Tips for Initiating Fights and Ganks as a Tank

V Khat·10/12/2015, 11:44:25 PM·1 votes·756 views

I got a huge problem when playing tanks, which is why I avoid them, my issue is that when I initiate a fight, my team runs away from me. I'm not sure what to do. Like I tower dive, at a low health enemy champion that wasted summoners just to find out that my team didn't felt like diving. Or initiate a teamfight and my team runs away from me and I'm left 1v5 and right after I'm dead they got 4v5.

So is there a secret? Should I just force a squishie champion initiate so I can initiate later on and make sure my team won't just run away fro me?

2 Comments

thebigjames10/13/2015, 12:06:02 AM2 votes

I play a lot of tanks. Love the champs. The answer to good engages can depend on the situation. Some tanks go in then just run at the carry (Malphite), some engage then peel (Maokai). If you're supporting as a tank then you shouldn't be the engage, you're the peels.

As for the team not backing you up, do you communicate with them before hand? I tend to tell them the plan of attack in terms of priorities and use the "assist me" ping 3 times before I make my move. Usually, if they don't back you up it's because they don't really have a sense of what's happening.

As for the second question. No. You're the tanky one. It's your job to take the damage, not the squishy person who has more damage.

Don't get discouraged. :)

Pelkrock10/13/2015, 4:32:59 PM1 votes

One thing people forget is that you don't always have to blow your CC to engage at the start or even to disengage. When you're Malphite or Mao or even Shen. You have a zone of control you exert on the enemy team when you have your CC up. Nobody wants to get engaged on by a taunt or Malp ult. Most of the time the threat is enough to get people to react. You can use this to your advantage in a lot of ways. The threat of your engage can keep them off dragon or baron without having to use it. Timing is everything when you're the tanky engager make sure when you do start the fight your team is in a place where they can react and you're not just jumping into the middle of the team to get bursted down.

Also this threat or zone of control can work to help you in many ways. A good example is Blitz bot lane, Nobody wants to get grabbed by him early on. So he exerts a pretty strong threat on the ADC especially. When he uses his move speed boost and runs at you, most people run away. So how do you use this threat to your advantage? Well you can deny the ADC a good amount of gold while never landing a grab in this way. The Cannon Minion is worth 40 some odd gold, If you can threaten the ADC as he is trying to last hit this minion and force him to give it up even if you don't land your grab or even throw it you can stop him from gaining that. Do that 3 times and you have denied him almost half a kill's worth of gold. There are a lot of good video's on this and understanding Zones of Control that can help you get a lot better as a tank or an ADC. You should look into it if you want to get better. Good luck out there!