Buff tank items

Moody P·Jul 12, 2019·45 votes·14,133 views

Literally, just give them more stats. All of them. No other changes. No compensation nerfs. Have you seen the abysmal gold efficiency on these pieces of shit? I don't think any of them are over or even at 100% that aren't incredibly niche items.

Tank items are already incredibly slot inefficient later on in the game because of how hard they get pen'd through. At least make them worth the gold you put into finishing them; my friend has outright told me he would report me if he saw me building Dead Man's right now.

88 Comments

D357R0Y3RJul 12, 201926 votes

70% gold efficient tank items

I see nothing wrong - Riot

Death by GlamourJul 12, 20192 votes

Before or after factoring in pen items?

D357R0Y3RJul 12, 20195 votes

before

Yets4240Jul 12, 20195 votes

They get under 50% efficiency with item 3036 or item 3135 factored in; not to mention they usually only help against one damage type or the other.

Mecha IncognitoJul 13, 20192 votes

I don't know why everyone just glosses over champion base stats in relation to items. There's a reason tank finished items are less efficient than damage items - It's to stop them completely running over the first 20 minutes. Here's an example.

Let's say maokai is level 7 and backs with 1.4k gold. He buys 2 cloth armour and two ruby crystals. At this level (without runes), he has 1025 health and 58 armor. Adding another 400 health and 30 armour is going to make him extremely tanky to physical damage, essentially having 2.8k worth of health.

Now you take a Jinx, at this point is probably level 6 (or 5) due to shared xp. At level 6 she has 70 AD, bases and spends 1.4k on a B.F, raising her AD to 110.

Before buying items at that point, it takes her 24 auto attacks to kill maokai. After buying those items , it actually takes 25 autos.

That doesn't seem like a drastic increase, but at this point maokai is offering a lot to the team - He's able to initiate fights, provide CC and has decent base damages to allow him to start chunking whoever he catches. He also gets tankier to all types of damage, just from buying raw HP Jinx however, who is only providing damage, is now less useful because she still can't get through maokai quickly enough to be relevant in a fight.

it seems trivial at first but it does matter. Finished tank items maybe be inefficient overall, but basic tank items are very efficient when being added to base stats.

Edit: I would like to see changes for tanks. I'd be happier if they had a small bump to overall efficiency for finished items and secondary items, but a reduction in efficiency for basic items. That would give them a small dip from their first back purchase, but let their first/second item spikes be more impactful.

voidscalerJul 14, 20191 votes

In your example you have a maokai who has specifically built items to counter jinx's damage and he only gains 1 extra auto from it (and you haven't factored in that jinx will also be attacking faster at higher levels) Vs a magic damage dealer he is now considerably weaker as the armour does nothing Tank items SHOULD outpace damage items in terms of "how long it takes champ a to kill champ b" because tank items at their core only affect half of the incoming damage so a champion which does the other half will kill the tank "relatively" faster Combine that with damage items are self multiplicative (attack speed is a multiplier of damage which is multiplied by crit, CDR is a multiplier of ap which is multiplied by rabadons) while with tank items there are no internal multipliers, in fact tank stats get weaker as the game goes on as penetration and % health damage gets larger

Tank items should be buffed, flat out

Mecha IncognitoJul 14, 20191 votes

Well if you wanted to buff finished tank items without at all keeping the early items in tact, you'll end up running into the problem we had before when they were unkillable. We don't just want to buff them to be far more efficient than they are, they have to be a lot smoother so that getting just the cheaper components doesn't cause them to be unkillable early and then remaining unkillable.

I'm not against tank item buffs, quite the opposite, but just flat out buffing them will for sure just bring back past mistakes that no one wants to revisit. EDIT: Maybe just damage all around (including tanks) needs to be chipped and the problem might resolve itself.

FSRERJul 12, 201920 votes

No. Tank items do not need more stats. AD and AP items need stats removed. Especially AP

AlterMordredJul 12, 201910 votes

{quoted}

No. Tank items do not need more stats. AD and AP items need stats removed. Especially AP

Preach my dude, upcoming on 9.16 Rod of ages price reduced to 200 gold to help mages scale faster in the fast paced meta!

Voluug13Jul 12, 20195 votes

Most mages dont buy RoA, specially the meta or strong ones like Lux or Ahri.

RoA buff is like, a buff to niche or underpowered mages (except Ryze but Ryze is... Ryze).

PxerkzaJul 12, 20199 votes

LOL literally the last thing tank items need is stats

i don't think that friend should be your friend

Moody PJul 12, 201925 votes

You're right, tank items should have debuffs

Sun fire cape should reduce enemy AD

Critmaster GarenJul 12, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Moody P,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wE2Z2WxY,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2019-07-12T10:43:23.149+0000)

You're right, tank items should have debuffs

Sun fire cape should reduce enemy AD

it should reduce attack speed.

Moody PJul 12, 20196 votes

We already have that

Critmaster GarenJul 12, 20193 votes

[{quoted}](name=Moody P,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wE2Z2WxY,comment-id=0000000000010000,timestamp=2019-07-12T16:33:06.389+0000)

We already have that

it should steal attack speed.

RalanrJul 12, 20192 votes

That only helps Shen and indirectly helps every on hit fighter/juggernaut.

ProzzakJul 13, 20191 votes

How exactly is that indirect at all.

RalanrJul 13, 20192 votes

Because fighters use attack speed more than tanks. So buffing a tank item to steal attack speed does nothing for tanks outside of Shen because they aren't AA heavy.

ProzzakJul 13, 20191 votes

Again, how is that indirect for fighters/juggernaut. It is quite clearly a direct buff.

RalanrJul 13, 20191 votes

Because Critmaster suggested it as a buff to tanks.

ProzzakJul 14, 20191 votes

Just because it is a buff for something else doesn't make it not a direct buff here.

voidscalerJul 14, 20191 votes

No that does make it an indirect buff, that's what an indirect buff is If I buff steraks all steraks users are not directly buffed, but they are indirectly buffed A direct buff is if instead of buffing steraks I go to each user in turn and buff them "directly"

ProzzakJul 15, 20191 votes

Meh, semantics then because I disagree. To me an indirect buff needs more than one link to be indirect. If its as simple as:

Steraks got buffed --> Steraks users are therefore buffed

Then it is direct, its one link.

TheSingularityJul 12, 20198 votes

{quoted}

LOL literally the last thing tank items need is stats

i don't think that friend should be your friend

tank items have lost 1800 HP 80 armor and 50 MR over the years. How are the other classes going?

PxerkzaJul 12, 20194 votes

because they get abused by non tanks

tank items need unique effects that tanks want why isn't IE bought on ornn? because he doesn't want it but if an adc wants to survive against a yasuo or cait rapidfire headshot they can easily buy omen and not suffer much

tanks need items that tanks want not just stat boosts or static damage reductions they need things that scale off of their defensive stats like how the slow effect on iceborn scales like how thornmail scales like how warmogs scales like how stoneplate scales

guess how many of these items are strong tho because they get abused on non tanks iceborn the go to assassin tank item thornmail is shit because it has healing reduction on it warmogs has a 3k health requirement just because they don't want squishies to use it stoneplate is only good as a last item when you already have a lot of hp

these are fine tank items that get stunted because squishies find ways of abusing them

we need items that tanks want to use and other classes don't just like how ap items are specialized just like ad and bruiser items are specialized

current tank items are generalist items and thus should never be good but if riot finds a way to specialize these items they can be made good

RalanrJul 12, 20191 votes

As much as I hate to admit it, stoneplate accomplished what your suggesting, but it does so by hurting something that tanks generally don’t care about by the time they get it. Damage.

Giving unique affects to defense items still makes them rather generalist because everyone likes some defense. Just look at IBG, the most well known user of it is Ezreal for its ability to help him kite.

PxerkzaJul 12, 20191 votes

yes if riot finds a way to make the tank items desired by tanks and really not optimal for other classes then they can make tanks good

currently the solution for riot to make tanks ok is to blast damage into their kits and inflate their base stats Ornn with his 10% armor/mr and 2 free upgrades Sion with his free health stacking Cho with free health Sej with her passive

Artificially inflated stats and kits just because their items have to suck once they figure out how to not make their items suck they can start balancing the kits properly and in turn make tanks feel good to play with and against

RalanrJul 12, 20194 votes

Thing is, you’re not going to be able to make tank items undesirable to other classes unless it hampers them since all classes enjoy some defense. And hampering isn’t fun (it’s why I rarely ever build stoneplate in the first place).

Riot inflates the base stats of tanks because it allows tanks to get more durable than others through the same items. The problem is that durability through resistance (shield or resistances) doesn’t work that well anymore. Healing ends up being the stronger form of survival, especially when scaled with high damage. Few real tanks have built in healing in their kits (Maokai is all I can think of).

PxerkzaJul 12, 20192 votes

you can make tank items scale off of tank stats warmogs and thormail are good examples of tank items desired by tanks that aren't abused by squishies warmogs was abused by squishies and they added the 3k hp requirement which made it good on tanks and awful on others thornmail has resistance scaling to it's damage and tanks like it since they are tanking autos a lot but the item has to suck because it has healing reduction on it not really a stat tanks particularly care about but takes a lot of the power budget of the item

just like crit scales off of atk speed and damage the same way they can make tank items scale

for instance they can do it with %s for instance this item gives 40 base and 20% bonus from base and then make tanks have greater bases than other classes and boom the item is awesome on tanks and very bad on non tanks

also inbuilt fight sustain is fine for tanks maos/mundos heals sions shield etc ornn was a great tank before they removed his shield now he is just a meatball with a strong ult

Champion SkinJul 12, 20193 votes

And hampering isn’t fun (it’s why I rarely ever build stoneplate in the first place).

I mean Stoneplate is fairly good for it's cost but it has some issues in that resistances aren't valued all that much especially with how powerful % based penetration is and True Damage (and it isn't that slot efficient)

However AD scaling tanks can also go with Steraks Gage item 3053 which gives HP rather than resistances and it also have a lower cooldown (60s compared with 90) and it also gives more damage not less (And most tanks have rather high base AD)

Yes you do have less control but then again it is usually when you take a lot of damage that you want it to trigger

It is meant to be a Juggernaut item but with how much damage there is I don't think the shield is going to decay much so it should be fairly effective for tanks as well and if they ignore the tank well at least they have a little more punch in their AA's (and maybe abilities) the main issue is cost but if you have full build you might as well sell one of the cheaper and less slot efficient tank items for Steraks Gage

RalanrJul 12, 20193 votes

I usually grab steraks over stoneplate if I’m ahead enough.

WiegrafOfValorJul 12, 20196 votes

Just make Tank items give +%AR/MR/HP instead of flat values then.

If an squishy builds those items he won't get much, but if a Tank does he can get 70~100% gold efficient stats from them.

GigglesOJul 12, 20191 votes

Warmogs lost what, 400?

Yets4240Jul 12, 20191 votes

Depends which time frame you're talking, when it used to require stacks it granted a max of 1,350 HP, and the current one gives 800, so -550 HP from its original incarnation.

GigglesOJul 13, 20192 votes

I actually also forgot about this.

Unique passive - Restores 1% of maximum health every 5 seconds. Health restore increases to 3% of maximum health if damage hasn't been taken within 8 seconds.

There was a lot of defense completely removed. It was 1.5 at one point. 10hp/s makes a big difference not to mention FoN. I almost had forgotten when Mundo could get 100hp+/second

Anchorit WracajJul 12, 20197 votes

Magic resist need like hard buffs..armor need also buffs. But aint going to happen for some reason,they preffer no armor pen ADCs,and 3500 health,100 magic resist reksai geting oneshoted by evelynn through steraks..

VentusKingJul 12, 201912 votes

Thats also on Evelynn because for some reason she has a max health dmg ability where the max health dmg scales up to 40% with her ap as an assassin. A tank busting assassin is the most stupid design i ever seen

Yets4240Jul 12, 20195 votes

Honestly all the rampant massively high %HP, and % missing HP damage in the game needs to fucking go.

Stoneplate actually makes you take MORE damage, NOT LESS if the people hitting you have %HP damage, completely invalidating the entire fucking point of the item; not to mention without the active (90 second cooldown btw) its utterly useless against all the true damage everyone and their brother has.

RalanrJul 12, 20192 votes

Only if you are taking true % damage. The resistances gained should help reduce it.

VentusKingJul 16, 20191 votes

i had 300 mr on Ornn lategame and got oneshot through 4000 health from a evelynn procing her charm pressing E and R. Resistances dont help much

RalanrJul 16, 20191 votes

How much health did you have?

VentusKingJul 16, 20191 votes

4000 like i said. With 40% of my MR down by charm and her having voidstaff her E alone did arround 2300-2500 dmg to me.

The EcdysiastJul 12, 20196 votes

Unfortunately, coming from you we have to just assume you mean you want to be tankier on juggernauts, with no downsides in place for them building tanks' items.

Moody PJul 12, 20197 votes

You know what they say about assumptions

Anchorit WracajJul 12, 20196 votes

Buff frozen heart 10% attack speed slow. Buff randuin 100 health.Buff magic resist vissage and addaptive helm for 100-150 health more and to 65 magic resist.

DeusVultJul 12, 20196 votes

As someone who plays tanks, I disagree. Adding more stats wont benefit tanks, as top tier tanks will spike in WR, causing Riot to nerf them.

I think that the problem is that tanks, on average, do not ever come out of lane with a lead. By comparison you can have games where fiestas are happening all across the bot side of the map, which means a fed ADC/mage/assassin. So by simply going even, the tank is set behind.

Hemulen MagiJul 12, 20193 votes

I think tanks need 1 or 2 expensive, slot efficient "capstone" item options to finish a build with. Like imagine an item that stacks up like a item 3070 everytime you take physical or magic damage, and after recieving 20,000 of a given damage type, you can choose to upgrade the item into a strong form that gives incredible protection from that specific damage type and amplifies your other resistances that correspond to the damage type. So you'd buy the item early if you want to invest in scaling for lategame, and then you would still be vulnerable to the other damage type, but you could really punish full AD teams for example instead of being outscaled and nullified lategame by default. Like double tear, getting both types would be disabled so it would encourage teams to bring mixed damage types as a counter to lategame tanks.

Also item 3083 should cost more and be more slot efficient. item 3193 should be reworked because hardly anyone uses it.

item 3083 + the new item should be for a tank equivalent to a mage getting item 3089 + item 3285 or a marksman reaching item 3031 + 1.5 zeal items.

Death by GlamourJul 12, 20191 votes

Are you feeling ok, you are becoming progressively more pro tank these coming weeks.

Genuinely wprried about you

[slayer-jinx-wink]

Moody PJul 12, 20195 votes

I always liked tanks, I played them before I swapped to bruisers and Sejuani has been one of my most played for almost 6 years now. I stopped because I haven't liked their gameplay directions since the Poppy VGU

Most of them have become more reasonable after being balanced/neutered so its about time for a buffing

SakuraSuomiJul 13, 20191 votes

We seem to be forgetting that all classes of "fighters" (bruisers, skirmishers, juggernauts, etc) can abuse stronger tank items. And basically all of these "classes" build 1 to 4 tank items, depending on the situation of the game they are in. Being the drain tanks which they currently are, if they were buffed indirectly, most of the player base would not be pleased. And just gonna list major factors which you kinda have to consider.

You cant make scaling tank items too strong because champs like Rammus exist.(If u went against a all AD team comp in ranked as Rammus, you can probably hit AT LEAST 500 armor because of your w+aftershock+certain resolve rune.) I am aware that whole AD comp could mean Fiora, Yi, Yasou, and Vayne, but why even try playing tanks then. Oh, Im sorry u were first pick.
Adding just base stats to tank items allows basically eveyone to use them. I expect bruisers to be the eyesore of the playerbase if this were to happen.
What makes items like stoneplate not used too often on bruisers? It gives like 80 armor and 80 magic resist if next to 3 enemies, so why would bruisers not use it? There is nothing there to help them apply more dmg or become more of a drain tank, which all bruisers are getting better at.

And just to point stuff out, Armor is easier, cheaper, and better to get than magic resist (actual ADCs will exist in almost every game.) When looking at pen items, AD champs only really have 2, cleaver and last whisperer's item trees. AP champs have 3, morello, void, and pen boots. Most AD champs do not buy both pen items except assassins, while most mages always have an option to get triple pen.

Looking at tanks as a whole and their purpose in game, changing them could change the current meta instantly. Though it might be better for the game, you can see Rito has had bad experiences with major changes in these last few years.

I am aware the points of this comment have been already discussed throughout this discussion, but bruisers are definitely the main problem by buffing tank items. Just felt that bruisers using buffed tank items wan't being talked about thoroughly enough.