Most of the tanks play melee focused. However some have core abilities that allow for good ranged early game poke.

Maokai saplings are very good ranged damage. He has easy tank combos.

Cho'gath has great ranged poking abilities that are also his key initiate and cc tank roles. You will maximize his damage in melee though so he might be a good character to learn the ropes with.

I see others recommending Malphite. He plays more like an assassin. His primary initiate has minute or more on cool down. Although he starts with great ranged poke it doesn't last. Once you initiate you will not be able to tie people up for a second round.

Cho'gath is the best "starter tank" IMO. His passive + vorpal spikes makes him one of the most forgiving champions to learn how to get last hits and lane as a melee champion. If you build him with Warmog's he is very tough to kill and once you get the hang being a damage sponge you can switch to his Rod of Ages build and get a better idea of the trade offs a tank has to make between durability and damage.

I think think of an easier tank to begin learning with

Amumu hands down. Great aoe dmg, single stun, aoe stun.

i'd say amumu or maokai. cho is more of an ap/tank hybrid and has tricky skillshots.
depends on what you want to do with them though. amumu isn't the best laner for instance.

i think leona is the only true tank out there

from my experiences i would go wit either cho gath, galio, or gankplank

pretty much what he said u need to be able to jungle to tank i certainly would not suggest learning leona support bot to learn to tank.

I wouldn't necessarily agree with this (having to jungle to tank).

Cho gath or Singed solo top & Alistar Support Bot are both great ways to learn tanks.

Cho's passive and knock up helps with when you make mistakes.
Alistar has the heal and knock away for covering mistakes.
Singed you can build naturally tanky with regen and your knock away + glue + poison trail helps to promote people leaving you alone.


I think all three of these are great ways to start. Singed and cho can keep enemy champs off their turret when the wave is pushed and alistar can keep them off as well. I think these three are the easiest to play. Sure Cho has a skill shot knock up that's 'hard' to land, but after a couple of games you get the hang of it a little bit.

I personally like Leona. However, she works best with a dps or nuke partner as her passive applies a debuff that grants your teamate extra damage. She can be a bit frustrating early game, but once you build up her armor, health, and resistances, she can wade into team fights and set up kills for your team.

Currently, I start her build with cloth armor and two wards. I've been using the Ninja Tabi boots for the damage reduction, Warmogs and Force of Nature for the health and regen. Thornmail and Sunfire Cape combined with her exploding shield are great for clearing minion waves or making teamfights painful to opposing champions.

For her abilities, I currently start with Q (On hit stun) then E (gap closer) and W (Shield). Once I have her ult (AoE stun/slow), I initiate a fight using RWEQ.

R to stun (applies debuff #1), W to start the timer on her shield, E to close (applies debuff #2), Q for another stun (debuff #3), and by that time, the shield should be ready to explode for debuff #4.

Unfortunately, if you initiate and your teamate sits back and does nothing, Leona has trouble dealing enough damage to secure the kill yourself.

Good Starter is Malphite.