Why Tank Items Are NEVER Allowed To Be Good | League of Legends

[@VarsVerum]

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[@jakoby256]

First time I see someone calling thornmail a dps item. Its literally neutralized by the slightest amount of lifesteal or healing in a champion's kit even taking into consideration the healing debuff on it. Its one of the least cost efficient items to build and no one actually finishes it in high elo unless the enemy has several auto attackers or they're at full build.

[@mickeynott1456]

​@@jakoby256it's neutralized in a duel, sure, but in a teamfight that damage counts

[@silas5086]

Can you even count how many problens would b soolved if league limited purchaseble itens by class (and before talking about build diversity, they could add some more creative ones this way)

[@jakoby256]

@@mickeynott1456 Only if enemy has multiple auto attackers

[@comment4t0r61]

@varsVerum To your question "can this be fixed" Yes it can, it can prety easily even, but that requieres a complete item stats rework, as tanks suffer of the same problem ADCs suffer of, which either makes them completly op or completly useles. I explain it first at the ADC example and then how it effects tanks: Everyone saw this 14.10 ADC patch which made ADC super op. well the problem with adc is it never feels good. it either feels super op, ruining the game for everyone els,e or useles, ruining the game for the adc player. THe same goes for tanks. But why is that: ADC (and tanks alter explained) scale different then all other classes in the game. Damage in this Game comes from stats, and in generel every class (Mage, assassin, fighter) gets damage from 3 sources: Flat Damage (AD/AP), Damage repeat Rate (attackspeed/Cooldown reduction) and Penetration (armor/mr Pen) These 3 Stats multiply each other. --> If you buy 100 AD or ap and use a spell that scales with 100% AD/AP (like an autoatatck), then you deal 100 damage more --> if you now buy Attackspeed to attack twice as fast (or cooldown) then you attack twice as often, applieing the 100 AD you bought before twice as often, making it effectivly into 200AD --> now the 100 AD from before are actually 200AD, and if you then buy Penetration to turn the enemy Damage reduction from 75% into 50% dmg reduction, then you do 100% more damage --> turning the effectivly 200AD into 400 --> this means Stats (and with that items) multiply each other. Its a simple formula: THe Damage = (Powerr of an Item * Number of bought Items)^(Number of possible stats) --> simple said: youa re a mage / bruiser/ assassin --> Damage = x^3 with (number of Items)=x Adc are the only clas which alo ahs crit chance. as a result, bcs crit chance also multiplies with other stats (if you have 100% to do double damage your effective 400AD become 800) its the only class with a 4 tiems multiplier for its Damage --> ADC Damage = x^4 --> everyoen that knows math: everything up 4 grows faster then anythign up 3. So to make adcs not stronger then every other class at any time the items on their own must be weaker Thats why if we say the power of an Bruiser item would be 1, then an ADC items would be lower, like for example 0.7 --> with ourt example of before then Bruiser Item would be x^3= damage and ADC would be (0.7*x)^4. --> in reality riot always tries to make ADC have a break point at their 2-3 Itme power spike. this means the Items need to eb this much weaker that until you have 2 or 3 Items youa re weaker, but after that you are stronger, bcs you grow faster cbs the up by 4 vs the up by 3. This system cant work by Design, bcs it means when an ADC is behind, and has less items he is even weake then any other class, and if an adc is ahead he is even more ahead and compeltly broken comapred to any other class. iut also cant be balanced bcs to function the game would need to go a certain time so that adc reaches the 2-3 itme power spike before the game is over (to have impact), but also the game doesnt go to long for adc to reach 5-6 items (so adc isnt to op). and game tiems also vary. it results in frustrating game experiecnes for all palyers. NOW TO TANKS: if you understood the problem with ADC you now understand the problem with tanks: --> as said Damage has always 3 stats that work with each other (except adc which even has 4). Defense in this Game only has 2 Stats that work with each other: Health and Resistance (armor/ MR) --> If you buy 1000 hp you hold out 1000 more Damage --> if you then buy enough armor to reduce the Damage by 50% your 1000 hp are effectivly 2000 HP. --> that means the poowerr of Defense is x^2. as explained before the power of thigns have to be rather similar until a certain point by design to make everything kinda usefull. ADC Items needed to be weaker on their own, to make up for their betetr scaling. thats why having onyl 1 crit item feels bad, but having 5 is op. Well Defense (and with that tank items) have worse scaling as any Damage item, as a result the items on their own need to be strong to be equally strong until a certain breaking point. --> so as example Defense item power = (1.3*x)^2 if we assume Tank items have their break point around 2-3 Items, then that means having 1 or 2 tank items will always be stronger then ahving 1 or 2 offensiv items, but having 5 tank items will alwas be weaker then 5 damage items. thats why Tank items are strong if you onyl have 1 or 2, but bad if you have 5, and also why the first item always feels the strongest. --> it also explains why when tank items are strong its good for Damage dealer to buy 1 Tank item, bcs they power is the best with only 1. So now how to fix it: Change the Damn Stat System of league and make everything with 3 Stats that multiply with each other --> this means Riot would need to remove Crit chance from the Game for ADCs, so make them balancable. a good solution would be to remove crit chance from all crit items and instead balance ADC Items around on hit, as On hit scales with atackspeed and penetration, but not with AD, making it a x^3 system. -->For Tank Items Riot would ned to introduce another 3th tank Stat. Maybe something like critical Defense. lets say a Stat that if you buy it gives you a Chance to decrease taken Damage to 50%. if you then buy lets say 25% "critical defense" chance, you would have a 25% chance to take half daamage. This would multiply with HP and Armor, bcs if you ahve 1khp, and buy as said enougha rmor to reduce damage always by 50%, then you ahve effectiv 2k hp. if you then also buy enough "critical defense" to on average reduce Damage by 50%, then these 2k would become effectivly 4k. it would result in a x^3 defense system. --> as a result Tank items could be balanced and wouldnt need to be stronger then other items on their own anymore, giving less value from buying only 1 item, but giving more value from buying 5. this means Damage builder also cant abuse Tank items as easy by buying only 1 Item, as they would be weaker on their own, and tanks and Champs that build defesne have defens scaling better into the lategame and making defense not useles ina full build game. it would solve the 2 broken classes of League (ADCs and Tanks), which can only ever be balanced by adjusting their stats system in the say i explained, as otherwise their items will always neeed to be stronger or weaker on their own, bcs of their other scaling compared to all other classes in the game.

[@wigmanmania259]

Tanks are suppossed to be the team frontline, but since the enemy team can just ignore the tanks, then tank items should make them un-ignorable, have them provide team buffs, auras, cc, zoning, you know, team oriented items, literally anything but damage

[@amilo5]

That is literally the definition of SUPPORT items. Not solo carry tanks. And only one class can really ignore the tank with their mobility. Guess who ... yeah ... do i always need to sound like a broken record? ASSASSINS ARE THE PROBLEM

[@wigmanmania259]

@@amilo5 It's almost as if Tanks are suppossed to Support the team, and not solo carry

[@26183]

tanks should have active items tt can CC ppl, but give crappier stats.

[@Noximillien-LHorloger]

@@26183 yes lets all be cced for 5 minutes straight, we have to accept that pure tanks cant work in this game, either its a truckload of cc or they get some dmg

[@inplane9970]

Support tank items already do this pretty well. Locket and Zeke's are pretty good examples of this. The problem comes in when damage is so high that it trivializes every unique effect a defensive item would have. Maybe if they turned Anivia W/Kayle R/Rell R into items, but that would become super abusable for DPS champs.

[@llllSNEAKllll]

Vars hit the nail on the head with the simple phrase "damage is the only thing that matters in the game", but i think its a good idea to compare how damage is done in other MOBAs as well. In Heroes of the Storm, supports are all healers and are arguably more important than damage dealers, since with one good support you will win most fights through attrition. Damage isn't very high, and even with a good burst combo a healer can bail out mistakes. The difference in having a healer and not having a healer is staggering, and most tanks can heal themselves as well. In Smite, the metas shift between dive and front-to-back fights. Tanks have more auras and team-support items to choose from as well as reduced damage dealt debuffs to apply, making them a priority target in almost every meta, whether they are a support or a solo laner. In Dota 2, crowd control and setup is more important than sustained dps, since the duration of CC effects can be up to 5 seconds long, and some characters can have massive AOE ultimates with crowd control. The game has more focus on micro than macro, but the long CC durations help with macro play. Comparing all of this to League, its clear to see that League has more emphasis on personal damage and personal tankiness. For better or worse, League of Legends rewards selfish playstyles more than any other MOBA; thats why even though Abyssal Mask is a very good tank support item, no one builds it because the default mentality is to always help yourself more than your team.

[@koroxo1152]

Love that you played, hots. F goated game

[@donniex4650]

Abyssal mask I'd say us extremely useful on the likes of morde, or anyone who is juggernaut/ap dealing tank. It can be mixed with sunfire because it reduces magic resist making you stronger and dealing more damage with your item. I tend to build it 3rd, and it has always done me wonders

[@JustinSeizure]

You also hit the nail on the head with this comparison to other MOBA

[@ThePolishViking]

Plus add to it the narrative that content creators are pushing. Play for yourself, all that matters is you etc. and as long as it is true to some degree there also absolutly no emphasis on "teamwork" somewhere in between both from higher elo players and developer.

[@TheLocobanana]

I get your point with Micro being important in Dota 2, but that game has much more of an importance on Macro, especially if you don't play micro heroes. The map is larger by default, with tp scrolls being available. You can help your team with the drawback of being unable to return to your lane. Theres an emphasis on efficient farming patterns and avoiding ganks as carries, and theres even smoke of deceit for full team invis ganks.

[@srakakontas]

Man, i just want to be unkillable wall, i don't want to be tanky damager

[@jstpxl]

same here brother, I just want someone to use their whole kit and then I go “that almost tickled”

[@Xephyranth]

main problem with that is Ornn is arguably the best scaler for wall of thick defense (both armor and magic res) but he has HP damage on W, Rito probably balances items on this aspect as well then there are Sett mains (I mean he's a bruiser jugg but he uses those items on fun builds) eats 5k damage then deals 3k true damage the other "tanks" are still damage units at the end of the day

[@gameguru42392]

The problem is tanks are usually both

[@catoblepas8697]

The game don't let you anymore, because theres so much anti tank itens in the game

[@catoblepas8697]

​@@gameguru42392Not just tanks, a lot of champions can do more than he class should and not have an downside

[@caetanoba1]

Also, is not like always a team could just past over a tank and focus more valuable targets, thats a cause of movement powercreep

[@amilo5]

THIS

[@usarhabilidade2697]

THIS Man this is one of the best lessons I've learned while playing with tanks and against Tanks, that they're more like a psychological threat than an actual threat You're scared of the CC, or the slow, but not because the tank can kill you with that, but because the ADC or the JG can and will, if they miss that they can't do anything against you So just jump on the backline, kill the guys that actually do damage and then go back for the tank, just walk past them and go for the ADC And build things like blade of the ruined king, this item WILL be effective even against the one with lower health, you're not losing that much pressure, while also being useful against ones with more life (I know it's basic stuff, but in actual matches it's unironically hard to apply that/ Also I'm not talking about characters like mundo who are glorified bruisers, I'm talking about Braum and stuff)

[@shubhod9569]

@@usarhabilidade2697 tanks definitely can kill any squishies by themselves if they land their full rotation though, and if not in one rotation, they have the sticking power to continue to kill them if they don't get peeled. So if you dive past a tank and go for the carries, the tank can also do the same to your carries and prevent them from following your engage and probably kill them ... There's like very few tanks that can't just kill squishies atm, maybe like maokai? Every other tank is a threat if ignored lol

[@definitelynotryanhardt]

I mean, you’re vid is basically spot on. If you look at the challenger Ornn one trick Makkr0, the dude has recently been prioritizing completing dps Tank items or Heartsteel (lack of a better option for an upgrade that scales). His argument is that being a meat shield isn’t really possible anymore and that being able to scale with Heartsteel damage exerts much more pressure. Imma be honest I think they should just add Radiant Virtue back into the game, that was basically the one time tanks were able to play like actual tanks.

[@sonnguyen-iv7gv]

the way you said was a bit misleading. Makkro has been going for tank damage items for years, before the heartsteel build, he prioritized Thornmail, Sunfire, Abyssal Mask over any pure tank item, i think he has said in one of his stream that an Ornn can't kill is an useless Ornn.

[@rej7320]

radiant virtue was so insanely unhealthy that's good it's no longer in the game, all the cancerous adc builds that contained this item were crazy to play against (especially the varus one)

[@_argurios8253]

@@rej7320 yup conceptually it was a nice tank item but in truth everyone is going to abuse it

[@petrusv8752]

@@sonnguyen-iv7gv bro tanks have had this problem since almost day 1 of league long before ornn was a concept. of course he was always building tank dps items.

[@Sanspepins]

If leagues philosophy wasnt "everyone needs a chance to carry" they might be able to balance tanks

[@einjharrelraca]

But then riot has to think about more than just damage when balancing. And they very clearly can't do that.

[@animeanime7849]

I disagree in the sense that making roles to where no matter what you do or how good you play if your damage dealer is behind then there is nothing you can do only makes the game more frustrating, toxic than it already is, and just more unfun as a whole. Plus you would almost never see tanks like Ornn anymore since outside of support nobody wants to feel only as strong as their damage dealer. Everyone would play carry junglers and top laners like Fiora, Darius, Riven, etc. making the game more team reliant sounds good on paper but wouldn’t be positive in practice.

[@omnizoom]

Problem is when it comes to solo que you do have to be able to carry to eliminate your team as a variable as much as possible

[@SamElZombie]

@@animeanime7849 you'd be surprised if you saw heroes of the storm, where the dmg carry is required for a balanced fight, but it still feels great and is fun to play. This mostly because champs are unique and fun to play, a global-ranged yuumi, 3 different champs at once (you can control them individually), tanks that can easily outheal 3 champ's worth of dmg as long as the main dps isn't there, well implemented summoners and the list goes on.

[@josuke3698]

Honestly it boils down to league just isn't made or balanced well in the slightest

[@Keln02]

The problems are: -fighters scale with tank items just as well as tanks (arguably better if you factor in any "regen") -damage is so high in the game that tank items need to be strong to compete There.

[@minichad5456]

Mundo builds what he pleases (mostly tank tho)

[@ignacioperez5479]

Yeah. Lower the damage and tanks Get better, while more fair to figth

[@tatzecom]

nah the problem is that tanks have too much base damage. who cares if sion or tahm kench is impossible to kill if they arent a thread outside of their CC?

[@ignacioperez5479]

@@tatzecom exactly. Take the damage down a bunch, so tanks can make more rotations of the CC, they are a menace, but not because of killing in 3 seconds

[@ignacioperez5479]

@@tatzecom exactly. Take the damage down a bunch, so tanks can make more rotations of the CC, they are a menace, but not because of killing in 3 seconds

[@Oozaruborn]

what if the just make tank items were more about team amp instead of just more stats similar to abyssal mask Tank has 2 fantasies being the raid boss or the great protecter riot avoids one and doesnt do anything to support the other imo

[@metrux321]

i agree with you, and we come back to the main issue: Everything does too much damage, because damage became the only thing that matters.

[@petrusv8752]

and the reason damage is the only thing that matters is because every role has engage tools to make their damage effective. you dont need a malphite ult to start a fight when your team has a morgana or ashe or varus or syndra or yone or irelia or or or everything has bloody engage so why dedicate a entire 5th of the team to engage/disengage tools?

[@metrux321]

@@petrusv8752 Well, tanks are not only engage and disangage, that's just what they became famous for. In theory you only need to keep enemy atention on you somehow, and survive enough. But you can't survive anymore, and unless you got damage even CC usually won't make the enemy focus on you, so even tanks scale on damage and suddenly it's even worse to have them survive, so we give more damage to keep them relevant... No, it has nothing to do with "a 5th position for CC", and everything to do with bad planning coupled with a unwillingness to make big changes.

[@suluhwidyotomo7942]

Ornn in thumbnail, Ornn in new champ teaser. totally a coincidence

[@thanoso2544]

what teaser

[@suluhwidyotomo7942]

@@thanoso2544 aurora

[@galopus2707]

At this point I don't see a way to fix this problem without getting rid of most % damage from most champions all at once.

[@sirbobulous]

Or swapping it so it was % *bonus* health damage, so it countered the Health Tank items you were building, but not your built in natural tankiness

[@pompom1421]

@@sirbobulous this, anti tank should be anti-tank, not an all purpose item.

[@TheArne959]

% damage is a problem (also on items unless they keep it verry lowand verry few) But %health damage on top of true damage is a crime they need to remove 1 and have the other available in items or sertain champs under a condition (like 3th shot on vayne) but not like lillia where her pasive gives a %health bleed effect. Instead of true damage or % health damage lowering armor values or doin magic damage when you do mostly attack damage is the better way to do it.

[@petrusv8752]

frankly that wont fix anything. tanks will just be OP again. Particularly HP tanks like sion and cho, who also happen to be battle tanks. Heartsteel would also just be a ticking time bomb even more than it already is. League gives engage and peel to every role for the sake of each role being able to 1vs9 BUT they CANT give the high dps of other roles to tanks or tanks will simply be unstoppable. the result is you have dps roles with the key engage or disengage tools that tanks are suppose to provide. there is simply no reason for tanks to exist in league other than to soak up poorly targeted dps as the key roles of disengage and engage are given to everyone.

[@Korhi]

Removing the rock solid passive from Randuins was criminal honestly.

[@mercy4240]

THATS WHAT IM SAYING

[@SirCrusher]

Now you can build it together with randuin's omen without wasting gold

[@_argurios8253]

@@SirCrusher which was largely a non-issue

[@Deiscimo]

I got into tanks first because I wanted to learn how to play the game and not die instantly in a burst and then I fell in love with Leona and Nautilus in 2014 and then everything else was a wrap from there. But then I still ended up being a filthy Singed mane

[@koroxo1152]

Singed gang rise up

[@joshprice4855]

PROXY PROXY PROXY WOOO

[@XXLepic]

Riot removing MR + Armor combo on all items except Jaksho was a huge mistake

[@SlurpKing100]

I completely agree. I don't understand why tanks are the only class in the game that dont scale with their own items (_almost_ always). If you buy heal and shield power on fizz, it will be a useless stat because its not meant for your champion. If you buy ap on caitlyn, or ap on renekton, that will likewise be useless. Certain items are meant for certain champions. But for some reason tanks are the exception.

[@Crusader3454]

give tanks defensive scaling for building bonus tank stats, or give tank items a "set bonus" effect for building atleast 3 or more.

[@Slowp0w]

By set bonus... You mean mythic items? or does it have to be in the same "tank" category? Riot should have done that last season.

[@ricomambozero3811]

Riot dont want Tanks to standout not like in Dota in Dota most assasins are afraid of tanks while in LoL its the other way around and also Tank are punished by building Tank because if you stack health %HP damage and Dominiks / Cut Down etc. fk*d you up and if you build resistance % Armor shred, lethality , Magic Penetration and True damage will punish you while you dont see a Mage punished by stacking AP you can build MR but there is no % MR if a mage stacks a 1000+ AP there is no MR that can save you same with DPS if they get huge AD and ASPD + Critical and also Thornmail damage scales in armor not by enemy %AD is also a poor dscision not all Tank are Rammus 😂 if an enemy ADC have huge lifesteal i rather build damage than build tank 1shot them when they are low is easier than gambling a trade on a mobile ADC they will just making you a target dummy by kiting you to death .

[@Sir_kIR]

League devs just want everything as flashy with damage as possible. Do % increase armor/mr/health with tank items. Now no one but tanks can build those as efficient as them. But then dmg/mobility irelia shit just ignore u and dash straight to ur carry.

[@Crusader3454]

@Slowp0w kind of, but like building more pure defensive items, like fon warmogs randuins gives you a percentage reduce in damage taken and could reduce your own damage, while building sunfire iceborn (the magic resist sunfire like item) and titanic hydra could give a higher hp bonus and reduced cds or somethin. All hypothetical, and I would still prefer rebalancing every tank to have scalings for defensive stats that improve the defensive stats, like poppy/sejuani and ofcourse the bonus hp% scaling shields.

[@hidereowo2576]

Personally I'd like to see a tank item that like Warmog's requires a certain amount of tank stats to get a unique passive that does not stack, and that passive would make it so that while the person who has the item passive active is alive, allied structures except the nexus take less damage.

[@Yocking]

i used to build anathema SO MUCH and dude unironically abyssal is my fav item in the game

[@Herio7]

In RPG the most protective armour either directly diminish support/dps power or straight up can't even be worn by them but in lol everyone can buy anything. So the powerful defensive items that would make tank survive 1v5 can be used to make the mage survive long enough to 1v9 the whole game. I can't see any other solution beside items being soft or hard restricted to the tanks or sweeping changes throughout the whole game.

[@Mr_Mistah]

This is why I prefer Smite. Tanks are forced to build tank items. They CAN build DPS but your damage will be horrible

[@U2B4U]

@Mr_Mistah I just wish smite was more innovative. Smite 2 has graphical improvements but mostly minor changes everywhere else. Smite 2 is basically smite 1 updated instead of feeling like a new game

[@bluejays440]

As a tank player the issue with them is that you're just not allowed to frontline. And that's what tanks are good for, disrupting the enemy team and blocking/absorbing damage. But Riot constantly insists on making them do damage and its killing the class because that's just not what they're meant to do. The resists are too low, item damage is too high, and you will get blown up before being able to contribute much to a fight. Until Riot allows tanks to matter again they'll cease to exist outside the support role which is the only place they're good right now.

[@viltautasYT]

The answer is, people hate being cc'ed for 5 seconds by a tank, so they'd rather get deleted in 0.5 seconds to check their tik toks while being dead

[@Juria1987]

To add to thornmail's popularity. It the only life steal reduction tank item. That further make it important to have. As another way to fight off a tank, is to out life steal their damage. More of a fighter thing but still happens a lot.

[@sirquixano5985]

Another note - with how targeting works in league (theres not as many things to body block for your team, just specific skill shots), and the fact enemies can run straight through you (no body blocking), the tank class doesn't really exist, and is just 3 different variants of other goals with juggernaut (damage, similar to adc), vanguard (debuffs) and warden (team buffs/health), while bulk only helps you do what you already want to do since there's few ways to make it team survivability. Their abilities on non-juggs are meant to make up for this, but most of their abilities, namely CC, don't scale, meaning you can't increase your impact, just consistency with Ability Haste. Now that supports actually have an income, I wonder if its time for a utility stat - slash the base duration of CCs, cut heal and shield value and release heal/shields from being bound to ap, and have items that scale teamfight utility through a utility stat. It would mean more things can build support by scaling with utility as well as being a good purchase if you fall behind to help your team, while allowing you to build around being a full damage carry or support. Also could allow for actual build diversity among supports.

[@SamElZombie]

easy band-aid fix: grab knight's vow, buff the passive, make it AOE and call it a tank item. now you can't just ignore the tank or you'll only be dealing 60% of the dmg.

[@poom323]

It's too op because people are stupid, they will ignore and complain, even old locket is secretly op even with very few ar mr buff.

[@petrusv8752]

nope. good concept but 60% dmg reduction is still not enough to save squishes who are over-killed for 3-4X their max HP even IF it was 60% for the individual instead of the team.

[@Thund3rDrag0n12]

I commented this in another one of Vars' videos about tanks a while ago but it still remains true that there's so much damage in the game that as soon as they attach any real defensive stats to a champion they'll immediately become broken (see: K'Sante). "Tank" items are a massive indicator of that. The ones that give pure defensive stats are way undertuned compared to more off-tank items that give some combination of HP and AD to the point where they're only worth getting in niche circumstances against certain team comps. League is reaching DOTA levels of "well tanks don't technically exist"

[@willtollefson4746]

The problem with tank items is that non tanks can build them, too.

[@Noximillien-LHorloger]

yup and this is the only way to solve the problem of classes picking items they shouldnt, class lock them all edit, this way we wont get constant issues with juggernauts and assassins picking each others items all the time, you also dont have to worry about that one specific champ who has has amazing synergy with it butt shouldnt actually take it, like master yi and titanic hydra

[@poom323]

And somehow league solve this problem by making assassin tankier than tank without any tank item.

[@jaquanepatterson2537]

Why isn’t there a reduction in value for tank items for tanks/bruisers vs damage dealers like there’s value reduction for range vs melee with dps items? It would solve many problems I feel.

[@Beobesponja]

Same with adc items every fighter can abuse them if they are strong

[@prateekgagvani5]

One thing I find interesting is that tank sups have gotten BETTER since the new adc items with sups like thresh,naut,rell,and leona dominating the sup meta because they have great lockdown for enemy adc's and peel for your adc which is more important then ever now that the adc is more valuable then it has been in a while.

[@someguywithawooperpfp3163]

9:06 why did that weirdly catch me off guard soo much 😭

[@bwobin]

was looking for someone mentioning this 😭 i did NOT expect that from vars

[@serafinw105r2f]

My favorite part is whenever a tank item overperforms. Riot nerfs the tanks, and then the items. So that the tanks are stuck being weaker, while also having to build an item that is also weak because it's the only choice they have

[@ricomambozero3811]

The Problem is Riot dont seem to respect or dont want Tanks to standout not like Dota , Tank items are so expensive Titanic 3300 Warmogs 3000 and the painful part is Tank is punished by being Tank because if you stack Health % HP damage and Runes and item passives like Dominiks and Cut down punish you you cannot see a Mage punished by stacking AP nor a DPS ( Assasin/ADR/Fighter) punished by stacking AD which is becomes more unstoppable in the lategame when gets ahead . thornmail damage scales with armor not the % of enemy AD so only few champs like Rammus and Malphite are the only champions can abuse it . and also just Remove Ksante and Heartsteel 😂😂😂 Ksante is an anomaly why a Tank has a mobility and damage output like ADC sustain as Tank while building Tank item that other Tank cannot even . and Heartsteel is a Assasin item disguises as Tank item , most tank cannot even chase an ADC to get a stack very few tank build this item Katarina and Akali seems to benefit Heartsteel more

[@ignacioperez5479]

As always, the problem is the damage creep of the game. Since everything and everyone have a lot of damage, tanks must deal a lot of damage to be a choice. Reduce the damage across the game and everything would be better

[@winslycan1309]

No, they have reduced a lot of damage. At the moment, all the hard carries lose AD, Crit, sustains, etc. even mages loses item effects efficiency for some AP stats. Guess what class favor this kind of system? Bruiser. Nobody can kill them, but they can kill everyone back with tons of sustain from their kit. And when they buff the damage, then it goes off the chart and everybody with 2 items can 1v5, even when the enemies have full items. And when they buff sustain, we have Yuumi (check Yuumi Leona vs Illaoi vid), Sylas, Swain, Irelia, etc. raidboss.

[@ignacioperez5479]

@@winslycan1309 nah. They increased durability, only to increase Even more the damage a couple years ago, then they added A LOT more damage at the beggining of this year, then nerfed it a bit

[@AshBlossomWorshiper]

0:30 BRO

[@PhatTony92]

Runaan's Huricane cannot be bought if you're playing a champ like Master Yi and can only be bought if you have a ranged attack. So then what they should do is make the tank items that would be good enough where then you would see non tanks buying them and make them exclusive to tank champions just like Runaan's. Why is it ok for ADCs/ranged to have an exclusive item but not Tanks?

[@alphachurch01]

Considering they already have a class system they can mark items to be available to it can be done, make some new items only for the tank classification to have access to and boom can be adjusted a lot easier and not be so lowballed

[@MaverickMyth]

Gnar, Thresh, Urgot, Swain and Bard are all ranged champions, but also considered to be tanks to some extent. This is my most on the nose example, but my point being that a fair few champions fall into more than one category/class. Locking items out of a class would not only be difficult (like which class does this champ mostly belong to?), but would also severely limit build options. Do you lock Gnar and Urgot out of building Marksman items, do you refuse to let Swain or Bard buy tank items, can Thresh still buy fighter items? A lot of items also fall into several categories. Like Trinity Force is both listed as a Marksman item and a Fighter item, if I'm not mistaken. Sterak's Gage is considered to be both a fighter and a tank item. But at least Master Yi can't buy Ruunan's Hurricane, and for that I am grateful. (I'm not high ELO or a game designer or anything, feel free to correct any mistakes or misconceptions) 😊 Have a great day!

[@srensen3081]

@@MaverickMyth i dont think he was talking about making every single item class-dependant but just add a few new items that can only be bought if you fall into x class

[@MaverickMyth]

@@srensen3081 Aight. My mistake then. A few more powerful tanky items just for tanks would be nice 😊

[@NeuroNinjaAlexander]

I've been saying for years to remove a solid 5-10 percent of all damage in the game across the board Make anti-tank items anti-tank based on max health/resistance. So basically useless against another squishy but good against unkillable Sion Give tank item passives something that helps the team survive (Radiant Virtue as an example). In addition make tank items percent based stat wise instead of flat so that tanks get more out of them and lock other roles out of them (if they want the most out of that item). Then of course lots of math would be needed to make them balanced Buff turrets. Giga buff inner turrets since even an ADC can ignore them and pretend to be a Tryndamere Lock some marksman items to be ranged only and then buff them

[@lukadobo4769]

Spot on video. I remember the days when you built sunfire on Renekton 1st item. As a toplaner I play tanks too, but like u said when u build a completely defensive item you are basically relying on your teammates to do the damage and that can end up being very frustrating. Dominate your lane, but unable to carry so you are forced to build sunfire/gauntlet/thornmail/heartsteel.. Love a Mundo game when u get past early, insane damage potential and of course the malphite counter pick to so many popular toplaners or players that play adc top. You can feel their frustration with every Q and knowing the inevitable result of the lane.

[@poom323]

For current league, the best way to play tank from my experience is buying 1-2 damage items, that damage can be anything not only just tank damage, and this actually have better survivability as well. Fully defensive item will make you somehow squishier.

[@MagnusPendragon]

I think the best approach for tank items is to use the same mechanic as the Warmog's passive, were you need a certain ammount of bonus health for the passive to trigger. You could do this to nerf the efficiency these items would have on non tank champions. Then you could do more meaningful passives so the tanks could have more gameplay expression throug items.

[@jonahallcorn]

I think the main problem with tanks is they do too much damage for building tank items. There should obviously be a trade-off of durability vs. damage. In the context of buying items, there is already a relative trade-off based on what you buy. But, there are so many champions that can scale their damage output from durability. K'sante is currently the most egregious example of this. Tanks have simply lost their identity as tanks over time.

[@Andreas-fn8mo]

Well I agree to the most part, except for damage dealers not building to counter. Theres no need to build an armor pen item vs squshies because then lethality just does way more for you. Theres no need for a spellshield item like edge of night if the enemy doesnt have a form of cc that is detremental to your champion. Yes tank items are more reactive since you need to choose your resistance acording to the enemy team where as if you play an adc for example you just dont have a choice outside of building ad damage themed items. If I am honest, tanks as a class dont really fit a moba. As you said if they dont have a taunt then they can just be ignored. Imainge tho if every tank had a taunt: that alone would make some other champions completely unplayable as well. Its a difficult situation.

[@ltdaog4528]

Varss you’re content on all your channels is such amazing quality and topics!! I love hearing you talk about the things I think about but more in depth and with a greater game sense than me. I’m a nerd for builds, stats and character combinations, and no one talks about them like you with such a deep understanding of just games in general. But especially the games I play! Keep it up, I look forward to your videos like it’s a weekly released show!

[@abaren730]

I have a few different solutions. These are broad directional changes, but League is suffering from a lot of broad design direction issues right now. 1. Make more defensive tank items scale based on tank stats, especially resistances. This should be designed to reduce poaching efficiency and *partially mitigate pen. 2. Make offensive tank items do max/current health damage to champs. Thornmail is mostly fine, but tank dps items should generally be geared towards other tanks, not squishies. 3. Max HP true damage should probably go away entirely. Current/Missing HP true damage is slightly more fair, with the former being generally similar in function but you can mitigate it at the back end by having more health. 3.5. Damage items generally should be reimagined. Prioritize design towards utility over raw output. That’s not to say that items shouldn’t have varied damage profiles, but just that massive damage items should be incredibly rare and have significant value % outside of raw AD/AP.

[@stalinjustafellowrussianco7440]

There would have to been massive across the board needs to all base damg on tanks if u wanted all of this to come through

[@stalinjustafellowrussianco7440]

Nerfs sorry typing on my phone is a pain

[@abaren730]

@@stalinjustafellowrussianco7440 yeah I haven’t really touched on champion tuning too much. There would DEFINITELY need to be adjustments, but tanks in general should have their flat damage lowered across the board, occasionally replaced by percent health damage. Damage scaling from tank stats is quite overused as a balance mechanic, and would probably need to be adjusted. Especially because it’s usually just health, which is probably the most common stat even ignoring tank items. Overall tanks would probably be doing just as much damage as before, if not more. But more of that damage would be from slugging it out against a beefy frontline, not 1v5 diving a carry. And that last part is the main problem with Ksante imo. He’s sold as a Tank/Bruiser hybrid but his design makes him more of a Diver/Assassin with tank scaling. I have some ideas on how to fix that which would start by removing both the health cap and omnivamp, and maybe giving him some bonus true damage instead of AD. Ironically, I think tanks in general are the class that should be most likely to have true damage - flat, zero additional scaling from gold. Not going to die on this hill though lol.

[@lycanyte5898]

3:15 that leona flashing and hitting quinn with the fizz ult XD

[@ibrahim5463]

Never in my life did excpect vars(the most family freindly and wholesome league creator) doing a jax joke

[@JimJPoggers]

What if riot made tanks a necessity for baron and elder dragon, right now they are far to easy to take if riot made it so baron or elder were real threats instead of the paper weights they have become to kill maybe tanks could rise up because damage dealers will not be able to secure neutral objectives without them?

[@enemyunicorn9033]

I think a worthwhile game test would be to cut the gold cost of everything (except starter items), increase sell prices, and keep gold income the same (small to negligible nerf) The intent would be to provide timing opportunities to purchase powerful situational items, and then sell them for combo based (rabadons, IE) dps items later (possibly encouraging the capstone item like zephyr, except it actually does something this time) This can also push back on how much farming needs to be done (reaching first item at 7-9 minutes instead of 11-13 while deathless against high kill pressure lane), while also not removing its importance and the skill expression of hitting high cs/m (9-10/m)

[@apblolol]

I occasionally build bruiser items on tanks or even support items. Mundo benifits alot from a variety of items. Knights vow, locket, steraks gage, anathemas chains, deaths dance

[@kynkatan8871]

Maybe they could create an aura type item that forces people to deal with the tank. Maybe something like redirect %damage to tank in an area with some extra resitance but you deal extra damage if you attack the tank directly

[@nicholayrichardson9668]

In my experience the best way to fix the tank items is actually to tweak the tank archetype itself. Malphite is still relevant despite all the armor shred max hp damage and residual magic damage everywhere you go, because he gets in-kit gold efficiency from armor. Same for poppy, who benefits immensely from jak'sho even in it's nerfed state. Leona is one of the best tank supports in the game because in addition to her defensive items, she has damage reduction that helps to cut down the tank shred. Rammus buys zero magic resist and doesn't even flinch because his W enhances his base resistances. Essentially, the most consistent tanks are always either juggernauts in disguise (Mundo with his E passive, Zac with his W spam, K'sante with his ult) or just don't give a crap about damage that isn't true damage (Galio with W, Ornn with empowered passive, Warwick with E and passive healing). Essentially, make damage reduction/defensive stat steroid the codifier for the tank class. The items turn full tsundere, snapping at anyone who lacks the means to put them to proper use, but pulling their true loves into a warm embrace of invulnerability. The juggernaut class will require a little fine tuning to compensate for their best items losing value, but many juggernauts are already terrifying when the correct conditions are met. No matter what we do to Darius, he still runs one damage item and full tank with flash and ghost.

[@dannet5908]

Armor stat is just cosmetic now cuz of how broken current ADC items are

[@Andrea-wr5wd]

ikr why build armor when some champs can have 40~50% armor pen + 100 lethality

[@Arob4343]

I think it helps when tank champions are designed to scale more with hp and resistances. Like how Malphite gains damage with armor. And how Rammus gets bonus resistances. All tanks should have some form of scaling with their items. It just makes sense. And if this was the case, the items don’t NEED to be as good, so other classes can’t steal them, because only tanks benefit from their items now. Or you can make the items scale based on the champion’s stats. Examples: Warmogs doesn’t give 800hp (or whatever it’s going to be now) but instead it gives say 20% max hp. Frozen Heart doesn’t give 90 armor, it gives maybe 50% more armor. Idk something like that

[@Bluejay8633]

honestly this feels pretty spot on, i constantly get examples of outplaying an opponent nonstop and keeping them from leveling or getting gold just for them to be a level down and at least 400 gold short of me, both freshly spent, and they have full item and full advantage over me as a tank. its actually unplayable and removes all agency for like 25-35 mins and forget about it if youre behind cause that match is fucked for you at that point

[@nicopootato2330]

I think a good way to balance tank items is for them to be gold efficient in stats. However also add passives to those items that deter other class from building it. One I would add will be "x% chance enemy auto attack will target you instead of a teammate nearby" or even "you take x% increased damage from aoe spells that hit you and a nearby ally, however that ally takes x% less". So tanks actually do protect their team while if you build those on other classes it just means you will get taken down faster due to the special effect.

[@Noximillien-LHorloger]

lower all dmg in the mean time as well, rn tanks die in a heartbeat

[@Jasonwolf1495]

Honestly tank stats should be percentile like attack speed.

[@kopostusverdigris6341]

@@Noximillien-LHorloger wild rift bring a thing like damage items lowering some hp and bruiser- tank items lowering the champ's ad same for mages in a similar context. That might be good implementation for limiting bruisers.

[@usarhabilidade2697]

​​@@kopostusverdigris6341 Yeah but it doesn't feel like THAT much of a downside, of course having 80 less health can be problematic but....late game when a mage can do 1000 damage... 80 HP is literally nothing And If you're a mage, and an assassin jumps on you you're dead either way, so at least build the item that takes 80 HP but gives back 55% more AP and explode the assassin with you I personally think the downsides are so weak that it didn't actually change the game the way people build that much

[@765craven4]

There was a different person who talked about an issue that AP items faced, and to an extent still face today, with item poaching. It happens every time there's a major rework to the item system, or even particular itema. Sundered Sky had that issue fairly recently, Goredrinker before, but the big AP items that had this issue were Liandry's Torment and Demonic Embrace, where at their peak strength any champion with AP scaling would build them for the most part because they were just that gold efficient and had little opportunity cost. Tank items face a similar, arguably worse issue, as Vars mentioned. Because any champion theoretically benefits from increased durability if a tank item is good it gets poached by basically every other class. It's really sad, to be honest. I love tanks and have since I started playing in Season 6. But nowadays because damage is king, tanks don't get to feel tanky and just feel like less mobile bruisers with more CC, but longer cooldowns, and lower DPS.

[@slaw1990]

A big problem is traditionally the premise of a tank is they don’t die and don’t do a lot of damage but they have either ways to soak damage passively or prevent it with CC. With how fast paced LoL is there won’t ever be a time where they feel balanced. They’ll either be too oppressive (Sunfire/IBG S5 comes to mind) or they are just there as a distraction. Tanks usually have to have some sort of utility that makes them work in a vacuum in their match ups. Poppy v Fiora is a good example. I think that what traditionally carried tanks in LoL wasn’t generally any of the above but was more - they had ok base damages meaning they’d spike faster than their lane opponents at certain levels and their abilities would carry them though. Riot also probably has a fear of creating another tank meta. But they could make tanks strong if they made adc stronger too. The other issue with tanks are they tend to be immobile, everyone seems to have 2 dashes, a reset for that dash and then some % health damage with absurd scaling that makes it difficult for tanks to actually do their job

[@RennX21]

I think this problem could easily be fixed by reworking existing niche tank items in such a way that they force enemy teams to engage with you. Adding selective taunts could make it so tanks can force one if not a few targets to focus them. You could also go the route of having tank items that share resistances with the team or absorb enemy abilities. Wouldn't it be cool if there was a tank item that allowed you to take abilities meant for someone else

[@apolloboeckmann6591]

They should make health ratios. Nerf tanks’ damage and built-in anti tank in champions. Also make resists scale slower.

[@arkarnyeinoo4998]

Yesterday, I picked malphite against the full ad team. Four armor items, armor boots and Fimbulwinter. Literally tanking the whole team with his passive and Fimbulwinter's shield

[@drwexan7684]

What if they made objectives cut through armor and healing so that the only way to take objectives, like baron and the drakes, is to have a tank absorb the damage or have more Tam members burst it down? Because right now its.kinda silly that most jungles can 1v1 the drake at level 5

[@Fistburg]

When K'Sante was released, I saw a world where riot reworks every tank to have mini scalings like him. This would allow tank items to still be "bad" but tank champions would have scalings to make them "good". Think how K'Sante q gets damage and reduced CD for resists, but also gets a faster cast time for bonus HP.

[@rizamanchu]

Love your videos use all 3 of your channels as background videos for work much love 🙏🏻

[@arkokroeger9799]

The problem here is that the thing that seperates tanks from other melee classes is that they trade damage for cc and not tankiness, but there arent much items that enhance the capabilities of cc because that might be a bit broken. On the other hand, it might be nice if tanks would serve a uniquer purpose than just absorb damage. They really need to enhance the power of cc on tanks so that they are nessesary in a team comp and maybe also reduce cc on other champs as a compromise. Considering some skirmishers have more cc than some tanks it might be useful to turn those down a bit.

[@pokerusfreak8194]

CC is already broken af in this game, with many games having 6-10 seconds of hard cc given how often new champs are released with multiple crowd control abilities in their kit. they could absolutely never get away with having 6-10 seconds of no player agency in any other genre of game, and this one frankly also isnt enjoyable or in a healthy state with cc. They cant make a cc boosting item even if they wanted to, because tanks wouldnt be the ones buying it: the assassins and burst champs with cc would be the ones getting it, so they had even more time where you cant reply to their attempts to kill you. That window of "can I survive the burst during cc" is their counterplay, and removing that would break them

[@yoshiyoshi9496]

I think putting more rabbadon’s style tank items could definitely help them out. This would force you to commit the rest of your build to the tank items to gain access to the actual value of the item. This and items that could increase the duration of your vc abilities seem to be the only way to me that tanks can avoid becoming just juggernaut 2.

[@TheArne959]

Thats a good point. In the early stages of league not a lot of dps characters had hard cc or atleast didnot last long. Now days we have assassins with hard cc divers with hard (frontal) cc (not like old irelia who had to have less %health in order to stun) making cc more available and tanks less of a play enabeler. . Still like always yone is the true meness in leage they realy need to rework him making more of his abillities single target. Or an ult with a condition like his brother.

[@youfool7696]

What about the fact that armor and mr have diminishing returns? Building more tank items makes them decrease in gold efficiency.

[@kogmawmain8872]

Needing some kind of offensive output is definitely a thing. I played full Tank Master Yi with a lot of ability haste items so I could permanently reduce damage by 55% literally all the time while also healing if the enemy didn't have any cc to interrupt Master Yi's Meditate. But guess what, people will just ignore you in any teamfight. So the only way you could be useful is by splitpushing but even then there's not much preventing your opponent from just defending by waveclearing if you don't have any damage, forcing you to build damage items like sunfire, thornmail etc.

[@ivannintendo]

One way I imagine could discourage other classes from building tank items is if they granted percent-stat bonuses instead of flat stats, like Sunfire giving 20% bonus of your base HP.

[@-_-noxe-_-5623]

i'm not into league that much anymore but i think that another really big issue is the abundance of true damage / % max health damage in the game and sometimes even both at once on a single character. You know for a fact as a tank that if you go MR you will get shredded by the machine gun of crits that is the ennemy kog'maw . If you build armor the AP jax / malphite / zac jungle will camp you all game. If you build both Vel'koz will have a field day going through your armor right to your "low" bas health with true damage. Build health and now %max health damage comes in. SOMEHOW manage to build all of it, and the vayne top will just nuke you with %max health true damage barely slower than she would kill a lvl 1 roaming yuumi. Basically, as a tank you can never be sure that a game will let you even play. While everything else always has an answer, be it more damage, enough survivability to not be one shot before i can one shot or armor pen to one shot the tank that built against me faster.

[@llamawearingsombrero6764]

This always been a problem since the begining non tank champions abusing tanks items yet tanks get the blame not those champs I think the best thing is for the items be restricted to champs who have the tank class yes it'll limit freedom of purchasing item but it's small price to pay to reduce the stress of annoying meta like tank Varus or Ekko

[@jonaskuula5218]

items like zz'rots seem to circumvent this dillemma by forcing a reaction from the enemy team, making the tank a threat without tons of damage, the problem being that it will make non tanks feel bad for not being the only viable pick.

[@commenafra3478]

A lot of situational items of other classes gave same defansive stat as some tank items only value to tank items are their pasives but damage is so high that it became meaningless even penetration item were require you to some condition now they just gave %40 penetration

[@hanshysher6266]

I think riot is currently experimenting with items in general, theres an item in arena that enhances cc duration and anathema's change use to do that too before it go removed but im not sure that gonna be supee healthy for the game. Maybe making the tanks the best source of cc with a lot of tankiness and damage to minions could work

[@NeuralNotes5]

Personally I'm almost in love with the way League handled this. It's amalgamation of almost all systems. If you want, you can just build recommended items and play towards what your champion was supposed to do by developers and if you're feeling fancy you can build whatever you want and change your playstyle accordingly and reach somewhere near the intended design powerlevel. The descriptions like damage dealer, healer and tank aren't completely useless, but i like them as sliding scales more than rigid immovable pieces, which thus results in much more open ended option for this seemingly monotone (same map, same objectives, same minions, towers and monsters) game (not only a lot of unique and different champions and roles, but also the builds...)

[@arroganceisbliss4585]

HOTS did a really good job with this. Tanks had most of the cc for a team and lived forever when played right. But then there also arent items in that game which made it easier

[@chemistral4943]

Vars' calm casual: "No b****!" Slew me, love the educational vids with a touch of your randomly placed humor~

[@neocalamity3459]

Here's an idea for counterbalancing a good tank item that is appaling for dpsers. May I introduce: damage value reducer. As mentioned in Vars video, some tank items like jaksho were so OP dpsers would build them too. But what if the value this item gave was reduced based on their phys/ap dmg values of the champ? Lets say Riot introduced an item that granted flat reduction for ALL dmg (including true) which scaled off of bonus health. This would be op for any champ because of the baseline reduction value. But what if the passive had a negative value? The more AD/AP a champ has, the less effective it is to the point it becomes literally a waste of gold. Tanks would thrive from this and would encourage varying playstyles. Mundo or sion goes bloodmail? He won't be able to use the item to max efficiency. Cho builds straight resistance? Perfect. Adc builds this item? Literally does nothing for them. I know people are gonna say "Doesn't Frozen Heart already do that?" No, it does not. Blocking 40-80 dmg out of 1500 is nothing short of insulting. This item could replace heartsteel or heartsteel could be changed to that passive. It would provide nothing but health and maybe cdr. Would it make tanks op? No, it just makes them more reasonably tanky without a bonus health scaling item to boost it. Does it make dps of any form op? No since it would reduce in effectiveness on your dmg value. And I see you in the comments: "WouLdN'T tHIs MakE mY VayNE ToP UselESS?" First of all, no, not in the early game at least. Second of all, also no since you have percent max hp true in your kit, you still hurt just not as bad when the cho or sion gets 50-60% pure reduction lategame.

[@jvstice56]

Back when Abyssal was connected to Catalyst, I would always build Catalyst, then if I needed the MR, finish Mask. The self-sustain helped during laning and gave me much needed health and mana. When Season 11 came out, that was removed from Abyssal Mask, and the damage creep began to take effect. Fast Forward to now, and I've zero interest in Ranked due to just how screwed over they made the tanks. I used to be a nightmare to defeat even on Leona, but since....nope.

[@lecoutcritique8854]

I usually agree with you, but not this time : I've lost too many games as ADC where my team don't even hover a tank after asking me to first picking, leading to a situation where either you are playing perfectly, or you need to facecheck, and GL facechecking kayn kata as 5 squichies. Tanks may not be able to win, but they prevent the team from losing every trade in the game giving it multiple chance of comeback.

[@davidecascapera987]

They could change the stats growth of champions making it so that tank gain more armour and magic resistance but with less hp, and do the opposite with bruisers; then items, abilities and/or runes scaling with armor would also be nice to see ~ In the end, i just want the old sunfire cape that activates after every attack... I miss my attack speed cho 😢

[@Notllamalord]

I don’t want to be damage, I want to be frontline space maker who eats damage for breakfast. Riot is obsessed with making everyone do thousands of DPS but I’d rather take more health than more damage. I never feel tanky anymore, even big tanks like malphite and tahm feel like burst mages. Mobility creep is also part of the problem, everyone but tanks are so fast it’s impossible to hold a frontline and make soace

[@Noximillien-LHorloger]

you cant just a be a wall tho, people will just ignore you in fights, you have to give them reasons to focus you. and yes sadly dmg is way overtuned right now so that adds to the problem. this isnt a mmo where you tank creeps who will happily focus tanks all day.

[@EspadaKirren]

Hot take, just bring in class restrictions like rpgs have for gear. It would make things better for the game so every class can have broken items for their class and not have something for them used in a weird way. You could even have a system like runes where when you get into a match you have to choose a starting class based off the way the shop sorts items. Maybe even a level where you can "multiclass" into another classes items

[@shotgunelephant718]

It'd be cool if tank items, or I guess class items in general, scaled ontop oneanother This way youre encouraged to stay in your lane AND you can work on the items without worrying about things getting too out of hand

[@quivertheprotogen7905]

There’s a pretty obvious if complicated answer here. 1. Stop giving tank items extra damage and make them better for tanking. 2. Lower base damage across the roster except for champions not meant to scale late game (Miss Fortune, Draven, Darius, Heimerdinger, Lee Sin, Elise). 3. Give tanks innate resistance multipliers, and non-damage scaling based on tank stats, maybe minor damage scaling (like Malphite W) 4. Reduce applicability and access to tank shredding (I.e. put it onto supports, artillery mages, and bruisers to amplify the damage of the actual carries) but add more variety so that it’s possible to fully spec into tank busting 5. Lower assassin damage in general but amplify below-threshold damage (below 50%, below 30, etc.)

[@turki779]

They should make tank items kind of like hurricane where you need to be a tank or a fighter to use them

[@thrahxvaug6430]

Alright so I am going to put this as a bit more of a counter point. Vars I believe you are completely right when looking at the items and class from the perspective you see them. Up front you are right that the items stats are usually not very good flat and you are looking for the passives. And the passives are situational. But I would like to put my perspective on how I see the items. Your job as the tank is not to be killing and one shotting the enemy. It's to take damage. And the counter for a bad tank IS to just ignore them. A good tank player's skill is to give as much time for their TEAM to do damage. It's to make yourself UNABLE to be ignored. So you are correct in how you see the defensive tank items. When you look at the more offensive ones, I think you are a bit off the mark. Take Sunfire and Hallow Radiance. Those items are not meant to just make you a high damage killing machine in team fights. Most tanks actually buy those because Tanks usually are notoriously weak at pushing waves. Which is why Hallow Radiance is honestly the superior of the two currently. You need that macro pressure. And in team fights both punishes the enemy for being close to you giving you some okay Zoning pressure. Same thing with Thornmail and Iceborn Gauntlet. Do not AA me and do not get caught by me. When you are playing as a tank and looking at tank items you have to assess the value of the passives based on TIME. The enemy has 2 or 3 crit damage dealers? Randuins = live longer so team has more time to do damage. Your team has a bunch of magic damage dealers? Abyssal Mask = Enemies live shorter. Enemies have high Move speed champs? Iceborn/ Randuins = slower enemy takes more time to get to your squishies Enemies have very high poke? Warmogs/ Kaenic = Meat shield for the squishies to live longer. And so on. It's the same principles when you look at what it means to be a good tank in Raiding too. It's just SIGNIFICANTLY easier in raiding because well... The fights in raids will never be as dynamic as LoL. Looking at all of the tanks through that lens you can see why some tanks just keep becoming meta or even have just been meta forever in Pro play. Most of them are very well designed in doing this job... It's also why K'Sante is the WORST DESIGNED "TANK" IN THE GAME! K'Sante is not a tank! He is an over bloated bruiser that gets to be both super tanky AND super damagey. To everyone that reads all this. Thank you and I hope you have a nice day.

[@theminionoftheshelllord9259]

It’s weird that Abyssal Mask isn’t bought as much, cause 9 times out of 10 there’s always gonna be at least 1 mage on your team and if you’re a tank you’ll basically always have Sunfire - both situations where Abyssal Mask should be a really good pickup

[@summsauce9784]

9:03 was so funny idk why

[@legeneraldvd3260]

tbh I wish we had a active tank item that can taunt player next to you. like that nobody can just walk by you and kill your back line.

[@poom323]

Or at least like puppeteer from black market that can pull enemy champion that you hit with aa toward you.

[@Noximillien-LHorloger]

then assasisn dont work and taunts are very rare for a reason

[@JoViljarHaugstulen]

I think something like an AoE Knight Vow seems more likely (redirecting X% of damage taken by allies to the tank) As giving tanks a hard CC item (taunt) would be incredibly powerful as it would make enemies unable to avoid follow up CC/skillshots

[@midasvijfwinkel6116]

Tanks nowadays NEED to deal damage and have waveclear (sometimes almost exclusively from items) to have any impact on the game. In my opinion this is because the days when a tank could stand in front of the backline and be a brick wall are gone. There is so much movement in the kits of champions nowadays that tanks cannot deal with, ESPECIALLY in the assassin class. I'd say somewhere around Qiyana's release is where assassins started to be able to circumvent anyone trying to defend their backline. This makes the role of tanks essentially useless unless they bring something else to the table, in this case damage and/or splitpushing.

[@shacolin6546]

In a game where the most playable game mode is -Solo- Queue and where you need to deal damage to make progress, every champion should be able to output meaningful damage. The way to balance the game shouldn't be around damage, but around zone of influence (ZOI). Zone of Influence is, as the name suggests, the zone in which the player can influence. In other words, it is the range in which a champion can threat an opponent champion. League has champions with low ZOI, with high ZOI and with mobile ZOI, as well as the in-betweens. The most typical champion archetypes of lZOI, hZOI and mZOI are, respectively, juggernauts, artillery mages and assassins, but every champion can be measured by their range, mobility and durability without ever factoring in their damage output. - hZOI beats lZOI because hZOI can threat lZOI before they can fight back due to their range advantage. - mZOI beats beats hZOI because their mobility allows to make hZOI's range advantage obsolete. - lZOI beats mZOI because lZOI have the durability to outlast their opponents. Again, you can see here that damage isn't a factor. This treatment allows the player to not feel bad to play a champion just because it doesn't matter how well you play, you won't be able to make enough progress in the game where you are unable to win it.

[@joeyboldewijn2467]

I also think the problem with tank items at the moment is the focus on health scaling in combination with alot of champs having %max health dmg including most other tanks

[@DeannThunder]

tank Ekko still haunts me till this day, only thing which scares me more is release zoe.

[@zacharialopez4284]

I feel like phreak has actually talked about tank items in his patch run down. I hope if vars ever watches this.

[@kynkatan8871]

I realy miss athenas chain. It was a good purchase to deal with the enemy mage, the only source of magic damage

[@omnizoom]

I will say that damage as a tank makes you a threat they have to focus but tanks lack the tools to force people onto them like in mmo The problem is that late game tanks with heart steel + either bloodmail or rift become serious damage threats In one my skarner games I had 3 tanks items and my last 2 were bloodmail and titanic hydra and I had 400 as almost, I could one combo the squishies

[@unknownit5315]

yeah, I always found annoying watching the assassin dive my back line as a tank. It feels like tanks are trying to be something they can't (a frontline you have to go through) but are not able to do it because of how the game works. they also feel kind of award to play there's either to many ways to kill a tank or not enough ways.

[@vhcblade4469]

If an assassin is diving your backline, you have options: Backline should position better (skill issue) Stand closer to your backline so you can defend them (vulnerable to wombos) Proactively jump on the assassin and kill them/force key abilities (requires you to know where they are and for them to be vulnerable) Realize that the assassin is super fed and there's little you can do (probably the case in solo queue) Alternatively, you can play Poppy and just eat most assassins with steadfast presence.

[@illwill6080]

And none of that matters except for the poppy thing since every assassin now a days has 2 dashes and some wall jumping ability while most tanks only have 1 dash and it doubles as cc

[@here1334]

give tanks team buffs auras cc or whatever that isnt damage, that scale off of their existing tank (bonus) stats in order to rule out non tanks buying them. idk if this fixes it but its at least worth a try

[@jongahimer5338]

As things stand I’d settle for 5-10 seconds more survivability on average. On a side note when I started this game a full armor Malphite could walk down/ignore any adc/support that wasn’t vayne. Now you die in a matter of seconds to every late game adc/support. Tanks have fallen off hard while damage has spiraled out of control. Riot even acknowledged it somewhat with their minor stat buffs, they just weren’t enough.

[@giovannicampostrini6309]

i had been reading the comments and i think that is surprisingly how some people can be so close-minded about thinking that tanks need to do damage and accepting it, when is prove by other mobas than tank can be a threat by other methods than doing damage, giving buffs and hard cc to allies is a thing that cant be ignore, and saying that doing that is turning the tanks into mere supports i think is wrong, the most notable difference has to be how the vanguards are able to disrupt the backlane, and be annoying, meanwhile the warden should be more focused on peeling the backlane and pushing or controling any class like assasin that tries to eliminate the more squishy champs. i think that if the tank items are around responding enemies, they should be even more situational, being able to deal with any kind of enemy, like is not a mistery why nobody wants to play tank top when the enemy can counter pick something like fiora and you wouldnt be able to play the game anymore and for saying that tanks need high base damage to be able to wave clear, thats simple, since the beginning the sunfire did had enhanced damage against minions and monster, why not do the same to the tank damaging abilities so they can more easily farm

[@Peter-zg3em]

The issue can be fixed by buffing the tanks, not their items, because you can build the items on anyone and generally when they’re good it’s the highly mobile champs with damage who become broken. The other thing you can do is remove some of the itemized and built in max or percentage health damage. There’s no place for it In the game other than maybe a kit like vayne as long as she’s awful early on. It punishes me for having a lot of health. It makes no sense outside of appealing to dps champs, who are usually either cool looking or hot, and sell more skins. That’s ultimately what it comes down to, I hope you know. The tanks don’t sell as many skins as the hot anime girls with 5 dashes and max health damage.