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is it crazy to build a Zz'rot Portal on off-tanks?

Shyvana was my main season 3, but I stopped playing her because she wasn't in a good place for the longest time, and I just picked her back up. Unless I'm losing jungle/lane hard, I generally have been building two offensive items (Bork/TF/Devourer's) and 3 tank items. Even though Devourer's makes clearing both jungles fast as hell, no matter how much $$$ you make you still are pretty squishy once you're sitting on TF/Devourer's and boots.

As a tank, you generally want to be building as much resistances as possible for whoever's fed on the enemy team, so you can survive longest in a fight with them. As an off-tank with no defensive items 20 minutes into the game, when teamfights are starting, you want as much survivability as possible against mixed damage. So the first buy is easy - health. Warmog's is a great item right now imo, allowing you to rush tons of health and passively regenerate it in between jungle camps and fights. The Zz'rot portal, then, is the easiest way to build both MR and Armor at the same time, at a very efficient 60 of each in only one slot. Since you have both Armor/MR from one item, you can afford to build a Randuin's/Banshee's as applicable depending on what the enemy team is running, whereas if you dropped the ZZ'rot portal you'd be forced to build a Randuin's and Banshee's and then have to decide between more health/armor/MR.

If you add up the base stats and ignore the passives (which are probably better on Randuin's anyway) it seems like I'm wasting money, but Warmog's and the Zz'rot portal are both cheap and efficient and allow you to become a mixed tank fairly quickly.

Also, split pushing + baiting with the Zz'rot portal is fun as balls, and Point Runner (+movement speed near turrets, alive or dead) is a very underrated passive. You can even dive the inhib turrets without losing speed!
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Zz'rot portal is hidden OP. The fact it gives 60 of both defensive stats at a cheaper price than GA while also being a ridiculous MS buff item is insane. I build it on Bard all the time.
 
Zz'rot portal is hidden OP. The fact it gives 60 of both defensive stats at a cheaper price than GA while also being a ridiculous MS buff item is insane. I build it on Bard all the time.
I got it on Brand for a few games. It absolutely rocks. Didn't even feel the need to get Zhonya's anymore.
 

Mr.E

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Warmog's is a great item right now imo, allowing you to rush tons of health and passively regenerate it in between jungle camps and fights.
I wish but the timer is so long and the passive shuts off on any damage taken, so the only way to actually get the super-regen while doing something somewhat productive (i.e. not Baron dancing or sieging against a turtle comp with good waveclear but bad poke) is pushing a lane slowly enough to let your minions tank everything. I've tried Warmog's a few times since they put that buff in and it has failed to impress me. If you're not taking damage for excessively long periods of time, then you probably haven't been doing anything useful anyway and could've just recalled to heal. Sad to say I think it was better before they nerfed its raw HP, and it still wasn't that good then. :( Hasn't been good since they reworked it two years ago and bumped the price up...

I also hate Zzzzzzzzzzzzz Portal because the stats aren't gold-efficient and the voidspawn don't have enough range to them anyway. Banner of Command is actually pretty legit because its base stats are reasonably cost-effective, and you can pop the active on a minion as it leaves base and that bitch will be pushing the forward turret down two minutes later if an enemy champion doesn't clear it. The Legion aura seals the deal. Portal is much harder to use since the short timer on voidspawn forces you to place it pretty close to a forward enemy turret to be of any real use. They're also easy to kill, so I'm not convinced it's particularly useful for sieging even when your team is actively protecting the portal position, whereas Banner's magic-immune promoted minion can be key to breaking a lot of turtle comps. (How many safe AD waveclearers exist? Varus, Sivir, Kha'Zix with evolved W end list?) Granted the stat distribution makes each item attractive to entirely different champions but generally speaking, a Support or high-utility AP solo laner with BoC seems far more attractive to me than a splitpushing tank with ZZ Top.

Although I did build Ohmwrecker a few days ago for the last 10% CDR I needed on Nasus and the Point Runner passive is pretty spiffy. Raptor Cloak is pretty ridiculous after its unneeded buff, too bad it doesn't actually build into useful shit.
 
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I also think Swain is really good, and I find it fun playing him. However, the rise of bursty assassin-like champions made Swain really unpopular as the solid DPS-ish tanky mage he is. Also, if your opponents are somewhat good and dodge your stuns you're kind of screwed.
 

UncleSam

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Warmogs is a decent item on junglers looking to make the most of the %bonus hp on juggernaut so that they can be a tank with only 5k gold worth of items while still having some damage from immolate.

I wouldn't buy it on a non-jungler though outside of health scalers like Mundo
 
Yeah Warmog's is a pretty standard and powerful item in solo queue on tank junglers due to the changes. I played with it and the main reason I buy it is for the health after I run out of ways to build health.
 
just play Swain top

he performs really well against just about every melee top laner + lissandra, and since every game goes 40 minutes these days you can almost always finish your core items and become a late game monster.

I build RoA -> Haunting guise (if I'm doing well)/Zhonya's or Spirit Visage if I need the armor/MR badly -> finish Zhonya's and SV -> Liandry's -> Deathcap/GA/Void Staff/whatever. Swain is super OP against close range carries, I love picking him into Lissandra/Graves/Zed and either zoning them out of the fight or forcing them to focus you.

Morello's is really no big deal, if you can get your E->Q->W combo off on any mid who build a Morello's then they are going to die in teamfights, and you just use your Zhonya's when you reach around ~30% hp and heal almost half your healthbar back regardless of Grievous Wounds.

I very often will get set behind while playing Swain, and dominating teamfights anyway. this game was probably my favorite, I was something like 0/1/1 at almost 20 minutes, but because the enemy was 3.5/5 close range teamfights were a breeze once I joined in :^)


I wish but the timer is so long and the passive shuts off on any damage taken, so the only way to actually get the super-regen while doing something somewhat productive (i.e. not Baron dancing or sieging against a turtle comp with good waveclear but bad poke) is pushing a lane slowly enough to let your minions tank everything. I've tried Warmog's a few times since they put that buff in and it has failed to impress me. If you're not taking damage for excessively long periods of time, then you probably haven't been doing anything useful anyway and could've just recalled to heal. Sad to say I think it was better before they nerfed its raw HP, and it still wasn't that good then. :( Hasn't been good since they reworked it two years ago and bumped the price up...
I like it on junglers and top-laners that aren't split-pushing, because a lot of the midgame is just posturing rather than straight up powerfarming or fighting. It's nice to have 100% health virtually every fight than either fighting on 60% health because you just took dragon or recalling and your team getting engaged on 4v5.
 

Jibaku

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ARAM is the best mode for mindless ham >:(

Well I lied. Not "mindless" because people randomly die to poke comps because they're not patient enough early game.
 

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