On February 04 2011 05:53 spinesheath wrote: We should just all agree that a tank can only be a champ that can switch between tank mode and siege mode and all that stuff.
"Tank" is like some other terms ("metagame" for instance, or "mindgames" in the Smash community) in that its (mis)usage has broadened to the point where using the word in any sort of intelligent discussion is pretty dumb. You're just bound to be misunderstood on at least some level.
That said I don't think it's terribly hard to see which champs have innately good survivability (Taric, Malphite, Udyr), which have good initiation (Malph, Rammus), which can keep anti-carries off your carry (Udyr, Cho) and so on. I feel like arguing over the definition of a word that is used so broadly ("tank") is silly when there are other, perfectly good words that accurately express what you're trying to say.
On February 04 2011 05:46 Mogwai wrote: I find this thread fascinating because everyone thinks everyone else looks like a complete retard because no one knows wtf makes someone a good tank or a tank at all.
On February 04 2011 05:57 Mogwai wrote: the thread title has huehuehuehuehuehuehue in it, I'm not sure anyone is even slightly surprised that I'm at least 50% trolling here.
On February 04 2011 05:57 Mogwai wrote: the thread title has huehuehuehuehuehuehue in it, I'm not sure anyone is even slightly surprised that I'm at least 50% trolling here.
I thought trolling your own thread was illegal and that you would be shot.
I'm not full blown trolling, just being an ass to try to prove how stupid nailing down what a tank is is. Tanks come in many shapes and sizes and do many different things. besides, I'm not terribly interested in this discussion. I merely created this thread to stop the patch notes thread from getting completely derailed.
On February 04 2011 06:11 Mogwai wrote: Tanks come in many shapes and sizes and do many different things. besides, I'm not terribly interested in this discussion. I merely created this thread to stop the patch notes thread from getting completely derailed.
So do weebles and they never fall down. I think you really, secretly, unbeknown to yourself, craved an opportunity to talk about the classification of pen.. I mean tank sizes.
He has build in damage mitigation with his passive, and his ultimate puts him right in the midst of the other team, who will usually toss a round of nukes his way, meaning he has just succeeded in both initiating a fight and absorbing a significant portion of the enemy team's punishment.
As far as disruption goes, how much more disrupting than a giant rock man in the middle of your team's squishies can you get?
right and all tanks are beefy. that's their unifying characteristic. to imply anything more is to lose sight of why we call them tanks and exposes a severe lack of vocabulary. you want an initiator, ask for an initiator.
This spreadsheet's really cool, and gives a nice baseline for talking about how durable a champion is (or isn't).
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I think the main difference between a 'Tank' and a 'Bruiser' (thx Riot for the terms) is that a bruiser can be looked at to provide physical or magical damage as their primary reason for being on a team, whereas a tank provides meatwalling or group EH as their reason for being on a team.
Look at the champs Riot has tagged as 'tanks'. None of them are champions you'd pick to fill an AD or AP carry role on your team, and they're not the fragile buffbots that 'Support' has come to mean in LoL either. The idea of a 'tank' to me is a 'non-carry, non-caster, character takes an active role in battle' character.
- Shen and Rammus do this by having skillsets with taunts and abilities to prevent damage to themselves. - Amumu and Galio do this by bringing in an AoE disable that forces fights for their teams. - Alistar does this by having a skillset that lets him wreak havoc in combat along with an ult that lets him do it. -Taric does this by having a hard requirement to be in melee to be at his full effect and having a skillset that's entirely focused on support and survival. He's a 'Durable Support' as much as he is a 'Tank', but the terms aren't that different for the LoL terms.
Other popular 'tanky' champions clearly have ways in which they're either AD or AP, but for the above champs, it's not even what they're doing, but how they're doing it.
On February 04 2011 07:02 Mogwai wrote: right and all tanks are beefy. that's their unifying characteristic. to imply anything more is to lose sight of why we call them tanks and exposes a severe lack of vocabulary. you want an initiator, ask for an initiator.
This is the crux of it and very well said.
Which is an interesting issue, because now we see that the usage of the word 'tank' encourages further confusion and obfuscates the REAL question, what the discussion is really about, "who is an/the best initiator?" Taric and Janna have better initiates than Malph and Morde. Malph and Morde are sure more durable than Taric and Janna.
We all know who the tanky champs are already. Rather, we should be discussing who all the initiators are, and how to min/max the relationship and balance between being able to initiate effectively and surviving after you've initiated.
Champs like Rammus and Shen are natural in this role. Sometimes unorthodox champs with amazing initiates like Annie build tank and attempt to also fill the same role. Other times the responsibility for the role is shared amongst a team like Ashe Fiddle Morg Trynd Mundo with plenty of initiates and beef, just not both on a single champ.
This is where the breakdown occurs I think because in most cases people expect a single person on the team to shoulder this responsibility. "WTF NO TANK?" means '4x of us are not gunna start the fight, you should pick someone durable cuz we want you to run in first, also u better be good at running in first and then getting out too or we call u a nub.'
This sums it up very nicely:
On February 04 2011 04:54 ArC_man wrote: I feel "tank" is a hugely misused term in LoL (and I hate using the word "tank"). When people ask for a "tank" in a game, they 99% of the time they mean a hero who has initiation abilities. Unfortunately for LoL, many of the inherently tough (ie: high hp/armor/mr) heros have initiation abilities which creates confusion because people now associate "tank" with "initiation".
It is a common misconception to assume that every team needs a tank. You can win games without a tank easily (unlike initiators).
TLDR: don't even use the word "tank", it only causes confusion.
Ultimately we should still use the word tank, but to mean beefy/durable and that will eventually trickle down. Meanwhile in solo que instead of complaining no one picked a tank I'll instead be saying 'WTF NO INIT?'
honorable mentions to all the pussies who need flash to make it happen Alistar, Annie, Galio
ya ok but...
so like, why?
I mean, I don't think you're wrong, but I'm curious for example why mummy is #3 but i don't see Janna or Shen on the list. And Ashe arrow is amazing but that's all she has, so if u consider bandage toss in a vaccuum without his ult is it still #3 over rocket grab #5? And when is it a good idea to build Annie pure tank and be my teams stun initiator instead of say picking Sion and building tanky?
These are the type of questions that I think need further discussion and why this is a good thread!
This is only from an initiation standpoint. The purpose of an initiator is to take quick, decisive advantage of a mistake on the enemy team. Ashe is #1 for a long duration global stun. Malphite has his ulti and large burst/slow/aspd redux. Mumu similarly. Rammus powerballs into your carry and you lose the teamfight. Blitz pulls someone not tank and it's gg. Etc.
On February 04 2011 11:15 Logrus wrote: I mean, I don't think you're wrong, but I'm curious for example why mummy is #3 but i don't see Janna or Shen on the list. And Ashe arrow is amazing but that's all she has, so if u consider bandage toss in a vaccuum without his ult is it still #3 over rocket grab #5? And when is it a good idea to build Annie pure tank and be my teams stun initiator instead of say picking Sion and building tanky?
Shen is a poor initiator. You port in once the fight has started, but at actually starting fights, Shadow Dash really doesn't do it for you, especially against a team that has enough on-demand cc to keep themselves out of its woefully weak range. The best way Shen gets a fight started is to apply pressure on the other side of the map and wait for someone else to start the fight--which isn't really initiating in a useful sense.
With regard to Amumu/Ashe--while it's true that they can't do their initiation very often, in the context of a teamfight, that's not really a necessary trait. What IS necessary is reliability. If Amumu lands bandage/ulti or Ashe lands an Arrow, the fight is going to happen because you've got some significant portion of their team locked down. From there, once the fight is over, initiating a teamfight isn't going to be something you need to do in the next 20 seconds--because a significant portion of one team or the other is going to be dead. By the time both teams are in position to teamfight again, those skills will be ready again. Note that given the cooldown of Flash compared to initiation ultimates, this is NOT true of flash-based initiatiors like Galio, Alistar, and Annie.
One of the reasons I personally label Amumu as a better initiator than Blitzcrank is his ability to force his initiation through spell blocks (Black Shield and Banshee's Veil). You land a toss on someone, it pops the veil, pulls you through to them, and catches them in the ulti with all of their teammates. Later-game, Blitz needs to push through spell blocks in order to perform his initiation reliably.