Not having a tank on your team

[Skarith]

I don't know how everyone elses experience is. As a summoner, I'm currently winning every game I have with a tank on my team and losing every game without. Because I know that if I don't have a tank, I'll be a) hoping to win while noone in my team pushes the crystal or b) keep dying over and over as soon as I'm out of mana to heal myself while trying fruitlessly to tank the crystal against their mob.
Tonight was particularly jarring having this exact experience 5 times in a row, with a tank on the opposite side but none on mine.

Now I know already some will disagree with my statement here; and that's OK. Just please keep it civil. Other than that, would love to hear your opinions!

[Sinstrel]

Hi Skarith,

I don't know what rank you are so it is difficult to say what the problem is for sure, but when I had played in the lower ranks (Unranked - Gold/low platinum) I have seen players make the mistake of playing the same strategy as they would have played if they had a tank, even though they dont have a tank. For example, when you have a tank (especially a warrior) who can charge in and initiate combat, your team can then push up and join the fray. If your team is trying to engage first without a tank then you will have a poor experience.

Instead I'd recommend letting the enemy team engage and place more emphasis on using your crowd control abilities to lock down the enemy who rushed in first, and instantly vaporize them in coordination with your overwhelming dps. Not only does this leave the enemy team 1 man down, but it now instills the fear that they cannot just simply rush into you and do whatever they want.

Hope this helps.

[Skarith]

Hi Sinstrel, yeah I'm currently sitting around gold 2, so I understand that I'm not exactly top tier here. Yes, as a summoner I never initiate combat and always take the approach you mention. What ends up happening is
a) someone else on my team rushes in and faceplants or
b) they engage, my team splits up far and wide while they keep pushing the crystal and eventually usually winning; especially when I've got several healers on my team and we can't really burst their engager down.

I'm struggling with these scenarios.

[Mithron]

"Whoever engages first loses" = bad game design

[Risvertasashi]

Games without tank vs a team with (or a healer) are plenty winnable. Especially if that tank is not a warrior. Just have to be a bit careful about being focused, while also focusing DPS yourself (which is all the stronger for having more DPS).

[KouYanagi]

Tanks don't really give lots of damage and they can be as squishy as a DPS if the team knows how to give spacing (i.e not stuck together in a group)