How Tank Meta Ruined The Tank Class FOREVER | League of Legends

Throughout League's extensive 13+ year history, metas came and went every season. Some however managed to leave a lasting impact on the game ever since. One of which, the Tank Meta spanning seasons 5-7, quite possibly may have crippled the Tank class forever, permanently barring them from ever rising to prominence. Today we'll be discussing the meta that was so pervasive, it may have ruined Tanks for the rest of their career.
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#LoL #History #Tank

[@Thund3rDrag0n12]

Tanks in League aren't even allowed to be true tanks anymore. League has been pumped with so much damage and power creep that the second you have any sort of defense backing it up you instantly become overbearing. Even a champion like K'Sante whose HP and resistances get neutered in order to access his full damage was broken on release purely because he had tank stats backing up damage

[@dankmemes8254]

Now that I think about it your average modern tank would be considered a bruiser by older seasons standards

[@amaterasu3325]

The problem is that walking vats of HP aren't really good enough now, so they have to give tanks damage to force people to deal with them or die. Then you end up with champs like Zac removing you from the game for 2.5 seconds and then killing you in the next 1 second you get to play the game. I have no idea why the majority of tanks damage is burst damage most of the time when its clear that the class should have to be in the fight long enough to deal sustained damage over time (like the items such as sunfire).

[@alexrowe7063]

I'm guessing your definition of being a "true tank" is engaging 1 v 5 tanking everything and walking away unscathed after killing the adc. God forbid people can keep them in check with tank busting items.

[@usarhabilidade2697]

​​@@amaterasu3325 i agree and think is probably because everything in this game is kinda becoming sustained burst damage For example yu-gi-oh, the power Scaling of that game got out of control and now a very Basic deck in the first turn can put 3 negates In league in some point they started making more and more characters that can burst and stay fighting for them to be better than the olders And the newer characters need better than the older one so they burst more and do more sustained damage In this scheme tanks and Adc are bad, because tanks can't survive long enough to start dealing damage and the adc who was supposed to have low health becomes dust So they give damage and armor to tanks so they can survive But it need to keep scaling, so they give true damage and % health for newer characters to kill faster tanks And adc becomes even more dust...

[@dankmemes8254]

@@alexrowe7063 a tank is supposed to sponge a healthy amount of damage the trade-off is he won't be able to deal a fraction of damage he sponges he does a bit damage but nothing to impressive atm tanks are not even tanking they out right deals a decent damage if not out right 1 shot you

[@HappyGick]

I think Riot should just risk it and make tank items only useful if you're already building tank, e. g. they give small percentages of bonus resistances, or have stat minimums to activate their passives. Jak'Sho in particular should require you to stack armor and MR. I'm pretty sick of seeing Jak'Sho Irelia smashing teams while being unkillable. They can go a step further and move base damage into scalings for non tanks so they have to build damage to be effective.

[@espio329]

it's weird how they didnt given how some champs like diana, jax, irelia can just rush jaksho and go their normal build path and be nigh unkillable while still retaining their damage output and it has happened in the past as well.

[@Underworlder5]

"They can go a step further and move base damage into scalings for nok tanks so they have to build damage to be effective." that exact thing happened with ekko. at launch, his base damage was so high a full tank build was actually better than the expected AP build. the base damage was nerfed so ekko players were forced to build AP

[@xolotltolox7626]

​@@Underworlder5 And now ekko does way too much damage lategame bc of how insane his scaling is Also why the fuck is his ulti a damage nuke

[@Jazehiah]

Something like how Warmog's passive only works if you have enough bonus health, or how Infinity Edge is only useful if you're already building crit chance. Seems pretty straightforward.

[@Underworlder5]

@@Jazehiah honestly, warmogs is a bit flawed in that regard. IIRC the passive triggers at 1100 bonus HP, and warmogs gives 800. the passive counts warmogs, so you can still trigger the passive while having warmogs as your only tank item. soraka loves building it in ARAM and she goes pure enchanter otherwise

[@XTr3m3b4sh]

14:22 Marksmen Item Changes have the same issue. If Crit gets buffed, then Yasuo, Yone, Yi, Trynda, Rengar, Shaco and especially Gankplank also get buffed. I wish they would just nerf Crit Items for Meele champions...

[@kevingriffith6011]

It's not pretty, but it sounds like the only solution is to change each individual marksman to either get more out of crit items or require less crit themselves through things like on-hits.

[@hileutewie]

@@kevingriffith6011 They could just give different values for melee and ranged champions like they do with the tiamat items or botrk already. Or you know, maybe not release privileged champions like Yone.

[@soulstalker4624]

Just remove crits on melee champs, specially Yone and Yasuo, crits from the beginning where supposed to be for Marksmen, not assassins.

[@shacolin6546]

I mean, we don't need marksmen to have even more privileges than they already have.

[@soulstalker4624]

@@shacolin6546 What's that? A Marksmen is breathing? It's time for the whole team to focus him down and don't get him play the game because he can die from the single scratch of a 0/17 Yasuo.

[@TOOTHBRUSHDUCK]

I often maintain, tank meta was one of the least bad metas league has actually had, with every recent meta being absolutely miserable. Also, virtually every time there are issues with 'tanks', it's in fact fighters, skirmishers, or others abusing their items, because of the way league does scalings and the incredibly low time to kills everywhere now

[@alexrowe7063]

Tank players trying to deflect from their past crimes as usual.

[@rivy-lurk-869]

@@alexrowe7063 Assassin mains deflecting everything in order for everyone to forget they exist and can go under the nerf radar

[@ekkusu9493]

And you're wrong, possibly mentally behind.

[@alexrowe7063]

@@rivy-lurk-869 I don't play assassins, any juiced up kat mains can go fck themselves.

[@Thund3rDrag0n12]

​@@alexrowe7063ADC/mid mains trying to explain why they should be able to 1v1 a tank

[@WyWinner30]

1:20 A quick correction: Heartsteel hasn't actually gotten nerfs. It has in ARAM but that's because you're getting 5 procs every time the item is off cooldown and you were seeing every hearsteel champion have 10khp by 20 minutes. But in normal SR, the item is still in it's original state (bar a few bug fixes) Riot specifically stated that heartsteel feels good but isn't actually good. It's sort of a noob trap item that is built solely because of the satisfying SFX on the item proc. Radiant Virtue on the other hand was sleeper op and has and is still receiving nerfs and as such would have been a better example for a tank meta getting shut down early again. It never gained much traction cus its a supportive tank mythic but after its hotfix buff in 12.22 you and your teammates would actually be unkillable when you ulted.

[@einjharrelraca]

dont worry about jak'sho anymore. they like that tank item being broken because bruisers are abusing it more than tanks :D. they just gave it a nice placebo nerf to seem like they did something.

[@Soft__lemons]

@@einjharrelraca wdym placebo nerf lol. They hard nerfed it for bruisers and non tanks building it because the resistance scaling now scales off additional resistances from items so you are forced to go full tank building it

[@daboss4318]

@@einjharrelraca Resistances from current jacksho even old jacksho at 300 bonus armor\mr, do you think bruisers build that much resistances or you just dont know math?Current jacksho is weak, offering you zero waveclear sticking power and utility, pure resistances with fraction of hp, the healing on 8 stacks is cool, but its disgustingly inconsistent, some random liandry burn procs it, this should be an active

[@einjharrelraca]

@@daboss4318 oh too bad its a shame every bruiser abusing it is stacking it with bork for plenty of damage XD

[@einjharrelraca]

@@Soft__lemons go look at bruiser items and tell me thats a real nerf to them. The amount of random ass resistances thrown on bruiser items is beyond stupid

[@StayMad26]

The problem atm is the bruisers/fighters doing more damage than assassins, and healing and/or tanking more than tanks, while having true damage/health % in their kit and/or items.

[@usarhabilidade2697]

Forgot the obligatory 2-3 dashes with some passive to make it more powerfull

[@fanlou18_35]

Irelia be like

[@einjharrelraca]

@@usarhabilidade2697 dont forget the immunity to everything for a completeing a simple task and 16 random ms steroids for doing nothing :D

[@Terrordragonfly]

@@einjharrelraca Don't forget getting disproportionally rewarded for doing the bare minimum task of not breaking every single bone in your hand when using a single skill

[@minhducnguyen9276]

Yeah. The problem with tank meta is if you play tanks you buy tank items, if you don't play tanks you still buy tank items.

[@JagorM]

Id rather have a perma tank meta than be oneshot by akali when i have force of nature and 3k health.

[@jonnymario771]

What about a 3k health force of nature akali one shotting you? xD

[@Ffoo_ffighter]

That's why this comment section is so stupid. Assassin's made tanks useless but they don't say anything about that

[@KirkjaGrobbi]

Wild suggestion: tank mythics should give armor and mr scaling with base and level based armor and MR, instead of flat armor and MR, making them tank champion specific items so that tanks can actually have fun whilst avoiding metas where they become overpowered on non tank champions as a one item tank dip.

[@shacolin6546]

That won't work. It doesn't matter how tanky tanks get. There's just too much tank busting around and too much healing and shielding on DPS champions to the point the later will still be harder to kill in practice. There needs to be less healing and shielding in the game in general, but particularly for marksmen and skirmishers, as well as a good trim on % health, true damage and penetration across champions and itens alike.

[@omegaminoseer4539]

@@shacolin6546 You want less heal and shield power with MORE Durability? There was a patch for that last year; too bad it was effectively reverted.

[@rango_ch]

what if there was a summoner spell akin to smite (the ability should be tank specific not just another true damage spell) that will allow tanks to buy specific tank items, probably a mess all around but if that was the only way for jungle only items to exist without being abused by other lanes then it could be the only way to find any sort of balance within each class.

[@KirkjaGrobbi]

@@rango_ch teleport like god intended

[@v1c341]

The problems is that Tank champions also got overpowered, the fact that Assasins and Fighters also building tank items was just the final prove of how broken being tank was.

[@alexanderdejesus4986]

Learning how to play League during the tank meta really shows you how much the game has changed from back then. I miss the stableness of games but I also do not miss the hour long games .

[@julsegs]

I agree. It's kinda conflicting tbh 😆

[@randomguy7854]

I miss playing enchanters back in the day, because teamfights were much longer you had a chance to do much more with your champion and had to decide who to give for ex. shield and at what moment. Now you just need to press your spells the second someone gets caught or they instantly get deleted, and it feels like no matter how good you play it still depends 100% on your teammates whether you win or lose

[@0ctopusComp1etely]

Hard agree. As someone who typically doesn't play "Big Moment" champions, I liked the more constant, prolonged interactions cause it meant that I could still get out of situations I wouldn't dream of surviving today, and could meaningfully contribute to teammates in timeframes that actually mattered. I also don't miss the hour long games though 😆

[@voidjelly]

yeah i miss games being a lot less high speed (maybe a little biased as an s4 veigar lol) but i also remember getting more leaver bans bc i had to leave the 20-30+ games more often, (not even ranked) which sucked

[@PedroAce]

Could not have said this better myself. Wellput

[@Keln02]

Thing with tanks, is that their kit doesn't give them enough or any tankiness. The ones that do (Malph, Ornn,...) work pretty ok. To compensate, items have to be "loaded", which means that bruisers can easily dip into tank items if they need more survivability. There is little incentive to be a tank.

[@russeshe001]

Agreed. This is a failing of how dependent the game is on the item system as a whole for character progression. They need to do more than just tweak the items if they can't find a way for the intended users to benefit more than their more violent neighbors.

[@Tiagocf2]

Also the tanks that DO have good tankiness overperforms, like Maokai

[@intoHeck1964]

My thoughts on the tank meta was that it wasnt tanks that were the issue, it was the other champs like ekko, fizz, talon, and ezreal that were abusing tank items. Tanks were at least slow and mostly immobile so you COULD kill them. The others were so mobile and still doing good damage but you just could never control them

[@tryharderpls]

Nah ur deff wrong, people building full tank items still doing alot of damage is the problem

[@claytonsimper5170]

@@tryharderpls did you not really read what they wrote? Those champs are the issue because they have such a high mobility and base damage in their kits that they BENEFIT from building outside of their role because how strong they are already base stat wise

[@snowflake340]

And lets not forget viktor top with gauntlet

[@TehNoobiness]

This, this, a thousand times this. The problem with Tank Meta is that Riot thinks they can make tanks viable by adding items that anybody can build, including assassins (who keep getting survivability buffs even though their class is defined by squishiness and needing to escape after their burst is done)

[@itchyballsl]

when ppl say tank meta its acually bruisers who build tank items been unkillable and oneshoting everyone and riot make the same mistake allowing bruisers building tank items for like 3 years now

[@volcanicviper5984]

what i find interesting is noticing hows there been a lack tank champ released in the past 4 years. ornn in 2017, rell in 2020, and ksante 2022 (but i think most people would be hardpressed to consider him a tank)

[@geoDB.]

KSante feels more pike a fighter. Losing all your resists for fiora damage? Not my forte

[@mal9369]

I miss tank meta, lowkey. I think the game was more fun when it was slower. Now you get someone leaving the second first blood happens, so the game is over 5 minutes in

[@PerfectZeroMusic_]

Idk maybe it would be x3 worse if it happened today. Remember that the whole game moves at breakneck speed today, with champs getting 2+ dashes and junglers rushing to complete their first clear so they can perma gank one lane (usually bot)

[@jeromepickles2498]

I will take a tank meta any day over assassin cancer oneshotting the full build tank with one rotation and everyone else with one ability and draktar resets or mages shredding me even by having a fully stacked FoN with 25% damage reduction

[@Ffoo_ffighter]

This. These idiots in this comment section don't realize how other classes are so much stronger. Full tank means nothing late game.

[@DarkePacific]

@@Ffoo_ffighter Right? Full tank used to mean you'd have a power spike window from 20-40m, up until their ADC or Mage finally built their 5th or 6th item which usually involved some sort of pen or % shred. Now carries get these effects as their 2nd or 3rd, and you're basically forced to build damage after that as there's not much that will make you tankier, meaning the tank power spike lasts for maybe 10 minutes at most.

[@defenderofdemocracy2231]

The fights are a little longer and more interesting.

[@geoDB.]

FoN was gutted. No more 25% Dr, now it grants 30 MR

[@StayMad26]

Giving item passives a requirment, like having to have a certain about of honus health/armour/mr or even belowe a certain amount of ad/ap could be a way to buff tanks, without assassins and fighters using the items too well.

[@Underworlder5]

warmog and IE already do that (need a certain amount of bonus HP/crit chance before passive can trigger). deathcap also somewhat has it (the passive is better the more AP you stack). i would not mind seeing more items following that rule

[@xolotltolox7626]

​@@Underworlder5 Deathcap is a bad example because it is already almost 100% gold efficient by itself

[@PerfectZeroMusic_]

@@Underworlder5 Idk about IE but warmog's limiter on the passive is basically nonexistent. All you need to activate it is a second item that gives 300 hp minimum and there are sooo many bruiser items that can do that. So you could go with 1 bruiser item, warmog's and then build whatever while being really healthy and having lots of options instead of being limited to going tank (which imo should be the case if you have bought warmog's of all things)

[@Underworlder5]

@@PerfectZeroMusic_ honestly, i agree on that one. 1000 bonus HP is surprisingly lenient considering it still counts warmog, an item designed for HP stacking. it even shows up in recommended builds for veigar and soraka in ARAM, since some mage and support items give HP in packs of 200 or 300

[@einjharrelraca]

that would work, until you look and see how much free tank stats are just crammed into bruiser and assassin items. for the longest time edge of knight gave more hp than tank mythics. Bruisers easily break 4k hp 250 armor and 175 mr with their core builds and hillariously inflated stats. i mean seriously, look at the random ass resistances and hps just throw at those roles. deaths dance - armor hullbreaker - shit tons of armor mr and hp It gives the same stats as fucking tank mythics but with damage. edge of knight - gives hp for some ungodly reason Pair in with items like witts end, GA and maw and yeah. assassins/bruisers are better tanks than tanks.

[@Alexutzu200973]

I genuinely believe that LOL needs a special champion-item interaction/relationship to prevent champions that were not meant to use specific items to abuse them, through this I mean that buffs or nerfs to activate on a champion if it builds some specific build.

[@kevingriffith6011]

Honestly it sounds like the key is to give everyone more base/level up stats and nerf the stats you get from all items across the board. Naturally the price for this is more "interesting" builds for champions, so you'd get a ton of pushback on that.

[@johnmorrell3187]

Yeah this would fix one issue at the cost of removing any chance for fun and creative builds.

[@Alexutzu200973]

I did not mean that such a system would be used for nerfs only, one harsh truth is that champs have diff skills and there will be those who can abuse some items more than others. Through the mentioned system, i mean more like a final solution for specific champs to not ruin the game for entire classes.

[@thee-sportspantheon330]

Ah yes my fun and creative mage build and my fun and creative adc builds. I definitely am not building the same three item every game.

[@alejandropetit6573]

That could be great, but ot would kill off meta builds so idk...

[@Ichorizor]

I find it frustrating that Tanks are so punished thanks to old metas, yet Riot seems to ingore old metas for other roles. I won't get over Enchanter meta (Ardent Censor), but Riot keeps forgetting that Enchanters are very strong and makes continual mistakes like with Yuumi.

[@chargoal_games]

Well there is another solution, that you didn't present - nerfing tank busting items, though not by a lot preferably so they would still be relevant and tanks wouldn't be OP. Giving tanks more damage to make them on the same ground as carries is like throwing away the concept of tanks and making everyone carries.

[@Bigfunnyhah]

One day Physical Assassins won't be able to kill my 500+ armor tanks in less than 2.5 seconds :D Miss the old days back when that wasn't the case

[@benjaminfletcher6279]

So essentially the problem is how much tank busting there is now. Surpriiiiiise

[@honorablegigachad6946]

Agreed, I've said it before and I will keep saying it: the shop rework was the single worst change league has ever introduced. It introduced way too much healing (eclipse and immortal shieldbow), mobility (galeforce and stridebreaker) and anti-tank options (seryldas, riftmaker, divine, kraken).

[@opughdyang8264]

My face when Dr.Mundo has more AD than my ADC when both have three item but Mundo has Heartsteel...

[@kosu9516]

Well Mundo is not classified as a tank and he is meant to deal damage since he has no CC or peel potential.

[@Doublejho]

mundo doesn't have attack speed, crit or even AD scalings to back that AD up though, it's literally only useful for his autos and significantly less so than a marksman or slayer

[@Aaron-cs3xl]

Dr. Mundo is functionally a bruiser though. They should be hitting hard in melee range.

[@moanguspickard249]

​@@Aaron-cs3xl snould they also be 5k hp or more? No. Either decrease his tankiness or his dmg.

[@iloveknife8798]

@@moanguspickard249 His tankiness lies in his titanic ammount of hp though

[@ryankosack2249]

This was a great watch. Thanks for taking us back in time!

[@LordKeram]

About the % health additions and true damage additions. I feel like this broke tanks more than any other change. If you are a tank now it doesn't matter that you have 6 items 5k hp and 200 resistances. If you meet any season 10+ champ they usually have some sort of dmg steroid that makes you die in 3 seconds anyway.

[@Vaestus]

Sure wish you would show me these characters, because from my experience the only counter play to a tank is in items, which dont do anything. the only counter to a tank is the person playing it. You have zero agency against them, and your only hope is that they are boosted by the class and int.

[@alexc3231]

@@Vaestus kaisa sett gwen viego nilah (armor pen + lifesteal) ksante belveth kindred illaoi lillia mordekaiser rework

[@Vaestus]

@@alexc3231 Pretty much all of these are jokes aside from the ones that abuse Botrk, the only item that still does damage to tanks that they cant just build FoN or Thornmail/Randuins against. The reality is tank items are too strong for legit anyone to fight. Either you shut them down before they get items or you lose all chance of interacting with them unless your character is one of the best innate tank shredders. Tank players just legit deserve nothing, and if their role is never playable again then so be it, because its obvious no game knows how to make tanks. Theres no balance in characters that can solely build defensive items and dont have to give up on doing damage.

[@RedXon4]

​@@Vaestus you're zed main right?

[@Vaestus]

@@RedXon4 HAHA damn, howd you know? Gosh that is just shocking. That wouldve been crazy if you anywhere close on that guess. Go sit in the corner you loser until you can explain how Force of Nature being able to give 90MR on top of 25% total magic damage negation is anything other than hilariously awful and disgusting levels of value despite being a single non-mythic item. Its not like that was just for a single patch either, it lasted nearly 2 seasons like that and more or less kept the tank busting battle mages completely out of viability for 2 years because tanks and bruisers could build one item and ignore your existence. But nah Im just a zed main apparently. Tanks, buisers, and their items totally arent given the world and have no previous history of defining metas even in recent history. Sunfire would never. Nor would Chemtank. What about bruisers? Surely Goredrinker, Stridebreaker, and Divine Sunderer have never became so busted even non bruisers abused it and singlehandedly controlled metas until they get giga nerfed.

[@FelipeDermann]

Maybe just have tank items have a drawback that decreases the user's damage by a percentage so that tanks actually have to give up damage for durability. Also implement defensive scalings for effects like Jak' Sho so that you actually need to build a lot of health/resistances in order to bring out the full power of the these items while also preventing other classes from exploiting these effects for themselves.

[@deathmastersnikch4365]

What about giving tanks more ways to mittigate damage for their team instead of giving them damage? F.i. damage sharing aura, cc-actives (like mages got), spellshield you can put on allies instead of yourself. There is loads of options.

[@realiascailt]

You will pretty much have the current MSI meta. Lots of supportive tanks on top lane, mid lane and an hyper adc

[@hello-gx6oi]

Yes just like Dota 2 items

[@maddox9511]

And now tanks literally get shredded by all this true damage, kraken slayer, BORTK etc. I love leaving lane as a tank who hard won lane and being absolutely useless against their bot and mid lane.

[@Ffoo_ffighter]

Exactly. Stacking armor does nothing. Not sure what these idiots are talking about.

[@Arob4343]

Yeah I kinda prefer the stability of a tank meta too. I feel like the tank busting items would make those old tank items/stars ok

[@hileutewie]

The new items and runes have powercrept the game to such insane levels it's crazy. Runes healing for thousands of damage, no problem. Items that do 2k damage in a fight? No problem with that apparently. The list goes on and on and at this point I don't see the game returning to a state where there isn't as much damage as there is right now. I still believe that S4 was the peak of league of legends gameplay wise. Just watching older pro matches where outplays are actually a thing and less off a stat check or "who gets the oneshot first"... I know nostalgia is a thing and we've had broken BS even in the old days, frankly the game is a lot more balanced today when it ever was, but it is certainly not nearly as fun as it used to be.

[@Terrordragonfly]

I feel this. Just had a game where a 3/4/4 Fiora got out of her game while having healed for more then 50% of her damage dealt because she abused grasp her passive and sunderer and can still go around and basically oneshot everyone with true damage. And the first item I built against her was bramble. So I don't even wanna imagine how much she would've healed if I hadn't....

[@AofCastle]

I miss being unkillable with Singed. Back in Season 6 I could buy a RoA and laugh as people try to kill me and waste time doing so. I would rarely kill anyone, I was just there to be annoying, but now that's not a viable strategy because if I get caught I die. In this specific case, the change they made to his passive is a big factor, as he used to convert AP into HP

[@TheOnlyFluky]

Trip down to old memories, nice video!

[@karsonkammerzell6955]

Don't forget that Ornn only got to that point because on release most had no idea what to do with him and his winrate was complete garbage. So Riot buffed him. Then buffed him again. Then again. Then people played him, realized how busted he was just in his ORIGINAL form, realized he was bonkers busted in his BUFFED form, then Riot had to swing the pendulum giga hard the other direction. There's a reason later champion releases saw people dread or wait for the 'Ornn effect'. It's what happened to K'Sante.

[@gameendme7936]

People will complain but many will never have to experience what you described here, good video.

[@einjharrelraca]

i did. and the last 6 years of bruisers and assassins being the only classes that matter is worse. nothing like going 44/3 as syndra mid and the 0/16 irelia with merc treads and a recurve bow now instant kills me from 8 screens away.

[@alikoussah3353]

ill never hate a meta as much as I did tank meta, it was either play a tank or lose the game in top lane.

[@serbiagamingiscool515]

@@einjharrelraca thats on you, if you played it better you wouldn't lose. Syndra is also a more of a high elo champion, so do note that

[@einjharrelraca]

@SerbiagamingIsCool this was in d1 elo bro. XD and not even close. she tanks entire kits because riot has beyond inflated all bruisers stats into the stratosphere.

[@einjharrelraca]

@@alikoussah3353 you mean play tank ekko or tank talon or tank diana? XD because that was what actually happened during the "tank" meta.

[@Hymn645]

I think that the new guy Kasante is the way to go, along with ornn, they actually have tank scaling in their kits. They need to make tanks abilities scale off of tank stats class wide with maybe the exception of the support tanks, their items already provide a lot of utility that you can make as much use of unless you are permanently playing with another teammate, the biggest issue with them is how important prio is in the first few levels and they need their abilities to do anything meaning their opponents will probably reach level 2 and 3 before them barring they get caught with a hook from one of the hook champions but even then they still typically want to wait until at least level 2 to do anything, thresh wants hook and flay, blitz wants hook and knock up, naughtilus is ok because of his passive root but still is way stronger with his shield giving him bonus damage. Adcs have some of the strongest level ones in the game because they can continue to auto while most champs just hit one button and then stand their like an idiot and with how much prio matters I think this level 1 strength is why we saw marksmen supports in pro play in my opinion. The problem with tanks is since most have no or little inherent scaling off of tank stats the items for tanks need to be way stronger than for any other class because the tanks themselves can’t make use of the stats tank items give with their kits. Imagine for a second that every single Ad champion in the game had a grand total of 0% ad scaling outside of their autos, you would see mages building ad every game. Let’s use Gragas as an example, look at his W, he takes x% reduced damage for 3? Seconds , that % scales with AP not health, armor or mr, his only built in scaling with tank stats is with his passive healing him a % of his max health but he has 4 abilities with ratios that scale off of ap so why shouldn’t he build ap? You wouldn’t do this with any other champion that scales off of more than just one type of damage, let’s just look at rengar, while sure some Smurf could probably pull of AP rengar but he just scales too well with AD instead of AP to ever consider going AP, that’s the opposite of how tanks are, they don’t have enough built in scaling off of tank stats to make it worth while to build tank items. This makes it so that if you buff tank items enough that tanks are just as strong as other champions, other champions, especially those with high base damage like tanks have, are going to be just as strong with said tank items as the tanks themselves. They just need to rework every tank in the game so that their abilities scale off of HP, MR and armor not ap or ad and the problem is solved to a point where you just need to tweak numbers to bring all the tanks to a 48-52% win rate.

[@dla749]

Kassadin was also kind of like a 200 years champion. He had used to also get attack speed from taking damage, a 50% mama refund on hitting champions with his ult, mana steal, and some other things Inforgot

[@ryankasch5561]

I liked tank meta. Ornns release was definitely the beginning of the end for me playing league at any amount of consistency. Perhaps it's that I started during preseason 5, but after the end of tank meta the game felt different, with so much more one shotting that I didn't have the patience for. Oh well, still have fond memories of minute long duels of poppy with frozen fist and Sunfire versus Ekko with the same

[@adamconner9302]

While I do still play occasionally, I completely agree with you. Those minute + solo 'wet noodle' fights and 30+ second team fights were not only really fun, but offered so much more opportunity for skill expression. When I do play nowadays I really only like playing the high sustain brawlers like a warwick or olaf because they still have a bit of that feel of the old school fights

[@Vaestus]

@@adamconner9302 this is all some elaborate joke that im just too heated to understand right

[@adamconner9302]

@@Vaestus If you get heated about a comment about a game... well you are probably a League player lol

[@Vaestus]

@@adamconner9302 hey not my fault that the comment screams parental abuse. Dont get me wrong I hate being bursted without being able to play, but who saw tank meta and thought "oh wow, such skill expression!" It was a noodle fight determined solely by who had the better champ for extended fights. There was no skill, it was whose character used the items better and who had the better long fighter. The answer is a middle ground not a tank meta not an assassin meta

[@adamconner9302]

@@Vaestus See, this comment, this is exactly what's wrong with league. You think your opinion matters, but it doesn't doesn't. Not outside your own mind. Now on to something that actually matters, coffee time.

[@TheDjpwn3]

Season 5 was my formative season, so for a while after tank meta wore off I would always get caught off guard by champions like Gragas and Rek'Sai building full damage and nuking people

[@Nazuiko]

Well Reksai was reworked into an assassin, but yeah Gragas AP still feels like a weird off meta gimmick rather than an intended build path. But because he has so much skill reliance with Q and R being the main value of going AP, Riot doesnt mind him staying that way instead of trashing his ratios and base health while giving him more defensive scaling

[@DamonDraven]

@@Nazuiko The problem with Gragas is that he _looks_ like a tank. Looks are very important.

[@justascarecrow6988]

Same bro. It hurts to play a tank nowadays and having to watch out just as much as a carry to not get nuked. You are afforded 1 extra ability rotation, but you still get nuked. I remember laughing all the way to the bank as Sion, just walking through an enemy team undisturbed because focusing me was stupid and ignoring me got you q'd. Now i pop. Even after going full tank..

[@math693]

make items in categories scale off of each other. Make tanks deal less damage but have more base defenses and early sustain to not be squeesed out of lane. Make their cc abilities significantly stronger than cc abilites of other classes, so there is a reason to want them in a comp and to not ignore them in fights. Take away max hp % dmg and true dmg from all champion kits. Make it only available trough items and make those items have weak base stats, so there is a tradeoff to picking them up and have one person on the team be a designated tank killer.

[@inhhuytran219]

Take away max hp % dmg and true dmg from all champion kits. Make it only available trough items and make those items have weak base stats, so there is a tradeoff to picking them up and have one person on the team be a designated tank killer. => I disagree. Items like Sunderer , BotR are the problems that why tank is weak. Only few champions like ASol, Udyr ,...is busted for their max hp% dmg kit. Camille, Sett, Irelia,Aatrox is busted because of the items, not their kits.

[@Ghosta085]

No one will want to play tanks if they do absolutely nothing but are meat walls though. You have to be able to do some semblance of damage or jax will literally ignore you on split push and smack towers for an hour and there’s nothing u can do to stop him since he has 9% life steal from botrk

[@moanguspickard249]

​@@Ghosta085 kill wave? LoL lost all its roles. Adcs should be only ones able to kill tanks, and the situation could be reversed ie. jax splits, tank cant kill him, or tank splits, jax cant kill him. Its balanced, and with demolish tank will do same dmg to tower. Adc are antitank Mages are aoe Assassins are melee one shots Supportes are utility and heal shield Tank are tank and cc Bruisers/skrimishers are bit off tank and assassin and mage butnot adc (ie they cant kill tanks).

[@DamonDraven]

@@moanguspickard249 If only it was that easy...

[@lowceyn2875]

About Season 13 items, Radiant Virtue might be the fastest tank item to be destroyed after 1 patch. I know people that doesn't even know that this item exists yet, still half of its kit got removed from the game💀💀

[@geoDB.]

FoN

[@falopa7666]

Great video as always Vars!, tbh i do play tanks in everything, but feels awful to do a lot of damage and not tank, sadly as you point out from how the game evolves in the last 5 years the dmg will only power creep the past seasons As a game designer myself i stopped playing League for this, the amount of dmg just feels like a hit or miss in most cases

[@arxzero1915]

I would love to be a true tank again. Take other games for example. Little damage and only cc abilities. I know its hard to balance them like that but I hate how the tank class works in league rn. You made me at least understand why its like that!

[@zileantimekeeper7464]

I know it will sound odd but take a game like wizard 101 where the tank school ice, has shields that it gives to everyone and keeps them safe as well as taunts to keep the enemies focused on you and not on the heavy hitters. It's damage is low but with all the defense it has it can stall you out

[@xarao]

play rell then, one of the weakest champs currently in lol, who's still awaiting her "2023 rework", they ruined a champ with one of the greatest personalities and lore.

[@pajurr9437]

The meta I am dreaming of is when in season 6, it was the hyper agressive junglers, Rek'Sai / Lee Sin / Elise, and you were wondering where and when they would gank in the first levels. Plus Rek'Sai tank doing 4/5 man bumps in late game. I feel like jungle meta since season 10 is only 2 or 3 champions, broken because of their stats or items, but not really for a game style. Making you just wait for a other champion to be buffed, the current one to be nerfed, instead of reworks in jungling or laning. I do not know if I am comprehensible, I hope so. But hey Riot said they understood the problems, so maybe in 2 years it will be better. But will I want to play League in 2 years ? Because nothing is happening since season 10 I feel like. Besides 2 more drakes. Yay. Anyway have a great day

[@frogenthusiast8089]

I think changing conditions so that tanks are the only thing that can TANK something would help. Like increasing turret and epic monster damage so that you need a tank available to soak damage for you team while making bruiser and assassins more dependent on their itemization to actually be effective so that the can't build psuedo-tank and still delete everyone else in 1 second. Maybe adding more tank items that have % scaling along with upping the natural tanks' resistance level scaling so that they naturally benefit from items that other champs (bruisers and assassins) would have to itemize pure tank to benefit from, which paired with and increased dependence on dmg items would hopefully stop the 'kills you in a second while building tank' problem.

[@danielbarnes1241]

My stance on tank in league is that league players have never played another game and it shows. Thier frame of reference of what a tank is is stuck in like 1999.

[@fenril6685]

The way I would balance it is to make the tank items more effective on the intended champions they are meant for and significantly less effective on those they are not intended for. I would suggest giving these items %bonus resistances and %bonus health rather than flat amounts, then go through and systematically tune bonus resistance and health growth on champions that should have it while nerfing it on other champions that shouldn't have it. They already do this with multiple other types of stats, % mana regen, % health regen, etc I don't know why they don't do it this way. Essentially I would suggest that AD/AP be the only primary stats that are awarded in flat values. For instance, Randuin's Omen would swap to something like +30% bonus base health and +60% bonus base armor. This would give comparable stat figures to what it offers now on a champion like Malphite at level 11 who would have 1556 health and 80 base armor at level 11. This would actually make the items scale a bit higher on Malphite towards level 18. However, it would nerf this item for ADCs who it is not meant to be built on. Take Ezreal for example, he would have 1495 health and 65 armor at level 11. This item's effectiveness is significantly worse on a champion like Ezreal than it is on a champion like Malphite just by changing the numbers in this manor (and they could probably be fine tuned a bit more to achieve desired effect). Damage passives on tank items/runes should be toned down IMO though. The other side not discussed here is 7k to 10k HP Dr. Mundo/Chogath/Amumu/Zac/Sion walking around and still ranking in top 2 or 3 damage dealers in the entire game. This is a regular occurrence this season not outlier games. I'm all for having tank items be effective at what they are intended to do but the damage procs on some of these items need to either be removed entirely or nerfed heavily, and runes too.

[@TehNoobiness]

Really, they should just nerf the items and give the tanks lategame stat buffs. The core of the problem is that Riot keeps trying to buff one class by buffing items that any class can build.

[@kraftyevan]

I know it would be experimental but, I still like the idea of adding new items that only are buyable for certain champion classes (tank, slayer, marksman, etc). Because then you can balance them more carefully and methodically. Since if you make an awesome on-hit item that gives some durability, if it's designed for ranged, Yi won't take it. And if you design a great tank item that helps against say, a turbo fed assassin, then an ADC can't build it.

[@ptlemon1101]

I get it but it's also a very dangerous idea: removes a lot of choice and fun builds.

[@lcook51]

L+Ratio

[@mandalorianmanic9525]

At least class-specific Mythics to dip into that idea without restricting the item shop. It would mean stuff like Prowler's Claw Sion goes away, but would we actually miss that?

[@Igor369]

@@ptlemon1101 Fun builds? Noone played sunfire ekko, jaksho jax or sunfire diana because they were fun.

[@moanguspickard249]

​@@ptlemon1101 how does it removes choice if all classes gonna build a busted item? If sunfire is broken, youd be a fool not to take it, wheres the choice? Choice to pick worse item? No one wants to do that. While it may not bring more "choice" it will stop busted builds

[@draculamedusa4081]

I just remember the times when Sunfire just because a mythic and u just hat 5 tanks in the enemy team standing around the baron, hitting it once, just dancing there and than the baron died that was terrifying but i enjoyed it

[@mundonger8426]

I started around season 5 and i am a tank lover in all games. Being a tank in League was really fun back then because you were an actual Tank. (yes too strong sometimes) But today i really feel like im not a tank at all even building tank items. Sometimes i melt in around 2-3 seconds while having 200+ resistence just because they have void staff or lord Dominics. And thats the problem i feel like they have to build at most 2 items to be able to do dmg. And i see that very often as a dmg dealer. I do little dmg until i build lord Dominics. And i didn't even start with yi and vayne. Both with basically true dmg without even building Kraken is just stupid in my eyes. you see this mostly in vayne builds where she can easily build wits end and Randuins Omen and dont habe to worry about doing significantly less dmg to almost everyone. And thats all because her dmg doesnt even scale with anything eccept the enemies max health. She and yi deal almost always 1/3 of their dmg as true dmg. And yes i always looked at the dmg on Champions. And thats an absurd amount because the only thing you can do to counter them is cc them full time or deal more dmg than them. Funny i get to that point. Once i got to around 1.1k stacs on Nasus and was pretty fed too and was shredded in no time by a yi that was 2 levels and 1 item down. So oneshot is the only hope (if they play decent) you can do to stop them from shredding everyone. Guess what tanks dont do, yes oneshot.

[@DamonDraven]

Yi's true damage is countered by high amounts of HP. Vayne's damage is a problem, it's uncounterable.

[@katalinacharoite479]

Hot take, I think there's way too much damage in the game right now, the TTK in league is ridiculously high. Possibly scale back the damage across the board, so tanks do less damage but simultaneously can actually tank because they're not getting blown up every second? That leaves the problem though of games lasting longer, but there's going to be a trade-off no matter what solution gets thrown down. Just a thought though, I'm a long time MOBA player in general and I'm only two or three years into league specifically

[@lilnoah3915]

Bro thinks a hot take is having the most common opinion ever that has been said 1 million times already

[@iszigo50]

The thing is the reason why you were building tank on certain champions was because it was the best complementing build for them. For Mundo you didn't scale with anything so you were going tank, Nasus had everscaling base damage, Garen had low mobility and so on. Tanks back them were champions who were discouraged to build dmg due to high base dmg or %dmg so they built tank to last and dish out. In my opinions tank items should be cheaper than dmg items but not allowing to much dmg. The idea is that if you build tank you can use it by agresive plays like tower diving and such but if you don't capitalise on your winnings you WILL fall off so the dmg dealers will close the game so it didn't turn into slap noodle contest.

[@PinkOrangeOrangePink]

25% bonus hp means that for every 100 bonus hp you buy, you gain 25. Its not 25% more total hp. Basically every 1-2 tank items you get an extra ruby crystal. it got nerfed to 15% later too.

[@ocek2744]

As someone who has played multiple MOBAs (I called them AoS's until the memory of it disappeared) and has been theorycrafting on them for *decades* (on the original playdota forums, RIP) the tank meta is a recurring issue in every major MOBA to date. It is fundamental to game design that low-risk, early-game dominance always has the ability to become too strong. They usually occur under the same conditions; #1. Cheaply available tank upgrades (heroes of the storm has this built in naturally with team experience) #2. Multiple lockdown abilities. #3. Sufficient damage for one or more tanks to pin and kill an enemy combatant. Tank metas are viable as a long-term meta, if you look at Heroes of the Storm, tanks have been part of the meta for years. (In fact Bruisers/Assassins/Supports have the most issues with balance.) The reason why League has this problem with Tanks is always going to be the same; itemization. Every time a cheaply available item comes into play for tanks, they will almost certainly exceed expectations. At this point it would almost be better for tanks to scale off their ally's progression instead of their own.

[@Ghosta085]

No way man no one is gonna play league if they are THAT reliant on other players to survive. At least no one is gonna play it competitively.

[@DarkePacific]

There are certain heroes you can pick in HotS that counter tanks however. And overall damage is much lower, meaning while tanks can be a menace there they are very unlikely to kill you in one full combo unless another hero follows up. The meta in HotS is just overall better than it is in league.

[@ocek2744]

@@DarkePacific Depends on the hero, Muradin can kill squishies, Diablo can stunlock squishies, Arthas can kill you if you're incapable of escaping, and Anub'arak has the ability to do it. League has tons of anti-tank heroes and items as well, which exploded in response to rising tank dominance and the advent of juggernauts. That said, the difference in HotS is not a tank's individual ability to kill a single hero; it's any heroe's ability to kill multiple heroes. In league it's not uncommon for a single hero to take out three enemies singlehandedly. That's just how powerscaling works in League. In heroes of the storm this is different, killing two heroes (solo) in HotS is a significant undertaking, and heroes that are capable of fighting 2v1 are generally significantly underpowered. (ex. Illidan, Butcher) In essence the balance in heroes of the storm is much, much tighter than it is in League, and this is probably because HotS heroes are tankier overall.

[@leoblue2002]

I think it would be intresting to see an Item system where there are no stats. The most intresting part about buying items is the unique passives they grant in the first place. Champions would be more role bound as they would need to have their scaleing come entirely from base stats. but I think the ability to balance the game would be enhanced.

[@ghibli5111]

That's new idea to me and sounds actually very good

[@BoneWalker]

So, more like dota2, where the real power is in the actives, and the stats are just "is nice".

[@SirCrusher]

Hey, that's dota

[@houndofculann1793]

@@BoneWalker most items in Dota2 definitely have significant stats in addition to their unique abilities but those abilities are often also much more significant in comparison to League. League just has no items that offers nothing else than a strong ability. Dota2 also doesn't have an AD/AP scaling system like League so most heroes have to make do with the stats they get from items and levels instead of their items boosting the effectiveness of their abilities directly by numbers. This makes all heroes with strong abilities way more important for their damage in the early game and have them scale in utility for late game without needing many items, while carries need to scale through stacking stats and damage through a lot of items. In League, all champs need a lot of items to scale and have importance throughout the game.

[@moanguspickard249]

​@@houndofculann1793 the issue is that in dota you rarely are full buil, ie. you will lack some stat, meanwhile in lol, a bruiser can buil 1 mr, 1 armor, 1 hp, bots, 2 dmg items and have 70% reduced damage, 3khp and enough damage. If items had only one or 2 stats, and gave less stats, you would not have broken champs. Adcs would build full damage, tanks full tank etc, while bruisers might build one of each but eill never be as tanky as tanks or have damage like adcs. And if retard games ddint delete mana and cd, you would also have to keep these in mind, so ahri could pick 2 cd, mana, boots and 2 ap items to be more of harrasser, or 5 ap and boots to be one shot, but no cd or mana for roatations. This way you can balance the game as if she misses her combo kr tank tanks it, she is useless, but if she went harrasser build shed have the option to repeat combo. Right now all mabes have 700ap, no mana issues after 1 item that gives ay mana, and have 45% cdr and enough magic pen for tanks and zhonyas just in case. Thats stupid. Make zhonyas 30ap or something low and an active. That way you are sacrificing ap for active to save you. Instead you get broken active and 100ap..... mejais is one of few balanced mage items

[@fortu392]

they need to make some items class specific. if chemtank was specific to tanks, for examples, akali would have not been build it, with all the consequences that we saw

[@krystofmares8857]

like, everyone is scared of tank meta, but I kinda miss being able to live more then two seconds tanks became dmg dealers but no longer tanks

[@Evermore098]

yeah i remember long ago when tanks took a huge leap in power and how those matches played out, you could let off a entire teams burst and some of them would shurg it off. I understand why they keep them in check now days

[@Brachoso]

Nice. You have a very soothing voice btw, Vars. Consider doing asmr and stuff for extra money x). All the best!

[@joshuaminnich3896]

I don't remember tanks in general being called an overpowered class until the tank class rework of Zac and sej

[@isaacdiaz4174]

They were a few out there, but in general tanks were never stronger than the enemy darius bleeding them out. The game has just too much damage and mobility nowadays.

[@nunoalmeida2749]

The only way of helping tanks is with an overhaul of the whole class buffing their base damage so they can carry themselves through lane phase but gutting their ap/ad scalling so they are forced to go tanky stats late

[@2bad2micro86]

I wonder if it would be helpful to make tankbusting a bigger commitment. For example tie tankbusting to certain mythic items and remove it from runes or base kits. You could build a tankbusting item still but it would be at the cost of other opportunities. That way you wouldn't be able to build whatever you wanted and just incidentally also cut through tanks.

[@Ghosta085]

Tying your only counter to a class to a mythic is a really bad idea. Most classes build their mythic around 9 minutes. Turret plates don’t fall off till 14. Imagine playing adc, finishing your galeforce and suddenly the only tank on the enemy team gets 1100 gold from tower plates and is up 2 levels on ur top laner. You now have no ability to buy an anti tank item other than selling your mythic. The game is over.

[@geoDB.]

As a tank, everything onwshots me that I don't even care about vayne's fiora damage w as she will kill me slower than a guinsoos adc

[@ylmazgurbuz6220]

i'd rather play season 6/7 tank meta than season 10+ game was so fun back then even in unhealhty metas.

[@citizencj3389]

Season 11 was an assassin meta. Which ended woth the durability update.

[@spricko28]

@@citizencj3389 which was almost whole reverted back because assainst couldnt play

[@xolotltolox7626]

And thanks to the durability Patch %pen is a must buy, even against a full dquishy team

[@Ffoo_ffighter]

​@@xolotltolox7626 riot is stupid

[@xolotltolox7626]

@@Ffoo_ffighter in other news the sky is blue

[@DivadRovert]

Okay, hot-take guys: What if Riot adds stat-dependent tank items? You know how Archangel's gained AP based on mana? Well, what if tank items were less effective depending on your AP/AD? For example, sunfire, thornmail, and frostfire would deal more damage if both your ad and ap were below a certain point.

[@nathanwaterser8218]

Sounds like the easiest way to soft int the game. Also there are tanks that buy some AD/AP on top of their regular tank items, example: Poppy used to build Divine Sunderer and Sterak's, Titanic and Demonic embrace is a tank item that can give you up to 60AD/100AP (that's including the base stats) if you buy enough health. There are also bruisers that don't build much AD (Darius only needs mythic and the rest is full tank). So it would be a balance nightmare to do that. If the cap is too low barely anyone will buy it. But if it is too high then it is almost as if the cap isn't there. The one case I could see is something like Warmog's. Where it only gives you regen if you have over 1100 bonus health (so basically another health item since it gives you 800 health on its own). But I mean I can easily buy that on bruisers so that's not even a good restriction.

[@char1190]

Maybe they should introduce more trade-offs to stats: more hp makes it harder to gain ms and more size increase(bigger hitbox) but easier to gain tenacity; more dmg = well more dmg, but that's it. Then we can tone down the anti-tank measures a bit so not everyone can do max% hp dmg and actually encourage building tank on tanks. Just a stray thought tho.

[@ahmadbugshan9603]

what if the tank role had a passive damage reduction depending on how many people are around you so 0% at 1v1s 7.5% at 1v2 or 2v2 but not 3v2 (bc ur team are more)12.5% at 1/2/3v3 17.5% at 4 enemies and 25% at 5 the idea is to make tanks still tanky so you should never focus them at team fights and if you wanted to kill the tank send 1 or 2 people to get rid of him before teamfights? idk just a idea i got randomly didnt give it much thought

[@thekingofawesomeness9173]

i would wonder if league would benefit from restricting the items classes can buy to a small extent. obviously half the fun of league can be making weird builds but it does make balancing harder. I'm not really advocating for this type of change but it does make for an interesting debate I think

[@honorablegigachad6946]

Tank items just need more specific passives that make these items better whenever you're building other tank items or at least have tank runes. Make it so that a Yone can't just auto win against everyone by building iceborn gauntlet and actually struggles when behind against a tank, make tanks building these items more favourable.

[@LogaSLevaard]

Honestly I think the best solution to this would be to just lock items to certain classes, if not all items then at least mythics. that way riot can focus on balancing the items for the intended champions without having to worry about every other class benefiting from them unintentionally.

[@bella-wznr]

But i want my kraken thresh or rocketbelt rakan...

[@1lik3Fir33mbl3m]

@@bella-wznr I think Riot only struggles with the tank items, so they only should lock Jacksho, Heartsteel and Frostfire Gauntlet to tanks.

[@xolotltolox7626]

@@1lik3Fir33mbl3m Did you forget the disaster that was(and srguably still is) Eclipse?

[@1lik3Fir33mbl3m]

@@xolotltolox7626 Eclipse is not abused by bruisers and ap bruisers like the tank items, but it definitely is a shit item to balance, otherwise it wouldnt have received that much adjustments

[@lowweather8401]

No more fun

[@SpartinWolfE]

Yknow I feel like league could benefit from negative stats on items at this point with how diverse its character roaster is. IMO it seems whenever they buff one class for underperforming the class that is targeted benefits less from the changes than the classes surrounding it. I feel like negative stats would help take care of that like yeah you can be a giga tank that never dies BUT you're slower and have a 50% cut to your damage before enemy resistances sorta thing. I feel like that would help define classes a little more and stop characters from outside the class from doing better with their items than characters in the class.

[@sinisterD_]

My friends and I all went heartsteel in an Aram game and it made us really hard to kill and we lead in kills. It kinda sucks how it feels like if anyone goes tanks, it scales and does pretty ok. I went zilean in that game. After a while with the tank items right now, they can just tank turret and take it even if they go 0/11. Once they get tank item, they are hard to kill.

[@AgentYellowWang]

They said tank meta is bad but the best season of league is season 5 and season 6 where tank meta took place while the worse and most toxic season is season 7 to 12 where assassin season took place which make sence since assassin season is all about making other team play on grey screen for you to have fun.

[@Ffoo_ffighter]

Exactly

[@batatac4mil86]

Vars: "Metas don't last more than 6 months since season 10" Enchanters: allow me to introduce myself

[@AGuy-0751]

Don't forget adc being the best class in the game for a whole year and being a top tier class since the inception of the game. The mains will always complain their role is weak tho

[@RainerRilke3]

Engage supps are fine they're just harder to execute cause they can't just faceroll you anymore. They were meta for a long while as well and back then a lot of enchanters were near unplayable. As an adc main I do love an enchanter meta but I can see people saying engage metas are more engaging or 'proactive' which fair tbh

[@MasterKnightDH]

Here's a simple idea: just make anti-armor methods methodical but suitably rewarding. Boom. Nobody is suffocated for character choice, and instead players think more about their options to improve flow.

[@idontlikekmart5582]

God forbid the characters designed to absorb damage for their team dont pop from one Talon skill rotation

[@ShadowNavi82]

I enjoyed tank meta and would be all for them returning to their incredibly difficult to kill cc bots that are annoying. The only problem with tank meta was tanks didn't give up much damage that all the other classes gave up durability for. Now there is so much tank shred items and damage that full tanks barely can get two rotation of spells out. Of course problem with bumping up tank tankyness through items is champs like Diana who already over kill so giving up a small portion of damage doesn't really matter but it would be a champ by champ situation not a problem with tank items in general.

[@Goldenfire49]

I miss this old tank meta. Full armor Rammus and Malph was just so fun. Get the team all together under a tower and engage. Eat all that damage. Die. But have done just enough CC/Engage/Soaking that my team cleans up the rest. I also miss winning games at 0/17/30. Fun times running into three people chasing the carry. Spend so much time holding the three at bay. 1k worth carry gets away. And me with no kills ends up being with nickles. And like you said Vars. Itemization was EASY! Hp. Armor/MR. Done. Honestly. My only two must builds were Cinder and Deadmans. Hp + passive damage / Speed. Losing Force for so long sucked though. Limiting my resistances to massages.

[@BoneWalker]

I miss playing rammus in s6, with my full armor (1%crit) page and only having to worry about fiora/vayne ignoring the one thing I'm supposed to be good at.

[@johnnymac6242]

My memories of s5 6 and 7 is Gragas Sejuani jungle in EVERY PRO GAME. if one got banned, common picks were instead Zac or Jarvan.

[@ivancastro229]

Ah yes, seasons 5 and 6, back when the game was allowed to be fun

[@pedrohenrique-db3xd]

3:22 yeah, looks SOOOOO fun. I can't speak for everyone, but playing top lane in season 6 was the most miserable experience I had in this game.

[@honorablegigachad6946]

​​@@pedrohenrique-db3xd Who cares about two tank champs struggling to kill each other? A tank's goal should not be to kill the other tank, the goal is to provide crowd control and utility for his team.

[@qoe_shiro]

Tank meta is imo the most balanced state for the game to be in. If you have strong tanks you need strong tank killers, so then you need burst champs to stop the tank killers, so then you need supports to keep the tank killers alive etc. If people actually draft correctly then its some of the most enjoyable games you can get in league. The only thing that gets hurt is people trying to ego build draven not going armour pen and thats why 90% of the clips here trying to show tank meta being bad is a draven doing no damage.

[@snomrom6595]

If like the only good carry’s are those that are tank killers then that’s bad because you’re limiting who can be played and still be effective. The game shouldn’t revolve around a single class.

[@qoe_shiro]

@@snomrom6595 good to know you cant read what i wrote

[@snomrom6595]

@@qoe_shiro your desired game state revolves around tanks being the central focus of the game and everything else revolving around their power.

[@snomrom6595]

Like team comps should not ever revolve around a singular class and needing that class for the team to be effective in game. That’s way too much power given to one class and too little agency given to the rest. There’s other ways to make the game slower other than by just making tanks op again.

[@datgoy5509]

League is the best when there is no meta, no must ban, no must pick rune or item.

[@Dasha__a]

they should just make it that only adc's can shred through tanks so tanks won't need damage to be able to contest being the frontline. like tanks go in, don't do damage but also don't die while the team tries to catch enemy's carry if that make sense. remove percentage dmg, make so that only crit shreds through armour a lot (like lord doms passive or sum), do smth with crit scaling melees, decrease base dmg and give more scaling to bruisers like they did to tanks. tanks not necessarly a problems but items are

[@eprjct]

I personally think the problem with tank items is never about how good or bad they are. The problem is some items can be pick up too fast in the game. Blade of ruin King and Black Cleaver are both typical examples. How is any tank item relevant when the opponent can simply first build these tank shredding items? These items will forever haunt tank no matter how hard they try to balance tank items. These items are far more devastating than champion kits because champion requires exp to scale, but these 1st-build tank shredding items are completely unstoppable by natural gold income. All Irelia need is to rush Blade of Ruin King no matter how much time she dies. She can shred a tank with 3 items just with Blade of Ruin King. That is forever the core problem with the balance. Fiora and Camille is much less of a problem. Lv16 is where they shine. If I have an early lead, but they still get to lv16 and come back. That is my problem. I can accept the loss.

[@nechocat1234]

Don't forget we have true damage and sustain with conqueror

[@Diamondstar1ify]

I maintain that tanks should not be afforded the opportunity to have so much damage. When Sunfire first came out as a Mythic and this current Heartsteel thing on Dr Mundo, or the abominations that were Zac and Amumu a few patches ago, all these really cemented that idea in my mind. There's no reason that a Dr Mundo or Cho should be able to land a single CC and then chainsaw my carries to death, with like 350+ AD on the Mundo for gods know what reason.

[@sartiee4957]

Mundo is a jaggernaut and doesnt have any cc

[@Diamondstar1ify]

@@sartiee4957 His Cleaver slows for like 40% and has functionally no cooldown

[@sartiee4957]

@@Diamondstar1ify yes he has a single target slow but he ain't a tank because he doesn't have cc

[@1lik3Fir33mbl3m]

@@Diamondstar1ify Mundo is a Juggernaut that builds Tank items, he still isn't a tank, tanks have lot of important cc, which Mundo has not in his kit, just is a dumb champ that deals lots of damage and heals himself to continue running at people.

[@Pertraytray]

As someone who never played league seriously, being practically immortal as tank yasuo was stupidly fun to play

[@zodiaccowboy2131]

I guess the solution to this is to just prevent other classes from buying non-class items and make more items for those classes

[@agaed7676]

posted 45 seconds ago

[@cotren8860]

Posted 21 minutes ago

[@austensmith3330]

I had the first comment

[@SirCrusher]

I think what needs to be done after this video is another where the patch before the tank meta is shown and what problems the patch introducing the tank meta tried to solve.

[@OdinsbestFriend1]

Maybe League could implement an item weight system similar to the souls games where Champs get slows/slower dashes/ longer cds if they get over a certain class specific threshold.

[@TheMixedPlateFrequency]

That is something to consider. I also think they should implement hit stun in league. Like in fighting games or ragnarok online. Where ever hit makes your character go into a short flinch animation. Where you cant dodge, fight back, move, or use any attacks or skills. flinch mechanic.

[@geoDB.]

​@@TheMixedPlateFrequency dota has this with turn rates which is to help make melee more viable at chasing ranged meaning most carries are melee lol

[@chrs-wltrs]

It cracks me up to see Kraken described as a "tank buster" after it's been completed neutered and now just does physical damage

[@sora1458]

I miss tank meta, I don't care if it means you'd end up having a 50 minute game from time to time. 😞

[@RareEpicness]

I JUST WANT TO NOT BE MELTED MAN I WANT TO BE TANKY AND HELP MY TEAM WITHOUT AN ADC KILLING MY HOPES AND DREAMS FROM RANGE

[@reninparker9822]

bro being able to play tanks without being shredded in 2 seconds sounds like a dream...

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

Adc players cry the loudest so no shit tanks are villainized for existing and not getting instant blown up in 1v1 with adc mains that test every marksmen like Vayne.

[@XTr3m3b4sh]

Do you think its balanced that a 7-8k HP Sion or Chogath can 1 shot every adc if they land a single cc while taking at least 15-20 seconds to kill if you're not playing a tankbuster adc like Vayne, Kog or AP Varus ?

[@thee-sportspantheon330]

It's more like 8 seconds and if you have a peel support you will be fine. By the time tanks have that much hp you should have 4 items. If you don't have that many items you are farming bad and that's on you.

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

@@XTr3m3b4sh if a tank is up 8k health and you as the adc are that out of position and don’t have the appropriate items and lvls by that’s point because you’re shit at farming or forcing the same stupid shit builds of Galeforce/rcf THATS ON YOU CLOWNS.

[@eranoszrill8907]

I've been thinking if it could be a good idea to makes some items class specific example making heartsteel only a tank item so anyone that isn't classified as one can't buy it leaving some items out of this so different builds can still exist Maybe make only mythics like this this i would imagen mostly affect hybrid champions so maybe it could be balanced with doing some champion specific changes as well this would limit the build creativity yes but i'm pretty sure most league players just buy what the shop tells them or what the overlay they downloaded tells them to use

[@aaronscott7467]

That is a terrible idea. While it's certainly true that a large percentage of users do just build recommended, it would completely alienate the users who don't. Furthermore, it would cripple champions like malphite, where the optimal way to build them is to build items from multiple categories

[@eranoszrill8907]

@@aaronscott7467 it's really just a quick idea but you can't deny that a lot of times especially with tank items the problem is that champions that aren't tanks can build it and benefit more so locking them out of those options, options of which they should even be using because they aren't meant for them, would fix the "tanks can't be allowed to be powerful because everyone else benefits from their items"

[@thosebloodybadgers8499]

It wouldn't just limit build creativity, it would chuck it in the bin. I get that balance is cool and all, but putting up a "no fun allowed" sign to any off-meta build is just begging to make the game staler than decade old bread.

[@eranoszrill8907]

@@thosebloodybadgers8499 again not all items mythic are these days the problem and those are especially made with classes in mind so limiting just those couls be a potential option to limit thing like heartsteel getting out of hands while leaving most items on the table for building there are a lot less mythics in the item pool and that way there would still be items that are tank items that other classes couls build as well like current sunfire

[@thosebloodybadgers8499]

@@eranoszrill8907 and if I want to do some dumb shit and build Lee Sin as an enchanter with high AP and cooldowns? You're just gonna end up stuck with a supposedly build-defining item that goes against the role you actually want to play. These sorts of changes will inevitably screw with the casual dumb stuff because they seek to place limitation on the diversity of possibilities for the sake of reigning what remains in with some unified vision of "balance".

[@wagz781]

As a tank main with some rather extensive knowledge in game design theory: the major reason tanks are in their current state is because riot has a very lazy way of handling balance. Basically, they go the cheap, easy, and janky route rather than the route they need to go for the longevity of their game. In order for all classes to be equally effective, you have to pin down what it is each role's niche is, the means to fulfill that role, and maintain a very strict power budget when designing champions and items for that role. There are also certain concepts that are toxic for certain roles. Realistically, the major issue stems from the corporate philosophy of riot games. They're not willing to spend the money on the resources neccessary to handle balancing a game as large and intricate as league. Entirely because they can't justify it to the money people. Realistically, what they need are multiple teams working on theorycrafting and maintaining the identity of each role, a seperate team for items, an overseer to ensure effective communication occurs between these teams, and they have to maintain strict power budgets and design formulas for each identity. These teams should also have design subservient to them, not the other way around. However, that costs money and earns less money from people buying the broken thing to get an advantage on day 1. So instead they scaled back their focus to the most popular champions and whatever flavor of the month things they want to have rolling around to give the illusion that all champs are equally valid. It's also very clear that the people currently working for riot don't play the game, or if they do they only play certain things. Specifically, it's very clear that they don't play top or jungle. Balance wise, league is a hot mess. Entirely because damage is too high. It's their main balancing tool and they use it to try and patch everything. Tanks should have some damage to make them threatening, but I find that ironically they're the best ones to put % health true damage on, or some form of prot shred mixed in with all of their copious cc. They're supposed to counter assassins and burst mages idealy, and be countered by consistent damage. The main benefit of bruisers is supposed to be that they're tanky, but instead of copious cc they actually do a good amount of damage. For that reason they're ideally supposed to counter tanks, burst mages, and assassins, but get countered by adcs, sustain mages, and other bruisers. However, because damage is so high and they've had to overtune tank items so much, bruisers just became the better tanks. What's the point of playing a tank if you get popped by the things you're supposed to be countering? Why not just play a bruiser and at least be able to kill things while surviving a bit longer than most. I don't think tank busting items shouldn't exist, but I think the design philosophy riot has towards items makes them inherently hard to balance. Realistically, most items should be seperated between general use and class specific. General use items are items designed so that anyone can buy them as situational purchases to help with problems their having game to game. Class specific items shouldn't be gated off, but they should require focusing on a specific build-style to be most effective. Usually with stat requirements or percent scalings rather than flat scalings. I would also make these class specific items have more power than the general items, but only for that specific playstyle. If damage is reasonable, then this method makes it so items will stay in their lane but still have build diversity game to game.

[@inhhuytran219]

Sunderer, Eclipse and BotRK destroy tank champions. There are no way that you can deal with those items.

[@wagz781]

@@inhhuytran219 in their current state? No. However they're not inherently bad. I think bork is fine, it just needs the ad it gives tuned down. Tbh most items need the ad and ap they give tuned down due to how high scalings are in league. Sunderer and eclipse are specifically tank busting options for classes that don't need them. I think eclipse is the only one that maybe needs a rework though. Assassins really shouldn't have an answer for tanks. Though having it be more like a thunderlords that applies prot shred in a mythic item is probably the best of both worlds. Though then that's less of an assassin item and more of an AD mage kind of item. The goal isn't to completely remove answers and make tanks overpowered. The goal is to make those answers meaningful counters to specific issues rather than general "build this every game" items. Which I think would best be done by hitting the actual stats they provide rather than their abilities. If they don't give as much damage and tankiness, then it's fine to have abilities that work well against a specific issue. So long as tanks are not completely invalidated by a single item. Kinda like how old dominick's used to be. It was an option adcs could splash in specifically to counter tanks and bruisers that were becoming an issue. However that requires thinking about your build and not going entirely off a template, which is hard for people. Plus you'd have to be investing in damage anyway.

[@gonzalob.7432]

It's starting to feel like if riot brought item class restriction to the games it could do more for opening the meta. What if there was something in between? what if the kind of items you could buy was linked to your mythic?

[@shacolin6546]

Tank meta is like communism. It never existed, but for some reason people are terrified of it. Tanks were only truly oppressive in 2015, when Cinderhulk was oppressive. 2016 and 2017 were more of bot lane centered metas where tanks were prioritized over fighters in top and over assassins in jungle, not because they were stronger per say, but because they were the better glorified supports for the bot lanes games were centered around, the pinnacle of it being the end of season 7 with the ardent censer meta. From there on, tanks were disproportionally nerfed compared to enchanters and marksmen, which were the actual problem, not to mention the later two were buffed back to their dominant status not too long after. They even reverted the patch 8.11 item rework that fixed bot lane and made it a genuinely diverse role for the first time in the game's history. When tank itens are strong, non-tanks benefit more from it than tanks themselves. That's the biggest reason they're a dead class. Facetanking is impossible no matter how tanky you get because raw tank stats just don't mean that much when every other champion have built in penetration, %health or true damage, when they don't get multiple of these at once, in addition to itens that offer these features in abundance. At that point, healing and shielding have become better tank stats than HP and resistances because there are less tools to work around these than there are against actual tank stats. And said healing and shielding is present on fighter and marksmen itens, so those end up being harder to kill in practice than the tank itself. Non-tanks using tank itens, meanwhile, don't have to facetank impossibly high ammounts of %health, true damage and armor pen present everywhere. They get tanky enough to not get bursted down and use the mobility tanks don't have to kite around, so they're actually tanking for much less time than a conventional tank. Tanks don't do more damage than DPS characters. They fight for longer. Two carries with 1000 DPS and 2000 HP will fight for 2 seconds and deal 2000 damage. Two tanks with 400 DPS and 4000 HP will deal 4000 damage to each other, so they will do more damage than a carry. But that's because their fight will last for 10 seconds. They're fighting for 5 times more time. That's why sometimes they show higher damage in end game graphs.

[@SrGundisalvus]

Someone finally said it and put it into words thank you so much

[@Raxul]

Another way to buff tanks could be to change the way armor and mr scale dmg reduction. Right now 100 armor/mr is the sweet spot in damage reduction, as it gives you 50% of it. Of course, not calculating for armor/mr penetration. Maybe reduce the 100 armor/mr reduction to 40/45% and making 2/300 armor/mr give 5/10% more reduction? Right now 200 I think gives 70%. Bumping it up to 7375 would make the effective hp way stronger and would incentivize building more stats compared to just hp/specific items. Right now 200 is the baseline for tanks to be actually tanky, but no other class reaches that point even when itemizing towards it (maybe bruisers, but it usually affects their dmg output).

[@dragonjo7550]

as someone who usually plays a tank class no matter the game i play, LoL is the most unhealthy game for them ive ever seen. you can lose the game in champ select because the tank you picked doesn't have the mobility options over half the roster has, so the fact that the enemy laner picked a percent max health damage dealer immediately means you are starting off in a losing lane. health items which normally would mean you have time to escape or use abilities to try to outskill your opponent are traps, a full set of armour items immediately mean nothing after the enemies build one armour shred item, and your items all do so much damage that every other class of champion enjoys your items more. i see bruisers and assassin's continually getting twice the benefit to tank items as most tanks do. the only recourse is to really rework all the immobile tanks to be less effected or have more options to deal with enemies, and really all that does is remove the class from the character screen

[@AnimeFrankReynolds]

1:28 Heartsteel hasn't had a singular change aside from bugfixes outside of ARAM, so yeah...