Before reading through this item guide, you need to first think about the "tank" role in the game as a whole.

As a tank, your job is defined by several priorities, listed here in order of importance.

1) Staying alive. You won't have any impact on teamfights if you're already dead.

2) Drawing attention. Your next highest priority as a tank is to disrupt the enemy team as much as possible and prevent them from using abilities and/or dealing damage to the rest of your team. Disruption can be achieved in various ways, such as applying CC, zoning, or even peeling enemy divers off your carries. In situations where staying alive is impossible, being extremely disruptive will maximize your impact on a teamfight as your job will still have been done even if you go down (ex: if the enemy blows lots of resources to kill you, they will have none left to kill your team and your team will likely win the fight after you die).

3) Making space for your team. If you successfully adhere to the above two priorities, this third one will fall into place naturally. As a tank, you want to carve out space in a fight for your team to play in, and you do this by planting your presence in a spot and controlling that space with your abilities/CC. The spot could be in front of an objective, in a lane, under a turret, or even inside the enemy frontline/backline. What's important is that once you enter that space, you use your abilities to buy time (ex: CC-lock key enemy carries, keep key enemy frontliners out of the fight, zone enemy champions away from an objective) for your team's carries to deal damage or take objectives within that space.

With these concepts in mind, choosing your items as a tank is very important because they will allow you to perform your duties better, faster and more efficiently. Good itemization will help you stay alive longer, meaning you can draw attention for longer and can also make more space for your team through your lasting impact on fights/areas around objectives.

Please read through each description carefully and run the thought process through your own head as to "why" each item excels in its own category/niche. This will help you build up good habits/memory as to which items you can purchase in various situations.

Doran's Shield Used for most matchups. Doran's shield provides HP regen for sustain in lane and easier last hitting due to its passive. Also good against booli matchups where you need early defense and HP regen to stay in lane. The downside to this item is you get no mana regen so you can't spam abilities as much in lane.

Corrupting Potion Corrupting Potion is useful in that it gives you a lot of HP and MP regen. This is good if you think you will need to spam your abilities more often (i.e. use a lot of mana) and it also helps you trade better in lane due to its burn-passive (your spells and basic attacks will burn enemies while the potion is active). The potion also refills every time you go back so you can keep using it for a long time. The downside to this item is that you have less starting defense compared to Doran's shield and last hitting will be a little bit harder without Doran shield passive. Choose this item to start when you are in an even (non-booli) matchup and you want to scrap a little bit in lane (trading with your potion burn damage). You should also consider running the "timewarp tonic" rune alongside this item start as it is a very strong combo.

You can rush your first mythic item. There are 3 choices to pick from. Choose the mythic that most appropriately counters the enemy champions and that also gives you the most usefulness for your team. In general, all three mythic item choices provide about the same amount of armor and magic resistance, as well as a "burning" effect (sunfire cape effect) which will be your reliable source of damage in lane. See below for the unique differences between them.

Sunfire Aegis Allows you to deal a lot of damage as a tank (has a burn that stacks up multiple times and applies even more burning DOT damage with autos). Also gives a lot of cooldown reduction. Choose this item if your goal is to deal more damage in teamfights.

Frostfire Gauntlet Frostfire Gauntlet allows you to deal burn AOE damage with the added effect of also creating frost fields on the ground with your autoattacks, giving you extra teamfight CC (slows) and sticking power when you're on top of someone. In comparison to Sunfire Aegis, it does less damage though because it doesn't stack up the burn damage like Sunfire does. The mythic passive also gives your legendary items Max HP so it's a more defensive/CC-oriented option than Sunfire is. Choose this item if your goal is to tank up and lock down key targets with constant slows.

Turbo Chemtank Turbo Chemtank's strength lies in its active ability, a big movespeed boost towards enemies/enemy turrets, as well as an exploding AOE slow (doesn't do damage) when the effect ends. Choose this item if your primary goal is to initiate teamfights for your team throughout the game (you can run at people and ult). The item also gives CDR on subsequent legendary items just like Sunfire Cape.

Here are items that you can build after your mythic item that give you high armor. Generally, if the enemy team has a lot of AD champions, it's a good idea to build at least one of these items to stay alive.

Thornmail The main reason to build thornmail is the anti-heal passive, Grievous Wounds, which reduces enemy healing by 40% when they hit you or when you immobilize them. Thornmail also gives a little bit of retaliation damage when people hit you. If the enemy has troublesome healing/vamp/spellvamp/HP regen champions (ex: Red Kayn, ADCs with high lifesteal, Dr. Mundo, Darius), Thornmail gives you access to anti-heal.

Randuin's Omen Randuin's Omen's passive revolves around damage reduction (which also scales off your max HP). The active ability on the item releases a shockwave that reduces both attack and critical damage dealt by those affected. Thus, Randuin's Omen is a dedicated anti-crit armor item, and should be built if the enemy has strong crit-based champions(ex: Caitlyn, Jhin, Tryndamere).

Frozen Heart Frozen Heart's main passive reduces the attackspeed of all enemies within its aura range. It also gives damage reduction based on max HP, just like Randuin's Omen, and has the added perk of giving you lots of extra mana too (in case you have mana problems). Consider buying this item if the enemy has AD champions that rely on high attackspeed to deal damage (ex: Tristana, Jinx, Xayah).

Here are items that you can build after your mythic item that give you high magic resist. Generally, if the enemy team has a lot of AP champions, it's a good idea to build at least one of these items to stay alive.

Abyssal Mask Abyssal Mask is an offensive MR item option since it amplifies damage taken by any target you immobilize by 15%. It also gives a nice boost to max HP. Choose this option if you need magic resist but also want to contribute more indirect damage (via your amplification of team's damage) in fights.

Force of Nature Force of Nature is the highest magic resist item that you can get out of these choices. It not only gives flat magic resist but also additional stacking magic resist each time you are hit by a spell. On top of that, it also gives flat movespeed and an additional stacking move speed buff when you get hit by spells too. This is your go-to choice if the enemy team composition is extremely AP heavy.

Here are items that you can build after your mythic item that give you high max HP and/or HP regeneration. Generally, you want to build one of these items in combination with your armor/magic resist items to become unkillable (you combine high resistances and high HP). As such, these items are usually purchased later on in the "priority" list. It is worth considering, however, that against an assassin-heavy enemy composition, max HP is a very valuable stat to have early on, as assassins tend to build a lot of armor/magic penetration, which nullifies any early resistance-stacking.

Warmog's Armor Warmog's Armor is the king of pure HP items, giving an insane 800 max HP flat on purchase and the additional benefit of an out-of-combat, fountain-level HP regen passive once you reach 1100+ max HP (which is very easy to do on a tank). Choose this option if you only need raw HP and not resistances, either early on to survive against assassins, or later in the game to become heccin juggernautdm after building resistance other items first.

Spirit Visage Spirit Visage is a tank item focused on boosting HP regeneration. It also gives a bit of magic resistance but it's not as much compared to the main MR items listed earlier. The passive gives 25% increased healing AND shielding received from ALL sources, this includes your champion's own regen/healing/lifesteal as well as your teammates healing/shielding you too. If your champion has a lot of innate healing built into their kit (ex: Dr. Mundo, Darius, Volibear), this item can be very strong, especially if the enemy has no healing reduction items. Or, if your team has a lot of healing/shielding spells (ex: supports like Soraka, Karma, Seraphine), this item is equally very valuable as you will become unkillable if your allies heal/shield you correctly. Choose this item only if one of the above two situations apply, if not then Warmog's would probably be a better choice overall for HP purposes.

This last section is dedicated to "situational", or unique use-case items. The strength of these items doesn't come from the raw stats that they provide (resistances, HP, regen, etc.), but instead from their unique active abilities. Read more below to find out more about when you can consider building these items (if at all).

Gargoyle Stoneplate Gargoyle Stoneplate is a flat-resistances item with a passive that stacks on more resistances for each unique champion that damages you (regardless if it's auto attacks or spells), up to a max of 5 stacks (i.e. if the entire team of 5 players hits you, you will get max stacks, otherwise you will only have partial if only some people hit you). The important thing about this item is its active effect, which grants you a HUGE temporary shield that scales off of your bonus HP (i.e. HP gained from items). The shield decays over 2.5 seconds, so it's best used in advance to tank up a lot of burst/incoming damage. Since the item doesn't give any max HP by itself and its active scales off of bonus HP, you should only buy this item after you have completed some items that give some bonus HP first, or the shield will not be very strong. In terms of usage of this item, this is the item that will let you dive headfirst into 5 enemy players and walk out alive. In conjunction with initiation-focused items like Turbo Chemtank, you will become a powerful initiator for your team while also guaranteeing your own survival after you start up a fight. The trick with using the active is to wait until after your initiation is complete (i.e. after the enemy recovers from any CC that you put out), then activate the stoneplate to tank the incoming damage from enemies that just woke up from CC. Using this item at the wrong moment will severely waste its potential as the shield decays very fast.

Zeke's Convergence Zeke's Convergence is a support-oriented item. It does give some armor, magic resist and flat HP/mana and it can still be used as a decent tank item, but the true key to this item lies in its active effect, which lets you choose a member of your team as an "accomplice". When you immobilize an enemy, your accomplice's auto attacks and spells will deal bonus magic damage that scales off of your max HP and level. You should only build this item if you are playing a "protect the president/princess" style team-comp where you want to juice up your carry even more by giving them this Accomplice buff, or if you feel like you already have enough tank stats and simply want to contribute more damage to your team by buffing your carry.

Dead Man's Plate Buy this item to meme on monke players and laugh as you zoomzoom where you please and slap them for fat, bursty auto attacks.