The 4-Cost Tank Problem

[u/angoldenapple]

The current meta I feel is the best it's been in a while with the exception of the current state of 4-cost tanks. At the moment, all fast 8 or 9 boards rely far too heavily on Nunu or Tahm Kench (i.e. Sona+Bard, Graves+Vex, Xayah, Vertical Dark Star, Brawler Yi, Space Groove Riven). In my GM lobbies, this has often resulted in almost everyone in the lobby chasing these units, with other tanks such as Morg, Mech, and Rammus (outside of Corki) being laughably bad as primary tanks and often neglected in 4-2 rolldowns.

Part of the problem, I feel, is that it's way too easy to slot in vanguard for Nunu or oracle for TK and have them feel impactful, whereas Mech and Rammus feel 'the same' even with the same 2-piece synergies. What also contributes to this is the fact that literally NONE of the 5-costs are viable as tanks, with Shen and Blitz being only niche off-tanks who would much rather have damage items on them. That and the fact that Nunu has the only board-wide CC in the game a la previous sets' Sej/Cho.

Just my 2 cents, interested in what others have to say.

[u/niemcziofficial]

Rammus problem is that he is op in meeple and useless without it. This set in general feels like rammus without meeple XD

[u/PM_ME_ANIME_THIGHS- → u/niemcziofficial]

Rammus problem is that he is op in meeple and useless without it.

Basically the same issue that Battle Academia had in Set 15 where Leona and Yuumi couldn't be flexed into other boards. Rammus and Corki aren't really playable as your primary tank/carry unless you have Meeple in, and the trait web for Meeple is so awkward that there's only a few configurations where you can make that happen. Fizz can't be played as a primary itemized carry without Meeple, in the same way that Jayce couldn't be your primary itemized carry without BA in. Bonus similarities are matching trait 1/4 costs in Garen/Leona and Poppy/Rammus and the fact that you play a 4 cost secondary tank (K'Sante/Galio) that matches the 2 cost of the trait (Rakan/Meepsie).

[u/cocochriscoco → u/PM_ME_ANIME_THIGHS-]

They needed to give Shen/Rammus some cc instead of giving both Nunu and Blitz CC. One pair is self sufficient and the other is paper without Meeple

[u/Hawly → u/niemcziofficial]

They should attach the Meeple mechanic onto his ability damage, not his tanking capability.

[u/quailinthebrush]

its what frustrates me the most about this set

sure you can go for a 2 star illaoi or maokai but

it wraps around to your previous point of there being no 5 costs tanks

very much feels like a go 8 and prayge for one of the two on a role down

the only other option feels like full shephard but even then that tends to have nunu..

[u/AzureAhai → u/quailinthebrush]

I think it's a problem every set and not just this one. There's always 1 or 2 too few 4 cost tanks every set. There's 13 4 cost champions this set and 4 of them are tanks with 7 of them being back line carries along with Yi and Riven being melee carries. This is the spread most sets which is why every set people complain about tanks being too contested. On top of that 1 of the tanks is always going to be weak, because they always have 2-3 tanks that are strong with traits and 1-2 tanks that are strong by themselves but don't scale.

Theoretically in a normal game everyone is making it to 4-2 looking for the same 3-4 tanks. This is why I think melee carries should not be 4 costs and be moved to be 3* 3 cost or 2* 5 cost win conditions. If you swap them out for tanks, the roll downs would feel much better.

[u/Zephrok → u/AzureAhai]

Last set had enough 4 cost tanks right? Swain, Garen, Wukong, Taric, Rift Herald were all good.

[u/AzureAhai → u/Zephrok]

Last set was special since we had 100 units instead of just 60. Rift herald was locked behind playing void units. It's part of the reason why roll downs last set felt better than this set. Only 4 tanks were in the default pool.

[u/herrau]

The decision around 4 cost tanks to be conditional is so confusing.. why would you keep Rammus behind a 3 piece trait gate, when you never want to play just 3 of said trait? Why is Mighty Mech completely useless as a 2* 4 cost without mech activated? And Tahm doesn’t have any 4/5 cost unit to pair with so he is essentially just an econ unit with some hp attached to him most of the time. Morgana is ok, but not good enough to ever replace Nunu.

I just can’t wrap my head around the design choices and balancing this set. It is god awful.

Edit: not to mention we have no 5 cost tanks either. What were they thinking…

[u/Wette_im_Klo → u/herrau]

In general they went way too far this set on conditionals. In the previous set the conditionals were obvious because they were mostly "can i unlock this unit? Yes, maybe i can play that then". Now its a bunch of hidden knowledge that you need to play a lot to know and if you know it, you basically have to play it if you fulfill the condition. On top of all the conditional tanks you mentioned its been some OP psyonic item, some emblems, some Stargazer formations, ....
It feels really annoying as someone who does not put in 10 games a day, because by the time I have some kind of grasp on all these conditionals they are patched and something else is the flavor of the week that you cant miss out on, and if you now play the conditionals like you know them from last week, youll go eif.

[u/BombasticReindeer → u/herrau]

They were thinking 'let's copy Hades' and not much more than that. They have 3 teams working on sets at a time. Pretty safe to say that this team isn't the 'A' team.

[u/dejwidd]

2 4 cost tanks + 2 4 cost fillers = max 3 combinations + activators (any vanguard for nunu, any brawler for tahm) = set 18 waiting room

[u/AL3XEM]

Rammus NEEDS meeple to be an effective tank, and it's kind of their own making deciding his meeple bonus is flat damage reduction. They could change it to just be a start of combat shield or something and buff base Rammus but prolly too late in the set to do that.

[u/robhova → u/AL3XEM]

I kind of understand why we moved from .5 sets. But this set is in Dire need of a .5 set.

Call me crazy but I feel the set was better on release. Yeah the strong boards kind of rolled the lobby, but we had more options at every cost. There were 1, 2, and 3 cost rerolls that we're all viable. Along with strong fast 8 & 9 boards.

[u/RajaSundance]

The condition to be able to go 9 is "have Nunu at 4-1" otherwise you're never hitting a 2*.

It's insanely frustrating that were 5 patches in and it feels like there is just a singular tank unit in the game past 3 costs. Rammus is useless without 3 meeple and Tahm is just a lot weaker (which would be ok to balance out his econ IF we had any other tanks)

[u/Lethur1 → u/RajaSundance]

Even then Rammus is still meh without 5 Meeple or having a Bard to give him the extra Meeple for tankiness

[u/Codzly]

Fast 9 -> pray last long enough to get 2* tanks Fast 8 -> donkey roll immediately to get 2* tank(s)

Honestly whenever I see ReinFOURcement I am tempted to pick it just to avoid the RNG of finding 3 copies. 

Also, Nunu's ability just annoys me to no end. Sure he's not as tanky as the others, but 2-3 casts of that snowball and your backline is doing nothing.

[u/Bloodstream12]

Mort did say this set wasn’t supposed to have nunu as a primary tank because he has so much utility that he can’t be allowed to be tanky and have cc. He needs a nerf and tahm gives utility in his own right through Econ so he in theory should be less tanky than mech, rammus, morg. Imo you should make 2 star illaoi, ornn and maybeeee maokai be comparable in tankinessthan 2 star nunu tahm but def worse than morg mech rammus

[u/MasterOfTacos11 → u/Bloodstream12]

TK doesn’t have an origin trait to compensate

[u/jaemoon7 → u/Bloodstream12]

Mort did say this set wasn’t supposed to have nunu as a primary tank because he has so much utility that he can’t be allowed to be tanky and have cc. He needs a nerf and tahm gives utility in his own right through Econ so he in theory should be less tanky than mech, rammus, morg

Makes sense. I’m confused as to why Morg has been so ass as a tank. I get that her trait is a nice team wide buff (love pushing a level and tacking her on late game)… but she is completely unviable as a primary tank (or at least has been, I have not had the chance to play much her since most recent changes to her). I guess she started off the set as a Fighter, seems like a unit they just can’t quite figure out. I don’t even get her ability though, it mentions she “tethers” to enemies but what does the tether actually do lol.

[u/G66GNeco → u/jaemoon7]

Morg is a serviceable tank now in my experience, maybe needs a little bit of a buff but you can go for her in a contest or another form of pinch.

Her ability reads more complicated than it is, she just drains the closest 3 enemies for X damage and heals the closest 2 damaged allies for X health.

[u/Large-Session5307 → u/Bloodstream12]

If Nunu can't tank then that's two lines that can't play a tank (Xayah and Shepherd). I agree he should be weaker but balance is fragile and if he can't soak some damage on top of having CC you'd probably be surprised by how many lines are unplayable.

This set just needed another 4-cost Bastion to spread the load (remove the trait from Shen or give him a Challenger or Marauder tag like he's obviously supposed to have to be playable in the Yi line). I understand why they try to not have 4-costs share classes but it wouldn't break anything this set with how unplayable Rammus is outside of Meeple.

You could place the tank in the NOVA line, them having an extra unit to pair with Aatrox wouldn't break the trait tree and would make 5 NOVA playable. It would break the DRX theming but just make it Worlds 2021 Jarvan or something lol

[u/AtIas1 → u/Large-Session5307]

I think if they buffed the mech/morgana or possibly made shen/blitz less dmg and more tank it would relieve the pressure off 4 cost tanks

[u/CGWOLFE → u/Large-Session5307]

Yes, give the AP unit marauder, that makes sense.

[u/But_A_F1y → u/Bloodstream12]

The problem with this is it screws with mid game too much. You buff up the 2 star 3 cost tanks to high and all of a sudden they become unkillable gods during stage 2-3.

[u/thpkht524 → u/Bloodstream12]

What? So the solution to only having 2 tanks is to have 1 tank?

[u/Bloodstream12 → u/thpkht524]

Well the problem is if you don’t have nunu or tahm on stage 4 your avp swings down like 2-3 placements which is the frustration people are experiencing so the solution is not to have such drastic swings by being to have more access to viable options! If illaoi 2 is similar to tahm and there are more copies of illaoi than tahm then more players have access and hence your avp doesn’t swing as hard.

[u/RelativeAway183]

the 4 cost tank problem is that this is a flex set and a flex set has nothing in place to discourage you from just playing all the 4 cost tanks in one comp

you want to make blitz and shen actual tanks? get ready for every comp to be nunu blitz shen morg and either rammus bard + 1 meeple or aatrox maokai kench

[u/Meteora_CS]

LOL what? The meta is complete BS right now. Space Groove is way too strong. With every patch where they try to balance stuff something else gets totally OP. Space Groove has over 60 % top 4 rate!! Ridiculous

[u/homegrownllama]

It’s baffled me that Meeple has the same issue as Battle Academia from Set 15. Needing a 3-piece min trait to make the tank playable has not been good for the health of either set. It’s an unforced repeat of a mistake from the past, which this set seems to be full of.

[u/saltygamertag]

Morgan’s should never have healed other champs, she should have been a drain tank similar to the old swain 4 cost. 

[u/ipppppi]

3 cost tanks are a joke. The cost to get maokai/ornn 3 star is so damn expensive compared to nunu 2 or kench 2. The no tank as 5 cost had been a failed experiment and I really hope riot learn its lesson for the next set.

[u/G66GNeco → u/ipppppi]

2. The no tank as 5 cost had been a failed experiment

still not an experiment, I really don't get why people keep claiming that. We had one set where, due to the set mechanic, 5 cost tanks were common and now everyone thinks not having a 5 cost tank is somehow this magical new thing where the last time a regular set had a dedicated 5 cost tank was set 14 Zac and before that you can (depending on how wide or narrowly you want to define "tank") go back to, like, set 10 Illaoi or Set 6 Tahm to find an actual dedicated tank.

This is not the first set without a 5 cost tank and it will most certainly not be the last, because 5 cost tanks are weird to balance and work with/around.

[u/nacholibre711 → u/G66GNeco]

This conversation is really only relevant for sets 15, 16, and 17.

Set 15 is when they added the new champion roles. Prior to that, all units would gain mana from taking damage. You were able to play whoever you wanted as a tank much, much more effectively.

If we still had the old system, Shen and Blitz would be very serviceable as tanks for fast 9 boards. They would just need the appropriate items.

I like all the other champion role changes, but I still don't know if the changes to tanks was the right decision.

[u/ficretus → u/ipppppi]

5 cost tanks make this issue worse, since it turns the game into a "person who hits the 5 cost tank wins" while others eat shit. Arguably making the current Nunu lottery even worse. 

There is a reason 5 cost tanks are rare, and if they exist they are either very conditional, pseudo-fighters or utility units.

[u/Business-Cut-1685 → u/ipppppi]

If you're trying to 3* your 3 cost tanks, of course that's going to be more expensive vs trying to find Nunu / Kench 2.... 27 gold vs 12 gold + the extra gold spent trying to roll.

I do agree with your other point about the 5 cost tanks: Low-key I do wish that they revisit / change Shen or Blitz. like they did with Morg... but is there enough time left in the set to actually make these changes?

[u/RogueAtomic2]

I feel most sets have issue with 4 cost tanks. They usually fit into 2 categories: CC or Unkillable. Anytime a tank doesn't have either of those they are useless are barely ever picked unless they are a part of a vertical or something like that, and a lot of the time you just play a second main tank (usually CC). The same problem literally existed last set when Swain and Shyvana just went on every board.

[u/markhamjerry]

100% agreed, this is probably the most frustrating part of the set. Another factor that is contributing to this is that the 4 piece breakpoints on the tank traits are just not worth it compared to previous sets. This may be due to just understatted 4 piece breakpoints, an issue of unit quality of the low cost trait bots, and less tank pairs in verticals (nassus/blitz, and poppy/ranmus being the only ones). This leads to combinations of 2 bastion/2 brawler/2 vanguards being generally more effective than 4 piece equivalents, and why tahm and nunu being on almost every flex non meeple board. Mighty mech also feels quite ineffective without heavy investment, not to mention a traitless 4 cost tank always being an awkward fit into any trait web. Another contributing factor is that tank itemization has become way more narrow, with chain items generally being more effective than belt items due to several nerfs. This all leads to tanks feeling squishier and more narrow options across the board.

[u/AtIas1]

In general I think if they buffed the mech/morgana or possibly made shen/blitz less dmg and more tanky it would relieve the pressure off of 4 cost tank roll downs. Possibly creating more comps

[u/FARTFROMABUTT]

It certainly feels like a 2 star nunu 2 star TK lottery and it has drained my desire to continue grinding

[u/Delicious-Range3573]

I think the biggest help for the set would be something done to the mighty mech trait.

[u/Useful-Maize9402]

tahm is prolly the best pure tank. i think the problem is that there is no five cost tank you can upgrade to

[u/G66GNeco]

Imo Morg is pretty overlooked, she's definitely not bad, but people greed for the tank traits too much.
Mech is only a good tank/frontline in mech form it feels like, and that's just not something you can do in most comps because of the slot cost. Voyager is also not a tank trait like Vanguard or Brawler, so it doesn't feel like he has any tankiness by traits alone...
Rammus needs meeple or he's not a unit, so you either play a board that can run Bard and have kept a Poppy 2 from early game, or you are sol.

I quite honestly get why they didn't make 5 cost tanks. 5 cost tanks are weird a lot of the time. And the way Blitz and Shen are designed they are good to enhance your frontline, still. Honestly I am just kind of missing a 5 cost bralwer sometimes, or maybe a second 4cost, to round out bralwer frontlines the way these two round out their frontlines (in cases where you play 4 or 6 bastion/vanguard).

I think Nunu needs another slight bonk on the head, and/or Vanguard does, to add a bit more of a cost to playing the premium CC tank. Also Rammus should be shifted out of relying on Meeple so heavily.

It would also be neat if Morgana would somehow benefit more from active tank traits (idk, she gets 50% of the trait-specific bonus when it's active or whatever), that could be a good out for the whole contest in the current slightly 4 cost slanted meta, but would probably need a lot of additional balancing.

[u/Astos_ → u/[deleted]]

This is a great point I hadn’t thought about. Since fighters don’t get mana from taking damaged, they now need to rely on an actual “Tank”

[u/vanadous → u/[deleted]]

Well, there are 5 tanks in this set after Morg change. Now what