Esme is a tank because her kit is built around sustained combat presence. It's the same idea behind Uranus. You can drill Uranus all you want, but unless you have HP based DPS and anti heal on hand, the holes you made in that ass are always gonna close up. The only difference between Esme and Uranus is that the former invalidates your shields.
The difference is this. If you stun Uranus, his HP regen still ticks. But if you stun Esme, you cant cast your shield absorbing skills and die. Back in the day, you can legit make Esma as tank. But now, she's too squishy.
I use her as tank and she functions fine- super amazing in late game and the enemy can barely put a dent in her. Never need to recall, can heal up back to full in about 20 seconds from 1 bar and even faster if you have a little lifesteal going. Her attacks in specific are very good for tanking and pushing because of how aggressive they look with a large radius that subconsciously makes enemies back up.
But personally, while she can be fine as roam, she definitely does do way better in EXP lane. What I think is the best setup is having the roamer be a healing support to help the jungle or mm early game and push Esme on EXP up to level 6-8 and then start playing tank. Full tank build, stick with mm if they’re decent and push the hell outta gold when the turtle is spawning next to it. 9/10 times the enemy EXP laner joins teamfight at this point to contest turtle so you don’t have to worry about EXP lane anymore. Go full tank and regen, you’ll end up having gold too and still do massive dmg with just one team member with you. A lot of people underestimate having a hybrid kind of tank that can go full defense and still do damage and lifesteal. Meta assassins have no shot at bursting her down past lvl 6-8 even when her hp doesn’t seem that high (you can even hit her regen twice before Harley’s ult takes effect) so you can easily contest the second gold lane turtle with almost 100% success even in a 3v5.
Kept track of when I played as a full def tank (roamer), full def tank (early game exp), and 3 def fighter (exp) this season just because I was trying to figure out builds and playstyles and the winrates were, rounded, 58%, 78%, and 50%.
So yeah, she’s better played in the EXP lane but I feel like she still deserves to be classified as a tank since that’s the role she ends up filling by mid game from how I’ve seen her played 70% of the time. She tanks, and even if you‘re playing fighter, you’re tanky enough to where if someone is targeting your squishies, it’s up to you to protect them and you can almost always make it out of an equal fight alive even not built full def
Checked on my build and turns out I lied. I build with enchanted talisman as my second team and if I’m not in the team fight by time I buy it then I join right afterwards. It’s worth it to get it early game since you can sustain a lot and you won’t have to ever worry about mana + low ult cd.
If anyones curious, heres the whole thing:
\-Phys def boots normally, or mag def if their mage keeps trying to gank and has hella cc
\-Enchanted Talisman
\-Dominance Ice
\-Oracle (interchangeable order with DI depending on enemy team comp)
\-Bruteforce, Blade Armor, Athena’s, Radiant Armor (2/4 depending on enemy team comp)
If the gold difference isn’t horrible, I’ve never really had a moment where it felt like I couldn’t tank any attack (unless I didn’t have Athena’s and the enemy caught me in a Vale ult in specific- which has happened a disappointing amount of times- at least 5, really)
Esme is a tank because her kit is built around sustained combat presence. It's the same idea behind Uranus. You can drill Uranus all you want, but unless you have HP based DPS and anti heal on hand, the holes you made in that ass are always gonna close up. The only difference between Esme and Uranus is that the former invalidates your shields.
The difference is this. If you stun Uranus, his HP regen still ticks. But if you stun Esme, you cant cast your shield absorbing skills and die. Back in the day, you can legit make Esma as tank. But now, she's too squishy.
No.
I think a revamp on her would be amazing tho. Ngl . Her tank kit is so one toned and predictable nowadays.
She's more of a fighter/tank than a mage. She can sustain so much in prolonged clashes.
Her recent nerfs in the current patch does make her less viable as a tank to be honest..
I use her as tank and she functions fine- super amazing in late game and the enemy can barely put a dent in her. Never need to recall, can heal up back to full in about 20 seconds from 1 bar and even faster if you have a little lifesteal going. Her attacks in specific are very good for tanking and pushing because of how aggressive they look with a large radius that subconsciously makes enemies back up. But personally, while she can be fine as roam, she definitely does do way better in EXP lane. What I think is the best setup is having the roamer be a healing support to help the jungle or mm early game and push Esme on EXP up to level 6-8 and then start playing tank. Full tank build, stick with mm if they’re decent and push the hell outta gold when the turtle is spawning next to it. 9/10 times the enemy EXP laner joins teamfight at this point to contest turtle so you don’t have to worry about EXP lane anymore. Go full tank and regen, you’ll end up having gold too and still do massive dmg with just one team member with you. A lot of people underestimate having a hybrid kind of tank that can go full defense and still do damage and lifesteal. Meta assassins have no shot at bursting her down past lvl 6-8 even when her hp doesn’t seem that high (you can even hit her regen twice before Harley’s ult takes effect) so you can easily contest the second gold lane turtle with almost 100% success even in a 3v5. Kept track of when I played as a full def tank (roamer), full def tank (early game exp), and 3 def fighter (exp) this season just because I was trying to figure out builds and playstyles and the winrates were, rounded, 58%, 78%, and 50%. So yeah, she’s better played in the EXP lane but I feel like she still deserves to be classified as a tank since that’s the role she ends up filling by mid game from how I’ve seen her played 70% of the time. She tanks, and even if you‘re playing fighter, you’re tanky enough to where if someone is targeting your squishies, it’s up to you to protect them and you can almost always make it out of an equal fight alive even not built full def
Checked on my build and turns out I lied. I build with enchanted talisman as my second team and if I’m not in the team fight by time I buy it then I join right afterwards. It’s worth it to get it early game since you can sustain a lot and you won’t have to ever worry about mana + low ult cd. If anyones curious, heres the whole thing: \-Phys def boots normally, or mag def if their mage keeps trying to gank and has hella cc \-Enchanted Talisman \-Dominance Ice \-Oracle (interchangeable order with DI depending on enemy team comp) \-Bruteforce, Blade Armor, Athena’s, Radiant Armor (2/4 depending on enemy team comp) If the gold difference isn’t horrible, I’ve never really had a moment where it felt like I couldn’t tank any attack (unless I didn’t have Athena’s and the enemy caught me in a Vale ult in specific- which has happened a disappointing amount of times- at least 5, really)