Boards›Gameplay

True damage can still be replaced by something better and still "Anti-tank."

ObsoleteAsTarble·8/12/2015, 10:30:41 PM·4 votes·754 views

While the tank meta never felt like an issue to me, I have noticed games are becoming less fun due to Riot's new champions and reworked champions made to counter tanks. Every stat that can be used against a tank is also used against "squishy" targets, and it allows no counter-play for the majority of them.

When we look at a tank, the main goal is to build defense, health, resistance, and armor. Defense is their bread and butter to make up for their lack of damage output, it's what they bring to a team fight for the purpose of surviving the harsh damage and keeping the back line safe. That's exactly how it should be.

  • Yet Riot has decided that nobody should build item 3091, item 3135, item 3035, or item 3142 to reduce resistance and armor, and clearly they think item 3153 and item 3151 stopped playing a part in the meta. They want to stop the tank meta using TRUE damage, a damage type that can't be reduced, and a lot of it they are making PERCENT HP. The new passive for Fiora, the soon to be new villain ultimate for Garen, and the long hated Vayne silver bolts all serve as examples.

Tanks cannot survive fights against true damage, it doesn't stop the tank meta, it slaughters it. Tanks can no longer fight or defend, but the problem doesn't stop there. The "squishy" targets I mentioned before are the back line the tanks can no longer defend, and they also take the true damage. They already take too much regular damage as it is, and champions like Talon, Kassadin, and Karthus HAVE to get close range for their damage, which puts them one foot in the grave when the enemy team can apply heavy physical or magic damage on top of their true damage. Even if they build item 3157, item 3001, or item 3156, the protection doesn't stop true damage. Even worse, trying to avoid the true damage with item 3157 can leave them trapped and away from their team.

  • What I suggest is the removal of all percent HP true damages that were focused on removing the tank meta and replacing them with armor or magic removal, such as Renekton's E or JarvanIV's Q. I have no issue with scaling or non-scaling true damage such as RekSai, Ahri, or Olaf as they have to be heavy built to deal damage, meanwhile a Vayne with nothing but attack speed can remove anybody who has health because they have health. Even if you don't use removal, you showed us you love Yasuo's 50% bonus armor ignoring ultimate.

I would much rather prefer if Fiora didn't hit vitals, but saw flaws in armor and ignored armor based on level + % AD, Garen kept magic damage on his ultimate, no matter who he used it on, andVayne was removed, or her third strike ignored % armor. These changes would make armor and magic penetration items increasingly useful while still allowing tanks to build health and reduce the raw damage "squishies" take.

  • Trundle, KogMaw, Amumu, Fiddlesticks, Karthus, Kayle, Rammus, Renekton, Ryze, Vi, and MonkeyKing can all take down tanks just fine without resorting to true damage because of armor or magic removal, Make champions like you used to Riot; No more true damage updates.

. . . *summoner 31 summoner 30 summoner 31

3 Comments

Lord Dusteon8/12/2015, 11:02:04 PM2 votes

Going completely out of order here.

First, the champions you listed don't do well against tanks specifically because they have some form of resistance shred. Trundle goes well because of his massive sustained damage, stat stealing (yes, he does lower resistances but more importantly he steals them), and reasonable utility, Kog'maw because massive rnage and %max hp damage, Amumu because %max hp damage again and massive sustained damage... the list continues; they generally do good because of great sustained damage (which tanks can't survive forever and wears them down), not specifically "they have some form of resistance remover" (and really? Rammus removes what, 25 or 30 ARMOR on a mainly magic damage dealing tank? Fiddlesticks removes what, 5-20 MR?). Sustained damage beats tanks in almost every case.

Second, making "every Vital strike ignores some armor" or "every third attack ignores some armor" is bad. It makes it meh to useless against non tanks (every thid hit ignores 20% armor! That 70 armor adc REALLY cares that I ignored 14 armor), makes it completely painful to tanks (yay, that adc just crit me for the full 700 instead of 200 because of armor ignoring! That's only an extra 12% of my max health), and makes the skill or passive by itself almost literally useless outside of other bonus effects. Do you notice something? All the shreds are either massive (Karthus, Ryze) or have great bonus effects even without the shred (Kog'maw's passive AS + damage, Renekton's double dash, Vi's %max hp and AS). The things you listed as candidates to change to that do not have either. Fiora's is a reasonably weak %max hp for Vital strike and bonus movement speed after hitting a vital, and Vayne's is "every 3rd attack I do %max hp true damage + some flat amount". Neither skill if you remove the %max hp true damage is useful or wanted in any way.

Third, even removing them doesn't help a single thing. More than 80% of Vayne's damage is still physical, and the same can be said for Fiora. Removing %max hp true damage doesn't help tanks much at all; a level 18 Olaf with JUST base AD and E does 297.6 true damage, or 7.4% max hp true damage to a 4000 health target. That's almost equal to Vayne's %max hp true damage, AND only requires Olaf to press E once instead of hit an enemy 3 times.

You seem to just specifically hate %max hp true damage DESPITE how gated all of it is; Vayne has to stay in range and land 3 hits, Fiora must hit a vital (which you can see), and Garen requires you to be marked a Villain AND get in range of him. All of the %max hp true damage sources have ample counterplay to not get damaged by them, and even if they do hit you one of the flat true damage sources would almost always outdamage it (with a few exceptions, such as Twitch).