League of Legends – Know Your Role: Playing Tank [Guide]

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• Why Playing Tank is Hard
• Laning
• Builds
• Team Fights
• What Not to Do

Among the roles that are played in League of Legends, the tank is in the middle of jumping into the frontlines and being a support. The tank is like a glue that keeps the team together, and this role can be sometimes played by champions that are handling other roles as well. As long as the champion as durability and a way to divert attention of enemies away from other teammates, then the duties of a tank are fulfilled.

Why Playing Tank is Hard

Being a tank means that there is little to nothing that can stop you since you’re so durable. You step in front and take it all while your teammates are free to do their duty. The only problem is that most tanks don’t really have much in the way of damage. If you are a straight-up tank, then it’s assumed that you can’t really hit that hard, but at least you can take hits.

Another problem is that there are champions that are designed to counter tanks. Trundle is a good example, with his ultimate that strips out everything tanky about a tank for a period of time, long enough to have everyone else on the opposing team gank the tank (pun definitely intended). It’s not that often, unless you’re playing in the higher tiers, that you’ll encounter enemies that play such champions, and you should be able to know their intentions if you’re experienced enough in playing tanks.

You’re not only supposed to just stand there and be a damage sponge, but you must be able to get enemies to attack you. Any experienced MOBA player would know that the last thing you want to do in a team fight is to keep hitting the tank while there are other squishier enemies to attack. Therefore, you must be aware of your champions particular mechanism for making them attend to you instead. This usually comes in form of a taunt, making it impossible for enemies to attack anyone else but you, which is your job in the first place.

Another way to make enemies want to hit you is to actually be an offensive threat. Since you wouldn’t have as much attack damage as it was previously mentioned, you’ll have to get by with other means. This usually involves your abilities, and each tanky champion has something that makes them dangerous. Either they’re stun, slow, crowd control, or just outright painful, these abilities should be used when the time is right. The combination of durability and threat makes them good initiators, letting them start fights and put the enemy team on notice. Even if you don’t get to kill the enemies yourself, your teammates should be able to while you give them the space to work.

Soon enough though, even the thickest of tanks would soon succumb to all the incoming damage when enough has been received. In a lot of cases, as long as the other teammates have done their job during proceedings, then your death has not been in vain. But in the earlier parts of the game, it would be easy enough to fall for the trap of thinking that nothing can ever kill you that early. If you do get killed, then your progression will be stunted and you’ll fall behind. Since you’re not a carry, it’ll be hard for you to catch up.

Laning

There are three ways that a tank can lane in this game. First is solo laning, which is alright since tanks are durable enough to not need too much help. They won’t be harassed as much as a carry would since they can just shake off most damage, although you must remember to never take free damage even as a tank.

The second is to jungle, which a lot of tanky champions can actually do well like Amumu. Since it’s always a good thing to have a jungler on the team, this is a viable option as long as you’re playing a champion with good jungling capabilities. If you’re able to do this, you can also split between jungling and laning, so long as you know what you’re doing and when to do each one.

The third option is perhaps the best, which is the usual 2v2 lane with a carry. You’re there to gather experience from the carry’s kills, as well as to protect the carry in case the enemies start feeling a little brave in the early and mid game. Once the chance to tower dive comes up, you should be up front to take the damage while others break it.

Builds

It should be easy enough to pile on defense, but you must still be smart about it. If you are up against mostly AP enemies with magic damage, then you should stack up on magic resistance; if mostly physical damage, stack up on armor. You’ll also need lots of health, and a lot of the items you’ll need have a mix of both health and defensive stats to fit your needs.

As for your offensive capabilities, they may likely be needing more ability power since most tanks rely on their abilities to be effective, although you’ll have to check if they do damage or have other things that may need more ability power to boost. You may also need more mana if your chosen champion needs it and doesn’t seem to have enough, especially in the earlier parts of the game.

Team Fights

As a tank, you are usually the one who initiates team fights since you are harder to kill. If you are a tank that has something like a taunt, stun, or AOE ability, then this is when you should pull it off to help start the team fight well for your team, hitting the primary target when possible. You should then get the enemies to focus on you and keep them doing so as long as possible while your teammates are doing work behind you.

What Not to Do

Actually, what you shouldn’t do as a tank is to focus only on being a tank. Perhaps there’s a paradox going on here when playing this role, but that’s just how it is. The worst thing to do is just to have lots of health and big defense without anything else to make you a threat to the opposing team. Enemies will just ignore you and go for the squishier targets, so you’ll end up not being able to do anything and all your other teammates will be dead. That’s definitely not what a tank is supposed to be good for.

Take advantage of whatever your chosen tanky champion is good at, whether it’s an AOE ability like Rammus’ Tremors, a taunt like Shen’s Shadow Dash, a stun like Leona’s Shield of Daybreak, or so on. Having something that will make you a threat is the key to being a good tank. Being tanky and being able to affect the by either being able to protect teammates or going after enemies yourself is a combination that must always be present with a true tank in League of Legends.