What constitutes a tank?

[quote=Jebus McAzn]We need to clear up some misconceptions that people may have. Building a tank is all about the items. I don't care about your skills that mitigate damage, I don't care about your runes/masteries/etc. It really all comes down to those items. It's why carries can run 21 defense, armor seals, and MR glyphs and still carry hard with an AP build - you get what I'm saying. Just because you are [u]tanky[/u] does NOT mean you're a tank. You could be Miss Fortune and have a full tank item build and it still wouldn't make you a good tank. What exactly is the job of a tank in a fight? The first response might be "to draw enemy fire", but this is impractical. That means that you're either: A. Taunting them, which only two champions in the game have (both great tanks, btw) B. Dealing enough damage to make them attack you over your carries Clearly both are not applicable to the most common tanks out there. No, the role of the tank is not to draw enemy fire to themselves. It's to ensure that it doesn't go to their carries. If you have a mechanism that stops the enemy from hurting your carries, you can, in theory, build like a good tank. Obviously, the other skills now come into play - shields, taunts, stuns, etc, separating the potential "good" tanks from the potential "best" tanks. Let's take Jarvan IV, for example. His ultimate basically shuts down several characters from attacking your carries at all while his W stops enemies from getting to them, and his Q+E is a knockup combo. The best tanks in the game all have mechanisms to protect your team while also offering very tanky utility. This is another reason why CC is so often seen on a tank - because CC is one of the most reliable ways to stop an enemy from harming an ally. Let's look at other examples. Mordekaiser is a shitty tank because he has no way to ensure the safety of your carries apart from a buff to armor/MR and a 15% slow from Rylai's. Rumble is also a pretty bad pure tank because while his slow is more substantial, his abilities can't keep people off and also are more conducive to building tanky AP. Janna has the potential to be a good tank (isolating ultimate, good shield, knockup and slow) but her base stats make her too squishy early on and later on, and the benefits of playing support outweigh those of playing tanky. Regardless, you find many support characters to be relatively tanky late-game, given Aegis, Soul Shroud, Abyssal Scepter, and other support items. That ends my little rant about the purpose of a tank. There are probably some flaws in this argument as I haven't thought it out 100%, but it looks solid to me.[/quote]

[quote=B-Wong]Agreed.[/quote]

[quote=Adonikam]Or you can have a big model to make it bloody impossible to aim skill shots around you. I'm looking at you Cho >=([/quote]

[quote=Ragemoarnerd]But... What about Teemo Tank?[/quote]

[quote=Jet]chos model doesn't affect his hitbox that much[/quote]

[quote=Ragemoarnerd]It makes it hard to click other champions he's standing on though.[/quote]

[quote=Kirluu]So a full list of viable tanks by the definition in this topic, that would leave us pretty much with...: [[Alistar]](Knock-up & Knockback) [[Amumu]](Stun, getting into a fight, and his ulti) [[Blitzcrank]](Pull, knock-up and silence) [[Cho'Gath]](Knock up and silence) [[Galio]](Slow, shield and taunt) [[Gragas]](Ulti only) [[Jarvan IV]](As mentioned in firstpost of this topic^) [[Malphite]](Slow 'N' AoE knock-up) [[Maokai]](AoE damage reduction, & snare) [[Rammus]](Minor knock-up, strong taunt) [[Shen]](Taunt & Shielding Ulti) [[Singed]](Fling and slow) [[Udyr]] (Only has the very small incignificant stun, though) ... Anyone I missed, really? Now, I know some of them aren't really [i]used[/i] for tanking, but they still have the qualifications mentioned in the firstpost, no? :3[/quote]

[quote=Jet]hahaha, my flight has an ethernet port (not much i can do on it tho but browse web pages tho so oh well) kirluu, all the champions you listed are mainly used for tanks, where other build variations on them are sub par to tanking builds (excluding blitzcrank and alistar where offtank dps and ap/support fit them better respectively)[/quote]

[quote=Kirluu][quote=Jet](excluding blitzcrank and alistar where offtank dps and ap/support fit them better respectively) [/quote] That was what I meant with some of them perhaps not oftenly used for tanking :3[/quote]

[quote=Lugignaf]You forgot Taric. Stun and a ton of staying power with his heal and his armor booster.[/quote]