How are you supposed to play a tank in arena?

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I mainly play arena, but I'm almost always a god who can carry the damage like Freya, He Bo or Xbal. I've been grinding masteries lately though, and I've come to the realization that I'm just terrible with tanks. It took me thirty-one games to get to 100 worshippers with Sobek (those one worshipper losses of old >_>) and I'm now 1-9 in my first ten games with Bacchus. My win percentage is under 30% after seventy-five games with tanks not named Athena (who I play full mage.) Clearly I'm doing something wrong.

I try to engage whenever possible, and I like to play aggressive, so I guess that might be the problem... but at the same time, if my whole team is there and I jump in and zone/stun two mages on the enemy team, then turn around and use Intoxicate on three people, shouldn't we win that fight? Isn't the whole point of having a tank getting easy initiation? It feels like I'm just getting bad teams; four of my losses with Bacchus I lead the team in player damage while building full tank. It's really hard to win when your only mage does 10k damage and your assassin does 5k. But this is also a trend over almost 100 games.

That said, my squishies do die a lot when I play aggressive, even if they're good, and I can't peel when I use my skills for initiation. They 'should' be able to handle themselves if I take care of the more dangerous enemies, but it just seems like I'm entirely at the mercy of matchmaking. I could play more defensive and focus on peeling, but then every team fight is on the other team's terms, and we'd be better off just having 5 dps at that point.

Basically, I'm wondering if there's any way to affect the game as a tank in solo queue arena, or do I just have to wait for regression to kick in and have my team carry me to 50 worshippers? I never come out of a game as a tank thinking that I'm the reason we won.

Remarkable (5)
Posts: 198

This is my opinion, but I believe Tanks have two roles, out of three possible (Athena being an exception).

A. Initiation (Tanking the damage and starting a fight)

B. Disruption (preventing enemies from attacking anyone besides you)

C. Set-up (Exactly what it sounds like)

D? Another role is dealing damage, which can be a form of disruption in its own right, but this isn't really a tank trait. Ares and Athena go here.

Ymir excels at both disruption enemies and setting up attacks with his insane amounts of CC, as well as his "Oh **** Run Away!" ultimate. But he sucks balls at initiation.

Athena is rare in that she has good initiation, disruption, and damage setup, but this is balanced by her long cooldowns and her reliance on one skill.

Bacchus is a great initiator and disrupter, but he cannot set up attacks like Hades or Ares or Ymir can.

So my advice is, play your role. Don't try to initiate as Ares and don't blindly hit as many opponents as possible with as much CC as possible. There is also the matter of your playstyle.

To me, there are two different playstyles:

1. Disrupter: You go nuts on the CC, running around and stunning and grabbing and hooking as much as possible. This can be either very or not very effective depending on the situation.

2. Guardian: You react to enemy attacks, preventing them from targeting your squishies.

These playstyles are not mutually exclusive, you must shift between them to be an effective tank.

Example of a Disrupter: Ymir blinks in an enemy group and freezes as many as he can. The rest, he slows, either through his ultimate or his Glacial Strike. Enemy damage dealers should be vulnerable to attacks, and the rest should be hampered by the slow.

Example of Guardian: Hades sees an enemy Ne Zha incoming, and he bodyblocks the ribbon thing, before silencing Ne Zha, preventing his escape and allowing his team to focus on him.

Did this help?

Renowned (112)
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I definitely need to vary my playstyle more in game as a tank. I figure my biggest problem is over-aggression, but is shifting into a defensive style really going to start making us win team fights if we lost with a lot of disruption earlier? I can always hope the enemy team gets stupidly out of position, but I would also like to have fun while playing instead of just sitting back and waiting for them to walk into our fountain for ten minutes.

Speaking specifically about Bacchus (who I'm currently playing,) it just doesn't make much sense to me to play him as a guardian. Sure I can sit back and belch people off of my teammates, and I do after the initiation/during the retreat phase, but if the other team initiated, I've just used my 2/3 on a Guan using his 3 and a tank, meaning we've done no real damage, Guan will just ult, and the enemy mages are about to burst the hell out of everyone while I'm useless. I can block some attacks, but it's still all about my teammates actually winning the fight straight up if I can't disrupt.

It's my opinion that peeling is better handled by a mage or bruiser with some cc than most tanks, but again, that's depending on the rest of the team. Maybe it's just a side effect of playing so much Freya, but my mindset is always 'kill the enemy squishies before yours die'. If you do, you just collapse on the tank/bruiser messing with your back line and clean up. It's a lot easier to wipe that enemy back line with Freya than Bacchus though :/

Remarkable (5)
Posts: 198

wrote:

The short answer is yes. Playing a tank defensively is great. There is a saying that he who strikes first wins. Its dead wrong. As any God with a stun, or better Taunt, I love to let their enemy tank initiate and then just watch them instantly get burst down without using any other abilities. Then the other 4 filter in and they all die too because I can mitigate damage and body block their ADC.

The real point of a tank is to get the enemies attention however they can. Hades has a fear, Athena a taunt, Bacchus a stun, Ares an ultimate. Using these in addition to your initiation lets your team get close if you initiate, or lets your team get kills if they do.

As a Bacchus, your job is to clear the path for your squishies to kill their squishies. You distract their tank, warrior, and ADC if possible so that the mages can be burst down. Belch of the Gods is perfect because at full drunk the enemy is forced out of position or they get stunned and die. You are essentially handing them two bad choices. get stunned and die so they can't protect their squishies from your friends, or move out of the way and let their squishies die so they can be bursted down by your mages more easily.

Notable (4)
Posts: 81

So should I be focusing on the enemy's front line? I generally try to zone and target the squishies instead. A stun is nice and all, but if the other front line is smart, they'll just ignore me. It's not like I can do anything significant to them, and I don't really want to start a team fight by having the mages blow their ults on a tank.

It does make sense that I shouldn't be expecting a ton of help rushing past the enemy tanks though. Just a bad habit because of how I play offensive gods I guess; I shouldn't expect everyone to rush in as aggressively as me. I'll try playing more defensively and staying in front of the other front line and see how that works.

Remarkable (5)
Posts: 198

wrote:

There is a saying that he who strikes first wins. Its dead wrong.

So true. When I played a Loki as Loki that was a billion times beter than me, the only time i could win was when he initiated me. I prefer to live by the mantra 'If you make the first strike, make sure it's the last.' I love reactive play.

Tanks kind of control teamfights. And since arena is basically a huge chain of teamfights, you basically provide control. Body block, CC, etc. And if your , ult. If you aren't liking Bacchus, try another tank with more CC.

And make sure your team initiates with you. If you would lead them into a 3v5, dont be surprised when you find yourself in a 1v5. ^-^ VAA is a great tool, but give your team a second to either VVR/N or get in position.

PENTAS: Loki
Quadras: Cupid, Artemis, Loki, Ah Muzen Cab

Remarkable (6)
Posts: 609

Well I really like Athena, but that's for non-tank reasons. I dive the backline with her too, the difference is that she's capable of 100-0ing mages with no defense, forcing the front line to collapse back on her, and she can just dash back to safety a few seconds later with max CD, return to base and ult back in to clean up the team fight. That playstyle doesn't translate to other tanks obviously.

I'm pretty good about only initiating when the whole team is there, but the problems come in when the enemy team starts the fight by falling back. I generally follow if we have the upper hand (like if three enemies are drunk and their bruiser is almost dead,) but if the Ra on my team sits back on our side doing... who knows what, we just lost that advantage, and I just have to try and keep people alive.

I have to try focusing on counter initiating more I guess. It does seem like my team loses an inordinate amount of team fights that I start.

Remarkable (5)
Posts: 198

I prefer using Ymir for my main arena tank due to the fact that being able to freeze someone solid for a few seconds basically means their dead.

My only alt tank is Odin which I bust out when there is either a zeus or poseidan. Due to Ult synergy.

Notable (1)
Posts: 193

There have been many exceptionally long responses in this that I unfortunately have not the time to read, but I'll go over a few points.

>Know your comp. Are you an initiator or a Peeler? If you need to peel for your carries, don't go in, because they'll just dive past you and kill all your damage dealers.

>Know how tanky you are. If you ARE in a comp who needs an initiate, do it when they aren't all coordinated, and able to take you out. No matter how tanky you are, 5 coordinated people WILL kill you.

>Not all team comps require a tank. A tank is necessary if you need peels or initiation. Sometimes 2 bruisers will do the trick, and sometimes no melee can work. It depends on coordination.

>Play what kind of tank you are. There's Disruption Tanks, Initiation Tanks, and AoE tanks (such as Hades). Don't get caught up doing what you aren't built to do.

-Demolibium

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Eminent (158)
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I always play Bacchus in arena and a lot of how you can play depends on your team. This one game, I had a Poseidon who was literally waiting for me to someone so he could drop his Kraken on them. But there are times were your team doesn't follow up on your initiations at all. Try to figure out how your team plays and adjust to that.

If they go in without you initiating, save their sorry ***es. If they wait for you, then by all means initiate. One thing you could try is zoning out the backline while your team kills the tank, though be ready to dodge quite a few abilities. Going some CCR in arena is always a good idea cause you need your all the time to get people out of trouble.

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How are you supposed to play a tank in arena?

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