What about Tanks? I want to start playing tanks, but I want to play the one with the most utility/tankiness and I can't decide who is the best.

 

Doesn't it make more sense to go for kills rather than farm? Off the top of my head the bounty for kills are about 50% less for creeps and about 50% more for players.

 

That's a terrible policy to maintain.

Creeps are 100% safe. It takes all of 15 creeps (Not counting cannon minions) to match 1 kill.

Kills? You fail, you give the ENEMY more gold and Exp to kick your ass with. You also lose gold and Exp because of missing creeps.

Kills are stupid to try for unless you can either force them out of lane safely or guarantee it. Don't go for kills in other circumstances. It'll always be worse for you.

Every tank serves a different purpose. Tankiness is largely dependent on how you build, but some characters have much greater steroids.

I'll just give you a summary of the main tanks and let you choose from there.

Alistar: Ultimate Tank Steroid + Consistent disruption. Relies heavily on Summoner skills for initiation. Can jungle really well and has the 2nd strongest ganks. Most resource reliant sustain, but can AOE sustain as well as force-push waves because of it.

Shen: Defensive tank. Has minimal initiation. Global presence means he can cover your ass anywhere on the map. Currently considered the worst tank because of his resource whoring skill set as well as the almost completely useless self-shield. Can jungle, but has weakest ganks unless you counter-initiate with Ultimate. Highest lane sustain if played well.

Leona: Greatest 1v1 disruption and teamwork champ. She will massively boost your team's DPS as long as you keep attacking her targets. Maxing CDR on her = about 5s of uninterrupted crowd control on one target, if you're good. Self-steroid is reliant on hitting enemies, but you have about 75% up-time if you do tag them. Also 3rd strongest self-defense steroid in-game. Suggested you get a Sheen to augment your 1v1 presence as well as maxing CDR to abuse 1v1 shut-down.

Rammus: 2nd Strongest defense steroid. Arguably the strongest 1v1 tank. Strongest jungle ganks. Pretty much completely shuts down any AD he tags with taunt. One of the jungle tanks. Highest ground speed of any tank champion combined with an Armor debuff allows you to wreck one guy for your team.

Amumu: The Mass AOE king. Strongest over-time AOE damage amongst tanks. Best jungle speeder amongst them. Weakest jungle ganks unless your team is really on the ball. His ultimate snares everyone and prevents auto-attacks and movement skills, but doesn't stop auto-attacks.

Maokai: Largely considered a mediocre tank. Ultimate relies on allies fighting inside a small stationary circle for its effects. Would have the best defense steroid if it wasn't stuck to one spot on a high CD. Jungle is average, but has the 3rd strongest ganks. Amazing lane harass with saplings having the highest base damage of any range skill in the game if it double taps. Highest sustain of any tank due to self-healing passive and relatively low mana costs on sapling.

Galio: Anti-magic tank. Relies even more heavily on summoner skills for initiation than Alistar. Only has one real tank maneuver, and that's his ultimate. Shield is very nice to pop on a squishy and make them harder to kill. Steroid is strong, but the ability to cast on others doesn't really make up for its ultra-short duration. Has strong lane harass, but is ultra-mana reliant. Can even mid-lane decently if need be.

 

Cho'Gath, Amumu, Galio, Alistar and Maokai imo have the best utility when it comes to tanks.

To be honest though, each tank fits a different type of role on a team. If you felt like countering a shitload of AoE, Maokai and Galio would work the best.

Alistar works the best when it comes to babysitting a carry.

Cho'Gath is the most versatile n the roles that he can fill.

And Amumu is great when you lack clean initiation.

Edit: The post above mentions Rammus. While I love Rammus, I feel that he is entirely too reliant on early successful ganks from the Jungle to be an asset to the team. In the lane he's completely pointless unless its against a lane Yi and Xin Zhao lol.

 

jarvan, mordekaiser, blitzcrank, zilean, warwick and teemo make for good option for a tank.

but try to remember that glass cannon is never a good idea to go about and every champ, be they carry or not need some survivability item like banshe's veil and or the low, low cost thornmail/ quick silver sash.

 

Blitz isnt really a tank. More tanky dps. Same with mord. These jumped out at me though. Zil and teemo as tanks...lolwut

 

I don't think you even know what a tank is.

Lesson time:

1) Tanks must have natural durability.
1.1) Tanks shouldn't need that much farm. Defensive gear is noticeably cheaper than damage gear while also having more gold/5 items. If they need to farm an ass-ton for bulkiness, then they'd have been better off going carry + 2 defense items and destroying the enemy team.

2) Tanks must have some way to instantly disrupt damage.
2.1) It does NOT mean eat the damage or draw all fire. If the enemy Xin is dashing or their Leblanc is starting to nuke, you have some way to stop them from killing their target. The more disruption you have, the better. Killing the enemy before they can kill your side is NOT tanking.
2.2) While Cho can off-tank, he can NOT prime tank because his disruption is a skill shot and it has a noticeably large delay. Same applies to Xin and JArvan. Takes at least 1.5s to apply their disruption if they are tanking, more than enough time for a mage to wipe the floor with a squishy.
2.3) One of the reasons Shen is currently the worst tank is because his CC has a huge CD and resource drain, letting him taunt maybe once or twice in a fight if he wants to use his shield and Q. Even Alistar, the second highest CD tank Champ, can disrupt 3-4 times a fight.

3) Tanks must be an overtime threat.
3.1) The longer the tank lives, the more punishment they'd have noticeably dealt out. Emphasis on notability. Champions like Ashe, Riven, and Fiddle can't function as tanks, despite their huge amounts of CC, because their over time damage drops like a rock when they start adding non-damaging survivability items outside of Bveil.

4) The tank must be able to initiate combat.
4.1) All tank champions have a way to initiate fights. Now, you can do away with this by having an alternative initiation, like Ashe Arrow, Tibbers bomb, Jarvan Ulti, and etc, but that's only allowing you an off-tank. A prime tank will be able to start up a fight and keep it going by maintaining massive CC effects on the enemy team.
4.2) This is other reason Shen is currently the worst tank. His initiation is his only source of CC and it has minimal range and speed compared to others. Rammus has worse range, but his ability to speed in, lock out one character longer, deal very nice 1v1 and AOE damage more than makes up for it.

 

For a tank in the jungle, Rammus is great. Amumu is good too, but can be counterjungled pretty easily. Jarvan is picking up some popularity here, what with Saintvicious raving about how awesome he is.

For bottom lane Alistar, Leona, and Taric are the tankiest of the supports you see down there that are playable as tanks, though Taric is more support then tank.

For Top Lane you often see Galio, Cho, Singed, and Nasus as top tankier-bruisers.


For ease of play, Galio is really easy to learn, and Singed just needs a Rod of Ages to become supertank. Alistar and Leona require more skill to play, but a well played Alistar is picking up kills for his carry left and right bottom lane.

Rammus is fun, too, and has some of the best skins in the game. He also has by far the best voice acting in the game >.>

ok

 

OI!, don't dis the teemo tank. And ya, a real tank is what you said, but those named above when builded as a tank can make people rage. they are not REAL tank, they are just anoying little dipshit when they are builded like one.

thought I said they make for good option, not that they where one.

and for Big-Crank, I included him because Grab is a force come hiter, IF landed, its an obvious offtank, but it has good CC good durability and its the worst nightmare of any carry when paired with alistair in a lane.

 

How do you figure, pilgrim? She has superior maneuverability and safety to nearly any carry. Honestly I don't even know why you start referencing abilities like bloodboil or highlander in a ranged AD discussion. Graves was released this patch and has higher base stats than nearly any carry and higher uptime on his steroid as well. He is powerful and will be until riot realizes how absurd his stat values are in combination with his ability to deal high sustained and absurd burst with the same build. AD ratios have been a plague to balance since they were implemented. Mark my words, Graves will be nerfed. I also believe my last post specifically said Kogmaw outdamaged Trist, so I don't know why you see the need to quote me then repeat exactly what I said.

As far as AD carries in general, excluding Graves because he is imbalanced if you compare his stat values and growth to other ranged AD champs, Kog>Ez>Trist>Vayne>Twitch>Urgot>MF>Cait>Ashe. Corki is in there somewhere but he is a very spell-based carry and hard to categorize, but his damage is up there with Kog/Ez. Vayne's damage is higher than nearly anyone's when fighting against targets with high armor values because of silver bolts, but her natural steroids are inferior to 90% attackspeed, especially since roll can actually be a DPS decrease once you have a couple of PDs. I don't include sivir either because she is not a ranged carry; she is simply the melee champ with the most op melee range in the game. These are numbers, and in practice Trist's damage is more consistent than most others because of her absurd range (703 at 18 ) along with a knockback and an escape.

The only person who could reliably take out trist with gap closers would be akali because Trist can counter 2 gap closers in any fight. Q doesn't require greater farm, it simply scales better with more farm. See above about consistent damage. Ganks are different from teamfights. Ganking implies you are teaming up vs someone so being behind enemy lines isn't much of a problem. It isn't as if you use it like a blitz grab in the middle of a teamfight. In a gank, Trist can use it to displace someone. In a teamfight, Trist can use it to peel from herself or someone else.

See above about Graves being released for less than one week.

Her steroids are comparable, but trist is a safer champion whose steroids scale vs other carries. Vayne can take down bruisers faster, but Trist can kill the carries/supports/casters faster.

After bringing up the 'behind enemy lines' thing when talking about ganks you actually list Kogmaw's ability to reduce armor/mr? The armor/mr shred is only 625 range, which is a bigger deal for a champ with absolutely no escape mechanism. It's also 25 armor/mr at max rank. Kogmaw's CC is a soft CC which is a skillshot that, even if applied, can be ignored by moving out of it.

Tristana's escape mechanism is superior both offensively and defensively. Her ultimate deals more damage until significant AD is attained and can't be absorbed by an Ally. Caitlyn's pokes are easy to dodge and don't make up for having 0 actual carrying power due to having no steroids.
Ashe used to be top pick/ban in every tournament, but not anymore, because she simply isn't that strong.
In either case, strong utility doesn't make them better carries. It actually hinders their ability to carry.

Trist's early game spells deal similar damage to any other carry. Trists relative 'safety' as a carry is higher than any other carry besides ezreal. Trists mid-game is weaker than several carries, but far from dead-last. Trist's late-game is superior to most carries. Trist's ultra-late game is superior to nearly all carries, while also having the benefit of having something other than reliance on your team's support to keep you alive.

You may not like trist, and that's fine, I don't either. She is harder to play than most carries so oftentimes you see bad trists who end up dragging instead of carrying. But she is far from the worst carry, and she is a superior carry to most. If you want to argue that this is a theory vs practice kind of thing, I'd point out that Anivia and Cass are widely agreed to be some of the strongest AP carries, but they don't see nearly as much play because of their relative difficulty.

---------- Post automerged at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:48 PM ----------

This is all mostly true, however, tanks are not necessary in most games. Having a bruiser top and a bruiser jungle is often enough 'tank' for your team. The enemy team will have a hard time breaking through a Irelia/Udyr front line. Team CLG often uses HotshotGG's Chogath as their only tank.

Bruisers replace the need for tanks in a lot of games. They don't need abilities like pulverize or idol of durand because their relatively high damage makes it so they can't be ignored. In a Bruiser/Bruiser/AP/AD/Support vs Tank/Bruiser/AP/AD/Suport, the bruiser/bruiser has a strong chance of winning. While I realize none of us are likely to play on the level of CLG/TSM/Dimetric/Fnatic, bruisers are actually still significantly powerful in lower elo brackets, especially when playing with and against uncoordinated teams.

I have successfully 'tanked' for my team as udyr/leesin/garen/taric/APSion/Xz/Morde/Mundo/Grag/Jarv/Malph/Nasus/Renekton/Olaf/Singed/Swain/Trundle/Yorick.
Without tooting my own horn, I've done all this with a top .5% rating at the beginning of s1. I don't think I've gotten much worse since then. Tanks aren't necessary in games if you can play a bruiser effectively.

The biggest thing to remember is that players are human, and therefore make mistakes. Just because you don't have a taunt doesn't mean you can't force them to attack you by virtue of being the first one into the fight. I'm sure nearly everyone here has had to yell at their team/been yelled at to attack the squishies, NOT the tanks.

 

So far my mains are shaping up to be Irelia, Nasus, Ashe and Xerath. I'm thinking of picking up Sona for pure support.

 

Dragon Champion go go go.

 

Not actually too excited. Was looking forward to that nine-tailed fox champ that they previewed around graves time. It reminded me of Kurama from Yu-Yu-Hakusho, which was pleasantly nostalgic.

This will probably be another bruiser, probably their rendition of Dota's dragon knight. :/

This game made me laugh though. Heimer/Nida/Teemo had impenetrable defenses around their turrets and refused to leave their base after 35 minutes, which made things a little frustrating. But my final score made it all worth it.
http://imgur.com/H3gJH

 

I want some Priestess of the Moon up in this game.

 

A nine tailed fox champ sounds fun. You thinking AP or AD carry?

Also, what's your opinion on Warwick as a jungler? I don't have one in my stable yet, and he seems good at it.

Ontopic: I liek dragons :awesome.

 

Iirc she's an AP caster who should have a different playstyle. Whether that's 'different' like orianna is different with her ball resource or 'different' like wukong is different because he can stealth for 3 seconds, I don't know.

Warwick is a strong jungler, but has pitiful ganks pre 6, terrible late-game presence, and only moderate mid-game presence. He is an incredibly safe jungler and I recommend him to anyone without proper runes or anyone pre-level 30, but otherwise I would say there are better picks.

 

I personally love Warwick in the jungle. I don't have too many issues ganking pre-6. Its usually a successful gank unless Im ganking mid.

Damage wise I never seem to have an issue with dealing a lot of damage... but I focus more on off-tankwick that gets around 160 armor and MR. Damage items tend to be Wriggles, Wits End then Madreds Bloodrazor as my 5th item (Merc Treads, Spirit Visage and Sunfire all come before it).

 

I main support/offtank Alistar, Kog'Maw, and jungle Amumu, I also used to main Ryze but I haven't used him in months. Also, although Kog is an incredibly powerful ad carry, if the other team has any jumps, then I know I'm going to get focused down fast.

 

heh. You should try singed out if you're looking for a tank. He's hilarious to play. He's a competent top solo and is an absolute joy to play. He's nowhere near as obnoxious as he used to be, but still can make opponents cry in sheer frustration. Seriously, I've racked up 200+ kills minimum as singed, just running away with <5% hp. You must buy surfer singed, as theres nothing worse than getting killed by a dude prancing around in hot pink. Run away spamming shift+1,2,4 (taunts etc) and I guarantee you'll get hate in /allchat.