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So the constant problem with tank balance

deadlychuck··8 votes·878 views

Either them being completely useless or complete powerhouses seems to stem from the way that riot has allowed power to creep.

Champion's got more powerful kits, with better scaling. Where tanks have historically, and in many cases still are, very item dependent.

Tanks have always been very dependent on their items, this is made clear by simply looking at ability scaling. Even most of the scaling which is done with defensive stats tends to give offensive benefits. Things like Sej W damage or taric passive damage.

Where as offensive champions have always scaled more with their items, resulting in weaker items. The stat design isn't at all in line with riot's current philosophies with the games, and i think that's where you see a lot of the current problems with the game.

Tanks were intended to be all about stats which naturally scale, AP champions were all about stats which only scaled your abilities, and AD were a mix of the two.

Now you have AD champions with tons of AD scaling abilities. Tank gear designed to be enough to withstand that power, and now you're starting to see the natural scaling of tank stats being abused by champions of all kinds.

10 Comments

LankPants2 votes

Why do tanks often seem incredibly strong? Specific champions drive what a tank has to be up, why would I ever play a traditional tank if someone like Ekko or Lee Sin just does my job better. They bring similar utility with enough durability and far better damage. This starts an arms race where tanks have to be utterly absurd to compete with these champs.

Why do tanks often seem incredibly weak? Specific champions from other roles get ahead of tanks in this arms race, the Lee Sin ends up doing the tanks job as well or better then them as well as just bringing better damage.

Basically I'd say tanks tend to be problematic because of a select group of champs, some of them are tanks and some are not. To me at least these problem champs are and have been Darius Ekko Elise Evelynn Fizz Gnar JarvanIV LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin Maokai Trundle & Vi . That's not to say all of these champs are currently problems, but their kits have at least historically inflated what a tanks kit needs to do heavily.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

{quoted}

Why do tanks often seem incredibly strong? Specific champions drive what a tank has to be up, why would I ever play a traditional tank if someone like Ekko or Lee Sin just does my job better. They bring similar utility with enough durability and far better damage. This starts an arms race where tanks have to be utterly absurd to compete with these champs.

Why do tanks often seem incredibly weak? Specific champions from other roles get ahead of tanks in this arms race, the Lee Sin ends up doing the tanks job as well or better then them as well as just bringing better damage.

Basically I'd say tanks tend to be problematic because of a select group of champs, some of them are tanks and some are not. To me at least these problem champs are and have been Darius Ekko Elise Evelynn Fizz Gnar JarvanIV LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin Maokai Trundle & Vi . That's not to say all of these champs are currently problems, but their kits have at least historically inflated what a tanks kit needs to do heavily.

lol 3 lee sins

Maneguster1 votes

As someone who plays pretty much only tanks I started with nasus and realized that people you arent supposed to build tank like the recommended says you should most likely build tank. I mean trundles recommended says to get Tri Force item 3078 and BORK item 3153 but i usually just get Ravenous item 3074 and full tank and just wreck face top lane. If the sub category for a champion says fighter you build them tank and still do damage in most cases Ekko Fizz

Spoofghoul2 votes

yea but thats just poor design

Atronthor1 votes

I think every champion type has a different role. And actually I think the balance is okay if you understand that. ADCs cant push in lanes. But they can be very effective behind fighters and tanks. That is their role. The fighters and tanks should try to protect the ADCs.

MLDzXnRRR1 votes

{quoted}

I think every champion type has a different role. And actually I think the balance is okay if you understand that. ADCs cant push in lanes. But they can be very effective behind fighters and tanks. That is their role. The fighters and tanks should try to protect the ADCs.

If the enemy team has multiple assasins (Rengar - top, Kha -jungle, LB - mid), picking ADC is just making 4v5.

Atronthor1 votes

That is the reason why Riot should limit the amount of each champion type. For example one team must have one assassin but not more. One team must have one ADC but not more and so on. This would be one way to make it fair.

TheOvermind3 votes

You don't undertsnd how team drafting works. Crafting a double ad carry team vs a malphite top and sion jungle sounds like a good idea but you have to make space in your teamcomp to support 2 AD carries that will also require a lot of farm and time to scale in the early game. This could potentially mean they pick a heavy cc and peel midlander like lulu zilean tf or lissandra, but then they lack late game magic damage. And so on. Every team comp has it weaknesses. Some more than others. The best team comps are the ones with the most variety. I once played vs a full carry team (3 ad carries a sona and an azir) which was cancer early game. Our malphite struggled vs Quinn early game , and our botlane was getting poked by the stronger early game cait and sona) me angles to say the moment they grouped to contest baron malphite hecarim all in decimated them by itself cuZ no peel or frontline.

deadlychuck1 votes

P.S. I built a wall.

Yes, every champion has a different role. The point of this post however, was more focused on how each type of champion scales with their stats and how power creep affects roles and stats differently.

For example, power creep with AD items means that champions which scale extremely well with AD (zed, talon, riven, exc) on their abilities see the largest growth in power. power creep on AP items means that champions which scale with AP get more ability damage, because abilities rarely deal consistent damage, due to cooldowns, it means you see these champions get more burst heavy, as their auto attacks have very little power contribution. power creep on defensive items however are not unique to tanks, tanks really don't ever (or very rarely) get more than 100% scaling from items they buy, where AD gets at least 100% scaling.

So when riot goes out to make a general buff to tanks, like every role, they buff the items. However, the dynamics are different than how buffed AD items affect pure AP champions. Literally no champion in the game doesn't benefit at least 1:1 from defensive stats. It might not fit their designed role, but they can still utilize the stats.

To demonstrate this point, you consider an extreme case.

If riot were to massively buff tank items, say buff the stats so that they were 5x more gold efficient, then you'd have a situation where literally every champion would buy tank items. (Literally no champions would be excluded, but some would be ideal, generally champions w/ % damage) If riot were to massively buff AD items, you'd see just about every champion buy AD items, except that there would be a massive discrepancy between AD scaling champions and AP scaling champions. (you could still see AD swain or AD ahri) If riot were to massively buff AP items, you'd see that only the champions with AP scaling being played, this includes many tanks. (basically zed, riven, lee[probably] talon, and many marksmen would be excluded)

So that thought experiment shows how the stats are fundamentally different, now because of this, it means that to equate the stats would literally make the game out of balance. In a mathematical sense you could say that each stat has a multiplier. Def x A, AD x B, AP x C. Each of these multipliers work differently (personally i'd guess something like this B > C > A), so if you want if you make Def = AD = AP, then the multiplier variables would mean that (Def x A) =/= (AD x B) =/= (AP x C). Unless you changed A, B, and C. Though to do that would be to uproot the very fundamentals of the game's design.

Mandang01 votes

Well, tanks are meant to fall off. If tanks were as strong as carries lategame, no one would play carries, because tanks would have lower risk for the same reward.

I also Riot's idea of scaling has shifted from what you described. Riot's been changing most AD scalings to bonus AD scalings because they dislike letting AD spells scale with champion level. Additionally, crit scaling is meant to outdo everything else in the game (the only other example of such a multiplier is Deathcap, but deathcap only works on your purchased AP, while crit scales both your purchased and base AD).

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