A Guide to Tanky Champions

Good day to you Summoners. In this article I am going to be giving you some pointers on an important role in any team composition, the Tank. The Tank acts as the centre of attention within three different forms of engagment: The initiator, the distraction, and the bait, which he/she  generally does by running in face first. There are various forms in which the tank is played, the Off Tanks, Bruisers and the Pure Tanks. Though you don't see many pure tanks played very often these days, as the other two seem to do the job better right now.

Being tanky comes with a few responsibilities. Being in front of your team almost all the time, keeping them safe and making your opponents use their abilities on you. Some of  the main things you have to look out for when initiating, baiting or if your in a team fight, is the current position of your team to the enemies.

Ask yourself; will your team be able to back you up immediately when you initiate? will they be able to cut off the enemy's retreat after you have baited them? And are the damage dealers taking too much damage instead of you in a team fight? If you can ask these questions and act upon it quickly, correctly and with confidence. You will have a good time!

So what champions can be tanky? Well to list a few of the best right now, Malphite, Blitzcrank, Jayce and Shen, there are way more, too many to list. Tanky champions don't have a specific lane, but the top lane is generally where you will find bruisers. The Off-Tank is very similar to the Bruiser, and we will go into more detail with this later in the article. Junglers tend to be tanky as well, also generally bruisers, it depends on the team compositon. Some supports such as Blitz and Nunu are generally quite tanky as well, but these are more Off-Tanks than Bruisers.

So who should you start off with if you want to try being the tank of the team comp? Well a good champ to start with is Cho'Gath, he generally becomes tanky regardless of what you build because of his Ultimate ability, Feast. This is an ability that stacks on Cho'Gath upto 6 times making him larger and giving him more health! Also his abilities don't require a lot of thought process going into their casting, you can just cast his Rupture ability. This is an ability with CC (Crowd Control). it stops the enemy moving for a short period of time by knocking them into the air, making them easier to hit, or escape from. This is also an Area of Effect (AoE) ability, so you can cast it in the centre of a group of enemies for maximum effect.

So I repeatedly refered to an “Off Tank” and a Bruiser previously I will now explain what these are, and how similar or different they are. So, first of all, what is an off tank? Well in short it is a champion that deals minimal damage while applying CC as well as having sufficient armour, magic resist and health to take lots of punishment.

Next up is the Bruiser. Essentially he/she is the same as the Off-Tank, but bruisers are responsible for scrapping with the enemy taking lots of damage while dealing as much as possible rather than just taking damage and making the enemies' jobs harder with de-buffs and CC. So the difference basically comes down to damage output, Off-Tanks will have a slightly better defence as they build more de-buff orientated items like frozen heart, slowing attack speed as they apply CC. Whereas bruisers will build things like frozen mallet and possibly life steal to take and deal more damage. You will also find that Off-Tanks are generally AP (Ability Power) champions whereas Bruisers are Generally AD (Attack Damage) Champions.

During team fights you will be the one that the team waits for to go in, this is where initiating correctly is fundamental for a successful team fight, if you go in and the team is not ready 9/10 you will end up dying for nothing and the team may suffer more losses because of it, but if you go in at the right time, the engage will probably go in your favour. Also you want to try and get the AD carry to focus you for as long as possible as well as the AP carry blowing all of their CDs (Cooldowns) on you, if this has happened, even If you die, your team will have a slight advantage and you would have done your job correctly.

Now the all important Baron fights. These  will almost always be started by the tanky champion, as  it is their responsibility to take the damage. It is his/her job to take as much damage as possible. With this in mind, it isn't your responsibility to die unnecessarily to baron, or the enemy team's attempt to steal the baron or force a team fight when your team isn't at full strength, so if you get too low, back out and let someone else take damage for a bit, chances are if you're taking baron then someone else on your team is going to have enough health to  keep the baron attempt going.

So! That's beint tanky in a nut shell, initiating, baiting and generally running around face first is the name of the game, but make sure to keep your team alive by as much of the damage as you can, like the gentleman/woman you are! I hope you enjoyed this article, and good luck on the fields of justice!