User blog comment:Krufix/Tanks for all the Fish/@comment-6281696-20140606200323

Interesting, but a couple of things though:

Bruisers in LoL are not tanks, not even remotely, the reason for this is quite simple they are focussed on dealing damage as opposed to tanking. The difference is that bruisers in LoL have as a goal to run into the enemies lines and horribly murder their squishies and that's it. So their damage isn't so much a threat to draw aggro as it is well, just damage to kill stuff. The only reason they can fullfill the role of tank in the game is because Riot thinks it's a good idea to give them acces to both high end damage and high end tanking gear which makes it so they end up with stats fitting for both offense and defense, which is well.. dumb...

Initiators aren't tanks. A tank may initiate (and often does), but if all you can do is initiate you're not a tank, after all once you've initiated you're no longer a threat and will thus be ignored which would make the actual tanking rather impossible....

Disruptors & peelers I would more or less put in the same catagory, both basicly draw aggro by the threat of disrupting the flow of battle in some way with CC.

Pure damage sponges are not tanks, at least not in lol. They have the survivability, but the enemy has no reason to actually attack them so yea.. there also aren't pure damage sponges in lol for that reason, the examples you gave all sort of fall in the bruiser catagory, promising (eventual) death if not focussed...

True tanks, are well.. the only true tanks.. and I wish there were more of them.. They're by far the most interesting

Anyways, on the whole only 2 types of tanks really exist in LoL, Disruptors and True tanks. Due to the massive focus on burst disruptors are currently a bit on the weak side in the meta because well, half their kit doesn't really kick in until it's too late (it's the reason Annie support works, the CC advantage that say leona would bring doesn't really kick in until long after her carry has been fried 3 times over...) and true tanks are well, rare. And again due to them favoring longer fights a bit on the underpowered side... On top of that there are no really good tanking items, at least nothing on the the same level of one slot powerhouses like say Trinity in terms of defensive value and bruisers can easily reach comparable, and thanks to lifesteal in certain cases better, survivability. Overall, it leaves tanks lacking really.. I wish they'd give us some love, but given how Riot loves "plays" and "tons of damage" it's unlikely tanks will ever truly come to their own in lol...