I feel like this is a pretty basic concept, but I don’t understand it. Please enlighten me.
Scenario: A Big Teamfight.
1-The Tank is supposed to be taking damage from the enemy team (high health pool, armor, etc) to protect his squishies
2-The Tank is supposed to be targeting the squishy members of the other team, using their CC to control them and make them less effective.
3-To do that, the Tank usually has to get past the enemy Tank (dive?) and into the backline of the other team…
4-…which then exposes their own team to the enemy tank? Which is a direct contradiction of #1?
So… how is this supposed to play out?
I feel like I hardly ever get this right when I’m playing as a Tank, but more than that, I feel like this is something that kind of affects everyone on the team?
Is this composition dependent?
FYI: I’m, like, trash-tier Silver, so I’m not looking for lots of nuance and in-depth analysis… I’m trying to find broad, general rules that I can use to be more effective. (The goal right now is merely Gold, without developing too many bad habits).
The tank should be showing himself as a threat to the enemy team. That way he will pull all the attention to himself. He shouldn’t target squishies and he also shouldn’t take damage. You should make the enemy want to target you, but you shouldn’t take the damage, you know? Your CC should go on whoever is out of position, backline, healer, assassin, bruiser, tank. No matter who it is, your CC should go on them so your team can follow up.
Some tanks will change a bit the playstyle, like stitches (which you will play with your team way farther from the enemy team and will want to play for hooks), but this is mostly how you play tanks in teamfights.
Remember this, pull aggro but don’t take damage, create space for your team to step up, be a threat, engage on whoever is out of position.
That is a big, (and very common) misconception. The tank isn’t supposed to just walk in at any given moment and take damage just because he’s tank. The tank will engage when he sees an opening. The dps follows up on the engage.
The tank sets up an opportunity. Most of the time, you cannot just dive the enemy backline, because you will simply die. You can setup the enemy tank or bruiser. Even if they don’t die, they need to back up, then you can engage on their team as their tank is no longer on the frontline.
You CC weak targets when they’re out of position. But you don’t put yourself out of position to to reach them.
I was bad at tanks for a while, then I had a revelation and I much improved.
Play more like a healer and less like an assassin. Meaning, help your teammates. Make sure you can be there if illidan dives your kt. Cause you aren’t an assassin. Once I started thinking of my reasons for existence as protecting my team I got a lot better. If your team is safe, then proceed to clobber enemy. But don’t got too far that you can’t get back to your team on time.
It’s a bit more complicated than that in reality, but it’s a good starting point. Get into the habit of “don’t touch my healer!”
Tank dives enemy backline and disrupts them when he’s a dive tank while the bruiser disrupts the enemy diving his backline or if you have dehaka you can have dehaka soak dmg in the backline and the garrosh taunt the enemy dive.
It works both ways.
This is a team game your not alone. But yes the tank usually does either of those things when playing well.
Yes you have to be frontline but dont take any unneccecary dmg, if your squichy does something stupid , he has to pay for it. You can try to peel but not at the cost of your own life
Just CC whatever is out of position, dont matter what target. This also mixes with point nr 3
What do you do if the enemy is on an objective (say one of the points in Towers of Doom) and is not out of position, but you need to attack that objective?
…y’know, without dying horribly (which appears to be my go-to-strategy).
You will have comps where if you manage to endure the first or two rounds of abilities of the other side you will walk over them afterwards.
In this case trying to peel and survive the onslaught is what you have to do.
Sometimes you are on the other side of this situation so catching someone or provoquing fights and killing them fast is what you have to do.
Sometimes their backline is the most dangerous thing and without them your 4 man can handle the front easily so in that case trying to go in and buy as much time as you can is the answer.
Only experience will help you recognize those situations. Plus it also depends of what tank you picked.
Also i don’t think taking damage for your backline is your role.
A tank juking shots is very threatening and will force people to pay attention to you.
Sure there are times where you will have to take one shot or two to save someone but if your backliners can’t avoid any orb of ming from a kilometer away it is on them.
You have to step up somehow and be a threat. You can do this by just walking or going out of vision. Bushes are extremely important. If you are off the map, you are everywhere
If you can’t use bushes, you can just walk up a bit, go back a bit, walk up a bit more and keep doing that. Show that you want to engage but without engaging you know? And always stay relatively close to your team so they can follow up and you are not out of position.
You can also throw some CC here and there, like Muradin Q or Anub Q and try to hit someone without commiting. Your team should be able to throw some damage on that target (even if it is the enemy tank). That will draw some resources from the healer (mana + cooldowns), which can help when the big fight starts.
In other MOBA’s, tanks have often been played as “support” but here in HOTS we somehow only see healers as support. Which isn’t really a good thing because healing is only one form of support but obviously there is more.
One way to support is by providing vision. If i can see where the enemies are and what they are doing then i also know what i can do and where it’s safe.
Now providing vision can be a dangerous job because you basically have to discover the unknown and that’s why it’s good if someone does it who might survive a surprise (someone with big HP pool and some escape abilities - which most tanks have).
Don’t underestimate how much a tank helps his team by just sitting in a bush. It gives vision to his whole team and at the same time the enemy team doesn’t know where the tank is. Bad players will probably forget about your tank if they don’t see him and walk into a trap and better players won’t leave their safe space, limiting their impact.
Obviously don’t sit in a random bush and wait for something you don’t know… Figure out which one of your teammates need support and you go in a bush near them that covers the path every enemy player would take to gank your ally. If a gank comes you can surprise the ganker and kill him together with your ally. If it’s the whole enemy team then you just make sure that both of you can escape.
Figure out where your team needs to go next (for example objective pops up) and scout the area around it so your teammates know if it’s safe to go there.
a mounted tank is scary
a hidden tank is scary
a tank that is autoattacking minions is not scary at all because he not mounted (slow) and everybody can see where he is. That means the rest of the map is safe roaming territory for the enemy team.
A number of these replies have been a variation on the theme of “wait for the enemy team to make a mistake, then capitalize on it”. Is that… is that the key concept of HotS (or MOBAs in general) that I’ve been missing?
I’m not going to write a “how-to” guide, but you’ve got to understand that tanking is about trying to create opportunities for your team while denying opportunities to the enemy.
If you want that objective, you need to put enough pressure on it that the enemy team can’t cap it. That may mean you sit back and defend your team while your back line pokes. You just preserve the stalemate and keep your ranged guys alive. It may also mean that you need to threaten the hero capping enough that they stop. It may also mean that you spring the trap and bait the Butch who’s waiting in the bushes so he doesn’t charge your healer. Maybe you need to eat some cooldowns because you’re the only one who can, and it makes the battle safe for your backline to engage. It’s situational and depends on what the enemy team’s strategy is.
All tanks have some form of CC. That’s your tool for disruption and you’ve got to play to that. Diablo can charge and stun long enough to secure kills. Arthas has to root and try and project himself in a way that the enemy wants to run but can’t. Stitches can hook, or he has to get in the middle of their team and put his body in the way. They all have their variations, so you have to think about how that plays out.
With objectives, it’s about controlling an area, so don’t bother chasing enemies. You walk to the objective, then stay close to it. You chase enemies far enough away that they can’t poke and interrupt your team capping, but not further, because your goal is to secure that area, not to secure kills. Kills are just bonus.
1.) Everyone should take as little damage as possible. Easy to say harder to execute. But the goal is always you taking less dmg than your enemy.
2.) First priority is helping your team staying alive. As a primary tank you will be spending more time peeling for your team and there most of your cc will go.
3.) Diving back line is usually work for bruisers and some assassins. Tank diving back line will result in him being CCed and dead while your team is exposed.
Of course all of this is situational. Some tanks are better than other at certain situations. Sometimes you just have to attack and hope for the best. If enemy team is better positioned at the objective the mistake was made before the engage.
As a tank you have to be patient and hope your assassins are also.
etc is the easiest example. You want to play close to your team and use facemelt when enemy tank gets close. You watch both teams go into a paintball fight with thwir poke dmg. Keep waiting and save stun. Now garrosh is at about 60% health, maybe kerrigan is cocky enough to follow him and dive into your team. When they walk up just let them, then bam use your slide, wait for stun to end and facemelt. If you have no followup then moshpit.
The issue with tanks is that they think they should be diving backline. While this is true with some tanks and against some heroes (looking at you ktz) the backline dive is just bad playcall 9/10. Think of all the etcs who said “no mosh followup!?!!” Because they chased li ming halfway across the map.
To a large extent, yes. One thing I always tell someone new to tanking is think of it as a big game of “Chicken”. You don’t have to blink first. Your very existence is a threat, so you do not have to use any abilities at all to be effective, especially on a tank like Diablo or Garrosh.
Also, always always remember that your dive tool is also your escape, so if you go in hard, you better have a backup plan already in place. If you have a very strong bruiser or co-tank, diving is less risky, but make sure someone is ready to ensure that if the enemy tank wants to return the favor, they will pay. Dearly.
