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Possible solution to tank meta.

VoraciousX··3 votes·473 views

There are a lot of assassins recently who can just build tank and completely obliterate the game. Ekko was nerfed for this, Akali has yet to be nerfed for this, I think Fizz is also guilty of this though I only saw it once. Anyways I believe I have a solution to make it where no champion would have to be nerfed for being able to abuse tanky items and would make a meaningful tradeoff almost all of the time. It would take some work but eventually there would be meaningful tradeoffs for these kinds of situations.

Here I go:

  1. Give every champion a max weight value.

  2. Give every item a weight value, this will decrease the champion's movement speed by the weight of the item(obviously the champions' base move speeds would have to be altered). Make items that give armor have a higher weight value than any other items in the game, while most other items would barely raise their weight, or not raise it enough to cap it. When a champion has more weight than their max weight, their movement speed decreases by the amount of weight exceeding the weight cap. Tanky champions would have a considerably high max weight, allowing them to equip most(or all) items unhindered, while non-tanks(especially assassins) would have a lower weight cap, so that when they did equip tank items, they would have to suffer a heavy hit to their movement speed in order to compensate for their increased survivability and being able to deal high damage at the same time. For example, an Ekko might be able to hop into the thick of a fight, but getting away might be a different story due to using his only escape to get into the thick of the fight, and the champions he was after would have a better chance to actually get away rather than him being able to stick to them like glue. Most tanks move slowly and are built to move slowly, because they're tanks, and I'm pretty sure that was your general idea behind tanks, so if for example, a Fizz wants to play as a tank, he should be limited to the same penalty of slow movement as the rest of them, though instead of losing his gapclosing abilities, he loses out on base move speed instead. Once he hops in, he's forced to commit.

In closing, I think the worst this could do is not OBLITERATE tanky assassins, but make them build more bruisery instead of full on tank so that they can't survive long enough to deal more damage than the entire team can to him. If anyone has any other possible thoughts or changes they'd like to make to this idea, feel free. Reducing actual damages could be one idea, but I felt like move speed made more sense and wouldn't cripple a champion for picking something that a champion wasn't made for to experiment or play around. There are a lot of champions that stick to you like glue and when building tanky lately there's nothing you can do to get them off you aside from get under a tower or back to base, so I think hitting their move speed, which we all know is a very valuable stat(and shouldn't make sense on a tank with gapclosers), would be a good idea. Akali might still be able to stick to you though, kinda curious why tank Ekko keeps getting nerfed but Akali's fine.

10 Comments

ModThe Djinn2 votes

{quoted}

  1. Give every champion a max weight value.

  2. Give every item a weight value, this will decrease the champion's movement speed by the weight of the item(obviously the champions' base move speeds would have to be altered).

This seems like an incredibly large amount of complexity and math to add to the game. It also just seems incredibly un-fun, as it completely removes the capability to build heavy defense on champions who might normally avoid doing so. That's a problem in my mind: yes, in the current environment tanky damage builds might be too prevalent, but that's not ALWAYS an issue, and this is a rather permanent and complicated solution to something that isn't always a problem.

This is especially true because slowing movement speed doesn't hurt many of the champions too much (Akali and Ekko especially are extremely sticky, and many champions with this sort of tanky build end up building Iceborn Gauntlet, Frozen Mallet, or Rylai's anyway). Those it DOES hurt it can effectively remove from play, as they can't catch ANYTHING. It also slows down the pace of the game as a whole as characters move slower, which doesn't seem like a desirable outcome.

You could attach a -X% damage dealt to certain tanky items, but that feels equally unenjoyable (although it benefits from comparative simplicity). Another option might be to scale items like Sunfire or Iceborn Gauntlet off of base health values, which might empower naturally tankier characters instead of assassins. I'm not sure base health has a wide enough range though: the solution of "base health over X value" would work really well, but also be really awkward to convey to the player (a shame, since "Base health over X-1500 by level" gives us a nice level 18 range of 145-915, so if Sunfire dealt, say, 6% of this value you'd get a range of 30-40 on more tanky champions, up to 55 on the most durable).

It's a tricky situation, definitely.

VoraciousX1 votes

It's really not that complex, it's basically move speed = base move speed + weight cap - weight. That's if you wanted it to be a possible buff to champions with less items, otherwise you could just make it check if their weight is over their weight cap, and if it is, then that same equation, otherwise it's normal.

As for the sticky champions still being as sticky. In a way this is true and in a way it isn't. Akali currently only has to build swifties to get in range of her ulti 98% of the time, Ekko still has to get in close, with a slower movespeed, he might not be able to make that warp to the enemy due to being too far away, and Akali may have a harder time actually getting in range of the ult to stick to you to begin with. I don't think it'd help too much on a tank Fizz either, as he wouldn't be able to get away once he used his troll pole. It doesn't COMPLETELY remove their ability to build heavy defense, it just penalizes them for going overboard(For example, an assassin or mage going full tank. They generally have plenty of escapes or gapclosers, this would just make it so those gapclosers weren't just there for extra damage. It'd also be extremely simple to adjust the numbers to fit a certain amount of defense on a champion that might be needed for special matchup situations, or if they just wanna go bruiser, or whatever. Just as far as I can tell, with no real trade offs an assassin going tanky will always be better than going full damage. And while League doesn't need to make sense, just look at Akali's arms, do you really think she could fit 3 pairs of armor, lol(Not actually using it as a point, really, it's just kinda funny to think about).

Kinda like the idea about the base health thing, but I was looking at stats, but health, and armor, at least on most tanks are very similar to Akali and Ekko. They have a tiny bit more, but they're pretty darn close. This is likely because they have armor increasing passives or some forms of HP regeneration. Even base armor wouldn't help since it's pretty close except for a few outliers who have passive increases on armor, or Sejuani who has like 57 armor at level 8 compared to Akali and Ekko with 46 and 44 respectively. The only other thing I can think of aside from my idea is to hit their base damage on their abilities and increase their scaling, but that'll just make them all completely item dependant in their normal builds and I personally don't like that. It adds more "do well in lane, and you deal excellent damage, die a time or two, and you'll never catch up".

Demon King Maou1 votes

Or just Delete all tanks and be like THE VOID CONSUMED THEM or something ridic like that XD but nah the guy who posted this thread has a pretty good idea

My Sea Cow1 votes

There's many ways to deal with those tanky champions...champions you can play or items you can build against. Yes they are annoying, especially at the first few levels, but with your own items, you can easily play against them and win lane

Icestar11861 votes

This would be very complicated and completely cripple off-meta builds. Riot is perfectly capable of fixing the game without introducing an entirely different stat into the mix.

VoraciousX1 votes

How would it CRIPPLE off meta builds? It would basically make it where Assassins COULD build full tank, but it would lower their movement speed significantly for each extra pure tank item. The weight cap could be adjusted easily if it were to even begin to hurt people who build semi-tank. A full tank Assassin would still have their good initiations, they just would have to play LIKE a tank, which is what they're building tanky for. All current tanks as far as I know don't have any ways to get up in your face, allowing them to be kited. I'm suggesting a similar effect for the assassins in the form of weakening their sticking power. Akali would have a harder time walking in range of her ulti with a full tank build and swifties, but once she did, she'd still be annoying or near impossible to get rid of, just like before, this would only make them actually act like a tank. I don't think it's very complicated at all either, it's 2 numbers, one being the maximum weight a champion can carry, and two being the weight of actual items. Movement speed is a very strong factor in the game, and tanks are generally the ones with the worst ways to get up in their face. In my mind this would just bring the ones building tanky back into that same position as an actual tank, requiring a bit more work to get their sticking power, but it still won't ever be as difficult as an actual tank to get up in someone's face. They just will HAVE to commit after they do, with their escapes being blown they won't be able to just speed off into the sunset after they wreck one or two people's faces and have low health. Or they could just decrease base stats on abilities of all champions that can build tanky and increase their ratios, but then that would force assassins to become even more item reliant than they already are. I just have only seen them do this to ONE champion in particular that uses a tanky build so far.

Icestar11861 votes

You're basically saying, "You can do this, but your movement speed is guaranteed to be lower than theirs so it will be impossible to stick to them and do damage."

VoraciousX1 votes

Not impossible. While assassins equipping FULL DEFENSIVE gear would make them have slower move speed, 90% of them have sticking power in their kits AND their movement. The current tanks make things hard for them to get to their target to deal their impressive damage, and they can be kited but can take hits, why should an assassin playing like a tank not have to make a similar tradeoff? For example Akali has amazing sticking power, put some swifties on her and there's no way you're getting away unless you're tanky as heck too, or right beside your tower(and if you're behind even your turret won't always save you). This would just make it harder for her to ACHIEVE that sticking power, she'd still have it once she actually got in range. It'd just take a little longer for her to achieve that range, so you might actually have a chance to get to a safe place if she's chasing you from a short distance and you're behind a little bit/can't fight her at that time alone. The assassins being played that are tanky have initiation tools/gapclosers, this would just be slightly tuning those to be a bit harder to use instead of being available all the time. I honestly don't see it being a huge disadvantage to Akali anyways, since if you can attack her, she can already ult you anyways. Unless you're maybe Zed or something with really long range. It might make her chases a bit longer and allow her to be collapsed on if nothing's going on elsewhere, but that's probably about it.

Icestar11861 votes

Frankly, I still think that reducing base damage and making up for it in small scaling increases would be a better solution. If your normally damaging abilities don't do as much damage as someone like Vi (for example), and a Vi would be just as good at chasing and autoattacking, you no longer have a reason to pick that build/champion over Vi.

VoraciousX1 votes

Reducing base damage and increasing ratios is another option, but honestly if everyone becomes item dependant it's gonna be the end of the game for whoever doesn't get ahead. Feast or famine can suck in some ways. Although Vi is a bruiser, of course she's gonna do more damage than someone playing pure tank, and you can kill her a lot easier too. The thing with the tanky assassins is they don't have to do much damage with their abilities because they can use them constantly and the sunfire cape helps them with a lot of sustained damage. They almost always do more damage than they receive by anyone. I'm not trying to push this idea super hard, btw, it's just an idea, but I do like to defend it when people think it's just going to nuke the option of even building tanky at all. Honestly it could reduce your movement speed by 10 if they wanted it to, just depending on what numbers they'd put for the weight on the items. I honestly think it should be around 40 for a full tank build on an assassin, that way swifties might not be overpowered on them and they might also not be underpowered because of the passive and they'd still give about 20 move speed.

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