To be fair, pretty much every support tank has some way of making themselves tankier.
Stand Behind Me, Unbreakable, Eclipse, Triumphant Roar to a lesser extent, Unbreakable Will, Damnation, Bastion and so on.
If you're looking at a tank in terms of like, Irelia or Trundle or the other popular "tank" top laners, then sure they're going to be able to fight people super well because they're not straight tanks. They're juggernauts or bruisers. Whatever you feel like calling them. They have high base damages, some sort of steroid, and limited directly defensive skills, if any at all.
Irelia's closest defensive skill is Equilibrium Strike, and it's mostly used to win a fight she's just barely losing. Trundle when built with no damage items is going to do just that. No damage. Sure he'll do a lot of supporting damage because of Subjugate and Chomp, but he's not going to be the main focus of a fight because of his dps.
Now if you want to look at jungle tanks, I'll be happy to oblige there too. Let's look at my 3 favorite, Maokai, Nautilus and Zac. Two of the the three have an ability that deals a percent of the enemy's maximum health on hit. Twisted Advance can't miss, except in rare cases, and Unstable Matter is both on a low cooldown and can be reduced by picking up his blobs. Looking over at Naut, he's got a bit less damage in his kit with his real strength coming from his 4 different CC layers. Knock up, snare, slow and pull. His damage is exceptionally low. Which brings me back to my first point about tanks. If you don't build damage, you're not going to do a lot. As much as TA and UM do percent health damage, they're not the only factor in a fight. Life steal and people simply moving faster than you to escape exist too. But if they don't have either of those things and they try to run away, of course they're going to die to a tank solo. You're not using skills while they're getting free shots on you since you're running.
Stand Behind Me, Unbreakable, Eclipse, Triumphant Roar to a lesser extent, Unbreakable Will, Damnation, Bastion and so on.If you're looking at a tank in terms of like, Irelia or Trundle or the other popular "tank" top laners, then sure they're going to be able to fight people super well because they're not straight tanks. They're juggernauts or bruisers. Whatever you feel like calling them. They have high base damages, some sort of steroid, and limited directly defensive skills, if any at all.
Irelia's closest defensive skill is
Equilibrium Strike, and it's mostly used to win a fight she's just barely losing. Trundle when built with no damage items is going to do just that. No damage. Sure he'll do a lot of supporting damage because of Subjugate and Chomp, but he's not going to be the main focus of a fight because of his dps.Now if you want to look at jungle tanks, I'll be happy to oblige there too. Let's look at my 3 favorite,
Maokai, Nautilus and Zac. Two of the the three have an ability that deals a percent of the enemy's maximum health on hit. Twisted Advance can't miss, except in rare cases, and Unstable Matter is both on a low cooldown and can be reduced by picking up his blobs. Looking over at Naut, he's got a bit less damage in his kit with his real strength coming from his 4 different CC layers. Knock up, snare, slow and pull. His damage is exceptionally low. Which brings me back to my first point about tanks. If you don't build damage, you're not going to do a lot. As much as TA and UM do percent health damage, they're not the only factor in a fight. Life steal and people simply moving faster than you to escape exist too. But if they don't have either of those things and they try to run away, of course they're going to die to a tank solo. You're not using skills while they're getting free shots on you since you're running.
Didn't read the whole thing (I'm on phone), but Mr. Braum and Leona disagree. They can definitely be considered tanks.
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Jovy
<Admin>
<Admin>
"Guys we need a tank"
"its ok, The Support can be the Tank"
It's better to have the support pick a tanky champion than not to have any tanks at all. Usually when the support HAS to pick something specific - an AP carry type (because it's a full AD team) or a tank - it's because the other players don't want to compromise and pick something that fits the team better. It's not like oh I'll pick Yasuo and the support can pick Brand, it's more like I don't want to not pick Yasuo, so the support will pick Brand.
That said I think a lot of supports fit the tank role pretty well - e.g. Leona, Nautilus or Braum.
"its ok, The Support can be the Tank"
It's better to have the support pick a tanky champion than not to have any tanks at all. Usually when the support HAS to pick something specific - an AP carry type (because it's a full AD team) or a tank - it's because the other players don't want to compromise and pick something that fits the team better. It's not like oh I'll pick Yasuo and the support can pick Brand, it's more like I don't want to not pick Yasuo, so the support will pick Brand.
That said I think a lot of supports fit the tank role pretty well - e.g. Leona, Nautilus or Braum.
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Today I wanted to discuss something with you all and I would love to hear your input whether you agree or disagree with what I am about to say and that is the mistake that a lot of players and team make in champion select.
Tell me if this sounds familiar
"Guys we need a tank"
"its ok, The Support can be the Tank"
I am here to tell those who do not quite know this but there is a huge difference between a Tank and a Support who is Tanky.
First of all, a Tanky Support is by no means a Tank - Yes they can take more damage than your typical squishy targets like your ADC or Mid Laner but the difference is that a Tanky Support with a full build can still be taken down relatively easily by an enemy ADC or Mid Laner in a 1v1 fight whilst a proper Tank if played correctly can take a 1 v 3 or even 4 (maybe even 5) and yes they will go down but 2 enemies will fall first and the rest will be easy picking for the rest of your team.
But why is this?
Well it is down to what your support Tank HAS to buy - Every single support has to buy a Sightstone (not a tank item), 90% have to buy a support item (Mountain, Nomad or Frost Queen) and although Mountain does give HP and a shield every 2 mins they are not really tanking items either and then you, of course, have your boots which unless you go with Mercury Threads (which likely you won't because you will want Boots of Mobility) are (you guessed it) are not tanky either.
Then you come to your fourth item, Locket of the Iron Solari - This is practically the most have item in all support builds because the added Magic Resist to your teammates and the bonus HP you can give if you activate it does make this a Tanky Item in a team fight situation...but in a 1v1 situation this is not going to help you out in any way shape or form for more than say 2 extra hits tops.
Which mean for a so-called "Tank" support you literally have 2 slots in your build to actually build yourself any kind of Armor and/or Magic Resist that you may require to build up your defenses which almost makes it impossible to really be an effective tank compared to an actual proper tank from the Tank or better yet the Top Lane.
What makes it worse is that because people do not quite understand this it means they get frustrated at the Support Tanks if they are not engaging into the enemy team or if they are dying too fast but that is only because a majority of the time the Support Tanks are not buying any real tank items until the 4th items (usually the locket) which mean you don't have a Tank engaging, you have a Squishy Support with a little extra HP compared to the rest of the team engaging an enemy team.
so how do you rectify this?
Well first of all, you do not leave the Tank role to the support - The Tank should be either the Top Laner preferably or the Jungler, The Support as a Tank should be the back up to the real Tank to help absorb some of the damage they are going to receive not the other way around.
Secondly if you are going to have the Support play tank then you have to be 100% sure the ADC knows exactly what they are meant to be doing - there is no point in having a Tank support if whenever the enemy engages and the tank does his or her best to stun, CC and who knows what else to make them easy kills if the ADC positioning is so poor that they either die, can't take advantage or even allow the support to die with no ramifications to the enemy.
Finally, Do not make your support tank feel weak by insulting them for not being as strong as YOU thought they would be - The Support Tank is strong but in terms of Boxing, for example, the support Tank is a Midweight whilst a full tank is a heavyweight...You can not expect a middleweight to have the same amount of power as the heavyweight so why expect a Support to be as tanky as a full tank?
Thank you for reading, Please leave your input in the comments below, I am looking forward to reading your views on this.