Tanking (Health or Resists?)

Question

If I wanted to tank against a well rounded team that had equal amounts of Physical and Magical damage, which would be more important: Armor/Magic Resist or Health?

Also, should I try to get utility (Banshee's Veil, Zhonya's Hourglass, etc) before, after or not all?

If I was trying to do more damage, should I get something like Thornmail/Sunfire Cape or actually base something from my ratios like Zhonya's on Rumble for AP and Armour?

Should I limit the amount of tankiness I get so that the enemy team still feels inclined to hit me?

Answer 1

depends on the hero, heroes like rammus and leona who have abilities that give armor and magic resistants gain more from health than heroes like shen or amumu tho recently people are favoring going hp and getting an atmas for the armor and extra AD.

Answer 2

It really depends on what you're playing.

As an ad carry, go for cheap defense without the need to build into anything, i.e. chain vests and negatron. Same with supports if you have the money.

For traditional tanks, if they have equal threats, you can get cheap defense for either like above or build health. The latter is not recommended if they have health scaling damage abilities like kogmaw.

You also have to consider your role in fights. Do you do a lot of damage? Will people want to kill you? Can you kite/escape well and how mobile are you? All of these go towards determining your answer. For highly mobile champions that have good escapes and can escape well, sometimes building glass cannon (i.e. no defense) is the answer.