primarily engage, lock down, and survive long enough for their team to benefit. Nowdays, the tank is focused and killed before their team commits to the play. The enemy team still has everything on cooldowns, so there may still be a short advantage as you could trade a tank for a locked down carry. But then, why not just get another carry if a good play results in a 1 for 1 trade?

If the team watches the tank gets blown up. They are likely to mistrust the tank from then on. A good pick looking like a bad play because of damage bloat and reduced fight times. Meaning they may leave the tank out to dry.

Eliminating the entire fun of the tank role. Supportive plays, surviving when succeeding, even against great numbers.

Tanks are a troll class, and you're griefing if you pick one. Unless you're using a drain tank or someone with a large, spammable shield.

Tanks are boarderline worthless after components are build.

Tanks always have a place in an actual team, but I've been finding them to be pretty bad in lane right now. Because of how much true damage conqueror has, it is so easy to win trades and chase them away since a lot of their protection is ignore and they rely on cooldowns for damage. They just have no real advantage in the early game unless fighting against another tank.

The one rune pretty much counters a tank's early game singlehandedly.

IMO they have their place, it's very safe to have a frontline that can eat up the dmg, but the other side is that just having full damage gives a higher possibility of a carry being able to take place and control the game. More dmg champs better chance, compared to pick 2 tanks and have 2 champs you know won't be dishing out the hurt. I'm not sure what people want to be changed though.