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Let's establish something. Tanks DO NOT need a nerf.

Gare Jordans··107 votes·7,076 views

Tanks are hardly in the META right now after Cinderhulk and most popular tanks were nerfed pretty heavily. Some of their kits were nerfed AND their core jungle item was nerfed with no compensation.

Currently, Malphite Amumu are the tanks doing well right now. TahmKench is still being experimented with so it's too soon to decide if he's actually viable or not. Any other "tank" champion being played is probably just a support utility tank that's only there to initiate or peel. (I'm looking at you Alistar Blitzcrank ThreshNautilus )

At the moment, tanks, outside of the support role, are out-matched as a class:

  1. Devourer is in the META in solo queue. Once someone is Sated and has a BotRK, killing a tank is like tearing through a wet paper bag for them. Tanks can't simply counterjungle the enemy because most tank junglers have a bad early game while most Sated Devourer junglers have a good one, minus Warwick and Shyvana of course. The only tank jungler that has a shot at doing anything against a devourer jungler once they're sated is Rammus.

  2. Juggernauts are common and Bruisers are coming back top lane, making it hard for tanks to go in a particular lane that's not support at the moment unless the tank champion is an armor tank. (Malphite)

So, I guess, my point in typing all this out is to say that tanks prior to the latter half of this season had three common habitats, or areas where they could be picked viably. Since the nerfs to cinderhulk and tank champions, release of devourer, and rise of juggernauts, really the only definite place you can pick a tank is in the support role.

150 Comments

redniwediS26 votes

A tiny addon point to your post; roles are not decided by itemization, but rather by kits. Bruisers are not Tanks, they are Fighters.

Magic Mo2 votes

Roles are decided by both kits and itemization. I've never seen a top nautilus go relic shield and I've never seen a support nautilus not go sightstone.

redniwediS29 votes

That's not quite what I'm saying.

People on here often assume Bruisers are tanks because of how tanky they are, and because they build many tank items. If you build many tank items on a mage they will be tanky too, but that does not make you a tank.

Tanky =/= Tank

IcyPepper12 votes

Not to mention that Nautilus is a tank who happens to be able to support.

And let's not even get into how junglers and even some top laners can build sightstone, primarily tanks. It's not just a support item :P

Slamurai Jack12 votes

Tanks make you have to actually think in teamfights and try strategies other than "everyone dive their adc!". The horror.

Baby Ghoul11 votes

You guys misunderstand the roles, and what they are used for. You shouldn't have a favorite, especially as a jungler. You should play what your team needs and the environment calls for.

Tanks are used to counter burst champions. DPS champions counters tank champions, and burst champions counter DPS. Your team should have a healthy combination of these three elements, and you should know how to approach the other team with these three attributes. If you're a support tank that's used to being a shield for your teammates, you need to start taking into account that DPS champions are favored in this current meta, and you cannot withstand sustained damage from them like you would against a high burst champion. They will eat your health up, and they counter you.

The meta heavily favored tanks for a while just a few months ago, and now it has switched like it always does. At any given time the meta favors a certain type of champion, and you need to adjust.

Gare Jordans10 votes

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of my board. Let me TLDR it for you.

TLDR: Tanks are supposed to counter burst champions. Got it. Tanks are in such a weak spot right now, that they can't even do that all the way. Why would you pick a tank when you could pick a devourer or fighter jungler who can either: A. Delete a specific target that could be the mid laner, ADC, or support, or B. Build BotRK and successfully 1v2?

That's my argument.

Baby Ghoul8 votes

[{quoted}](name=Gare Jordans,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xksB4VAM,comment-id=000a0000,timestamp=2015-09-25T22:41:09.364+0000)

I think you've misunderstood the purpose of my board. Let me TLDR it for you.

TLDR: Tanks are supposed to counter burst champions. Got it. Tanks are in such a weak spot right now, that they can't even do that all the way. Why would you pick a tank when you could pick a devourer or fighter jungler who can either: A. Delete a specific target that could be the mid laner, ADC, or support, or B. Build BotRK and successfully 1v2?

That's my argument.

No I understood your argument just fine. My reply to you is the tank meta is over for now, and you need to adjust like everyone else did when the meta favored tanks. You should pick a tank to counter burst champions because they are still there, but right now there are so many DPS champions doing well in the meta that you should not just choose a tank because you like playing a tank. Where as a few months ago that would have been fine because of how strong they were then.

SpecterVonBaren6 votes

But you can't forgo a tank for those DPS champs, say an enemy team has Shyvana top, Jinx ADC and Yi jungle, you can't just pick a mage with CC to deal with them, even champs that are technically DPS based will become strong enough to kill a squishy in a few autos.

Yes, having an Assassin can also allow you to do this, but then we're talking team comps, is your team based around teamfights? Probably want a tank. Is your team more of a pick comp? Probably want an Assassin.

Fadedpf8 votes

You didn't mention how ADC's are still ADC's they shred like none other with the armor nerfs tanks are having trouble unless super head. I honestly cant even notice thornmail's damage anymore because it is so weak if they have item 3035 and a measly item 1053 . So the Armor nerfs sucked when ADC's beat tanks as always later on in the game you'll always get melted by one. AND Riot is constantly adding true damage and %HP damage which is a pain when its in a ton of peoples kits.

RogueWill3 votes

Tanks spike mid game... don't let the game run for long. As a tank player that is always my advice. You have weak early, Awesome mid and decent late game.

Cavemantero7 votes

I don't like the strong assassin/adc meta either. The tank meta offered much more tactical diversity in prolonging engagements and thus made more champs viable all around as opposed to the assassin/adc 'delete' meta where kit strength is everything. The terrible terrible damage ruined SC2 and could very well ruin this game if all we see is the same champs every year dominate because of kit: Janna Orianna Maokai Thresh Zed Leblanc Kassadin Ezreal LeeSinMalphite Amumu

ZT Xperimentor6 votes

Agreed, in the assassin/carry metas, it was always a race to see who could insta-kill who first. Spending 2/3 of the game dead isn't fun whatsoever.

Critmaster Garen6 votes

i hope this marksmen rework is more like.

"how do we get more than 3 marksmen viable at the same time?" by putting half of them somewhere else than bot lane, just pitting them against each other. its also necessary to give them a more healthy lane pattern against melees and fix the entire early melee/range matchup to be not so onesided in their favour.

and i hope its certainly not just "lets make them all as broken as vayne and jinx lategame"

they need less lategame impact, less bullying vs melees early, and be able to jungle, or go mid/top in return imo. i hope they dont just overbuff them and make them all kill tanks in 5 seconds lategame (and other squishies with 2 crits), but make them actually distinct from each other.

Orangesilk1 votes

They need to be less relevant early yet somehow less relevant late?, I mean, if this meta in any way was lopsided towards ADCs like early s4 was, I'd believe you, but right now ADCs are in a sorry state, with only a HANDFUL even doing their intended job, and everyone panicking because Vaynes lane counters have been nerfed to the ground giving her free access to her usual lategame.

Allowing them to go different places makes no difference if they are completely useless, and of course, their relevance lategame is a simple concept thing, and not related to the kits: Lategame, bruisers and tanks can shrug off multiple cd rotations from cd based champions, making them virtually immortal unless you can somehow deal consistent, continuous damage to them; the easiest way to do this is via AAs, and so, champions with high DPS are necessary in the lategame, if only to avoid everyone playing slow, mumbling bruisers in the lamest slapfight ever.

Right now, only Vayne, Jinx and Trist can reliably do this (With Kog and Twitch being very able to do this if they have a good team backing them up) which means that ALL other ADCs must snowball their lane or lose in the lategame very sadly (Think Lucian), this rather modest ADC power is the main reason why we are right now stuck in the league of juggernauts, with champions whose very BANE should be consistent ranged DPS and peel romping happily through the fields without any actual counter.

Garen, Darius, Morde aren't OP at all, it just so happens that ADCs are in such a poor spot right now that they LOOK overbearing, if anything I'd increase the lategame power of most ADCs in the marksman rework patch, and see if that gets us out of the retarded meatbag meta.

Critmaster Garen4 votes

{quoted}

They need to be less relevant early yet somehow less relevant late?, I mean, if this meta in any way was lopsided towards ADCs like early s4 was, I'd believe you, but right now ADCs are in a sorry state, with only a HANDFUL even doing their intended job, and everyone panicking because Vaynes lane counters have been nerfed to the ground giving her free access to her usual lategame.

Allowing them to go different places makes no difference if they are completely useless, and of course, their relevance lategame is a simple concept thing, and not related to the kits: Lategame, bruisers and tanks can shrug off multiple cd rotations from cd based champions, making them virtually immortal unless you can somehow deal consistent, continuous damage to them; the easiest way to do this is via AAs, and so, champions with high DPS are necessary in the lategame, if only to avoid everyone playing slow, mumbling bruisers in the lamest slapfight ever.

Right now, only Vayne, Jinx and Trist can reliably do this (With Kog and Twitch being very able to do this if they have a good team backing them up) which means that ALL other ADCs must snowball their lane or lose in the lategame very sadly (Think Lucian), this rather modest ADC power is the main reason why we are right now stuck in the league of juggernauts, with champions whose very BANE should be consistent ranged DPS and peel romping happily through the fields without any actual counter.

Garen, Darius, Morde aren't OP at all, it just so happens that ADCs are in such a poor spot right now that they LOOK overbearing, if anything I'd increase the lategame power of most ADCs in the marksman rework patch, and see if that gets us out of the retarded meatbag meta.

adc do not have problems doing their job. they never did. theyre not broken right now, but they certainly dont need buffs.

Orangesilk2 votes

Well, they've been continously, categorically nerfed, and we're at the point where the problem with the juggernauts is "They just won't die!", if their DPS hadn't been nerfed quite as hard, it'd be possible for them to DPS down a juggernaut who's being held by cc/peel, but that's not what's happening (Have you seen Lucian struggle against a Garen?, it's outright comical).

What's probably going to happen now is that the juggernauts will continue being nerfed, probably some will end up even Kassadin'd, but that wouldn't be necessary if their natural enemies, the markmen, had their DPS boosted a bit in order to deal with them (I'm not talking about Vayne/Jinx buffs, I mean the ADCs who can't really do anything to the juggernauts like MF and Lucian).

Critmaster Garen5 votes

{quoted}

Well, they've been continously, categorically nerfed, and we're at the point where the problem with the juggernauts is "They just won't die!", if their DPS hadn't been nerfed quite as hard, it'd be possible for them to DPS down a juggernaut who's being held by cc/peel, but that's not what's happening (Have you seen Lucian struggle against a Garen?, it's outright comical).

What's probably going to happen now is that the juggernauts will continue being nerfed, probably some will end up even Kassadin'd, but that wouldn't be necessary if their natural enemies, the markmen, had their DPS boosted a bit in order to deal with them (I'm not talking about Vayne/Jinx buffs, I mean the ADCs who can't really do anything to the juggernauts like MF and Lucian).

what do you mean adc cant do anything to them? the juggernauts are geared towards health stacking and are usually less sticky, tanky and mobile than actual tanks who also have large amounts of resistances in addition to similar health values. the main difference is really that they have weak abilities to initiate on their own and deal a lot of damage in return.

if adc can take down tanks, they can take down the juggernauts. they just struggle to 1v1 them. and theyre not supposed to be able to take them on on their own. what do you have a support for?

you wouldnt fight a 700 armor malphite on your own as adc. you think a darius walking at you is less fair than getting hit by unstoppable force and have a huge armor tank in your face? what makes you think you should be able to 1v1 a darius or garen any more than a malphite? there are adc who can kite them indefinitely on their own though.

the main problem with adc and why always only 2 or 3 of them are viable is, because theyre not very distinct from another. they are almost entirely defined by their auto attacks lategame. so you always just pick the adc who are the strongest in lane and have the highest chance of snowballing. you buff the "weak" adc, they become THE strong adc and not alternative picks. weve seen this happening for years. the holy trinity of adc for every season.

what adc need is not buffs but more distinctive roles and kits than being defined by auto attacks 90% of the time. basically the same as what they did with the juggernauts. they dont need to buff them but give each adc his own distinctive job outside of dealing damage.

The Great Divide6 votes

I used to dislike tanks back during the Sejuani/cinderhulk era, because I felt like it was a struggle to work against them. But then I realized it was cause you actually had to teamfight efficiently and strategically. The meta now has gone back to assassins and I've forgotten how nice it was to not see yasuo, zed, talon, and leblanc for a good 3 months.

RogueWill4 votes

The tank meta lasted a good 3 months.... how much did the assassin meta lasted? If I remember correctly roughly a year.... The tank meta should have been extended xD

THESuperStuntMan5 votes

I saw coming when cinderhulk was op. I was like "Wow, tanks are actually strong for the first time since I started playing this game. Bet that won't last long." As I expected, Riot remembered why they hate tanks. Same reason they hate healers; they like it when people are getting kills often and the game is fast-paced. (not trying to bash Riot, I think that if tanks are too strong they have basically 0 risk), but I do get annoyed at how weak they leave tanks most of the time.

DirkTarTar5 votes

I feel that Devourer + Sated is a little too safe mechanics-wise to allow for proper counter strategy.

The idea, I feel, is that you should be able to counter jungle these champions to slow them down, HOWEVER, the champions that normally build these items are difficult to counter jungle unless you are wanting some Mortal Kombat action in the jungle.

Counter jungling needs some consideration by Riot as a proper strategy because right now it is sooooo difficult to properly pull off due to the fast clear speeds of high damage/high threat champions, the amount of lane pressure they can apply, and that when Devourer hits Sated their effectiveness grows exponentially.

Part of this should be done through Poacher's Knife receiving proper buffs/rework as well as the counter jungling/duelist NON DEVOURER RELIANT champs should receive buffs in order to provide true counter mechanics.

I get that this thread is about Tanks and their need to not receive nerfs, but I need to derail something today and there are no train stations nearby

Nilok4 votes

Sion: Can I have my Soul Furnace changed back to two seconds please? You can keep the reduced scaling on it...

For Carthage3 votes

In all honesty, that nerf was more just obnoxious than an actual effective nerf...

I still jungle fine with it and I don't feel really delayed. But it's just obnoxious when trying to kill someone and you have to wait that one last second to finish the job.

KhaZix Bot4 votes

Ah, the never ending war between tank junglers and auto-attack junglers.

A war where nobody wins.

But the real losers are caster assassin junglers. They're stuck in the middle of the perpetual tug-o-war, getting utterly screwed all the way.

Transgressor4 votes

Let's establish something:

TANKS =/= BRUISERS =/= JUGGERNAUTS

ScriptBrand3 votes

who said tanks needed a nerf?

Gare Jordans11 votes

{quoted}

Tanks just need a nerf, a fucking damage nerf.

The idiocy in this statement inspired me to make this board.

For Carthage3 votes

People think tanks need nerfs?

http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/_nF46QeFsbc/maxresdefault.jpg

Wat.

Cheese Pope3 votes

Rito pls buff thornmail

ZT Xperimentor3 votes

Tanks were never meta, and those who complained about tanks being too strong never looked through itemsets; there's several items for shredding tanks (voidstaff, last whisper, ext). Not to metion several anti-tank champions (fiora, vayne, yasou, ext).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3_i1TZSDGs

TurquoiseYoshi2 votes

Shyv has a bad early game? lol

Gare Jordans5 votes

Bad in comparison to her level six and beyond? Yes. Bad clears? No.

Rito Staff3 votes

Same thing could be said about Riven. Before level 6 is worst then after level 6. Or any other champion

THESuperStuntMan4 votes

Oh, yeah, those pre-6 jungle Shyvana ganks are terrifying -___-

TurquoiseYoshi2 votes

The ganks aren't great, but her dueling potential is unmatched. She can walk into the enemy jungle at Level 2 and kill the enemy jungler without much work.

TenSlashTen1 votes

the strongest duelist jungler in the game would be trundle. Not shyvana.

TurquoiseYoshi3 votes

I'm talking early game. Trundle can't really do anything early. Late game, he's definitely the best duelist, but early, it's Shyvana.

RogueWill4 votes

You are not supposed to gank pre-6... you are supposed to invade the enemy jungler, take his farm, kill him and make him curse you. Then when you hit 6 and he is still 4 you start ganking everyone taking advantage that you are not around 10stacks ahead on your devourer

DarthSpectrum1 votes

I think you were just too comfortable with the tank meta.

For 2 patches, ADC would literally kill themselves first when they AA a tank unless they built a item 3102 due to Cinderhulk's higher HP scaling, stronger item 3075 , and stronger Gromp Buff.

Tank's win rates spiked, and many players bandwagon-ed on to tanks because they were unstoppable brick walls.

However, the reality was that tanks were always good. Even before Cinderhulk, the highest win rate champions were Sion , Amumu etc. Even after the Cinderhulk nerfs, 8/15 highest win rate champions builds tank, granted 2 of them are juggernauts.

Tanks are simply fundamental to a team. They provide the CC and peel that stops their carries from being 100-0'ed in the first 2 seconds in a fight. They are by no means out the door. Just take a look at LCS, almost every jungler builds Cinderhulk even now.

The current meta is just unfavorable to them because of the sudden emphasis on DPS champions. Sustained damage is meant to be a direct counter against tankiness. But In the future the meta will shift again to favor the tanks, they are just not FOTM right now.

grimrookzero5 votes

so much wrong here tanks have never rly been 2 good the fact is most team fights now are just blow up the first person you can tank or not cause they all die fast end game cinderhulk made fighting better it forced trash 2 learn team fighting and stop just diving on anybody now where back 2 the everybody glass cannon derp games its sad

Transgressor3 votes

Punctuation is your friend :/

OOOOHHHHBABY1 votes

Tanks may not be OP, but this is: item 3742 wayyyyyy 2 much movement speed for free

Centuros15 votes

Free? It costs quite a bit!

OOOOHHHHBABY1 votes

{quoted}

Free? It costs quite a bit!

Accommodating the cost of alacrity on shoes that costs/is worth about 1.4k to buy 60ms... item 3742 gets this very liberally. You cant forget that it also gives armor health and damage(and a lot of it too)

Edit: coherence

Champion Skin5 votes

item 3742 honestly it is more of a bruiser/juggernaut item as tanks usually have some initiating power and they usually have the CC to stick to targets anyways

OOOOHHHHBABY2 votes

" If youre a tank and not a juggernaut by now, youre doing it wrong. By definition a tank should never die(which doesn't exist in LoL), but never be able to deal enough damage, and the only way you should or be able to die by one, is if you run out of patience for stupidly trying to kill one as you expect the fight to last short, cause.. 'im uber dps lols i can kill all...o wait a tank fffff seeks a squishy' " Tanks r shit, HI DrMundo Braum Bard Alistar(maybe not ali but kinda)Zac Shen ShyvanaTaric !!!!(dont play these champs they suck ass ) A Juggernaut is 1000% better than those troll champs

Blue Moon Wolf5 votes

None of these are crap if you can play them right. As Bard I can practically lock down 2 enemy champs till they die from my Ult-Q combo alone. Shen really only is suffering since riot has left him alone for so long that hardly anyone realizes his Q heals you if you hit his marked target, Taric gets praised for his heal and bonus armor so much that many people will be pissed if they change him to much after his Rework. And if you really still think tanks are shit, then look at a fed Nasus, he's not even a tank and it takes AGES to kill him if you even manage it. the problem isn't the champs, the problem is that there is so much crap to counter them now that they became less viable.

OOOOHHHHBABY2 votes

Key word: 'Fed'. I dont feel how u feel at all And no champ is 'crap' if you play them right. It just makes you a fool for trying to make them seem good but, when you are @ = with an enemy; because i guarantee u, you wont win if they try as u do, as they play a champ that is EZ to win as such as Riven, or the other 1's i listed

Blue Moon Wolf2 votes

the only fool here is the one who thinks that tanks are completely worthless, If you played these champs at all and learned them to any degree you would know that they all have good use. Tanks are suffering right now, no doubt about that. But it doesn't mean that they are a "troll pick" just because you can't learn them to any degree. The point that was being made about Nasus is that he isn't a real tank and he can get damn near unkillable late game, each of the champs you mentioned are made to peel the enemy and take hits aside from Shiv who isn't even played all that tanky to begin with. Comparing them to someone like Riven who is made to get kills is like comparing a sword to a shield and saying the swords better cause it can cut people. And FYI, Taric is a reconized counter for Riven.

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