This probably belong in the new player forums, but new players seem just as confused.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought tanks pull aggro from monsters and take damage for everyone else. That's nice and all, except for the fact that people attack whoever they want. This isn't PvE.

So what's the point of a tank? Only 2 or 3 have a taunt. What do all the other tanks do? Why do they build a ton of armor, magic res and HP if everyone can choose to ignore them and kill the squishies? It's not like they do good damage either. They kinda do nothing.

tanks are suppose to inaite the fight and keep the other team from being able to freely walk up and kill carries, most tanks multiple forms of cc and one damage reduction..... example alistar is played as a tank when jungling due to his high damage reduction from his ult and his ability to stun and knock people around the fight keeping his carries safe

They initiate, they peel, they protect their carry and offer utility to team fights. They tank Baron, Dragon, turrets and most of all they are awesome.

What is CC, bodyblocking, anti-carry

so that you can get *****ed at for not picking a support....when you did...

Initiate and CC, that's what i think.

There are 2 kinds of tanks, I like to call them "anti-carries" and "frontline" tanks.

Anti-carries are carries that don't have much cc, but have a lot of damage, and single target damage potential. Darius, J4, and such come to mind. These charge into their team to try to keep their carries busy or kill them in general.

Frontline tanks are the ones that should stay slightly back, because their cc allows them to peel your carry. Alistar is really good at this, which is why he also makes a good support (something that supports should be doing is peeling). You want to see who makes it through your front line of tanks, and then keep them off your carry.

tanks don't necessarily initiate. champs with a good initiation spell.. initiate. see: ashe, morgana, orianna, pantheon, varus, veigar, zyra gragas, karthus, sona, annie, fiddlesticks, lux

tanks usually have 2 jobs. protect the AD or AP carry, or zone the enemy ap or ad carry.

CC, deal damage, initiate, and peel.

Overall tanks in LoL are quite offensive. Naut and Amumu are some of the best gankers/junglers, they are built to CC and secure kills.

You don't want to build too defensive, as you want to be a much of a pain as possible, even if they focus and kill you, it is still a net negative if you take more to kill than your carries.

Although late game usually tanks become super tanky, and their role is more towards the cc aspects so other champs can blow the enemy up.

It is true that, in the absence of interference, players are free to attack whoever they wish.

Imagine you are playing Riven, and you want to jump on the enemy team's Graves, who is threatening to deal *tons of damage* to your team if unchecked. With no tank around, this is easy-peasy. You jump on Graves, lifesteal off his damage with your stacked Bloodthirster, stun him, collect gold.

Now imagine trying to do that with a 200-armor, 3.5k hp Nautilus actively doing nothing but trying to prevent you from getting to Graves.

Do you see the role of a tank yet?