Recipe: Warden's Mail + Ruby Crystal + Regrowth Pendent + 750g

Lifelink Bastion
+55 Armor
+220 Health
+40 HP5

Unique Passive: As Warden's Mail
Unique Active: Forms a tether with ally champion within 500 Range that can extend up to 700 range before breaking for 3 seconds. While the tether holds, 35% of all damage dealt to that champion is transferred to your champion, bypassing armor and magic resistance.

Niche to fill - Active Protection
You cannot actually protect a champion that the enemy wants dead, and in the situations where a tank lacks sustained threat to warrant some damage being focused at them.

This item allows a tank to essentially buddy up with another person and attempt to provide them with a bit more protection.

The downside to this is two fold; Warden's mail essentially delays making Randiuns as well, which is a powerful team item the tank usually makes. By making Warden's mail part of the recipe, a tank would have to invest heavily in a couple of high armor, moderate health items, making them more susceptible to AP champions.

Secondly, the damage being transferred ignores their own resistances, so the squishie they're protecting, who likely is far less durable, is gaining increased durability at the expense of the Tank.

Counterplay options
Position altering to break the tether
Just blasting the carry down anyways and taking a good chunk of the tank's health too.
Waiting it out.

The idea of a "take damage for champion x" item was shot down by Xypherous a long time ago.
1. It makes "tanking" for one champion too easy.
2. It becomes "required", because of the nature of the effect.
3. It makes players who play tanks or bruisers feel like ****, because anyone who does not rush this item is seen as "intentionally" throwing the game.

1. Fair.
2. The intended goal was to create an item that a tank would take to buddy up with a melee damage dealer. The short duration / breakable tether makes it less than ideal when protecting a ranged champion as the tank is spread further away, making even slight position adjustments enough to prevent / break the tether.
3. Perhaps, but the effect itself is sacrificing a greater amount of team total health in order to give a high value target a bit more face time, or maybe aid in surviving tonnes of damage.

I feel it has enough drawbacks where attempting the stack the item would be as detrimental as not having it all. Durable champions who have much greater effective health essentially lose that advantage in this version of a damage soak. You're basically using the target's resistances for your own, and that is rarely even going to be in the tank's favor, let alone if the two get caught in an AoE bomb.

Still, point taken.

Would be good to see this as a possible champion ability

Xypherous actually said that on the same post where he shot down an item version.

Can't remember the exact wording, and I don't want to look for it again, but basically he said that the ability would be ok on a champion kit because players know what they are getting into.

The #2 and #3 reasons I gave where players will basically yell at a player for not picking up an "item version" were basically Xypherous's main reasons for discarding the suggestion. Tanks used to be given more **** than current supports back then (players on LoL have become more mature on LoL), and players would demand that all bruisers/tanks take this item for that effect regardless of any number of "drawbacks" the item entails. One could write up the same exact item for 1000-2000g with no beneficiary stats at all, and players would still demand that their tanks and bruisers get it eventually.

I agree!

Oh boy, devo pallies, here we come... </RO>

Yeah, item version = bad, champion ability = good

Plus, what would happen in a Protect-the-Kog'Maw comp with three of these?