[PC] League of Legends

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by OceanBlue

As someone who plays tanks almost exclusively, I have to agree. Malphite's ult is really, really good, but he also has a good slow [that makes him faster] and an ASPD reducer. He also pokes a lot better than champs like Amumu and Alistar, so he can stay in the front and actually do something instead of just taking hits [although if you're taking hits from a ranged carry or a nuker, chances are you want to initiate anyway].

I don't understand why people say Maokai is a good tank [or, even worse, think having a Maokai means they don't need as much hard CC or a way to initiate]. It's good to build him tanky, and he does have CC, but he doesn't bring AoE CC like other tanks do, and his root isn't nearly as good as other skills like Rammus's taunt. He's not bad [actually, I think he's really good, and his ult is amazing if you can actually get people to stay in it], but he's definitely a champ that needs another tank or champs like Kennen to do well because he has a really hard time forcing team fights or controlling them after he initiates. In my opinion, of course.

True. I really like Maokai, as a mage tank, just like how Galio is. I hate it when people force me to go tank just because I chose Maokai. Most of the time I just prefer going for tanky caster way with a lot of HP to utilize his passive, and from my experience, I got better result in that build more than become a tank.

Btw, I want they fix (or rework) his root. When I root someone and they flash away, Maokai will continue to travel to the target current position, and know what? Most of the time, it becomes my dead place .

[Kafriel]

Man, it always takes a solo/duo queue game to make me remember why I don't solo/duo queue. There needs to be a level above 30, because the vast vast majority of people who are 30 are still god awful at this game.

It ain't really fair when a LV30 with 250 wins is paired up against a LV30 with 1550 wins, now is it? Lost a terrible match yesterday because I sucked hard, but today we won a game because enemy Lee Sin was awful. I think the best LoL experience is playing premade VS premade while knowing all 10 ppl, nothing beats a friendly custom game.

Btw, I want they fix (or rework) his root. When I root someone and they flash away, Maokai will continue to travel to the target current position, and know what? Most of the time, it becomes my dead place .

Yeah saw it yesterday on that terrible match, I flashed away but Mao had already targeted me so he went through mountains and jungles to make me dead. Guess this is how it's meant to work though?

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

It ain't really fair when a LV30 with 250 wins is paired up against a LV30 with 1550 wins, now is it? Lost a terrible match yesterday because I sucked hard, but today we won a game because enemy Lee Sin was awful. I think the best LoL experience is playing premade VS premade while knowing all 10 ppl, nothing beats a friendly custom game.

Due to some circumstance, my account from US hasn't been transfered to Asia server yet, so I've been constantly playing with my friends against a full team of lv 30 with my lv 14 account . It's quite a harsh life at the early game if you ask me.

To tell the truth, even if you raise the cap lv up to 60, there will be awful lot of people who still suck at lv 60.

[Kafriel]

True, but at least they will suck less until they get there! Smurfs really add to the problem, I remember getting owned by Yis and Tryndas early on who had 2 LV30 accounts with 1.6k ranking and stuff. Anyway, I wouldn't mind an increase in level, as that would mean an increase in mastery points^^

[-Sho-]

True Malphite is one of the best initiator and tank , with Rammus(Best Tank Jungler + gank) and Shen(Multiple Taunt + Ulti). Pratically those 3 tanks are permaban in ranked , Shen it's sometimes.
I also play tank a lot , Rammus is my main but in ranked i switch to Cho'gath & Amumu.
I like playing jungler with a carry if no one want to jungle , support sometimes and mage too.

Well if you take Maokai , better have a "real" tank in the team. I play Maokai tanky mage. Like RoA , Abyssal , Frozen Heart...
This is like if you have Garen Offtank , better have a "real" tank too , cuz people will just ignore Garen & speed up on their carry.

[Kafriel]

Garen's a true tank imo, he can be annoying and take probably the most punishment out of all the tanks.

True Malphite

Last Malphite I saw was stacking Lifesteal and attack speed......I'll let you guess how that went. Haven't spent a lot of time on him, Rammus seems more user-friendly.

[Duo Maxwell]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Garen's a true tank imo, he can be annoying and take probably the most punishment out of all the tanks.

He can't initiate. The only thing that make people focus him is when they are braindead. What will you do when you see a Garen charging forward your team? Either pull back, or someone give him a disable, and everyone just charges ahead to kill whatever behind his back. At the very best he can silence one of your teammate, and charging toward to hurt your most weakest member, but Akali can do better than him in that matter. Being tanky doesn't make you a tank. It's about how you can make your opponent focus their fire power on you, or at the very least disorder their formation so they can't concentrate on your AD champion.

Malphie "force" your opponent to engage in team combat, and that's the meaning of initiator.

Originally Posted by -Sho-

Well if you take Maokai , better have a "real" tank in the team. I play Maokai tanky mage. Like RoA , Abyssal , Frozen Heart...
This is like if you have Garen Offtank , better have a "real" tank too , cuz people will just ignore Garen & speed up on their carry.

Maokai is best at dealing with AoE team. When people know they should only combat in my "ring", I can use that to put the enemy outside of my expecting area to push the lane, and to some extent, force them to engage so they won't lose their third tower.

[Kafriel]

He can't initiate.

-walks in enemy team by himself, pops W, they spend 30 seconds trying to kill me, my team comes by for a gank while the enemies are sweating their cooldowns, I finish off the runners-
The best part is, I don't need perfect timing like with Malphite ulting in a 5-man cluster, hoping the team gets his cue and he doesn't die a painful death.

[-Sho-]

Well-answered Duo Maxwell.
If people aren't stupid , they'll ignore Garen , Malph will just run at the carry as well as his team. If he's a threat just disable him. Well , even if he's offtank , he can do some dmg but still if you're facing a team with a "real" tank with equal skill , this is win for them.
I won't qualify him as a "Tank". He just got a disable. He have a shield but it's useless as no one will focus him.
Well if you initiate with is W first it's kinda useless . Yes one champ is disable but guess what ? he still have his combo attack so after this , he'll use it while Malph initiated on the others.
For me , wait for one to use ulti then disable him fast like against a Malz , Kata.....
As i said , it's better to have a "real" tank along with Garen. After it only depends on people play.
I did a game with a Garen offtank opponent , score 16/5/9 , he did a pretty good job to kill our carry with his ulti but even with that they lost cuz of my Amumu who initiated better , W->T 4-5 stunned all spam combo spells -> dead -> Garen left , chasing the carry then run away -> Tower down etc.....

[DragoonKain3]

As a long time Rammus jungle tank, I feel he has been hit a wee bit hard by the nerfs. He is so dependent on successful ganks for his gold/xp (Rammus jungle isn't sustained past the first round) that the hit on powerball makes your ganks that much less lethal and thus, makes him that much harder to keep farmed/levelled. Not only that, before Rammus can just powerball past warded areas to gank; its so much harder this time around.

While he certainly isn't a bad hero per se, him being so much easier to get shutdown is a terrible risk to take as the main tank; you just might not be able to tank at all if you're that underfarmed and underlevelled by the time late-game comes around.

No, best jungle tank right now is Amumu, as he has his nerfs reverted apart from 0.5 sec of his ult. Anyone who started early season 1 after the heimerdinger/shaco nerfs (but before the AoE champ nerfs) would know how deadly Amumu is. Best initiation of ALL, by far and away, with his ridiculous AoE ult. As if Bandage --> Ult is bad enough, but using flash to properly position yourself so you ult all 5 enemies would make you win any teamfight assuming you have the DPS to back it up.

And Garen is a terrible initiator. No AP carry in their right mind would blow their long CDs on the enemy tank, much less one that doesn't even have any form of CC nor one that is of any threat when you're at near full hp. Even Taric is a better initiator than Garen, and even then Taric is still meh.


As for Ryze, I used to rush RoA with him, but I realized that the upgrade from Cata to RoA costs about the same as getting a Tear and halfway through your Glacial Shroud. Sure RoA has a bit better late game, but considering Ryze needs to abuse his ridiculous mid-game to transition into late, I never rush RoA anymore.

Sapphire Crystal
Tear if the enemy lane can heal themselve, Cata otherwise
Sorc Shoes
Whatever I didn't get between Tear/Cata
Glacial Shroud
Upgrade to Frozen Heart/BV, whichever first depends on enemy comp
Void Staff
Zhonya's Hourglass
Upgrade to AAS

Reason for Zhonya is because after Tear/BV/Frozen Heart, there really isn't any other good mana item out there. And Zhonya REALLY helps when you get focused fired, as not only does it save you from damage (obvious), but during those 2 seconds your abilities will most probably come off CD, allowing you to burst again.

[Kafriel]

And Garen is a terrible initiator. No AP carry in their right mind would blow their long CDs on the enemy tank, much less one that doesn't even have any form of CC nor one that is of any threat when you're at near full hp. Even Taric is a better initiator than Garen, and even then Taric is still meh.

Guess I get all the stupid people then Well, all the chat got me curious, I'll give Malphite a real shot.

EDIT: Guess most people agree with you in that Garen's a soak/off-tank...Tank/off-tank list?

[OceanBlue]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Guess I get all the stupid people then Well, all the chat got me curious, I'll give Malphite a real shot.

EDIT: Guess most people agree with you in that Garen's a soak/off-tank...Tank/off-tank list?

Well, that discussion was before the Morgana nerf and Malphite's popularity explosion. Also, I personally don't agree with some of the people in the list, but I'm not a great player, so oh well~

Also, Malphite is probably the easiest tank to use. He doesn't need Flash like Galio or Amumu, he can solo/duo lane and jungle [and has an easy laning phase due to his Q and his passive as long as you know how to not waste mana], and he's extremely effective for minimal effort. I personally think people should learn Malphite if they want to learn champs like Galio and Amumu [especially now that his price decreased].

That being said, I do agree that Amumu is probably the best tank. He does a lot of damage if you just leave him because of his W, but you can't really focus him.

[kureizero]

Originally Posted by -Sho-

If people aren't stupid , they'll ignore Garen , Malph will just run at the carry as well as his team. If he's a threat just disable him. Well , even if he's offtank , he can do some dmg but still if you're facing a team with a "real" tank with equal skill , this is win for them.

Garen can't be ignored by champions like Ashe, TF or any squishy carry. These champions that run past and ignore Garen will have Garen and the enemy carries focusing them. As a champion like Ashe my philosophy is too always be mindful of how safe I am (positioning is king in LoL). Never going past tanks and breaking formation just to do damage. Just hit the safest important target while minimizing the damage I take, and sometimes there is nothing else besides Tanks and Tanky DPS in range.

Originally Posted by OceanBlue

That being said, I do agree that Amumu is probably the best tank. He does a lot of damage if you just leave him because of his W, but you can't really focus him.

My thoughts on Amumu is that he is not really a tank and much closer to Tanky DPS. He is like Jarvan in his job is to focus enemy carries and initiate team fights, but is unable to effectively defend carries.

Honestly, I think the best tanks at the moment are the strongest roamers or junglers. Alistar, Nunu, and Shen (Shen is always banned/picked in ranked play at my elo) are the three strongest tanks because of their presence throughout the whole game and not just team fights. Alistar can just roam around the map with Ghost/Flash and gank nonstop after level 2. Nunu is an amazing jungler/counter-jungler,(stealing the enemy jungler's jungle creeps) and like Alistar can gank as early as level 2. Shen while not a roamer is incredibly strong because of his global map presence after level 6 (can turn a 2v2 into a 2v3) and has great synergy with champions such as Taric, Sion, and Cho'gath in a duo lane.

[Kafriel]

In my ELO (1294 or sth), Rammus and Vlad are always banned, with the occasional Malphite or Malzahar ban. About Amumu: he's got bandage toss to ensure someone's escape, and you really can't chase someone with a crying mummy kid next to you. I think his only drawback as a tank is that few people would AA him, knowing about his tantrums...but mages got no problem switching focus I remember a godlike Cho'gath placing rupture on flashed mumu's feet just before the latter ulted...got interrupted in like, 0.3s.

[Duo Maxwell]

Vlad nowaday is so weak it's not even funny. If he can't get a solo lane, he's screwed, and to make thing worse, before he hits lv 7, no one is afraid of him (unless you see a Tryn take a solo lane against Vlad or something along the line).

Garen can't be ignored by champions like Ashe, TF or any squishy carry. These champions that run past and ignore Garen will have Garen and the enemy carries focusing them. As a champion like Ashe my philosophy is too always be mindful of how safe I am (positioning is king in LoL). Never going past tanks and breaking formation just to do damage. Just hit the safest important target while minimizing the damage I take, and sometimes there is nothing else besides Tanks and Tanky DPS in range.

"Ignoring" that we mentioned above isn't as "let he do whatever he wants and we don't care", but more like "avoid him and use your fire power on something else instead". The true tank is the one who can force your opponent to focus fire on him. There are very few champs in LoL can be called as "true tank", though, but Garen as a tank or initiator is even worse than tank Poppy.

[OceanBlue]

Originally Posted by kureizero

Garen can't be ignored by champions like Ashe, TF or any squishy carry. These champions that run past and ignore Garen will have Garen and the enemy carries focusing them. As a champion like Ashe my philosophy is too always be mindful of how safe I am (positioning is king in LoL). Never going past tanks and breaking formation just to do damage. Just hit the safest important target while minimizing the damage I take, and sometimes there is nothing else besides Tanks and Tanky DPS in range.

Garen isn't a tank because he can't cause team fights on his own. Tanks like Amumu, Malphite, Shen, and Rammus have very strong disables that can force team fights. Garen just gets kited.

Originally Posted by kureizero

My thoughts on Amumu is that he is not really a tank and much closer to Tanky DPS. He is like Jarvan in his job is to focus enemy carries and initiate team fights, but is unable to effectively defend carries.

Honestly, I think the best tanks at the moment are the strongest roamers or junglers. Alistar, Nunu, and Shen (Shen is always banned/picked in ranked play at my elo) are the three strongest tanks because of their presence throughout the whole game and not just team fights. Alistar can just roam around the map with Ghost/Flash and gank nonstop after level 2. Nunu is an amazing jungler/counter-jungler,(stealing the enemy jungler's jungle creeps) and like Alistar can gank as early as level 2. Shen while not a roamer is incredibly strong because of his global map presence after level 6 (can turn a 2v2 into a 2v3) and has great synergy with champions such as Taric, Sion, and Cho'gath in a duo lane.

Honestly, I think Jarvan is a tank because he is able to initiate team fights [although it doesn't disable, so it's not really as good as other tanks and having Jarvan doesn't mean you shouldn't have a tank]. It depends on your definitions. The only reason I would consider Nunu a tank is because his ult slows [and really, Nunu's ult isn't that useful for initiation because he can just get CC'ed out of it].

On the other hand, I would consider Amumu a tank because he can initiate team fights very well and is tanky. I consider Malphite a tank for the same reasons; he can't really protect carries by himself after he initiates, but he can initiate well enough that you might not have to.

[-Sho-]

Well Vlad is always solo or mid lane , otherwise he's useless , unless you feed him. But in solo/mid , with his spam W , he's annoying . Add spellvamp , he won't fear the opponent. Lv6 , prepare yourself for a combo ulti + ignite.
Vlad is very easy to play , so anybody can make the same combo and get kills.
Always try to gank him when you have an opportunity imo.

Nunu is a good jungler with is W and is a big threat with his ulti - big dmg & slow but => Silence , stun etc....
Fortunately , he have imba buff Q , use it on Xin for example and his useful E which make lot of dmg even if ur playing him offtank , use it on Carry ad for example.

Shen solo top , harrass , harrass , you can't really farm against him. Don't try to fight 1on1 , you'll lose.

Alistar roamer , yes he's good but , when he's missing , you know that he's wandering around...

For tanky champ which requires more skills , Gragas is harder to handle imo. Your ulti will make the difference in a TF. Properly use your E to slow down the carrys who are running on yours.
Or there's Blitz with his W , mastered , he's imba. Same goes for Nasus tanky , if you farm very well with his W , like in mid game he got around 150 creeps with his w , he's a big threat , 110+450 dmg every 2-4s and can critic , add the passive with that ouch..


PS : The new yordle champ who looks like a mix Teemo-Heimer-Blitz.

Spoiler for Abilities:

Abilities:

Flamespitter: Rumble torches the area in front of him with his flamethrower dealing damage to all units in a cone for several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” this spell deals additional damage.

Scrap Shield: Rumble creates a shield blocking incoming damage for several seconds and granting a short duration speed boost. While in the “Danger Zone,” the shield’s strength and speed boost increase.

Electro-Harpoon: Rumble launches a projectile that deals magic damage and applies a stackable slow on the target. A second shot can be fired for no additional cost within several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” the damage and slow percentage is increased.

The Equalizer (Ultimate): Rumble calls down a line of rockets over the target location. Enemies in the scorched area take damage over time and are slowed.

Junkyard Titan (Passive): Rumble's abilities generate heat. When Rumble is above 50 heat, he is in the "Danger Zone," causing all his basic spells to have additional effects. When Rumble reaches 100 heat he overheats, silencing himself and causing his physical attacks to deal additional magic damage. Rumble loses heat over time.

So , new champs these days always have double abilities effect...

[KBTKaiser]

I wish I could get a second opinion on Sivir though. I can't seem to get her build right...

[Kafriel]

Or there's Blitz with his W , mastered , he's imba. Same goes for Nasus tanky , if you farm very well with his W , like in mid game he got around 150 creeps with his w , he's a big threat , 110+450 dmg every 2-4s and can critic , add the passive with that ouch..

Think you mean Q? Btw Nasus would be a main tank if not for the STUPID damage limit on his ult's drain.

I can't seem to get her build right...

That makes two of us, I got bot-owned with Sivir, and by bot I mean that silly A.I. Just can't seem to draw enough damage to turn her like Ashe or something, although I've seen people who can...

[-Sho-]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

Think you mean Q? Btw Nasus would be a main tank if not for the STUPID damage limit on his ult's drain.

That makes two of us, I got bot-owned with Sivir, and by bot I mean that silly A.I. Just can't seem to draw enough damage to turn her like Ashe or something, although I've seen people who can...

Yes lol , i confused Q to W , my keyboard is AZERTY not QWERTY so..

Sivir , i'll say for start , Masamune & Berserker/Mercury. Almost all Sivir that i saw build her first like that. Then after it depends. Stark Fervor/Bloodthirster/Black Cleaver...