Boards›General Discussion

Why are we removing defensive options from tanks?

ThurgotOfThunder·12/8/2018, 3:25:32 PM·78 votes·16,458 views

I've made posts on other issues before, including why defensive items are super bland and weak next to offensive ones. Now I want to talk about tank champion kits. Specifically, why do we keep removing defensive abilities from their kits?

Rammus has had DBC nerfed, Nasus resists removed on ult, Ornn shield removed, Galio Damage reduction removed, Maokai damage reduction removed, Alistar damage reduction nerfed, Braum E stats nerfed, Jarvan armor buff removed, I would argue Sejuani's rework made her squishier in the long run,

And their effects are turned into more damage. Nasus Q cd reduction, Amumu passive, Ornn % hp damage, Rammus return damage/attack speed, Jarvan 3 shots, Maokai saplings, Sejuani % hp damage, Galio % hp damage, Shen % hp damage.

Really this wouldn't be that bad if they would stop buffing damage and lowering cooldowns constantly, but to top it off, the best defensive steroids and stats in the game belong to Phantom Dancer, Irelia, Warwick, and a rune (aftershock) that ALSO DOES MORE DAMAGE. Why can't tanks just be tanky, slowburn cc threats that don't also explode in 2 seconds. Penetration is an issue here, tank items are an issue here, but the most important issue is The access to damage, damaging effects, and damaging abilities is far too high for the lack of access to defense in this game.

61 Comments

Busty Demoness12/8/2018, 3:27:21 PM81 votes

Because Riot thinks turning their game into a top-down Call of Duty Team Deathmatch is a good idea.

Bulletproof Car12/8/2018, 4:07:40 PM25 votes

because the zed mains and yas mains complained omg we useless we cant kill the tank while tank kills me

Trollmanship12/8/2018, 3:46:06 PM24 votes

Riot legitimately hates the playerbase and wants us to commit suicide.

Moody P12/8/2018, 5:46:54 PM23 votes

Nasus resists removed on ult

this didn't happen, he lost the AD on ult, not the resists

ModWulf Helhammer12/8/2018, 9:11:20 PM14 votes

> Riot releases heavy defensive oriented tank > is broken in high elo/pro play, sucks in lower elo > general player base complains that Riot “only cares about pro play” > Riot has to buff up tank, and knows that buffing defenses won’t do anything for low elo where people don’t play around a tank > general player base than complains that Riot is buffing the tank’s damage

[slayer-jinx-unamused]

Lord Dusteon12/8/2018, 8:15:26 PM10 votes

{quoted}

I've made posts on other issues before, including why defensive items are super bland and weak next to offensive ones. Now I want to talk about tank champion kits. Specifically, why do we keep removing defensive abilities from their kits?

Rammus has had DBC nerfed, Nasus resists removed on ult, Ornn shield removed, Galio Damage reduction removed, Maokai damage reduction removed, Alistar damage reduction nerfed, Braum E stats nerfed, Jarvan armor buff removed, I would argue Sejuani's rework made her squishier in the long run,

And their effects are turned into more damage. Nasus Q cd reduction, Amumu passive, Ornn % hp damage, Rammus return damage/attack speed, Jarvan 3 shots, Maokai saplings, Sejuani % hp damage, Galio % hp damage, Shen % hp damage.

Really this wouldn't be that bad if they would stop buffing damage and lowering cooldowns constantly, but to top it off, the best defensive steroids and stats in the game belong to Phantom Dancer, Irelia, Warwick, and a rune (aftershock) that ALSO DOES MORE DAMAGE. Why can't tanks just be tanky, slowburn cc threats that don't also explode in 2 seconds. Penetration is an issue here, tank items are an issue here, but the most important issue is The access to damage, damaging effects, and damaging abilities is far too high for the lack of access to defense in this game.

Generally because tanks in general are more impactful in high elo and cause large performance gaps, and damage on tanks is more useful in low elo. Tanks normally end up being stronger in high then low elo (often too strong), so a good balancing point that does not lead to Galio post rework is to remove some of their safety or defense in return for more damage. Conversely if a tank is not being abused defenses are a good place to buff them, as that is useful in high and low elo.

I'd also argue your examples aren't particularly fair either (and most are outright lies): Rammus lost some magic resistance and some early armor, but gained significantly more armor mid and lategame. Nasus GAINED resists on ult, not lost them. Ornn and Galio both follow my first paragraph. Maokai lost 20% damage reduction, but doubled the healing on his passive and gained better CC tools. Alistar's only defensive changes were a minor buff to the DR on his ult. I could go on but you get the point.

AirKingNeo12/8/2018, 5:04:16 PM9 votes

Alistar damage reduction nerfed

Because it was overpowered in turret dives?

Like geez, you're just making a list without any context.

Nea10412/8/2018, 7:58:47 PM8 votes

Season 8 has been awful; the people responsible for it are still "working" on this game. What do you expect? :C

DarkTree112/8/2018, 8:57:13 PM5 votes

tbh the only one that was deserved was the alistar nerf, everything else is just them pushing their game towards becoming faster, flashier and easier - they don't care about strategy anymore, it's all about those big money oneshot outplays

Jashindo12/9/2018, 12:49:43 AM5 votes

Riot/Tencent want shorter, simpler, flashy games. They don't want skill or strategy, they want a spectacle. In its simplest form, we have Damage + Anti-Mitigation items, yet no real Mitigation + Anti-Damage items.

jocomotion12/9/2018, 12:12:20 AM4 votes

Ok to kick it off

Nasus JarvanIV are a Juggernaut and a Diver respectively so they shouldn’t be classified with the other tanks

Galio : Riots been very clear that they want Galio to be viable as a damage carry as well as a frontline, so I think he gets a pass too.

As for the others, being Ornn Sejuani Braum Rammus Maokai Alistar Amumu Shen I think it’s important to look at them case by case rather than ripping them all together.

Some of them are weak and actually did need damage buffs. Some of them are weak/underperforming and Riot tested damage buffs to see if they’d help. Some of them where toxic to the game and had a defensive star removed (Maokai’s healing + Damage reduction combo). And some of them got changed to help the identity of their kit (amumu’s passive change and E buffs to armor/MR scaling).

DuskDaUmbreon12/9/2018, 5:13:16 AM4 votes

Nasus resists removed on ult,

?????????????

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

This is the patch note in question:

Fury of the Sands REMOVED: Converting damage dealt into bonus AD. NEW EFFECT: Now instantly grants 15 / 35 / 55 armor and magic resistance, which increases by 1 / 2 / 3 per second, for a maximum of 30 / 65 / 100 total bonus resistances.

He didn't lose resists for the CDR. The halved cooldown was half a season later.

He lost AD gained from damage dealt in favor of immediate base resistances and resistances that stack up over time. That is literally the exact opposite of what you said.

And that's not even going into the fact that Nasus is a fucking JUGGERNAUT, not a fucking TANK. He has NO HARD CC AND NO INNATE ENGAGE while having HIGH DURABILITY AND DAMAGE.

Nasus is a tank like fucking Ashe is an assassin. Just because Nasus fucking builds tank items does not make him a tank, just like Ashe buying AD items does not fucking make her an assassin. He is a JUGGERNAUT.

Wasteland Wraith12/9/2018, 5:10:48 PM3 votes

See this is why I dislike the boards. Why is such an uneducated post seeing such a high amount of upvotes for being just flat out wrong in saying what's been removed.

Rammus DBC is the strongest it's ever been late game sitting at 100% armor bonus and 50% MR bonus. If you are referring to it being flat resists before(120 at max) or how the armor bonus and mr bonus used to be the same; % resists are are always better late game, and I think it's fitting he fits an anti auto attack/anti full AD comp pick rather than just full on good against both ad and magic.
Where the hell did you see Nasus getting his resists removed? Nasus is the tankiest he's ever been in league history. Don't believe me? Here's his patch history. Read up http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Nasus/History. It's such a joke that posts like this get upvotes. He's been receiving nothing but buffs lately. Him doing poorly is a byproduct of the meta we currently have, not because the "removal of resists on ult."
Ornn shield still there, if you are referring to pbe then I have to say my opinion of ornn is a weird one but the upcoming changes are something I'm waiting for to have an opinion on.
Galio damage reduction still there. Halved against AD damage. Oh would you look at that, it's almost like rammus. Color me surprised. Galio's damage reduction is something I'd argue is in a fine spot, fits the niche, scales well, has great ratios to work off of, and synergies great with aftershock. If you are referring to his ult with recent change, I'm hopeful to proper compensation but at the same time I wouldn't call giving an ally damage reduction a "defensive option" the way you are putting it as he can't use it on himself.
Maokais damage reduction on ult was removed for a reason. He still performed just fine as a go to tank BECAUSE how fat his passive was. He got nerfed a number of times because of how good he was even then. His underperformance is due to something else entirely.
Alistar had his damage reduction buffed for the first time back in patch 4.12 from 50 > 60 > 70 to 70 at all ranks which was then nerfed back down to those same values back in patch 6.9 then buffed slightly by 5% at all ranks in 7.14. It was nerfed because he made tower dives too safe. Who has 70% damage reduction at level 6? It seems excessively good and it was.
Braum E? Unbreakable? His shield? His main defensive ability? His shield has not been nerfed once in his entire history. You are so full of shit. How did you get upvotes? http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Braum/History
J4s passive was removed on flag back in 5.4. Granted I wasn't playing at the time. All I can remember is that season 5 was THE season for tanks, J4s build reflected this. But his shield scales with bonus health and not just a flat value anymore which can be argued incentiveses a bruiser based build.
I agree on sej. Her passive makes her an anti burst tank.

Look if you are going to argue a point. Please make a better stance than what was presented as you are just talking out of your ass for a lot of this. I personally want to see tanks return outside of just picking sion or cho. I miss playing tank galio or maokai. But this problem stems from a number of things.

Last season, tank items were reworked into giving more resists, but less overall health. This didn't effect much in the short term and allowed for tanks to come online a lot earlier as resists spike faster early and tanks still were just tank enough to transition to mid and late. Brambles vest was introduced and everyone and their mother that was a tank rush brambles with tabis and all of a sudden bruisers had the hardest time ever.

Now what was the issue? We're tanks just too overtuned or were their counters not working too well? Partially both. Tanks saw repeated hits, same with their items. Prime counters got buffed like Darius then conqueror got introduced and all of a sudden tanks sink. It has allowed for any damage carry to come online as soon as the early game and fuck with tanks. What's the counter to true damage? Health. What did tanks lose from their items? Health. Which tanks stack health and can get through the early game either through sustain or a lane bully playstyle? Sion and cho.

The bigger issue has always been conq. I'm all for buffing counters to tanks but between their counters and what they used to counter all of sudden countering them off a rune pick well it's no wonder you don't see them. Hell picking a tank in the jungle is just asking to be fucked with by xin or kha as their clears are slow and not exactly healthy.

If anything I'm surprised conq hasn't seen a change like true damage conversion 5% or 10% down from 20% scaling to 20%, maxing out at level 16. Riot has such a hard on for scaling with levels yet somehow this conversion sits nicely at 20% like it's ok on top of the flat AD you get which also has a per a level scale. So why doesn't the true damage?

jeremiahBIO12/9/2018, 5:08:47 AM2 votes

Dont forget they lowered poppys W resistances,Even tho they said she's a champion that should be in the heat of things.

SettDownShutUp12/9/2018, 1:14:08 PM2 votes

I remember a time, where mundo went where he pleases. Good days... good days...

9NINE12/8/2018, 10:21:47 PM2 votes

they turning it into arena of valor. they want 15-20 min games instead of 20-40 games

AmenPerson12/9/2018, 10:00:33 PM2 votes

I went ahead and made a meme just for this post.

https://i.imgur.com/HICi7Nc.jpg?noredirect

Ben11912/9/2018, 1:21:56 AM2 votes

Ornn lost his shield on W on the PBE.

LordGeovanni12/10/2018, 12:08:58 AM1 votes

You forgot annie who has a better damage resist steroid than warwick Annie

Cereal42012/9/2018, 10:20:17 PM1 votes

because tanks are broken as shit they build full tank and are unkillable yet still do ridiculous damage. they deserve nerfs