Okay, so i just got to lvl 30 and i wanted to play ranked matches. A couple of friends told me that i have to be ready to play any type of champion be it dps tank or support.

the problems is that i cannot play as a tank. whenever i play as one i due super fast and i just get frustrated.. whats the mind set i have to start the game with? also, how do i get money to but items.. ?

Heart of Gold is a great item to get for tanks, as it not only gives extra money, but can be built into Randuin's Omen later in the game. I believe there is a utility mastery that also gives some extra gold.

When it comes down to it, really the best way to get more money is to stay alive and stay in lane. Getting last hits and avoiding harassment is extremely necessary.

When you say you die super fast, what do you mean? Do you gank and get killed immediately because your team is terrible, or are you overextending to the point that you just get killed by towers?

well in normal team fights i die. i cant hold my ground and i get health and armor items.

I would shy away from the utility mastery gold as it only gives ~400 g for 35-40 mins of play. Not game-changing amounts of money, but it *can* be somewhat helpful if you need to burn an extra point to get to the next tier in utility (and you somehow don't need the buff extension/mana regen).

Well as a tank you have to accept that you will die. Your main hope is that you allies actually kill something and fight while you are dying.

Build towards 3k+ HP and 200-250ish armour/Mres both. Each tank can reach these goals in several ways. Be very adaptable in your builds to adapt to how your opponents are built as a team and in items individually.

For tanks no, but i wouldnt call it useless it had a decent gold return for a single point of masteries.

Also try it on Janna with 3 GP/5 Quints and a Philo stone and proceed to get like 35 CS for the whole game while you feed your carry.

start the game with the mindset of: I NEED MONEY!!! This translates to as the above poster said, staying alive and getting as many last hits as possible.

Let's use Shen / Alistar for example ( cuz I use them ). During the laning phase you have to place priority over winning your lane / farming over kills ( unless they do something stupid ).

Doing it right with Alistar:
* leveling up your heal so you can stay in lane longer = longer time in lane to farm.
* successful use of headbutt / pulverize to give you enough breathing room to farm

Doing it wrong with Alistar:
* leveling up Q / W unnecessarily with the mindset of "need more dmg to kill"
* being aggressive unnecessarily, losing hp.

Doing it right with Shen
* getting last hits with Q consistently, and harassing enemies when no minion is present
* getting Q hp regen on siege minions to stay in lane effectively
* good use of taunt and teammate to give your lane some breathing room

Doing it wrong with Shen
* harassing with Q and missing out on last hits
* using taunt to get the kill that was never there in the first place
* auto attacking

a tank REALLY relies upon successful laning because unlike a carry, your attack damage doesn't go up in mid game like the others so farming is WAY harder. Compare shen to tristana, for example. If you don't have the necessary items you need to help you do your job in mid-game, you will be ineffective in your role.

Tanks have to build for the enemy team, obviously. You have to be smart with your item choices. If they've got mostly AD on their team, you should opt for hp and armor obviously...

And as for dying, this could be because your items are lacking, or you are sticking your neck out wayy too far. Could be you are initiating when your teammates can't follow through or aren't prepared ( or brain-dead ). Or it could be you're trying to do too much ( tanking in a situation where it's not advisable to do so).

You gotta man up and be a tank and take the beating for your team of course, but at the same time you gotta know when to pull back when the fight goes bad or your allies are retreating.

and again, don't try to do TOO much if you can't. And don't tank for idiots on your team. If you have an over-extending feeder on your team, don't try to save the scrub by ulting with shen when clearly HE'S NOT WORTH SAVING.

tanking also requires you to have good communication with your teammates. I love playing shen with friends. Other times when teamwork is bad... playing any kind of tank is MISERABLE.

thanks for all the tips dovvntempo

As a tank, once the fight starts, you should be the hardest on your team to kill, due to HP/Armor/MR/ merc treads/ whatever. That was covered well up above.

What your goal becomes is to force the enemy team to have to kill you, or to make them pay if they don't. If you're Shen or Rammus, this means taunting carries or casters. If you're a tanky DPS or anticarry like Garen or Nasus, you go kill a squishy - or chase them out of the fight and then plow back in. If you're Singed or Blitz, you have to be initiating well - grab someone vulnerable, interrupt Nunu/Kat/Galio/whoever's channeled ult.

Be a huge nuisance, screw them up, get in the way. Keep your squishies alive, too. If you're Cho, and you and Ashe are running from their whole team, you better turn around and Rupture/Scream their team so she can get away.

Good luck! Tanking can be awesomely fun.

Just to clarify--effective tanking doesn't mean you have to take damage for your team. A tank makes sure his team survives. You do this either by soaking the damage for your friend, or by disabling the enemies. I prefer the latter. This is why I pick Blitz and Alistar as my main tanks. Alistar is very self-sustained and has extremely strong lane, while Blitz is pretty good at zoning, a great initiator, but more squishy.

The secret to successful play as Blitz is realize that you have 2 hard CCs (Rocket Grab and Powerfist is a stun and toss up effectively) and a silence (Static Discharge). This gives you 3 ways to interrupt the enemies. Overdrive also allows him to proc phage item really easily, meaning you can peel DPS from your team quicker than most other tanks.

Most people only have 1 combo with their champs. It's always good to pack a few. Headbutt->pulverize->headbutt can have a vastly different effect than Headbutt->TR->retreat->Headbutt, etc. Advance tanking dictates that you stagger your CD effectively, and more importantly know when it is OK to burn your mana. Headbutting the loan DPS leading the pack is perfectly fine. He will be pushed back and lose up to 300HP, while you lose absolutely nothing but mana that you wouldn't have used otherwise. Same as Blitz--if you're stalling for time, go ahead and burn your ult to kill off the minions. This can often stop a push long enough for your friends to join you. Rammus and Blitz have their ult on very short CD, so you can still expect your ult to be up by the time the fight really starts.