I keep seeing this. I’m up to 4 times today, and I’ve only played 7 games.
One team gets 2-3 Bruisers in their options, but no Tanks.
The other team shows up with a Tank or 2.
It’s been happening since they changed Brawl to ARAM.
Why is this a thing? Is this a bug?
If so, then please fix it. If not, then please fix it.
I faced the same situation. I totally agree to get a full random mode but there should be at lest a possibility for each team to get a tank and a heal in their selection. It is also ok if none of the team get a tank.
Not my observation: When my team can choose tanks or healers, the other team can as well.
I always like the possibility of having tanks in ARAM. It makes the mode playable at least in my terms. It always felt better to have a poor tank than no tank at all in my opinion.
That’s how it always was up until just recently.
Since “Brawl” was changed to “ARAM” I’ve had about a dozen games now where I note that my team has no Tank options (only Bruisers), then am confused when I see that the enemy team has a Tank.
I do believe this is a bug, make a report about this and we’ll see if they do something to fix this in the near future.
Isn’t that the point of a randomizer?
I don’t’ think I’ve had a match yet where one side had a tank and the other didn’t, but I also forget most of my teams options by the time the match starts, and I didn’t look up the enemy draft (replays would only show the one side, and while it isn’t always my side, I still wouldn’t be able to check the options for both teams 
)
However, I had matches where the same person has the only options for a tank and healer while the other had those exclusive roles split to two people, so then one side isn’t able to pick both roles.
Why do you want tank or heal in aram?
It’s all about range and minons killing.
For example, a team of 5 li ming in orb build will destroy your core in minute 10.
Your tank is only Cooldown reset target for orb.
If you get your picks shown, always pick from all 3 options the strongest range poke minons killer, and carry your team to win.
Ignore tank or heal.
Not really an issue given that the random nature allows utterly broken comps to happen. I mean who needs anyone to go a hero other than Deckard Cain right? After facing an all healer comp with 3 of them you will know what I mean and why having no warrior or bruiser in a selection does not matter.
Depends on your skill level but after a point there are two breakaway roles to carry ARAM:
Tanks are very rewarding in ARAM even though things are a mess. Why? Because you constantly set up fights and pull your team through them. Not all tanks are capable of carrying but for example a good Garrosh, ETC, Mei or Diablo could very well render the enemy team helpless. If tanks matter in QM they matter even more in ARAM given the skill gap between players. If you have a great tank they will eviscerate the enemy’s already poor teamwork and push you to victory.
even worse then not getting an actual tank is when your only healer option is something like Tyrande (or a WM who doesn’t know how to play WM) and the other team get something super powerful and super easy like a Locio or Stukov.
without a tank, your chances of winning don’t drop too much, but without a healer (or without a good one) your chances drop considerably.
you can still will if you have plenty of long range spamming cheese like Ming, but its pretty rare, usually its a curbstomp.
Tanks cannot really carry due to their RNG nature. If you end up against poke team then there is nothing you can really do as even with tank toughness you will not be able to take the DPS thrown at the front line.
A good example is against multiple Li-Mings since it is as good as impossible to close in on her unless you are an ultra dive or speed boosted. Both of them will constantly spam Arcane Orb at you, which will put huge strain on your toughness. Things get worse if they have ranged slows since then you cannot even get into range to do anything.
Playing tank in ARAM is quite possibly the worst/least rewarding role to play. Sure it can enable a win, but you will frequently end up in an impossible situation due to how much damage the enemy team has, or how useless your allies are at taking advantage of anything you do.
Being good tank and being hit by a bunch of Arcane Orbs from people who are over a thousand MMR underneath you is practically an oxymoron. Engagement is all about positioning and timing. Most tanks also have engagement tools to make this easier. If you can tank in QM then doing it in ARAM is even simpler because your opponents just let you ragdoll them, simple as that. And if your team has poor followup? You just kill the target on your own. It isn’t rare for a smurf tank to absolutely lead in kills and damage and that’s exactly what you are when tanking in ARAM.
So they are going to poke you, huh? Then just don’t let them chip you down. It isn’t like their badly aimed skillshots will be a threat. You don’t stand in front of them for eternity and slowly accumulate damage. You engage them either from bushes, conveyor belts or just plain flank them. They will not react in time and you can basically single out any squishy “zoner” to either die to your hands or finally your team catches up.
Poke superiority only works in fairly particular environments. It works in QM because everyone is at similar skill level while proper teamwork is a foreign concept. It works in ranked because you specifically adjust your strategy according to it. Poke focus may work in ARAM only if there isn’t a particularly good player or preferably duo who can tear it to pieces.
ARAM maps are much smaller than normal games. As such you cannot use flanking and other such tactics that are normally possible to force confrontation.
As an example Garrosh is utterly useless in these situations. Between permanent slow he has no options to get into melee range. If he eventually does, he will likely be at critical health due to all the DPS thrown at him.
Seeing how Arcane Orb is practically overpowered in ARAM, chances are the Li Mings are very high MMR so do not expect to land much on them. The only people who do not choose heroes like Li Ming in their pick are low MMR players who do not yet realize why she is high tier, or maybe if they are forced to be the only healer out of their own kindness.
Seeing how low damage tanks are. That is not going to happen often. Especially given that you will mostly need to take damage reduction and survival talents over damaging ones just to get into melee range.
Actually it is extremely rare to see that. Usually the high tier damage heroes lead by 2-3 times the hero damage, why they are considered high tier.
They might get reasonable kills, but that usually is in a “win more” situation where they can use their chase or anti-escape to finish off heroes that the damage dealers might not be able to. Tyrael is a good example of this due to his dive nature with some CC aspects. If they are at a disadvantage, which happens in half the games, they will be lucky to not end up with most deaths since being a tank and in the front they will be receiving a lot of the enemy damage.
The skill shots might be well aimed because there is no match making. The person might be extremely high MMR making it very difficult to dodge. They will not fire their skill shot without it either being sure to hit someone, or at least providing enough zoning/threat to be worth it.
As an example, heroes like Li Ming just wait for the tank to engage. Not only can they disrupt them with a Wave of Force, separating them from their victim if required, but if their victim was another tank then they can use the opportunity to land 1,500 or more damage, some of which is splash. Sure the tank can take this damage, but this puts huge strain on the healer forcing them to decide who to heal. Now with two or three such heroes landing damage on the tank you are looking at 4,500 odd damage which most tanks cannot survive. Sure they killed the tank, but that is still a kill. This is why tanks often end up with most deaths.
It is not possible to flank effectively in ARAM. The map is too small and there is a high risk that your attempt will be detected (due to your obvious absence) and you will be ambushed in return. Heroes like Li Ming will not let themselves be positioned in a way that tanks can reach them, either scouting bushes before going near or staying away from the enemy team belts. Even if caught they have escape options so require follow up from allies to be killed.
It works most of the time. There are comps that can resist it but many more will fail. Tyrande as only healer? GG.
Sure if your enemies do not use their heroes properly then you can still win. For example if Junkrat spends most of the game dead rather than poking. However due to the lack of match making one cannot assume this is always the case and you will eventually fight that Junkrat who picks Endless Nades and goes to town on your team.
I mean depending on your MMR, yes, poke is your only chance to get value. You won’t be carrying games, though. As for the rest, it’s just you making up excuses and assume coordination and skills your ARAM opposition generally just lacks. Yes, not even tanks can just absorb burst from 3 mages with ease but nor you’ll get such thing to occour.
As for flanking? You’d be absolutely wrong. Practically all ARAM maps have side routes that are poorly observed and allow you to approach the enemy from the flanks. If you don’t use them that just telling of you, not being an absolute fact. About 70% of the playerbase lacks even the awareness to check these regions if they know a hero is missing. That’s bronze to gold leagues for you. In addition you have bushes to hide in or just break line of sight or alternatively the conveyor belts. That map in particular allowed me to just mess up an entire team with Stitches as I kept fishing them up with my hook and then murdering them. As frickin’ Stitches.
You also heavily underestimate the damage of tanks in genral. Garrosh and Stitches might not be so powerful in short duels but a lot of tanks can be low end bruisers and could crush their opponents, especially if those are significantly below them in skill.
The question was on the classes which are the easiest to carry with. Those are tanks and ranged assassins focused on burst damage. And to carry your team that means you’re significantly higher in MMR for this to matter, a situation which the ARAM having no serious matchmaking enables.
I would recommend posting in Bug Report and separating out the replays where this happened incase QA thinks they could help. (I imagine it would just be a proof thing, than actually a replay thing).
Some evidence from a game I played today.
https://i.imgur.com/yWiOGPV.png
Our team has no Tank options, only Bruisers.
https://i.imgur.com/dAW0q9u.png?1
Enemy team still shows up with a Tank, Muradin, anyways.
They got a Tank choice, but we didn’t.
ARAM may still use old classifications for many of the heroes. As such Bruisers and Tanks might count as the same thing as far as balancing selections goes.
It does not really matter much since many bruisers are close enough to tanks. Skill and RNG will contribute to the outcome more.
As an example both Leoric and Imperius have access to CC that can force fights and line up for allied combos. Both are Bruisers.
Likely due to your team already being at an advantage. As mentioned previously, tanks often end up “win more” because of the functionality they bring and offer over the usual high tier damage dealers.
Stiches can be considered one of the better tanks for ARAM due to his hook being able to secure kills or force fights. That could technically count as a carry if you land it enough early game to gain advantage, but if the enemy team ends up with an advantage then chances are they will start to be able to rescue your victims and forcing a fight is usually a bad idea when at a disadvantage. In this situation your toughness no longer matters much and your inability to deal ranged damage will hinder your team’s ability to recover as for much of the time they will be performing as if down a player. Hook is not something to rely on from the start since it is one of the slower skill shots that can be blocked by summons, which many high tier hero choices have, as well as be impossible to land on poke heavy squishy heroes like Junkrat, Li Ming and Hanzo due to their small size and mobility. In a lot of cases it just fulfils the chase role since you can hook fleeing victims, which again becomes win more rather than gaining an advantage.
Playing a tank when your team ends up at a disadvantage, usually due to no fault of your own, is mostly not going to permit a carry and often not even positive kill to death ratio. As Stiches no number of perfect hooks will not make up for your allies failing to kill the hooked hero before they flee/receive help or allies who constantly die undoing any kills you managed to secure. This is in contrast to a hero like Li Ming where she can always keep landing orbs on her enemies and making kills no matter the level of the team. I have seen dozens of matches do a complete 180 from loss to win purely due to a Li Ming reaching late game, but never really seen any due to a tank in similar situation. Sure there is always that game winning Mosh Pit a tank can pull off, if their opponents with an advantage let them, but if they do not there is little that tank can do other than blocking some damage for team mates.