I suppose I should clarify the Atma's/Wit's(After Shurelya's you have just under 3k health) suggestion. You know that there is a diminishing return on resistances. Against unbalanced teams you can safely take a damage item and remain ABOVE the sweet spot on your armor or magic resist as the case may be even with penetration and reduction. I should have clairfied that these items were for a specific purpose rather than general build mechanics. Those options are in order of relevance. The list should have been numbered and was not, that was a personal oversight from writing this in a single afternoon.

I want people to remember all of the options open to them when building a champion for a particular game. Sometimes your team needs more damage; that HAPPENS. There needs to be some reason for the enemy team to waste their CC (even damage) on you as a tank. Nunu's Subzero does this, Rammus's Taunt forces this. Atma's Impaler is an option to both punish the enemy team for letting you live and incentive to waste CC to stop you from getting to their Ashe or Sivir. Ultimately it is an option that is used occasionally in some games. The "MORE TANK" is the most balanced and best. This is a sixth item slot you will most likely never fill unless the game has dragged on far too long and this allows you to exploit the imbalance in the enemy team's composition.

A few other notes: Of course Udyr isn't a tank, I said so in my guide. In another parenthetical I suggested that Shen had sufficient poke to lane well. I suggest that Singed is a poor metagame choice because of a lack of range. He can, I'm sure, solo lane effectively, but not as well as Vladimir, Warwick, Irelia, etc. Even a Shen Solo top cannot freely leave with his ult if he is stuck defending a tower. This is not to say that Shen is a good jungler. Even Amumu is a slow jungler that is often at low health in the jungle. His natural damage reduction, high AOE damage and two forms of CC make him a good tank in teamfights. The distinction here is about the METAGAME and not merits of individual champions; the arguement is that from a theoretical perspective the best place for a tank is the jungle and this should be factored into rankings of tanks when theorycrafting. I

Maokai is unique in that his range on Sapling Toss is good enough for him to poke effectively in lane and Magic Sap gives him nice sustainability. His jungle is good, I agree there as well. He, like Shen, can solo effectively. I am not suggesting that there are no other valid metagame options besides putting the tank in the jungle, simply that this one is the most desirable from my observations. This work is, of course, an opinion piece.

By the time you past the jungling phase, you don't need some **** items like Wits End. Atma's impaler for anyone below 3k health is ****. Your powerball isn't Condemn. You won't push them that far away that your freaking lane partner cannot hit. Plus a question. Do you know the diff between AD carry, AP Carry and AP Spellcasters? And fyi, I've seen blitzcranks that do so well at solo top against 2, they mostly get the 1st 2 kills of the game. In fact, ANYONE with stun, snare, pull or knock up, be it a tank or a carry or a spellcaster can easily score 1st blood with good non-skill taunts (Low hp around area etc). In fact, Maokai does one of the best jobs as solo laner despite being tanker. Just snare the enemy when the creep wave is near dead, walk to the other side of your opponent and knock him back facing your escape route if anything goes wrong, you'll guarantee a kill with your tower doing the ton of damage.

A tanker with some damage items? Useless unless your team seriously likes tanker teams and have 5 tankers. Magic pen is better than damage, seeing your damage dealt is mostly by AP in fact, you barely need runes to help with jungling. In fact, your jungle difficulty is one of the easiest, only topped by natural junglers such as warwick and udyr. From what you said, you probably aren't experienced. Amumu is NOT the best tank of the game, he is outbid easily in jungler, according to your standards and out of it, he has several problems starting at blue golem EVEN WITH despair. Shen sucks at jungling and much better in lane because he only has single target skills. Only feint and Vorpal blades actually help with jungling, so he is best suited LANEING. If seen, Malphite is really good at jungling. Rammus is equally easy. MAOKAI IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST FREAKING EASIEST JUNGLER IN THE UNIVERSE. At least 3 Sapling tosses and the freaking NCs will get r@ped. Even if you don't start at blue golem, by the time you reach it, its STILL freaking easy to beat. Udyr ISN"T A TANKER you moron? Only one of Udyr's skills is defensive, which is turtle stance. He relys more on big damage output to NC. Oh whats next? Nocturne tanker? Singe is a GOOD tanker. Any lame brain should know that. He just isn't suited for jungling since he got a ton of CCs, being slow and toss. Tossing creeps around is freaking lame, slowing them is lamer, so what, poison blue golem to death? Freaking hard. If you see a decent Singe, you'll know his HP exceeds most jungle tanks by mid game and continues on late game. His armor and MR are also quite decent by that stage. The tank can DON"T NC and its good. Vladimir is relatively tanky at almost maxed items. If he jungles, he'll most probably get r@ped. Solo top is for a good survivor. Either someone with good escaping abilities or someone with decent survivalbility should go there, which includes TANKERS. Mid, Jarven can easily go there and pwn. I've seen Maokai mid with excellent results also. Bottom lane is the best viable option, how many supports are there? 4? What are the chances of someone willing to destroy his score? Almost 0 ? Tankers can replace supports in helping their team survive. Etc Singe can toss the freaking enemy away from your teammate while he murders an opponent, slow and poison to severely harrass et cetra. Use your brain, practically ALL melee champions can jungle and not ALL are tanks.