The Rules of Roles

So I was talking about Tahm Kench the other day and i mentioned how he does too much damage for his supposed Tank role, it kind of goes against the rules of being a tank. You are meant to take damage not dish it out. After a bit of thought i found that there were several instances where the rules of the roles were being broken. So i wanted to put out a clear and defined list of what I think are the rules of each role, REMEMBER THIS IS A PERSONAL OPINION, NOT A 100% TRUE FACT

I also want to mention that these will not be limited to League champions, I will be going off of what i think is a general overall rule for the role in all video games.

So since i mentioned Tanks lets start there:

#Tanks

The primary role of a Tank is to take damage for their teammates. They tend to build very high defenses and have abilities to boost those defenses or help defend teammates. Tanks can perform their duty is several ways, through Debuffs or CC and with Block or Resistance Boost abilities. Good examples in League are Malphites Unstoppable Charge which is an AoE knock-up, Braum's Unbreakable which is a shield that will intercept projectiles, and Taric's Shatter which Passively gives Armor to nearby allies as well as reduces enemy Armor when Activated.

Tanks tend to have low damage as their goals are either 'Protect Teammates' or 'Lock Down Enemies', sometimes a Tank will have the ability to do both, some do one better than the other, and some can really only do one effectively. While a Tank's damage is not non-existent, it isn't (or shouldn't be) very high and can for the most part be ignored. If a Tank does do damage it is normally through multiple hits or Damage Over Time.

Summary: Tanks tend to do very little damage but are great at soaking up damage and either protecting their teammates or locking down enemies.

#Assassins

The primary role of an Assassin is to kill a target enemy. They tend to build straight damage and very little defense, mostly due to the fact they scale incredibly well with damage. Assassins deal damage in burst rather than sustained, meaning they do an incredible amount of damage very quickly if successful but are somewhat useless if their burst is interrupted. Assassins tend to be highly mobile, probably one of if not the most mobile class. They use this mobility to position themselves for taking out the highest priority enemy in any situation and tend to come with some form of stealth or instant mobility, sometimes both.

Assassins are good at killing one target very quickly and then getting out relatively unharmed. The reason for this is they do an incredible amount of damage very quickly but it normally requires all of their abilities to do so. Due to this they don't tend to go defensive, doing so will take away from any damage they can gain and they need all the damage they can get. This means that they are very poor at handling multiple enemies at once since their damage comes from all of their abilities being used on one target.

Summary: Assassins go in and kill one target very quickly then leave as quick as possible as they are very squishy.

#Marksmen

The primary role of a Marksmen is pushing objectives and dealing damage from a distance. Similar to assassins they tend to only build damage but their focus is more on Critical Hits, which deal increased damage, and attack speed rather than pure damage. They are more Auto-Attack oriented rather than ability oriented, although there are exceptions. This is why they tend to focus more on Critical Hit and Attack Speed as these two stats tend to only benefit Auto-Attacks and do so very well.

Marksmen are great at taking down Melee targets and with their high sustained damage they are great at taking Objectives. Their main goal is staying back and dealing consistent damage to enemies, while they do not usually do as much burst as an Assassin they do deal far more damage overall. They normally come with low amounts of Mobility and CC, meaning positioning is of the utmost importance.

Summary: Marksmen deal consistent damage from afar and are great at taking down both Melee enemies and Objectives.

#Warriors (Fighters/Bruiser/Juggernauts)

These three roles are three separate fractions of the same class, which I will call Warrior. Warriors are almost exclusively Melee and tend to have high damage.

• Fighters are somewhat like a mix between Assassins and Marksmen. They are usually very mobile although it tends to be Engage only, meaning they can only enter a fight but not use it to escape. Their damage is normally Sustained Damage so they scale very well with Damage Attack Speed and a form of Sustain such as Life-Steal, although they also can benefit from Critical Hit. They tend to be Auto-Attack based with their abilities augmenting their Auto's or allowing them to enter a fight. They don't normally have a lot of CC or if they do it is usually situational. Their primary goal is pushing Objectives and killing squishy targets.

• Bruisers are somewhat more like Assassins or Mages, they deal damage as Burst. They can be mobile but its normally situational, meaning it can only be used with certain requirements and similar to Fighters its mostly for Engaging rather than escaping. They can be Auto-Attack focused or Ability focused, but overall their damage tends to be very high in certain moments and lower in others. They will scale up as the fight continues starting out somewhat weak but becoming very strong in longer fights. Bruisers also tend to be a bit tankier then Fighters but not as tanky as Juggernauts. They can build Damage, Attack Speed, Critical Hit, or Tank and do about as well. Their primary goal is pushing Objectives and killing all targets.

• Juggernauts are a mix between Fighters and Tanks. They have very low mobility but very high damage. Their CC is normally very low or short ranged and their damage tends to be Sustained Damage rather than Burst, although they can deal quite a bit of damage at one time. Juggernauts are by far the tankiest of the Warrior role and can sometimes reach reach Tank levels of defenses. They scale poorly with Damage as their base damage is normally already very high and tend to build Defenses to allow them stay in fights for long periods of times. Even though they build Defensively like a tank, their goal is not to protect their teammates or lock down their opponents, similar to the other Warrior roles their primary goal is to kill squishy targets.

#Mages

The primary goal of a Mage is to kill enemy targets. Mages deal Magic Damage as opposed to Marksmen, Assassins, and Warriors dealing mostly Physical Damage. They tend to have very high base damages as well as very high scaling. They are almost entirely ability focused, although there are exceptions. They tend to have a lot of CC as well as damage, their CC being used for dealing more damage rather than locking enemies down.

Since Mages are not Auto-Attack based they tend not to be so great at taking objectives, making their main goal killing enemies of all kinds. Their damage can be both Burst or Sustained, although it is mostly Burst. Some act similar to Assassins where they use all of their abilities at once to deal damage while others are able to use multiple abilities to whittle their enemies life down over time. Mages tend to have very low mobility making them easy targets for Assassins and Warriors. Mages scale really well with Ability Power and Cool Down Reduction.

Summary: Mages deal a high amount of Magic Damage, they have low mobility and their main goal is to kill enemies.

#Supports

The primary goal of a Support is to aid their allies through Heals, Shields, Buffs, Blocking, and CC. Supports and Tanks are very similar roles and often overlap with each other quite often, such as Braum and Alistar. The difference between a pure Tank and a Support Tank is that a pure Tank can act independently whereas a Support Tank will stick close to the carries, Marksmen and Mages, in order to help them survive. Supports are ability focused and use their abilities solely for the benefit of teammates. They can't normally function in solo environment and keep themselves alive by keeping their allies alive.

Supports deal very low damage if dealing any at all, their abilities all focus on aiding their teammates or debuffng/ccing their enemies for their team to finish off. Tank Supports will stand between the enemy and carries in order to protect them where as Healing/Buff Supports will stand behind their carries so as not to die so they can continue to heal/shield/buff their allies. Depending on the Support, they scale well with Defense and Cool Down Reduction.

Summary: Supports deal low damage but excel at aiding their allies through Heals, Shields, Buffs, Debuffs, Blocking, and CC.

So these are the roles as i see them, and i would like to reiterate these are not purely based off of League of Legends i do take from other games in my descriptions of these roles. The reason i bring this up is because, like i said earlier, i feel there is a lot of problems with his games Rules of Roles. Certain champions will break what i think is common knowledge of the roles rules, this causes frustration. Such as Tahm Kench, it is frustrating for a champion to have all the Pros of a Tank but the lack of the major Con which is Low Damage. Lee Sin is another problem, he can deal a lot of damage or he can tank a lot of damage, he his highly mobile both inside and outside of mobility without paying for it in someway, he has strong Auto-Attacks and Abilities, a decent amount of CC, Built-in Sustain, etc. He is a Jack-of-All-Trades champion and those are extremely hard to balance. There are other champions that I think don't follow the rules that other champs do, but i wont go into them individually as this is not a QQ thread.

Anyways if you think i am wrong in someway or forgot something please leave a comment below and i will try to change it if i feel like it.