Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth: Tank

This was posted in July, but it still holds true. Expect more of these SOON!

Picture this. You are Miss Fortune. Your team has been doing well through the laning phase. Winning the one on one fights without much issue. Ganks are going well. That is to say, they are going well against everyone except one. You know that one. Stacking armor and magic resistance. Stopping you dead in your tracks with his stuns and lockdowns. As the game goes on and lanes get pushed, the team fights begin. This is where he shines. Locking down your team with his unstoppable wave of crowd control. Soon, your beautiful replay you were going to post on YouTube is nothing more than another piece of fodder to prove that team composition matters, and that you should have picked a Tank.

List of Tanks (as of July 22, 2011)

• Alistar
• Amumu
• Cho'Gath
• Galio
• Leona
• Maokai
• Rammus
• Shen
• Singed

So, the first thing I think needs addressing here would be how short this list is. I did address this some in another article, but Tanks have the disposition of not being as viscerally fun. What I mean by that is that Tanks don't get the big numbers. They don't get the big kill streaks. But, they are the cog that moves the team past the laning phase. The time spent farming up minions and avoiding death is well spent come the mid-point of the game when you're the bane of the enemy team existence. In any rate, this leads to a lack of Champions with the disposition of "Tank" stuck to them. You could call other Champions "Tank" (Dr. Mundo, Nasus, Blitzcrank, ect...) but they lack in some places that a true Tank excels, or they are better in another role. So, for this discussion, I will only cover those Tanks listed.

Do keep in mind as we continue, Tank is a hard role to generalize. As anyone who has played most or all of the above Champions can tell you, while they are all Tanks, they all play very differently and could not be all generalized in a simple group. So I will be concentrating on the big similarities, but will cover differences if I feel they should be covered.

Tanks excel in 2 places. Survivability and Crowd Control. Tanks can stay alive through some of the biggest burst from some of the hardest hitters in the game. Crowd Control is a must as well since you won't be the one dishing the pain. You need to stop the enemy (or at least slow them down) to let your team do the dirty work. Without these things, a Tank is not a Tank.

Tanks are weak in all the obvious places. They don't deal large amounts of damage if build solely to Tank. Many also fall short in the ability to farm, though this isn't role wide. Singed and Maokai can be farming machines around mid-game.

Truly, the role of a Tank should be obvious; take damage for your team, stop the enemies, rinse, repeat. While this can seem overly simple and possibly as entertaining as watching grass grow or paint dry, there are a lot of intricacies to deciding WHEN to do these things.

There is a Veigar, a Vayne and a LeBlanc pushing your first mid tower and you are there with a Miss Fortune. You're all levels 10-12 and 2 of your team is dead. When do you push in? Do you push in at all? Is your Ultimate up? Is Miss Fortune's Ultimate up? Is your 5th member going to make it if you move in now? Who do you target with your Crowd Control?

See what I mean? Not to mention all of this needs to be decided in less time than it took you to read that. The Tank can be the hero or the martyr, and its all based on your choices.

Now, down to brass tacks. Why should you play a Tank? Could be because you enjoy rushing into a fight as Amumu or Galio, having all your teammates follow and destroying the enemy team. Could be that you like the harassment potential of a Singed, Alistar, or Cho'Gath, pushing the enemy team around where you want them. Could be that you like the ability to support your team from practically anywhere faster than anyone as Shen or Rammus. Could just be that no one else wants to do it. All of these are good choices that show that knowing at least one Tank can drastically improve you overall as a Summoner and make you CREDIT TO TEAM!