Tanks

Tanks

Tanks are the big bulky guys, where these lovely bastards don't focus on damage output they focus on health so they can initiate, take the brunt end of their opponents offense while taking continual turret shots and win fights. A good tank wins fights, simple as that. Unfortunately there aren't as many good tanks in the game as I'd like (championwise and playerwise).

Tanks are also ushered into the jungle in most cases, where they have a huge amount of CC that helps greatly in ganks and little to no dependency on buffs. While they can go into lanes, they don't typically dominate them as much as they farm at tower.

Tank boots are a lot like Bruisers, where Mercury Treads or Ninja Tabi based on the situation. Ninja Tabi if jungling and enemy team has no real CC threats otherwise Mercury Treads.

Runes are also based on champion, where you want bulk above all else. This ranges from ignoring Magic Penetration marks for Flat Armor marks and then going for HP/level Seals instead of flat armor. It's all preference in my opinion, no right or wrong answers. If you're jungling, movement speed quints work well. If you're laning, probably GP10 or flat AP or HP quints based on your scaling.

* Alistar
Dmg: ***
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Aegis of the Legion, tanky after.
Alternatively, Rabadon's Deathcap, 2-3x Doran's Rings and Boots of Mobility for super strong ganks.

Personal Opinions: Alistar is the king. He should be in the Mage section. Hell he's predominantly a support. But he's so tanky that I figured he should be here. He's worth the perfect score and a free champion.

Skill Advice: Right clicking after Headbutt means you'll autoattack when you close the gap to hit them, otherwise the auto attack doesn't always go off. If you pop pulverize mid headbutt you'll knock them up without knocking them back, each use of skills has it's own utility. His heal is great for annoying enemies in lane during early game since it'll usually take minions out of last hit range and sometimes force them out of CS until they stack more AD. Good denial is king. Effective use of his passive makes him such a viable AP carry, since it scales with AP and all he has to do is activate a skill every 2 seconds to keep it rolling.

Countered by: Anything that can stop his farm as a jungler or ap carry. Otherwise he's there to be bulky and disrupt the enemies as best he can in ganks whether he has or doesn't have the upper hand in the situation. His innate bulk is his biggest redeeming quality.

* Amumu
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rod of Ages, Aegis of the Legion, Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold.

Personal Opinions: He sucks. He's a tank that has a powerful initiate and some good AoE damage, but that's about it. He feels too gimmicky for my tastes for that exclusive reason. He has amazin damage potential if he stacks AP but he wont last long enough in a fight if he does.

Skill Advice: It's all preference. Typically his bandage toss is less of a priority. Just make sure you take a rank in his ultimate whenever you can, otherwise focus on either of his other farming abilities.

Countered by: Burst, he's a great counter pick to a bulky team, but don't take Amumu unless you're going to be jungling on him, and only if you're sporting at least double AP carries, such as Kennen and Vladimir so you never have to donate blue.

* Blitzcrank
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Manamune (speciality), preference of defensive items after.

Personal Opinions: Blitzcrank is viable as part of a jungle buddy system, solo top but most importantly kill lane support. Land the hook, bring in the enemies and they die. He adds a lot of pressure just by being in lane, he has a lot of CC and spike damage and is a very welcome addition to any self sustaining AD carry and greatly justifies an early Wriggles.

Skill Advice: Master the rocket grab, master the champion. Pretty much. Take your skills evenly but prioritize the grab. Pull an enemy in, knock them up, silence them and chase them to death = victory.

Countered by: Better sustain. If you can't keep them from poking your lane to death through killing them faster, you lose the lane. This makes Blitzcrank a bit of a sitting duck if his passive is on cooldown and requires delicate play.

* Leona
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: ***
Pot: ***

Core: Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Kage's Lucky Pick, Rod of Ages.

Personal Opinions: Leona is an amazing champion with great potential. When I play her, I typically play her as a solo top since she has a lot of early game damage output that kinda falls off in late game. If she can dominate her lane until she can farm with Eclipse and Zenith Blade then she can build purely defensively and be an annoyance to the enemy team. The core build is how I typically build her as a support lane, picking three gp10s is a somewhat bad idea, so sub out Heart of Gold for Kage's Pick if you want an AP Tank build, or just sell the HoG after your kit is nigh complete.

Skill Advice: As I've stated in many places before, effective use of her CC is what will make her shine. Typically her rotation is Eclipse, Zenith Blade, smack them once or twice, Shield of Daybreak then Solar Flare their escape path and that generally secures a kill in a 1v1 lane. Farming in lane is just waiting for the first minion to move around your art to zenith blade and then let eclipse blow them all up.

Countered by: The addition of Sejuani. :'( Basically in lane it either becomes a passive farm war where she gets Philo Stone and other GP10s and tries to not die or farm at tower while she gets her kit assembled. Without farm she's useless. Leona doesn't snowball as much as she gracefully hop, skips and twirls down the mountain while cutting off faces.

Leona Pros: Amazingly fast attack animation with her defensive steroid being her most important skill to max first, you can't fail in lane. Farming at tower is unbelievably easy. CC rotation is amazing for disruption, not locking. She can become a threat with a split AP Tank build, especially with a late game Lichbane in place of boots.

Leona Cons: Terrible scaling on everything but her ultimate. She doesn't offer as much survivability so she usually initiates then gets the hell out to get back in. Completely outplayed with the addition of Sejuani which has a more reliable gap closer and better jungle clear times. Leona's passive cannot be activated by herself, even with a Sunfire cape, but it does justify allies to pick up the sunfire cape to instantly proc her passive.

Alternative itemizing suggestions: Depending on how late game you get with Leona (whether you went jungle/solo lane vs kill lane support) Force of Nature and Lichbane are faster than Boots, so if you don't mind being left vulnerable to CC, she becomes an ultimate pusher as soon as she gets a couple defensive/ap items with Lichbane, but most champions are like that, she just has a defensive steroid.

* Maokai
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: **
Pot: ***

Core: Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Spirit Visage, Rod of Ages or Warmogs

Personal Opinions: Maokai is love. I freaking adore this bastard, even to the point where I wasted real life money to get his limited time skin during christmas. Anyways, playing Maokai is fairly straight forward, AP Tank, full tank or MR specific tank. Depending on which role you play, remember to itemize him with his survivability in mind, he literally cannot be touched if he gets enough HP.

Skill Advice: If you get enough AP, 3 points in sapling toss then max Arcane Smash before Twisted Advance then finally finish off Sapling Toss. His Q is primary farming in the jungle and his sapling toss will clear the caster minions with impact and explosion damage. Maokai's biggest threat is that he can sit in the middle of a team fight and keep himself topped off until every champion focuses on him. That's why effective use of his passive and Health stacking is very effective. Also, he makes a great counter ap carry mid pick just because he can get a retarded amount of MR just the same as Galio.

* Nautilus
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rod of Ages, Warmogs or pieces, defensive items after that. He has decent AP scaling (see: great) but he works just as fine as a top lane bruiser.

Personal Opinions: 300 base speed and low defensive growth for a tank. Yeah, he's based around movement with his Dredge Line, but the mana cost is stupid high when maxed and isn't as reliable as Xypherous implied before the champion was released. All in all, he's not a bad champion, he has some great CC but he's built around building defensively in the long run. He wants to stack hard health after all.

Skill Advice: Take his ultimate when available, then prioritize Titan's Wrath above Dredge Line and Riptide. Choosing between Dredge Line and Riptide should be entirely decided by if you're in the jungle or not. If you're in lane, prioritize Dredge Line, it's amazing poke and he's only really viable as a Solo Top, which means that he can easily go steal enemy blue. If you're in the jungle, prioritze Riptide so your ganks are more effective.

When in lane, take opportunities with Dredge Line to hook onto foes to melee them once and then escape. Be cautious when doing this though, because it's an immobilize (snare) and not a stun so they can hit you back.

Countered by: Not really much, in lane it becomes a passive farm and he has very fast jungle clear speeds so it's hard to counter jungle him, not to mention he'll win most duels early on. His biggest counter is in the team fight phase, if you pop his bubble then most of his damage output is gone.

Variable tank choices: For the most part, if you go with Rod of Ages as your first big buy, get HoG for Randuins. If you don't plan to pick up Rod of Ages, I find that Glacial Shroud helps offset his mana issues and gives him much desirable CDR. With CDR capped, you can get him just about to a 100% uptime on Titan's Wrath. Your choices should also revolve around where you are in the game, if you're in lane then go for the big purchases, if you're in the jungle then get budget items such as Aegis of the Legion and Shurelya's Reverie.

* Rammus
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: ***

Core: Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, then hard or effective health.

Personal Opinions: Rammus is a permabanned champion for a good reason, he has extremely threatening ganks due to Power Ball and his Taunt. When playing Rammus, I tend to start at Wraiths/Red then gank Mid with Powerball, if unsuccessful I'll go top and gank top. If unsuccesful I'll go back to gank mid. If any ganks are successful I'll go back to jungling until I go back for Philosopher Stone and boots if I didn't start with them, then go back to the retarded ganks. Rammus = Pressure. Flat out.

Skill Advice: He has a massive AR/MR steroid to the point where you can build hard health (Health bonus items) or effective health (AR/MR items). Effective use of Taunt is by pulling enemies into his turret range or forcing them to attack him while in turret range and popping Tremors when people look as if they'll get away.

Countered by: Pressure on his own jungle, he has low damage output so he's only viable in the jungle, semi-viable in a kill lane as a babysitter but he doesn't typically get enough farm to be effective that way. If he builds as an AP Tank then an earlier Last Whisper or Void Staff tends to wreck his face.

* Sejuani
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Philosopher's Stone, Heart of Gold, Rod of Ages, defensive after.
Alternatively: Standard bruiser attire works as well.

Personal Opinions: Sejuani is what destroyed Leona for all intents and purposes. Leona's primary focus was powerful initiations, and when Sejuani hit the scene with her snowflakes and decent jungle clear speed, Leona was effectively shoved back into the closet of the kill lane.

Skill Advice: I only play Sejuani as a jungler, pure and simple. Max her R>W>E>Q, but take points in all three by level 3 to help with clearing speed. She has powerful ganks because of her massive slow which is applied by her Q, the gap closer. She loses reliance on Blue buff after building Rod of Ages, which also gives her sufficient bulk. I'm not a fan of Rylai's on her, but a larger fan of Frozen Mallet even if building her with AP in mind.

Countered by: Faster junglers, if you invade her jungle at level 1 and deny her blue, she has trouble catching up. After that, she loses usefulness after initiation, just make sure you keep a bulky champion between her and any squishy targets for the sake of her Q and her R.

* Shen
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: ***
Dif: *
Pot: **

Core: Rylai's, Will of the Ancients, Defensive items of your choice.

Personal Opinions: Shen is freaking amazing. He's crap tier in the jungle, but amazing as a baby sitter or solo top. Sending him in as a solo top feels kind of counter intuitive though, so he doesn't waste the role of being a support champion through proper use of Vorpal Blade. He acts very supportive in late game, and will be great with HP stacking after the Nautilus patch where the health on Vorpal Blade scales with his health.

Skill Advice: Vorpal Blade is amazing sustain, it's your first important max. Feint and Shadow Dash can be maxed after that depending on player choice, after his buffs Shadow Dash will restore more energy for number of champions hit, which makes it a very viable earlier pick since the max energy cost is reduced per rank to ensure kills in lane. His feint isn't powerful at low ranks but can mean a big difference with proper use. Finally using his ultimate should always be used in defensive situations, not offensive situations. If an enemy chases an ally through turret, ult them. He requires supreme map awareness or pre-mades to be the best he can be.

* Volibear
Dmg: **
CC : ***
Utl: **
Dif: *
Pot: *

Core: Warmogs, Wit's End, Phage, Chain Vest.

Personal Opinions: Wasted champion slot. People think Evelyn is bad, but I honestly feel that Volibear is the worst champion in the game. Everything he does is done better by other champions. He's a tank that revolves around hard health stacking and his kit is kinda counter intuitive. His base attack speed is super low, he doesn't benefit from the typical bruiser setup and his only damage potential is when his ultimate is active.

Skill Advice: His AoE slow is actually his ultimate farming tool, I used to think it was his Frenzy but whatever, it works wonders but has a severe mana drain, so he has a somewhat large reliance on blue in the jungle. In lane he's completely countered by Ignite, Executioner's Calling or any type of Grievous Wounds, much like Mundo but Volibear isn't much of a threat. Proper use of his knock back is to use it when you're already in melee range. It's too easy to escape a bear charging from a distance.

Countered by: Grievous wounds on his ultimate. Early and Mid game. He only really shines in late game because he does have high base stats and amazing initiation capabilities. I don't like sending this guy to the jungle though since he has super low clear speeds, his only saving grace is that his ganks are fairly strong.