Talk:Zac/@comment-8506165-20141213034041/@comment-8506165-20150119210932

"To me, a bruiser is a champion focused on making a huge impact in fights while being tanky enough to do so, as opposed to a champion who's specifically made to draw a lot of attention to itself and protect its team. Within this definition, Zac is a tank to me because he benefits a lot from drawing fire towards himself, due to his anti-clumping spells, healing and team attention-grabbing resurrection passive. Maokai is another tank, due to the protection he brings to his allies while alive, but Sejuani is more of a bruiser, since despite her amazing lockdown capabilities she doesn't really want or need to be attacked to succeed at what she does."

So... a tank "wants" to take damage. Or needs to. And Sejuani isn't a tank but Zac is. It's clear our definitions are pretty different, then. I view tanks as "enablers": people who don't usually bring that much damage themselves but aren't ignorable in teamfights due to their ability to disrupt the enemy through utility or CC: if you ignore them, they lose because the tank brings so much meaningful utility. Tanks are consequentially quite bad in 1v1 fights and tend to be quite weak early game because of their dependance on teammates at a stage of the game where grouping doesn't happen. "Wanting" to take damage doesn't come into it - it's that tanky stats are necessary to bring out their utility to its maximum effect. Nautilus lays out CC and disruption equally well whether or not he's taking damage. Yeah, he'll block a skillshot that's going to hit his ADC if they're going to get hit otherwise, but why wouldn't a Mundo or Shyvana do the same thing? Similarly, if he can avoid taking free damage he's not going to take it for no reason.

As I see it, your definition, particularly given the criteria you listed for Zac being a tank, seems to fall short because a lot of bruisers could be tanks through sheer threat by your definition. Renekton dives headfirst into a fight, incentivises people to split up with his AoE damage and increased threat the higher he builds his Fury, heals himself... I mean, this is Renekton, one of the consummate bruisers. Aatrox? Give him a Hydra and he deals AoE damage on everything, heals for more the lower on health he gets meaning he directly benefits off being attacked, lays out minor CC as he fights, demands attention immediately after he resurrects because that's when he's at his weakest and ignoring him just lets him build up to full strength quickly... How is he not a tank, and a better tank than Zac at that given that his threat levels are higher, demanding greater focus? On the flipside: by my definition, how is Sejuani not a tank, with her low-cooldown AoE CC and incredibly hard engage? She can chase, peel, lockdown... but she tends to suck at having a high personal impact with no impact. I don't mean bruisers can 1v5, but they can wade in and deal enough damage without assistance from their team to have an impact in that fashion.

So yeah, by my definition Zac isn't very good as a tank because he doesn't really "enable" in any meaningful way beyond providing initiation - which you could say of Hecarim (again, not a tank). His usefulness is directly linked to his personal ability to contribute to a fight - he either shines or falls flat based on his ability to survive diving headfirst in long enough to lay out a large quantity of AoE damage. This either takes the form of 1) him being able to do a reasonable amount in the short time it takes him to die based on being a health caster with an unreliable sustain mechanic or 2) having such a strong sustain mechanic that his low-moderate DPS still adds up to a lot by the sheer amount of time he stays alive, à la Mundo/Shyvana. I'm open to ideas that boost his sustain like your notion of one blob per champion hit thing on all his abilities, or even theoretically changes that shift him into some weird hammerspace between bruiser and tank, like where I think is at the moment. I think the latter would be difficult to achieve though, which is why I can't really get behind your ideas on a potential change to his knockback mechanics as being a solution to the problems that currently make him unviable.