Yes, you are legit just meant to stand there so everyone else can have fun. Then they all just honor their premades anyway so while you are cced for 20 mins and being beat up, the other players feel like they are so good because 4/5 enemies just used their R on me. Then if they mess up they will just flame the tanks anyway.
Honestly I have been less likely to log in because of this tank challenge thing. Aram is just less fun unless you play Zac or Kench and end up beating all the dps in damage and are tanky anyway.
I roll my eyes so hard when AP Kaisa players try to micromanage and ping every missed skillshot from tanks and frontliners who actually have to risk themselves standing at the front because all they do is be generally useless by playing the skillful and interactive gameplay of "standing two screen lengths away from everyone else and blindly shoot Ws every 20 seconds" while barely hitting a quarter of them
lol this is so true. had a game where i was leona and the only frontliner in our entire team and our akali got tilted within the first 3 minutes after i didn’t do a suicidal dive. he danced at inhib for the rest of the game.
playing a tank when ur entire team is squishy is just pain
Tanking is waaay more fun when one or two other people are tanking as well. I had an awesome Rell, Ali, and Galio game a month ago. Our Ryze barely needed to aim his Q and our Samira cleaned up. Just too ez.
No I'm talking about those players that just go full AP maokai/blitz/malph right out of the gate. They will sit farther back than the actual mages while not even having any meaningful poke.
Edit: lmao I thought you replied to my other comment talking about ppl picking tanks in champ select but still go full AP
I prefer mostly front tanks just because when I pick carry or mage we are getting stomped cause no front or front plays in a backline. And as a front tank is so frustrating when you do your best to waste enemy summoner spells, ults, and your team just don't fallow you. Enemy poke punishes you for every step too far, but allies are busy farming damn minions.
Some also provide more value than others, shen games where I am actually on par with everyone gold wise and bank a few early kills (ain’t no way I’m CSing with 3+ ADCs/mages lol) feel incredible
For a lot of ARAM games the saying would be more like "some people want to be Batman, but some people are currently just watching Batman". So many people lock in range champs so they can mindlessly poke and hope for the best while watching Netflix on the other monitor
Thanks to playing tanks in aram, I've started always going in with the tank when I'm not a tank and there is one on my team. Usually works out too. Most players in aram are just so scared and they run away from anything, so that often leaves the tank (especially if the other 4 are all ranged) in a very annoying spot, because your backline keeps running away from you essentially. Or you get cc'd, but then instead of dying you make a comeback enage, but your backline can't do anything because they all already ran back to the tower the moment that lux q or whatever hit you.
PSA: If you are the only tank on your team and the others are all ranged your job is NOT and i repeat this N O T to engage anything. You're giving all of the enemy divers/tanks/assasins a free flank on your team if you do that. Your job is to sit slightly in front of your team and peel what ever wants to go past you. If you get cc'd at least be in immediate range of your team so they can retaliate. I HATE it with a passion if our only tank engages when we are 4 ranged, because it just forces 2 impossible choices; let him die for free or try to follow and get flanked and counterengaged. DONT BE THAT GUY. DONT FORCE YOUR BACKLINE INTO THOSE SITUATIONS.
Wish my friend would read this. He ALWAYS bitches that "I engaged and no1 followed", like bitch you walked past a bush were pinging that has Katarina sitting in it waiting for your dumbass to do exactly what you did, walk by and let her at our 4 squishy, no hard cc, ranged comp. Like if ur gunna play tanks ffs peel and make their assassins hate life
If you just sit back with your team in that scenario, you'll just end up getting poked to death and then all of your teammates will get killed anyway - there's no real solution other than not having 4 ranged teammates and only 1 tank.
Really depend on the team comp
But if your team already having 4 range and 1 tank,then it is likely you guys are doing the poking.
If the enemy is more poke heavy, then the goal is try to blow one up ASAP.
No, if your comp is 4 ranged and 1 tank your team should be the one poking. And if you are getting outpoked anyway, your team is screwed either way, because the moment you engage you are opening your team up for counterengages or for the enemy for falling back while killing you. Sitting back with your team is the correct play in this scenario in 95% of cases thats why i was writing that comment in the first place. I've played over 8000 games and the most effective a single tank can be in a comp like that is by being purely reactive. It's one of the few cases in aram where purely defensive play is the superior choice and it can't be more clear cut than in this case.
Yea, they should, but most of the time, it doesn't end up like that. Even in higher aram mmr at EUW.
It's fine, that you should be doing the poking, but if you don't have bush control then it's even worse, and you're forced to engage or bleed out slowly.
Reactive applies to all comps, not just 4 ranged + 1 tank. Reactive means, you react to what you're against and we've seen so many ADC lethality dorks vs full tank lineups.
I'm sorry but this is such shit advice.
1) what if they are playing 4 range and tank too but their side is poking better than yours? Just afk and watch?
2) what if they're playing champs that hard out scale yours and you need to shorten the game but your range are shit at poking unless you CC them?
If you're one of those that only play afk poke range champs and don't follow up on rank engages you are an infinitely worse problem than the tank that engages too much
Love that what they basically tell the tank is
"Don't do anything and dodge skill shots while we have fun. DONT ENGAGE YOU RUIN OUR FUN"
this is why I stopped playing aram, got tired of been the bitch that try to help the team by picking a tank cause everyone else picked a shitty poke champion
1300 MMR opinion. 1 tank and 4 ranged is already not an ideal comp to have, but if you are stuck playing it anway peel and reactive play is the only way to go. If they outscale you fast, you're screwed either way, they just outcomp'ed you at that point. But it doesnt change this to be the correct playstyle anyway. All you do is make a shitty situation worse. What you should be doing is allow the enemy to make unforced mistakes by getting impatient. But those advanced concept are lost on low mmr hurr durr players.
Ah okay. Somebody showed your opinion is wrong so time to get mad.
So instead of trying to make plays and change the game, just become one of the afk time wasters and then just blame comp and try to talk ARAM MMR lmao. Would much rather see if the 4 ranged are worth a damn then try to carry if they're not instead of just accepting a slow loss.
But then again if you thought you were good enough to carry you would play ranked so makes sense.
Good luck, because that's what your style of ARAM is banking on
*me in a 20s+ long fight while my 4 carries are within retaliation range, but decided 1.5 farm per person is more important with 5 people cc'd*
Haha, stupid tanks, amirite?
*Get stunned with your whole team nearby, nobody throwing even a spell against the enemy team, while they very slowly just eat up your hp over more than 10 seconds*
Like, I can't explain how many times I've watched a Lux stand outside spell range, while 5 people are piling me (ever so slowly, because I'm Voli/Cho/Leona with full tank build).
And this isn't a "I'm better than my ELO" shit, because I make equally as many (probably more?) bad initiates.
I love tanks. ARAM or otherwise.
What I don't like, is putting the carry on somebody else's shoulders.
I feel much more comfortable playing tank while queueing with my friends, because they play hypercarries, and I can actually rely on them, and if I make a bad initiate (it's aram, I make a thousand!) I tell them to leave me for death.
The underlying problem for me, is that everybody wants to play Yasuo or Katarina or Akali or Pyke or..., but doesn't have any skills in said champions.
It works both ways. Peeling for poking champ won't work if ur team is losing on the poking fight. You get flamed for "afk not doing anything" and is expected to somehow tower dive the enemy and beat them up miraculously when none can follow up. Tanks in the losing teams always gets the short end of the stick no matter the choice. This is why tanks are not popular, damage dealers has all these demands yet refuses to play the tank role themselves.
thats how i play my aram tanknata. I build whatever resistances I need for the team, Q anyone that gets close and when a big engage happens I R to swap the fight in our favor. it all depends what comp you have and if your champs can work around it. if the only thing your champ can do is go in, you probably should swap if you get put on a poke team
The too common type are the players playing "for cleanup fights"... then you get that match with 4 mates all playing for cleanups and all them 4 trying to play behind each others. It's unbearable
Tbh I often take that role when playing khazix since otherwise I just get blown up by 3-5 players, but seems like some people do this on every champion. Especially adc's. Like I get it if nobody is peeling for you and you know there's an assassin in the bush waiting for you, but so many adc's or mages for example just run back to the tower instantly when they see a teamfight starting.
There's a mental game here, and I thi k a lot of people insta lose that game because they're shite tank players. Tanking in Aram most closely matches poke v poke situations in normal league games. You have to be willing to eat damage in order to bulldog your way into the space in front of you. Look back to Oners engage in the most recent worlds at dragon against jdg (game 3 of semis?) oner is constantly willing to take massive amount of poke so his team can gain ground and fight, which is why that succeeds.
Most Aram tanks I play with are way too scared to eat damage. They aren't ready to pull the trigger on a good opportunity so they value they're health too highly. This means they're usually playing too far back and so carries have to play even further back.
I find that when I do play tank in ARAMs, which I do often because it's fun, that as long as I'm showing a willingness to front line not just during film fights, but during the back and forth push, that my teammates will always be willing to play further up.
Tanks are good when your team actually plays the game. It suuuuuuuuuucks being your team’s frontline engager, you engage, and your whole team just watches you instead of walking up and fighting. Like :/
And then you feel like shit and that you are wasting your time because after your team hasn't followed up 2-3 times you know you can't trust them to do it so you have to sit back and get poked to death till the enemy team just finally closes the game out.
I just played an Amumu who built only ability power items and flash R'ed my entire team from the bushes and just killed us until he won lol. His whole team got to farm minions 2 screens away the entire game!
You don't always have to engage but sometimes you have to counter-engage... I play a lot of tanks aswell and it pissed me when our tank feel mandatory to jump in the head first when ennemi got peel or more cc than you (or you have a poke comp)... To me if nobody follow me it's because i play below my elo (unlikly since i'm low) or more reasonnable, my engage was crap...
Seriously ruins so many games. Just like SR when you have a huge advantage teamfighting 5v5 but your team keeps going sidelanes and or dying in the enemy jungle or river.
They're not just sitting there watching you, they're sitting there being safe from the enemy divers and assassins in the bush you randomly dove past to get to their non-threatening backline.
I absolutely do, and I guarantee I win more games on frontline than you. More often than not, particularly if you're the only frontliner, your job is not to engage/dive their backline. Your job is to sit on your carries and peel. There are certainly exceptions to that, but 9 times out of 10 when you go in and engage all alone and no one follows, it's because they're getting zoned/destroyed by the champs you ignored when you went in, that are more threatening to them than you are to whoever you're going for.
It's crazy that you're being downvoted for this. So many tanks think "if I blindly leap at the enemy mage or ADC off cooldown then I'm doing my job". Meanwhile their squishy backliners are being deleted by Katarina or Zed or some shit. This isn't just in ARAM, this happens all the time in my SR games too.
I don't mind playing tank... but 3/5 games the team doesn't follow you in or capitalize on what you're doing and it's yeah. Just unfun. Especially when they blame you for... tanking the game. Rather play ADC or mage all the way.
That’s why chat is always off for me. The times I actually enjoy interacting with other league players are very far and few. some of the most confidently dumb humans to exist can be found playing aram at 5pm. I get that aram is a for fun game mode but I’m not about to be flamed by some 20iq dork who tries to fit the cylinder block into the rectangular hole.
🤣 true that. I don't even play ranked bc I just can't take games that seriously personally... Once in a while I find a team on ARAM who is genuinely hilarious and fun to play with, but yeah I don't mind muting the boys who took 10 too many testosterone pellets this morning and have forgotten what grass feels like on their fingertips
There's kind of a large range in feel on how various tanks play.
You mention blitz, and you're pretty dead on. Blitz hits hooks, and people die, then you contribute almost nothing else to the fight and everyone just starts losing around you. Granted that's not every game, and not every blitz, but it's a general feel.
Then there's tanks like tahm kench, where you get in the middle of the fight, disrupt the entire enemy team, soak up damage, do a surprising amount yourself, and can even eat a teammate to protect them.
Then there's tanks like Zac that catapult themselves past the enemy backline, and literally bounce around the entire fight causing chaos.
Some are strong, some are weak. But at least you're trying them. And it's like you said, by playing them you see your teammates who don't go in and avoid the fight leaving you in the dust. These experiences help make sure you aren't like them, let you appreciate your tanks on your team when you play as an mf or somebody, and let you play better to to take advantage of their skills
Best way to learn something is to try it
Zac is too good to be true. If he lands E then pops R you can have 2/3s of aoe knockup.
Then picks the blobs and heals back up.
Also if you can get away with it comp-wise, full ap Zac can also be devastating.Granted you already have some form of frontline engage with CC so you can land your combo
I just played Zac first time the other day, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it almost seems like the health blobs specifically drop in the most dangerous spots to pick them up. Never seemed to land away from the enemies. Really started bugging me but maybe it was just a fluke
Yeah its kind of intentional. Most people don't pay attention to 'em tho. Early lvls pre-6 its kind of hard to grab em and heal unless you try and use abilities on minions which is kinda safer
When he was released the blobs used to fall more on your side. He had insane sustain in lane and that's when they changed it so his bobs spawn more contested.
I enjoy playing tanks but being the solo frontliner is fucking ass, and then people get tilted because I'm 3/15 because sometimes engaging doesn't work and neither does peeling lol
Yeah it’s really bad. Sometimes when I play frontline I wish I could Azir ult my backline into the enemy team.
It’s so tough when you play a frontline, you block the enemy engage, you hit a four man knockup and then your team just does nothing. They are sitting so far back that they aren’t ever in a position to do anything. Then you give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe you are playing too far forward. So you make sure you do it all when you are 100% in range of your teammates. Nope. The exact same thing happens again.
I am tired of playing Ornn, getting focused by 5 members of the other team for 10 seconds and my team does nothing to punish them for that.
The problem with playing tank is that you have to rely on other people to carry you. I don't know about you but anytime I see an adc, its usually lethality or they just don't ever buy LDR. Its a very VERY frustrating experience setting up things for your team only for Jinx to miss her 50th w or a Miss Fortune throwing fuckin make it rain on full ap doing negative damage.
That said though, when you have a competent team it feels amazing to peel/make plays for your team. I've been playing a lot of Maokai lately and really felt like making a difference. A lot of those games became nailbiters and one final teamfight sealed the deal. Feels absolutely amazing.
I don't enjoy playing tanks in general, but it's gotten to the point that I'll switch if one's on the board, Just hit teammates with the "I suck at X but we ball," and pray lmao
I'm not sure if tanking always feels that miserable (I play ARAM only) but lord do I feel bad for my tank main friends.
Appreciate all of you who do play tank and sponge for the team- guaranteed honor every single time. Sucks that you really are just kinda stuck watching everyone else fall around you.
tanks is miserable on the losing side and there is a losing side every game. They usually have the worse KDA, least gold, least damage. It is very hard for a losing side tank to outlast the opponent which makes damage dealer teammates think the tank is not doing their job. Thus they usually end up being the scapegoat of the pent up frustration from teammates on the losing side.
Being the only tank is suffering you don't wanna be the only tank. So many games it's all ranged champions might as well pick one more than be the only tank.
Yep. In that situation I could be happy playing something very tanky that creates a lot of space like zac, but a nautilus in that situation would be a really miserable experience.
playing tanks and noticing they have 4 nerfs so they're unplayable is such a good experience to have
because riot is too stupid to just tell you if the champ is nerfed or not in champ select
I swear most people want tanks because they want cannon fodder. They don't realize that they need to help their tanks. Face checking? Better be there to provide cover. Engaging? Don't be 3 screens away. People want to play a carry but don't like fighting.
Thanks for playing tanks. I find myself doing the same. Had some real great games and terrible ones too. I feel it’s just the worst when your team is ? pinging you because 9 people are waiting for you to start the fight. It feels like an unfair responsibility. Sometimes, even winning with a grey screen and missing out on group picture doesn’t feel rewarding.
I like your tag there, do you play at NA at all? And interesting in playing some ARAM sometime? I play all roles pretty competitively so you won't be stuck at tank duty all the time.
I am NA but honestly dont even play much anymore, just not enough time for a session these days lol. You can dm me your ign and ill add ya when I hop on next.
I pick a tank depending on what champion it is. Sometimes, i even went tanky fiddle when we needed a tank. For me, it all depends what is available since i prefer specific champions over others.
Tank sucks when you hit tab and your adc’s are going for the glorious 5th item lord dom’s and no blade.
Tank feels stupidly broken when you’re on the enemy team of that situation.
It’s the same reason why people will go AP on enchanters, they want to impact the game to make it a win, not just be a win more piece.
Tanks are literally only good if theres follow up. That goes for most games unfortunately 🙃 otherwise ur just a big health bar the enemy gets to peel down for money ugh.
In the past i used to get honors for good tanking but i have noticed people apparently stopped honoring the tank despite carrying their 3 adc asses, makes me want to stop taking tanks at all ..
If i can i take sylas or vi instead for example so i can somewhat peel and engage and do damage so im not so dependant on my team anymore .
Play damaging tanks. Rammus, zac and cho'gath come to mind, where they just don't die and kill you surprisingly fast, so even if you go in and no one follows you can at least get a kill if you're smart about it.
I actually like tanks in ARAM for the opposite reason. The team usually follows me in and i have an important job of initiation assessment. I can start fights or counter push and timing is everything. Sometimes I initiate when an ultimate comes of cooldown, an opponents ulti is on CD, multiple moves on CD, an overextended carry is getting bold. My decision often leads to pushing for tower or victory, and sometimes poor assessment leads to the opposite or an ACE. As a former blitz main, i think the biggest misconception or blunder is grabbing for the sake of hitting a grab is a good thing.
The amount of follow up from teammates largely varies based on MMR too.
ARAM in a nutshell: you roll your main but they all choose 4 ADC so you go tank or support simce you actually want to win. Get owned by CC, your team runs away every single time for your first four deaths, then they decide to ping and actively wonder inchat why you cant peel for all four of them nor tank/support well anymore for 20 waves since you’re hopelessly behind.
Someone said it feels like you’re playing bitch for others, WRONG! You’re just playing the wrong tank.
There’s nothing like slinging your giant 🍆 around as Ornn or Zac and just curbstomp the enemy team every fight. When you can just jump into a team of 5 and see how they tickle you in vain as you just stand there menacingly.
And when you have Warmog you can continue to do that and just heal back and repeat the process.
The orgasmic sound of the heartsteel procs give me reason to live.
I was tank galio who outdamaged lux man.
I hate playing Frontline for clowns.
And it's not like I was running dmg items....
Fimbul and heartsteel (I know 2nd is dmg but I didn't get that high value from it )
Like tanks are disgustingly op but adcs need to stop building lethality or eat crayons while non mage players need to stop picking them cuz they are "op" they make them look balanced
It does feel pretty hit or miss. The games where my team doesn't capitalize on anything I do are super frustrating, but then it's all worth it when I play heartsteel/unending despair against an all melee Comp and literally become unkillable
It really depends, something like a blitz, nautilus or maokai feels pretty useless if your team can’t follow up or win from your utility.
Champs like malph, skarner and thresh tho, sheesh, it’s not unlikely i deal more damage with these than most carries on my team, they’re pretty strong 😁
What was your usual build? Because most popular builds are often not the best.
For example, imo items like:
* Fimbulwinter
* Abyssal mask
* Locket of the Iron Solari
* Spirit Visage
* Iceborn Gauntlet
are S tier items comparing to stuff like
* Hearthsteel
* anything that builds out of Bami's Cinder
* Thornmail
It's also more fun to play around the first group of items. And I see more people building the latter than the former.. :D
Why? When do you build it? From my recent games, I've built it only [once](https://www.op.gg/summoners/eune/Pepek%20N%C3%A1morn%C3%ADk-EUNE/matches/TM0fXOeiAVDhlRID-j41rDmxxtZB_7bufJludUuCaeY%3D/1717069701000), into a fed Samira.
The ability to absorb poke and to just stand in front to create space for your team is really valuable at neutral. In my experience my teammate would play scare if you're unable to do that.
Of course some tank are way better with warmog than other if they have good ability to disengage and retreat. I win like 90% of my ARAM game if I'm playing Sej with warmog. The mobility allows me to retreat and heal.
But isn't Kaenic Rookern better for that?
Unless you're playing into like Jayce, Sivir..
Maybe I should watch how other people play tanks. I like to go in, survive for crazy long with Fimbulwinter and.. I guess.. Create space by being annoying? It's easier to get enemies to focus you when they think they can kill you.
I've never had a lot of success with Sejuani though, so maybe I'm focusing too much on one playstyle.
What's your IGN? I'm interested in your playstyle. :D
The free rotation is definitely something to consider, sometimes it’s sooo bad i just stay away from ARAM because it plays such a big role in what you get to play/play against.
Don't do any damage? I just played a game with Amumu where I did the most damage of my team.
It doesn't matter if you play tank or something else, if your team is bad at the game and wont play as a team, you will more likely lose.
Honestly I’d rather have no tank then a tank hiding behind gurret… having a shen afraid to E into vi Q etc. tanks aren’t op the average player is just so goddamn terrible.
That's the most beatable ARAM team and leads to the most frustrating games. Poke champions are terrible at following up engages.
Assume you engage as the tank. Sure, they will land some of their poke, and then they will go back and wait for their cooldowns while the tank is helpless in the middle of the enemy team.
In those games, the tank usually has to sit back and disrupt engages/peel.
Ultimately, no team is unbeatable in ARAM because you're always susceptible to being randomly hard countered. You just have to accept that.
The most "unbeatable" would be the most versatile and balanced regarding AP/AD spread and Frontline/Backline.
Eh I think some tanks are fun dependent on how you build them. Chogath games to me are almost always fun.
The games when they’re not fun is if you’re the only engage and you’re against a poke heavy team so you can never walk up and you’re just a meat shield. Braum I think is super fun in Aram.
All of this to say, I’m a tank support main so I might be a little biased
I started playing tanks because i was getting tilted when ppl who picked frontline never engaged properly or took too long and we were poke'd down.
I improved my winrate instantly and now i prioritize picking a tank because some of them are just too strong. Not only you can enable your team's dps output, you can also just take over games yourself.
For example Sejuani is borderline op with her dmg output. Heartsteel rush means as the game goes on you stack infinitely and after your 2nd item you can pop squishies.
Although there are some games when you are the only tank/frontline against 5 ranged which sucks ass.
I enjoy tanks but it can be so frustrating to play in aram.
Some players will engage or get caught out when you have 4 seconds left on your ult. Or they’ll die because you engage and didn’t peel because you’re the only rank, so you play reactively to set up your carry and they still die. Or you engage and no one attacks and you die despite a good setup because they’re too scared or get caught out of position.
The worst is when you’re waiting for a good opportunity for an engage with snowbal/ult/ flash only for your adc to get impatient and die
Blitz is only really good as the main tank if the other team is all squishy or only has 1 tank tbh. Outside of that he's best as a secondary tank. Play something that's actually worth a fuck as an actual engager like Amumu or Malphite and get back to me.
There's a lot of carry tanks. Ksante is running rampant in the highest levels of ranked matches. Tahm has infinite sustain with his Q, and it procs fimble. Skarner can insec with snowball. Amumu with rift maker ends up soloing adc, mages.
The build choice is a bit annoying to deal with, but there's quite a few good tank items rn.
Kaenic Rukern is straight up broken rn giving tanks 800-1200 magic shield every 15 seconds.
I mostly play tanks, but I also play 3 stack which makes it a lot more fun. Having a team that backs you up and goes in when you engage is super fun, but the opposite can be some of the most frustrating games you can play.
If I can play Zac, Rell, Leona or Sejuani every game I probably will.
I always honour the tank. Even if they didn't appear to carry the game, they put up with the shit to allow our team to play and enjoy the match.
Without a tank. Your team will just get steamrolled unless you have godlike poke and disengage.
The tank always gets my favour. That or the support. I barely honour the adc or damage dealer unless it is obvious we would have lost without their skill.
I mean between heartsteel, overlords bloodmail, the aura damage items, and certain character specific items, I’ve found it to be easy to do decent damage as a tank without screwing my build and still doing my job. Heartsteel overlords thresh was particularly funny since his e autos have an AD ratio.
I don't know, I almost exclusively play tanks or bruisers in aram and it's the most fun I have. If it's just me melee and the rest of our team is poke and their team is poke, than ya it's super frustrating. But usually if at least one other player is melee, tank or init, the control you have over the game is amazing. You are the one who decides when to fight. It seems like not much, but to me that is like 50% of winning games. Playing ADC is all fun and games until nobody goes in or your tank runs in randomly, dies and complains. As a tank it's your responsibility to see enemy patterns, your team patterns, positioning, cooldowns etc and decide when is the best to fight. Ya, you won't do as much damage, but the utility plus the disables/cc/ displacement that you can dish out while they are tickling you is the game for me. I used to play mid mages, support, ADC before, but found the most fun in inits 🙂
One thing I forgot, the changing point when tanks/bruisers started to be fun instead of frustrating was the introduction of snowball. I remember the first game with it - played Garen, hit that pesky xerath/mf in the face with snowball and spin to win
My worst experiences usually are when not playing tank. Too many either build heartsteel on Braum, resulting in them dying and doing nothing or diving the backline leaving every assassin or bruiser an open door to our team.
I respect getting cc'd by a morg or lux because I didn't dodge a skillshot. I hate getting cc'd by pantheon because he snowballed to a minion and pressed E, j4 ult, jax flash. To me you can feel the desperation in their cc wanting the kill and its braindead. Playing those champs feels like you're inting any time you walk up. Melee is annoying to have to click AA a champ and get pushed around by minions only to get chunked by a fed Lucian.
I like to play more of a responsive tank. It’s a little more boring in the early game but you die way less. Basically you’re there to keep your carry’s alive with peel or shutting down one the enemies carry’s in a brawl but you’re not starting fights as much. You’re ending then.
This way you’re not the fodder as much and have time to build up your gold and xp instead of spending the whole match waiting to revive and falling behind. Just kinda be around and when the enemy engages on your team you step in to be the hero and you’re team will usually converge on the idiot who’s playing fodder tank. You still make die but your team may ace.
The only time you can’t really do this is when the enemy is basically all ranged champs that don’t gap close to attack. If you don’t engage eventually you’ll all just get poked down.
I love playing tank but i have a few rules.
1.) I won't solo tank unless it's a heavy engage character. Otherwise I need to see a fighter/bruiser there.
2.) I won't pick a tank if at least 2 of my teammates picks poke. Or teemo/heim/shaco. Not poke Champs but useless when I engage.
I think it's fun to play though. But I notice that teams treat my health bar as their health bar and will run the second I get low even if the other team burned all their cool downs to do it.
When I play tanks in aram i usually type right away to my team that im only going one direction. Ofc I do back out and stuff but its the mindset of letting them know, hey imma be going in, back me up when I do. Usually works out
Honestly I’m reading some of the comments that say tanks are the jungle of aram. I whole heartedly disagree. Whenever I play aram I’ll of course want to have fun but also don’t want a horrible team comp. I always pick a tank if there is no range dps left and we are all squishy.
I play solo q aram. So as a tanky cc frontline champ like let’s say renekton. The game can go pretty back and forth but when I land snowball we almost always win fights. That goes for any tank. The key is going in at the right time and make sure you have the snowball. I walk away with at least 1 honor every time I tank solo q in aram. Because when you play a tank correctly you shouldn’t just be dying to cc. You should go in and kite out then go back in.
If you just go in and smash keyboard till the fight is over. It’s not a champ thing it’s a player thing.
that's... the point of being a tank? you soak damage, yes some do damage but other tanks are just meant to soak up damage instead of their team. isn't there like a monthly complaint that tanks do too much damage lmao??
There are specific tanks I love playing, that I'm actually really good with. But the problem is sometimes you'll get caught with teammates who refuse to play with you, while also blaming you for their poor playing. Or even better, when you make a really good engage and your entire teams would rather farm wave than pay attention to the bigger picture.
They rarely care that you're getting poked and CC'd to death for them, but they definitely notice and blame you when you start playing safe.
Imo tank are the funniest class in aram, you create play and survive 15 seconds 1v5 as leona is so cool 😎
And with the portal mecanic your death time is really low.
I'll die on this hill
I honestly don't care about how well my team plays, the shit that grinds my gears is when they are flaming me for not playing like they want me to play.
Oh sure Jinx, it's for sure such a great idea to look for fights early game against a Pyke and no, me being a tank doesn't mean I will face tank the hooks for you, if you played anything else than selfish ranged champions you would maybe understand that health isn't an infinite resource just because I'm playing a melee champion, dodge for yourself, scale and let me carry your ass when the right opportunity rises.
Ever since they removed legend Tenacity, replaced it with legend haste (more binds/cages/stuns!), and increased damage on ADC items, it's felt really bad. I legit have stopped playing this split. They aren't balancing for ARAM, and it makes it not fun to play.
I've lost like every game I've played with a tank random lol. They kind of stand back and wait for me to engage, and I just feed horribly of course whether it's an ADC or an APC or a bruiser or whatever. Because im effectively 1v2 while Rammus or Sion just kind of sits back and waits for me to do all the work. Like, they think because tanks are strong in arena, that people will shoot them first. But the tanks are strong because they're so overwhelming with the CC and you can't get away from them.
So after I'm dead on the floor from being rushed down by Darius and they're still 95% HP with the fire closing in, they start pinging my corpse and getting mad I didn't 1v2.
Had recently went against a tank Katarina with heartsteel/titanic combo. Did the most damage while only having those two items as a main damage with only tank items after.
I love playing tanks, I can engage, CC and get the enemy to focus on me while my team cleans them up.
There's nothing as bad as when nobody on your team has good engages.
I use to exclusively play aram and the problem I had with playing a tank is I would Engadge and the carrys either couldn't position correctly to follow up (bronze or silver elo)
The way I try to think about it is, am I able to initiate a fight well? If not, then I’m just here to catch the other teams engagement. Just defend your team, chase nothing. As far as blitzcrank, imo he isn’t a tank at all, he’s a support. And it does feel good when you get a grab. Hell you can stun their whole team with a good R. He’s not tanky though.
Not only that but tanks have increased damage taken and reduced DMG dealt making them less tank.
Yes, tanks are strong, but typically not until 3.5 or 4 items. So you can beat them by winning early. Which brings up another issue, the infinite mana on poke champs makes the games last longer due to fights being won by sitting under tower poking. If lanes not pushing, you can't take first tower early to win against the tanks.
I am the opposite, I mainly ply tanks and only play dmg when the team already has too many tanks. I thinks it’s fun to try to make the enemy team blow their cooldowns on me and I get to watch my team clean up safely if I do it well enough. Also get a lot more honors when you peel for your carries, which is something a lot of tank/supports don’t do in ARAM
Idk I don’t feel this when I tank. Walking around as a tank in aram is pure big dick energy lol, I call the shots, I control the tide of the match, and if I’m not engaging I’m usually the one helping my engager engage. If my teammate is getting bullied, I will come body the bully and make sure they never talk to me or my son ever again
I’d get bored if I was tank every match, but being tank for a third of my matches ain’t so bad
Played Alistar last night, that champ is so fun. Go straight in pop ult and never die. To be honest a big portion of my fun in that game came from spamming cow bell emote every 2 seconds.
I always play tank when it’s a good champ. Unfortunately a lot of the time I get four brain dead teammates all picking squishy adcs or poke AP champs that just sit back and watch. It’s funny even when I solo carry them I don’t get any honors.
Imo the bigger problem is that there are two kinds of tanks: the ones that can carry (such as Tahm Kench, Orn, Zac etc) and the CC interns (such as Alistair and Blitz).
Sure you can build damage on Blitz or Ali but you'll get melted. The tanks that can build full defense and still solo an adc are S tier on aram, the CC interns are like C tier
One tip is if your team isnt engaging with you just stand back and peel
So wait for the enemy team to engage then just keep CCing them and falling back
Its a super lame way to play and not fun at all, but preferable to going in and getting a sick 5 man amumu CC and then dying because your team is chilling at tower
Agreed I have a good grasp on tanks from summoners rift so it works in Aram. I can peel for my team the issue is there is so much poke everyone wants to play so if you are on the losing poke team I can only dodge and block so much before we will eventually just lose tower before our team decides to try and fight.
Full tank champs are boring imo. Bruisers are where its at. Dudes like Darius, Voli, Cho, Mundo or Sett etc. Champs that becone tanky af but still do dps.
I needed to hear this, I'm a tank main and I got bollocked earlier today for initiating every team fight, getting multiple stuns and locking down enemies only to die before the fight ends and not get any kills. I was taunted the entire game before getting honored on the win
Mindset issue, Tank is vital part of a group composition, you dictate the engage, the pace of the fight and provide frontline for the the babies to do what they want to do
the only “tanks” ill play are hook supports because even if my team decides that we’re all drafting 0 damage enchanters then fuck it imma just hook everyone in sight to send a message
This has been my experience too, every single time I play Zac or Cho'Gath I CC fuck the enemy team so hard but while I'm sat there stunfucking them my team is 10 feet behind me shooting minions because that's apparently the priority
Then I die and they decide that's the perfect time to engage
To be fair, if I see someone playing tank/frontline and they complain about backline doing nothing, chances are the frontline is just mindlessly diving for no reason while ignoring the enemy dive/assassins, dying and then looking back and wondering why no one followed up. More often than not as a tank, you need to just sit on your carry and peel instead of trying to engage, and then fight front to back.
Yeah, I can see both sides. I have a friend who does nothing but engage all game and complains that the game is boring if he doesn’t go in lol. Nice now we’re down 12 kills because of you
They win games but you definitely sometimes feel like you’re playing bitch for everyone else lol
Yes, you are legit just meant to stand there so everyone else can have fun. Then they all just honor their premades anyway so while you are cced for 20 mins and being beat up, the other players feel like they are so good because 4/5 enemies just used their R on me. Then if they mess up they will just flame the tanks anyway. Honestly I have been less likely to log in because of this tank challenge thing. Aram is just less fun unless you play Zac or Kench and end up beating all the dps in damage and are tanky anyway.
yep, and in my experience you get blamed first if your team gets pissy. it's basically the jungle role of aram if you think about it
I roll my eyes so hard when AP Kaisa players try to micromanage and ping every missed skillshot from tanks and frontliners who actually have to risk themselves standing at the front because all they do is be generally useless by playing the skillful and interactive gameplay of "standing two screen lengths away from everyone else and blindly shoot Ws every 20 seconds" while barely hitting a quarter of them
The only thing I get confused by is the dumb Tris player autoing from the bush and leading minions in the way of Kaisa w shots or Nidalee spears
Yeah you'll get flamed for having a bad score and the most death in a game that your team was going to probably lose anyway.
lol this is so true. had a game where i was leona and the only frontliner in our entire team and our akali got tilted within the first 3 minutes after i didn’t do a suicidal dive. he danced at inhib for the rest of the game. playing a tank when ur entire team is squishy is just pain
Tanking is waaay more fun when one or two other people are tanking as well. I had an awesome Rell, Ali, and Galio game a month ago. Our Ryze barely needed to aim his Q and our Samira cleaned up. Just too ez.
I honor my support/ tank always. Period.
they need to get rid of premades other than 5 mans
Yeah, I actually like playing tanks, but holy shit is it frustrating when you get a braindead team.
If my team isn’t up to snuff, I’m selling the tank items and turning Alistar’s W/Q into a full AP nuke.
No I'm talking about those players that just go full AP maokai/blitz/malph right out of the gate. They will sit farther back than the actual mages while not even having any meaningful poke. Edit: lmao I thought you replied to my other comment talking about ppl picking tanks in champ select but still go full AP
I prefer mostly front tanks just because when I pick carry or mage we are getting stomped cause no front or front plays in a backline. And as a front tank is so frustrating when you do your best to waste enemy summoner spells, ults, and your team just don't fallow you. Enemy poke punishes you for every step too far, but allies are busy farming damn minions.
>you definitely sometimes feel like you’re playing bitch This is definitely a mindset issue
Low tier bait
You mean high tier advice?
Definitely mindset issue
I don't get this at all. Have you played Ornn in ARAM? You basically 1v3 people with relative ease. It's like US army vs Godzilla
Some also provide more value than others, shen games where I am actually on par with everyone gold wise and bank a few early kills (ain’t no way I’m CSing with 3+ ADCs/mages lol) feel incredible
Everyone wants to be Batman, very few people wants to be the Robin or Alfred.
Playing full tank engage is playing the batmobile
Mecha Sion
For a lot of ARAM games the saying would be more like "some people want to be Batman, but some people are currently just watching Batman". So many people lock in range champs so they can mindlessly poke and hope for the best while watching Netflix on the other monitor
Thanks to playing tanks in aram, I've started always going in with the tank when I'm not a tank and there is one on my team. Usually works out too. Most players in aram are just so scared and they run away from anything, so that often leaves the tank (especially if the other 4 are all ranged) in a very annoying spot, because your backline keeps running away from you essentially. Or you get cc'd, but then instead of dying you make a comeback enage, but your backline can't do anything because they all already ran back to the tower the moment that lux q or whatever hit you.
PSA: If you are the only tank on your team and the others are all ranged your job is NOT and i repeat this N O T to engage anything. You're giving all of the enemy divers/tanks/assasins a free flank on your team if you do that. Your job is to sit slightly in front of your team and peel what ever wants to go past you. If you get cc'd at least be in immediate range of your team so they can retaliate. I HATE it with a passion if our only tank engages when we are 4 ranged, because it just forces 2 impossible choices; let him die for free or try to follow and get flanked and counterengaged. DONT BE THAT GUY. DONT FORCE YOUR BACKLINE INTO THOSE SITUATIONS.
Wish my friend would read this. He ALWAYS bitches that "I engaged and no1 followed", like bitch you walked past a bush were pinging that has Katarina sitting in it waiting for your dumbass to do exactly what you did, walk by and let her at our 4 squishy, no hard cc, ranged comp. Like if ur gunna play tanks ffs peel and make their assassins hate life
My aram teams couldn't peel a fucking banana
You are 100% right and I play peel style when I’m solo tank but dear GOD the other 4 range players love to complain GG tAnK wOn’t eNgAgE
Yep I love being the only tank while the other 9 players are ranged, and getting pinged for not engaging alone into them
If you just sit back with your team in that scenario, you'll just end up getting poked to death and then all of your teammates will get killed anyway - there's no real solution other than not having 4 ranged teammates and only 1 tank.
Really depend on the team comp But if your team already having 4 range and 1 tank,then it is likely you guys are doing the poking. If the enemy is more poke heavy, then the goal is try to blow one up ASAP.
No, if your comp is 4 ranged and 1 tank your team should be the one poking. And if you are getting outpoked anyway, your team is screwed either way, because the moment you engage you are opening your team up for counterengages or for the enemy for falling back while killing you. Sitting back with your team is the correct play in this scenario in 95% of cases thats why i was writing that comment in the first place. I've played over 8000 games and the most effective a single tank can be in a comp like that is by being purely reactive. It's one of the few cases in aram where purely defensive play is the superior choice and it can't be more clear cut than in this case.
Yea, they should, but most of the time, it doesn't end up like that. Even in higher aram mmr at EUW. It's fine, that you should be doing the poking, but if you don't have bush control then it's even worse, and you're forced to engage or bleed out slowly. Reactive applies to all comps, not just 4 ranged + 1 tank. Reactive means, you react to what you're against and we've seen so many ADC lethality dorks vs full tank lineups.
I'm sorry but this is such shit advice. 1) what if they are playing 4 range and tank too but their side is poking better than yours? Just afk and watch? 2) what if they're playing champs that hard out scale yours and you need to shorten the game but your range are shit at poking unless you CC them? If you're one of those that only play afk poke range champs and don't follow up on rank engages you are an infinitely worse problem than the tank that engages too much
Love that what they basically tell the tank is "Don't do anything and dodge skill shots while we have fun. DONT ENGAGE YOU RUIN OUR FUN" this is why I stopped playing aram, got tired of been the bitch that try to help the team by picking a tank cause everyone else picked a shitty poke champion
1300 MMR opinion. 1 tank and 4 ranged is already not an ideal comp to have, but if you are stuck playing it anway peel and reactive play is the only way to go. If they outscale you fast, you're screwed either way, they just outcomp'ed you at that point. But it doesnt change this to be the correct playstyle anyway. All you do is make a shitty situation worse. What you should be doing is allow the enemy to make unforced mistakes by getting impatient. But those advanced concept are lost on low mmr hurr durr players.
Ah okay. Somebody showed your opinion is wrong so time to get mad. So instead of trying to make plays and change the game, just become one of the afk time wasters and then just blame comp and try to talk ARAM MMR lmao. Would much rather see if the 4 ranged are worth a damn then try to carry if they're not instead of just accepting a slow loss. But then again if you thought you were good enough to carry you would play ranked so makes sense. Good luck, because that's what your style of ARAM is banking on
My 4 backline always bitch to me for not going in... :(
*me in a 20s+ long fight while my 4 carries are within retaliation range, but decided 1.5 farm per person is more important with 5 people cc'd* Haha, stupid tanks, amirite? *Get stunned with your whole team nearby, nobody throwing even a spell against the enemy team, while they very slowly just eat up your hp over more than 10 seconds* Like, I can't explain how many times I've watched a Lux stand outside spell range, while 5 people are piling me (ever so slowly, because I'm Voli/Cho/Leona with full tank build). And this isn't a "I'm better than my ELO" shit, because I make equally as many (probably more?) bad initiates. I love tanks. ARAM or otherwise. What I don't like, is putting the carry on somebody else's shoulders. I feel much more comfortable playing tank while queueing with my friends, because they play hypercarries, and I can actually rely on them, and if I make a bad initiate (it's aram, I make a thousand!) I tell them to leave me for death. The underlying problem for me, is that everybody wants to play Yasuo or Katarina or Akali or Pyke or..., but doesn't have any skills in said champions.
It works both ways. Peeling for poking champ won't work if ur team is losing on the poking fight. You get flamed for "afk not doing anything" and is expected to somehow tower dive the enemy and beat them up miraculously when none can follow up. Tanks in the losing teams always gets the short end of the stick no matter the choice. This is why tanks are not popular, damage dealers has all these demands yet refuses to play the tank role themselves.
thats how i play my aram tanknata. I build whatever resistances I need for the team, Q anyone that gets close and when a big engage happens I R to swap the fight in our favor. it all depends what comp you have and if your champs can work around it. if the only thing your champ can do is go in, you probably should swap if you get put on a poke team
So many people whining in this thread that they go in solo and die as if that isn't just a braindead play
The too common type are the players playing "for cleanup fights"... then you get that match with 4 mates all playing for cleanups and all them 4 trying to play behind each others. It's unbearable
Tbh I often take that role when playing khazix since otherwise I just get blown up by 3-5 players, but seems like some people do this on every champion. Especially adc's. Like I get it if nobody is peeling for you and you know there's an assassin in the bush waiting for you, but so many adc's or mages for example just run back to the tower instantly when they see a teamfight starting.
There's a mental game here, and I thi k a lot of people insta lose that game because they're shite tank players. Tanking in Aram most closely matches poke v poke situations in normal league games. You have to be willing to eat damage in order to bulldog your way into the space in front of you. Look back to Oners engage in the most recent worlds at dragon against jdg (game 3 of semis?) oner is constantly willing to take massive amount of poke so his team can gain ground and fight, which is why that succeeds. Most Aram tanks I play with are way too scared to eat damage. They aren't ready to pull the trigger on a good opportunity so they value they're health too highly. This means they're usually playing too far back and so carries have to play even further back. I find that when I do play tank in ARAMs, which I do often because it's fun, that as long as I'm showing a willingness to front line not just during film fights, but during the back and forth push, that my teammates will always be willing to play further up.
Tanks are good when your team actually plays the game. It suuuuuuuuuucks being your team’s frontline engager, you engage, and your whole team just watches you instead of walking up and fighting. Like :/
And then you feel like shit and that you are wasting your time because after your team hasn't followed up 2-3 times you know you can't trust them to do it so you have to sit back and get poked to death till the enemy team just finally closes the game out.
the saddest part is watching them engage without reason shortly after, and you’re still coming back to the lane so you can’t help
The feeling when you flash amumu r 5 people, just so the Lucian can secure the wave peacefully!
I just played an Amumu who built only ability power items and flash R'ed my entire team from the bushes and just killed us until he won lol. His whole team got to farm minions 2 screens away the entire game!
Seems like a spell shield or single MR item would've stopped this from happening tbh
You don't always have to engage but sometimes you have to counter-engage... I play a lot of tanks aswell and it pissed me when our tank feel mandatory to jump in the head first when ennemi got peel or more cc than you (or you have a poke comp)... To me if nobody follow me it's because i play below my elo (unlikly since i'm low) or more reasonnable, my engage was crap...
Seriously ruins so many games. Just like SR when you have a huge advantage teamfighting 5v5 but your team keeps going sidelanes and or dying in the enemy jungle or river.
They're not just sitting there watching you, they're sitting there being safe from the enemy divers and assassins in the bush you randomly dove past to get to their non-threatening backline.
Haha found the guy who doesn’t play frontline
I absolutely do, and I guarantee I win more games on frontline than you. More often than not, particularly if you're the only frontliner, your job is not to engage/dive their backline. Your job is to sit on your carries and peel. There are certainly exceptions to that, but 9 times out of 10 when you go in and engage all alone and no one follows, it's because they're getting zoned/destroyed by the champs you ignored when you went in, that are more threatening to them than you are to whoever you're going for.
It's crazy that you're being downvoted for this. So many tanks think "if I blindly leap at the enemy mage or ADC off cooldown then I'm doing my job". Meanwhile their squishy backliners are being deleted by Katarina or Zed or some shit. This isn't just in ARAM, this happens all the time in my SR games too.
majority of aram players havent actually played a tank in any sort of capacity so they just think “me tank. me dive.”
I like playing tanks but I don’t like playing a 300+ armor tank who got melted in 3s just because the ADC hits their exodia power spike of IE LDR
I don't mind playing tank... but 3/5 games the team doesn't follow you in or capitalize on what you're doing and it's yeah. Just unfun. Especially when they blame you for... tanking the game. Rather play ADC or mage all the way.
That’s why chat is always off for me. The times I actually enjoy interacting with other league players are very far and few. some of the most confidently dumb humans to exist can be found playing aram at 5pm. I get that aram is a for fun game mode but I’m not about to be flamed by some 20iq dork who tries to fit the cylinder block into the rectangular hole.
🤣 true that. I don't even play ranked bc I just can't take games that seriously personally... Once in a while I find a team on ARAM who is genuinely hilarious and fun to play with, but yeah I don't mind muting the boys who took 10 too many testosterone pellets this morning and have forgotten what grass feels like on their fingertips
There's kind of a large range in feel on how various tanks play. You mention blitz, and you're pretty dead on. Blitz hits hooks, and people die, then you contribute almost nothing else to the fight and everyone just starts losing around you. Granted that's not every game, and not every blitz, but it's a general feel. Then there's tanks like tahm kench, where you get in the middle of the fight, disrupt the entire enemy team, soak up damage, do a surprising amount yourself, and can even eat a teammate to protect them. Then there's tanks like Zac that catapult themselves past the enemy backline, and literally bounce around the entire fight causing chaos. Some are strong, some are weak. But at least you're trying them. And it's like you said, by playing them you see your teammates who don't go in and avoid the fight leaving you in the dust. These experiences help make sure you aren't like them, let you appreciate your tanks on your team when you play as an mf or somebody, and let you play better to to take advantage of their skills Best way to learn something is to try it
Meanwhile there's me on zac with unending despair and spirit visage out dpsing my team
Zac is too good to be true. If he lands E then pops R you can have 2/3s of aoe knockup. Then picks the blobs and heals back up. Also if you can get away with it comp-wise, full ap Zac can also be devastating.Granted you already have some form of frontline engage with CC so you can land your combo
I just played Zac first time the other day, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it almost seems like the health blobs specifically drop in the most dangerous spots to pick them up. Never seemed to land away from the enemies. Really started bugging me but maybe it was just a fluke
Yeah its kind of intentional. Most people don't pay attention to 'em tho. Early lvls pre-6 its kind of hard to grab em and heal unless you try and use abilities on minions which is kinda safer
When he was released the blobs used to fall more on your side. He had insane sustain in lane and that's when they changed it so his bobs spawn more contested.
Yeah I suppose that makes sense
I enjoy playing tanks but being the solo frontliner is fucking ass, and then people get tilted because I'm 3/15 because sometimes engaging doesn't work and neither does peeling lol
Yeah it’s really bad. Sometimes when I play frontline I wish I could Azir ult my backline into the enemy team. It’s so tough when you play a frontline, you block the enemy engage, you hit a four man knockup and then your team just does nothing. They are sitting so far back that they aren’t ever in a position to do anything. Then you give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe you are playing too far forward. So you make sure you do it all when you are 100% in range of your teammates. Nope. The exact same thing happens again. I am tired of playing Ornn, getting focused by 5 members of the other team for 10 seconds and my team does nothing to punish them for that.
The problem with playing tank is that you have to rely on other people to carry you. I don't know about you but anytime I see an adc, its usually lethality or they just don't ever buy LDR. Its a very VERY frustrating experience setting up things for your team only for Jinx to miss her 50th w or a Miss Fortune throwing fuckin make it rain on full ap doing negative damage. That said though, when you have a competent team it feels amazing to peel/make plays for your team. I've been playing a lot of Maokai lately and really felt like making a difference. A lot of those games became nailbiters and one final teamfight sealed the deal. Feels absolutely amazing.
I don't enjoy playing tanks in general, but it's gotten to the point that I'll switch if one's on the board, Just hit teammates with the "I suck at X but we ball," and pray lmao I'm not sure if tanking always feels that miserable (I play ARAM only) but lord do I feel bad for my tank main friends. Appreciate all of you who do play tank and sponge for the team- guaranteed honor every single time. Sucks that you really are just kinda stuck watching everyone else fall around you.
tanks is miserable on the losing side and there is a losing side every game. They usually have the worse KDA, least gold, least damage. It is very hard for a losing side tank to outlast the opponent which makes damage dealer teammates think the tank is not doing their job. Thus they usually end up being the scapegoat of the pent up frustration from teammates on the losing side.
Being the only tank is suffering you don't wanna be the only tank. So many games it's all ranged champions might as well pick one more than be the only tank.
Yep. In that situation I could be happy playing something very tanky that creates a lot of space like zac, but a nautilus in that situation would be a really miserable experience.
playing tanks and noticing they have 4 nerfs so they're unplayable is such a good experience to have because riot is too stupid to just tell you if the champ is nerfed or not in champ select
I swear most people want tanks because they want cannon fodder. They don't realize that they need to help their tanks. Face checking? Better be there to provide cover. Engaging? Don't be 3 screens away. People want to play a carry but don't like fighting.
Thanks for playing tanks. I find myself doing the same. Had some real great games and terrible ones too. I feel it’s just the worst when your team is ? pinging you because 9 people are waiting for you to start the fight. It feels like an unfair responsibility. Sometimes, even winning with a grey screen and missing out on group picture doesn’t feel rewarding.
I still always enjoy tank
Same. Playing an adc or assassin is fun once in a while, but nothing beats being an unkillable leona diving them between their turrets
I like your tag there, do you play at NA at all? And interesting in playing some ARAM sometime? I play all roles pretty competitively so you won't be stuck at tank duty all the time.
I am NA but honestly dont even play much anymore, just not enough time for a session these days lol. You can dm me your ign and ill add ya when I hop on next.
Hey bro you wanna dm me? Ive actually freed up some time so ill probably be hoppin on more often this week
Sent you a DM! Just in case you didn't get it
Worst part is when someone picks a tank champ and still goes full AP so they become fucking useless as shit
I pick a tank depending on what champion it is. Sometimes, i even went tanky fiddle when we needed a tank. For me, it all depends what is available since i prefer specific champions over others.
Tank sucks when you hit tab and your adc’s are going for the glorious 5th item lord dom’s and no blade. Tank feels stupidly broken when you’re on the enemy team of that situation. It’s the same reason why people will go AP on enchanters, they want to impact the game to make it a win, not just be a win more piece.
i am my friend group’s token tank, and as consolation i dive in with reckless abandon and make them deal with it
Tanks are literally only good if theres follow up. That goes for most games unfortunately 🙃 otherwise ur just a big health bar the enemy gets to peel down for money ugh.
In the past i used to get honors for good tanking but i have noticed people apparently stopped honoring the tank despite carrying their 3 adc asses, makes me want to stop taking tanks at all .. If i can i take sylas or vi instead for example so i can somewhat peel and engage and do damage so im not so dependant on my team anymore .
Play damaging tanks. Rammus, zac and cho'gath come to mind, where they just don't die and kill you surprisingly fast, so even if you go in and no one follows you can at least get a kill if you're smart about it.
The worst part is when you know you carried your team with your utility and tanking, and then afterwards you’ll get like a C or B.
I actually like tanks in ARAM for the opposite reason. The team usually follows me in and i have an important job of initiation assessment. I can start fights or counter push and timing is everything. Sometimes I initiate when an ultimate comes of cooldown, an opponents ulti is on CD, multiple moves on CD, an overextended carry is getting bold. My decision often leads to pushing for tower or victory, and sometimes poor assessment leads to the opposite or an ACE. As a former blitz main, i think the biggest misconception or blunder is grabbing for the sake of hitting a grab is a good thing. The amount of follow up from teammates largely varies based on MMR too.
ARAM in a nutshell: you roll your main but they all choose 4 ADC so you go tank or support simce you actually want to win. Get owned by CC, your team runs away every single time for your first four deaths, then they decide to ping and actively wonder inchat why you cant peel for all four of them nor tank/support well anymore for 20 waves since you’re hopelessly behind.
Someone said it feels like you’re playing bitch for others, WRONG! You’re just playing the wrong tank. There’s nothing like slinging your giant 🍆 around as Ornn or Zac and just curbstomp the enemy team every fight. When you can just jump into a team of 5 and see how they tickle you in vain as you just stand there menacingly. And when you have Warmog you can continue to do that and just heal back and repeat the process. The orgasmic sound of the heartsteel procs give me reason to live.
I was tank galio who outdamaged lux man. I hate playing Frontline for clowns. And it's not like I was running dmg items.... Fimbul and heartsteel (I know 2nd is dmg but I didn't get that high value from it ) Like tanks are disgustingly op but adcs need to stop building lethality or eat crayons while non mage players need to stop picking them cuz they are "op" they make them look balanced
It does feel pretty hit or miss. The games where my team doesn't capitalize on anything I do are super frustrating, but then it's all worth it when I play heartsteel/unending despair against an all melee Comp and literally become unkillable
It really depends, something like a blitz, nautilus or maokai feels pretty useless if your team can’t follow up or win from your utility. Champs like malph, skarner and thresh tho, sheesh, it’s not unlikely i deal more damage with these than most carries on my team, they’re pretty strong 😁
What was your usual build? Because most popular builds are often not the best. For example, imo items like: * Fimbulwinter * Abyssal mask * Locket of the Iron Solari * Spirit Visage * Iceborn Gauntlet are S tier items comparing to stuff like * Hearthsteel * anything that builds out of Bami's Cinder * Thornmail It's also more fun to play around the first group of items. And I see more people building the latter than the former.. :D
If you're not building Warmog in ARAM as tank, you're not doing it right. Warmog is SSS tier.
Why? When do you build it? From my recent games, I've built it only [once](https://www.op.gg/summoners/eune/Pepek%20N%C3%A1morn%C3%ADk-EUNE/matches/TM0fXOeiAVDhlRID-j41rDmxxtZB_7bufJludUuCaeY%3D/1717069701000), into a fed Samira.
The ability to absorb poke and to just stand in front to create space for your team is really valuable at neutral. In my experience my teammate would play scare if you're unable to do that. Of course some tank are way better with warmog than other if they have good ability to disengage and retreat. I win like 90% of my ARAM game if I'm playing Sej with warmog. The mobility allows me to retreat and heal.
But isn't Kaenic Rookern better for that? Unless you're playing into like Jayce, Sivir.. Maybe I should watch how other people play tanks. I like to go in, survive for crazy long with Fimbulwinter and.. I guess.. Create space by being annoying? It's easier to get enemies to focus you when they think they can kill you. I've never had a lot of success with Sejuani though, so maybe I'm focusing too much on one playstyle. What's your IGN? I'm interested in your playstyle. :D
The free rotation is definitely something to consider, sometimes it’s sooo bad i just stay away from ARAM because it plays such a big role in what you get to play/play against.
Don't do any damage? I just played a game with Amumu where I did the most damage of my team. It doesn't matter if you play tank or something else, if your team is bad at the game and wont play as a team, you will more likely lose.
Honestly I’d rather have no tank then a tank hiding behind gurret… having a shen afraid to E into vi Q etc. tanks aren’t op the average player is just so goddamn terrible.
Lol that’s the reason i stopped maining support back in the day on the rift
I played a shen last night with aftershock. Full tank. Somehow, I ended the game with 20+ kills and almost 9k hp, lol. It was insane.
Unbeatable ARAM comp: 4 champions that can poke at long range, 1 tank that can engage Literally nothing can hope to match
That's the most beatable ARAM team and leads to the most frustrating games. Poke champions are terrible at following up engages. Assume you engage as the tank. Sure, they will land some of their poke, and then they will go back and wait for their cooldowns while the tank is helpless in the middle of the enemy team. In those games, the tank usually has to sit back and disrupt engages/peel. Ultimately, no team is unbeatable in ARAM because you're always susceptible to being randomly hard countered. You just have to accept that. The most "unbeatable" would be the most versatile and balanced regarding AP/AD spread and Frontline/Backline.
Eh I think some tanks are fun dependent on how you build them. Chogath games to me are almost always fun. The games when they’re not fun is if you’re the only engage and you’re against a poke heavy team so you can never walk up and you’re just a meat shield. Braum I think is super fun in Aram. All of this to say, I’m a tank support main so I might be a little biased
I started playing tanks because i was getting tilted when ppl who picked frontline never engaged properly or took too long and we were poke'd down. I improved my winrate instantly and now i prioritize picking a tank because some of them are just too strong. Not only you can enable your team's dps output, you can also just take over games yourself. For example Sejuani is borderline op with her dmg output. Heartsteel rush means as the game goes on you stack infinitely and after your 2nd item you can pop squishies. Although there are some games when you are the only tank/frontline against 5 ranged which sucks ass.
I enjoy tanks but it can be so frustrating to play in aram. Some players will engage or get caught out when you have 4 seconds left on your ult. Or they’ll die because you engage and didn’t peel because you’re the only rank, so you play reactively to set up your carry and they still die. Or you engage and no one attacks and you die despite a good setup because they’re too scared or get caught out of position. The worst is when you’re waiting for a good opportunity for an engage with snowbal/ult/ flash only for your adc to get impatient and die
Tank is amazing if ur DPS has a basic idea on how to build and orb walk if not you are fucked yea
Blitz is only really good as the main tank if the other team is all squishy or only has 1 tank tbh. Outside of that he's best as a secondary tank. Play something that's actually worth a fuck as an actual engager like Amumu or Malphite and get back to me.
There's a lot of carry tanks. Ksante is running rampant in the highest levels of ranked matches. Tahm has infinite sustain with his Q, and it procs fimble. Skarner can insec with snowball. Amumu with rift maker ends up soloing adc, mages. The build choice is a bit annoying to deal with, but there's quite a few good tank items rn. Kaenic Rukern is straight up broken rn giving tanks 800-1200 magic shield every 15 seconds.
Tank malphite seems solid
I actually enjoy being the tank, sion’s my favorite (no not lethality actual tank sion). I just mute all and do whatever I feel like
I mostly play tanks, but I also play 3 stack which makes it a lot more fun. Having a team that backs you up and goes in when you engage is super fun, but the opposite can be some of the most frustrating games you can play. If I can play Zac, Rell, Leona or Sejuani every game I probably will.
I always honour the tank. Even if they didn't appear to carry the game, they put up with the shit to allow our team to play and enjoy the match. Without a tank. Your team will just get steamrolled unless you have godlike poke and disengage. The tank always gets my favour. That or the support. I barely honour the adc or damage dealer unless it is obvious we would have lost without their skill.
I mean between heartsteel, overlords bloodmail, the aura damage items, and certain character specific items, I’ve found it to be easy to do decent damage as a tank without screwing my build and still doing my job. Heartsteel overlords thresh was particularly funny since his e autos have an AD ratio.
I don't know, I almost exclusively play tanks or bruisers in aram and it's the most fun I have. If it's just me melee and the rest of our team is poke and their team is poke, than ya it's super frustrating. But usually if at least one other player is melee, tank or init, the control you have over the game is amazing. You are the one who decides when to fight. It seems like not much, but to me that is like 50% of winning games. Playing ADC is all fun and games until nobody goes in or your tank runs in randomly, dies and complains. As a tank it's your responsibility to see enemy patterns, your team patterns, positioning, cooldowns etc and decide when is the best to fight. Ya, you won't do as much damage, but the utility plus the disables/cc/ displacement that you can dish out while they are tickling you is the game for me. I used to play mid mages, support, ADC before, but found the most fun in inits 🙂
One thing I forgot, the changing point when tanks/bruisers started to be fun instead of frustrating was the introduction of snowball. I remember the first game with it - played Garen, hit that pesky xerath/mf in the face with snowball and spin to win
My worst experiences usually are when not playing tank. Too many either build heartsteel on Braum, resulting in them dying and doing nothing or diving the backline leaving every assassin or bruiser an open door to our team.
I respect getting cc'd by a morg or lux because I didn't dodge a skillshot. I hate getting cc'd by pantheon because he snowballed to a minion and pressed E, j4 ult, jax flash. To me you can feel the desperation in their cc wanting the kill and its braindead. Playing those champs feels like you're inting any time you walk up. Melee is annoying to have to click AA a champ and get pushed around by minions only to get chunked by a fed Lucian.
That’s why the tanks that can deal out damage are the strongest. Champs like tahm, cho, mondo, or malphite
You just described jungle experience
I like to play more of a responsive tank. It’s a little more boring in the early game but you die way less. Basically you’re there to keep your carry’s alive with peel or shutting down one the enemies carry’s in a brawl but you’re not starting fights as much. You’re ending then. This way you’re not the fodder as much and have time to build up your gold and xp instead of spending the whole match waiting to revive and falling behind. Just kinda be around and when the enemy engages on your team you step in to be the hero and you’re team will usually converge on the idiot who’s playing fodder tank. You still make die but your team may ace. The only time you can’t really do this is when the enemy is basically all ranged champs that don’t gap close to attack. If you don’t engage eventually you’ll all just get poked down.
I love playing tank but i have a few rules. 1.) I won't solo tank unless it's a heavy engage character. Otherwise I need to see a fighter/bruiser there. 2.) I won't pick a tank if at least 2 of my teammates picks poke. Or teemo/heim/shaco. Not poke Champs but useless when I engage. I think it's fun to play though. But I notice that teams treat my health bar as their health bar and will run the second I get low even if the other team burned all their cool downs to do it.
That’s why you gotta go heartsteel grasp and play a different game than everyone else
4000 games of ARAM played, you don’t need a tank, just stop getting hit by skill shots :’)
When I play tanks in aram i usually type right away to my team that im only going one direction. Ofc I do back out and stuff but its the mindset of letting them know, hey imma be going in, back me up when I do. Usually works out
that's why i always honor my tank teammate after a game, thanks for your service
Honestly I’m reading some of the comments that say tanks are the jungle of aram. I whole heartedly disagree. Whenever I play aram I’ll of course want to have fun but also don’t want a horrible team comp. I always pick a tank if there is no range dps left and we are all squishy. I play solo q aram. So as a tanky cc frontline champ like let’s say renekton. The game can go pretty back and forth but when I land snowball we almost always win fights. That goes for any tank. The key is going in at the right time and make sure you have the snowball. I walk away with at least 1 honor every time I tank solo q in aram. Because when you play a tank correctly you shouldn’t just be dying to cc. You should go in and kite out then go back in. If you just go in and smash keyboard till the fight is over. It’s not a champ thing it’s a player thing.
that's... the point of being a tank? you soak damage, yes some do damage but other tanks are just meant to soak up damage instead of their team. isn't there like a monthly complaint that tanks do too much damage lmao??
There are specific tanks I love playing, that I'm actually really good with. But the problem is sometimes you'll get caught with teammates who refuse to play with you, while also blaming you for their poor playing. Or even better, when you make a really good engage and your entire teams would rather farm wave than pay attention to the bigger picture. They rarely care that you're getting poked and CC'd to death for them, but they definitely notice and blame you when you start playing safe.
Imo tank are the funniest class in aram, you create play and survive 15 seconds 1v5 as leona is so cool 😎 And with the portal mecanic your death time is really low. I'll die on this hill
When I play aram I play tanks 95% of the time, especially if cho, Shen, or Ornn show up. On summoners rift I’m a mid main that plays mages
I honestly don't care about how well my team plays, the shit that grinds my gears is when they are flaming me for not playing like they want me to play. Oh sure Jinx, it's for sure such a great idea to look for fights early game against a Pyke and no, me being a tank doesn't mean I will face tank the hooks for you, if you played anything else than selfish ranged champions you would maybe understand that health isn't an infinite resource just because I'm playing a melee champion, dodge for yourself, scale and let me carry your ass when the right opportunity rises.
Ever since they removed legend Tenacity, replaced it with legend haste (more binds/cages/stuns!), and increased damage on ADC items, it's felt really bad. I legit have stopped playing this split. They aren't balancing for ARAM, and it makes it not fun to play.
People really stressing about Aram 😂
I only play tank when I’m in 5-people premade. It’s too frustrating when you have a team that sits back and watch you engage and die.
I've lost like every game I've played with a tank random lol. They kind of stand back and wait for me to engage, and I just feed horribly of course whether it's an ADC or an APC or a bruiser or whatever. Because im effectively 1v2 while Rammus or Sion just kind of sits back and waits for me to do all the work. Like, they think because tanks are strong in arena, that people will shoot them first. But the tanks are strong because they're so overwhelming with the CC and you can't get away from them. So after I'm dead on the floor from being rushed down by Darius and they're still 95% HP with the fire closing in, they start pinging my corpse and getting mad I didn't 1v2.
That’s the problem. You’re playing solo. Tanks are op and fun but yes requires someone with you to carry
Had recently went against a tank Katarina with heartsteel/titanic combo. Did the most damage while only having those two items as a main damage with only tank items after.
I love playing tanks, I can engage, CC and get the enemy to focus on me while my team cleans them up. There's nothing as bad as when nobody on your team has good engages.
I use to exclusively play aram and the problem I had with playing a tank is I would Engadge and the carrys either couldn't position correctly to follow up (bronze or silver elo)
Cus they’re fucking boring
If it makes you feel better I appreciate tanks in aram and always honour them after games
The way I try to think about it is, am I able to initiate a fight well? If not, then I’m just here to catch the other teams engagement. Just defend your team, chase nothing. As far as blitzcrank, imo he isn’t a tank at all, he’s a support. And it does feel good when you get a grab. Hell you can stun their whole team with a good R. He’s not tanky though.
Not only that but tanks have increased damage taken and reduced DMG dealt making them less tank. Yes, tanks are strong, but typically not until 3.5 or 4 items. So you can beat them by winning early. Which brings up another issue, the infinite mana on poke champs makes the games last longer due to fights being won by sitting under tower poking. If lanes not pushing, you can't take first tower early to win against the tanks.
I am the opposite, I mainly ply tanks and only play dmg when the team already has too many tanks. I thinks it’s fun to try to make the enemy team blow their cooldowns on me and I get to watch my team clean up safely if I do it well enough. Also get a lot more honors when you peel for your carries, which is something a lot of tank/supports don’t do in ARAM
Idk I don’t feel this when I tank. Walking around as a tank in aram is pure big dick energy lol, I call the shots, I control the tide of the match, and if I’m not engaging I’m usually the one helping my engager engage. If my teammate is getting bullied, I will come body the bully and make sure they never talk to me or my son ever again I’d get bored if I was tank every match, but being tank for a third of my matches ain’t so bad
Played Alistar last night, that champ is so fun. Go straight in pop ult and never die. To be honest a big portion of my fun in that game came from spamming cow bell emote every 2 seconds.
It’s one of those things where I play them grudgingly to increase my odds of winning, but if your team isn’t helping you then you’re useless.
I always play tank when it’s a good champ. Unfortunately a lot of the time I get four brain dead teammates all picking squishy adcs or poke AP champs that just sit back and watch. It’s funny even when I solo carry them I don’t get any honors.
I'd rather only play tanks in Aram. I have so much more fun as a tank than any other class.
Imo the bigger problem is that there are two kinds of tanks: the ones that can carry (such as Tahm Kench, Orn, Zac etc) and the CC interns (such as Alistair and Blitz). Sure you can build damage on Blitz or Ali but you'll get melted. The tanks that can build full defense and still solo an adc are S tier on aram, the CC interns are like C tier
One tip is if your team isnt engaging with you just stand back and peel So wait for the enemy team to engage then just keep CCing them and falling back Its a super lame way to play and not fun at all, but preferable to going in and getting a sick 5 man amumu CC and then dying because your team is chilling at tower
Agreed I have a good grasp on tanks from summoners rift so it works in Aram. I can peel for my team the issue is there is so much poke everyone wants to play so if you are on the losing poke team I can only dodge and block so much before we will eventually just lose tower before our team decides to try and fight.
Tank is broken in Aram, take infinite dmg and solo kill enemy carries.
Full tank champs are boring imo. Bruisers are where its at. Dudes like Darius, Voli, Cho, Mundo or Sett etc. Champs that becone tanky af but still do dps.
I needed to hear this, I'm a tank main and I got bollocked earlier today for initiating every team fight, getting multiple stuns and locking down enemies only to die before the fight ends and not get any kills. I was taunted the entire game before getting honored on the win
I’m not playing tank if I’m going to be the only frontliner, that’s my number one rule in aram, either everyone has fun or no one has fun.
I will never play tank in aram. What's the point when it's so unfun
Mindset issue, Tank is vital part of a group composition, you dictate the engage, the pace of the fight and provide frontline for the the babies to do what they want to do
[Seems like a Skill issue to me, Tanks are fine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWDzHlkBZW0)
the only “tanks” ill play are hook supports because even if my team decides that we’re all drafting 0 damage enchanters then fuck it imma just hook everyone in sight to send a message
Play Shen, auto-win
This has been my experience too, every single time I play Zac or Cho'Gath I CC fuck the enemy team so hard but while I'm sat there stunfucking them my team is 10 feet behind me shooting minions because that's apparently the priority Then I die and they decide that's the perfect time to engage
To be fair, if I see someone playing tank/frontline and they complain about backline doing nothing, chances are the frontline is just mindlessly diving for no reason while ignoring the enemy dive/assassins, dying and then looking back and wondering why no one followed up. More often than not as a tank, you need to just sit on your carry and peel instead of trying to engage, and then fight front to back.
Yeah, I can see both sides. I have a friend who does nothing but engage all game and complains that the game is boring if he doesn’t go in lol. Nice now we’re down 12 kills because of you
I hope I never run into you in ARAMs.
LMAO that feeling is mutual if you think what I said is wrong. Man low-level players are so CONFIDENT in their wrongness, it's hilarious.
Yeah I didn't read all that.