I suck with tanks and I don't know what to do

General Discussion
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The only tanks I actually know how to play right is D.Vaand Zarya, which they in general one of the worst tanks right now in the game (maybe not Zarya).

I tried to get into Diablo, Muradin, Stitches but so far whenever I try to get in and start getting focused hard I feel like i need to back up every single time instead of staying and keep peeling in fear of dying and at some point I started losing trust with my healers to not back me up for all the peeling I do.

What exactly am I missing playing as main tank?

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Playing the role “tank” is more of a universal thing. Once you got the concept of playing this role you just have to figure out how to do it with all the different heroes.
Playing tank does not really mean you just go in and take all the dmg and hope your team does something. Why don’t you check out Youtube for some guides?

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I’ll give it a try, I really wanted to get into Stitches because his kit really sounds fun.

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Tanking is all about letting the enemy team make the first mistake, or forcing an opportunity for your team to exploit. How you do this will vary depending on the tank you are playing. Diablo can feel somewhat unforgiving, as you have to remember he is fairly squishy until he has built up souls. Rather than just slamming the first target in reach, make sure it is a good target to slam, and that slamming them won’t put you wildly out of position. Patience is key.

Stitches is kind of an odd tank right now, in that you rarely want to get in to get focused, but are forced to hang back and wait until you can hook someone. Meatshield build is OK for getting in there, but that can take a while to build up as well.

Muradin is probably the most straightforward of the tanks you listed, and he is nice because unlike the other two, Dwarf Toss can be used as an escape, so he can be a bit more aggressive with his engagements.

How you back up can be as important as how you engage. You should never feel bad about calling for a retreat when needed. The Retreat Ping (V) is your friend. I will often ping my mana or health to let people know why I want to leave, so they aren’t tempted to stay behind and get themselves killed. You can also ping CDs if you want to stay in the fight, and your healer is getting nervous.

One of the things I recommend as a tank is to get a good feel for just how much damage you can take, as you can often stay in longer than you think, especially on a hero like a full souls Diablo. Go ahead and let yourself get killed a few times, then look at the recap to see what killed you, by how much, and how much damage you took before that. If you die and have any sort of CD up, that is on you.

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So do I. My go to tanks are Rexaar, Chen, and Zarya, which aren’t crowd pleasers. I’m sure if I practiced, I’d get better at them, I just find I’d rather play supports though which is perfectly fine.

If you LIKE playing tanks and suck at them, that’s unfortunate lol. Unless you’re playing super aggressive comps, you generally should be peeling. That’s sort of where I get frustrated playing assassins and tanks, because I expect a level of healing that I know if I were healing would be able to heal, but not getting it. A lot of tanks have escapes, so long as you’re not playing a super aggressive comp, you should generally be peeling and saving those escapes. I guess the really good tanks are the ones that know when to do which.

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To play a tank, you first have to get into the feel of being a tank. Start by trying out your zoning capabilities. Nobody wants to get close to a tank with an enemy team ready to pounce if the tank locks you down of zones you off the rest of your team.

You’re a sheepdog, and the enemy players are your sheep.

Once you have a good grasp of being an oppressor, you should look into when to engage and when to not. Generally you should never engage on a team with more players than your current squad (unless they just used all their cooldowns) but generally, if you have a hero that can pump out damage numbers well and best, also a support that can apply some sort of bonus pressure through eg. Malfurion’s root, then that would be ideal.

You should also remember that when going in, make sure you’re not setting yourself up for the enemy team. Whenever you go in and look to blow up an enemy, you use your lockdown and engage and leave yourself open, so make sure your team has your back and you don’t get isolated in the enemy team.

Always check for your team to be able to follow-up anything you do. I see a lot of tanks getting poor results out of their CC because they simply don’t use it when it can be followed up on. “Dry CC.”

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Playing tank is a lot like learning how to dance.

It’s a clumsy mess until you learn how to step in time. There’s a lot of adjusting based on how competent your assassins seem to be. If they’re confident and landing skill-shots, aggressive works. Otherwise you kind of have to let your enemy step forward and try to isolate them.

Don’t get too predictable with your tactics or they’ll catch on. Fake an engage, stand around in lane like you’re not paying attention, bait them into thinking you’ll be an ez pick then flip the switch. I love playing Diablo/Tyrael for that reason.

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Thanks for this well detailed post, I will surely put it into good use :pray:

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This is the best advice for a tank. Patience is everything. Stay in a position to peel, but also where you can catch an enemy out of position.

ETC is one of the best Heroes that requires patience. You need to space out your skills to maximize your Armor. Also, PLEASE SPACE OUT YOUR Q+W COMBO. You don’t need to W right away, wait until the end of your stun to W.

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Also, PLEASE SPACE OUT YOUR Q+W COMBO .

So many Pinball Wizards…

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This right here tilts me like no other. They land a multi target stun, and I try to take advantage of the lockdown he’s provided, and then he immediately knocks them away so I miss my skillshots (and they always get the increased knockback distance to really make sure I miss). Let me hit them first darnit!

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Or when they get double knockback, idk I just don’t like it when my target getting pushed from my skillshots twice.

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Face Melt really should be saved to peel, so yeah, Pinball Wizard can get very annoying. I do like the double knockback for dealing with dive comps, though.

Or in ARAMs…

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I’ll let you capitalize, girl. No worries. In fact, I might even position myself to push them into your skillshots. :open_mouth:

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I think I felt my heart flutter.

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For one thing, just because a hero is labeled warrior, does not mean that they are a tank. D.va and Zarya are not tanks, they’re bruisers.

Anyway, as a tank you’re going to have to pay attention to what’s going on in teamfights, keeping yourself between your backline and the enemy team.

Watch the enemies positioning and your teammates positioning and this will give you a good idea of when you engage and on who;

Is Kael’thas over extending trying to throw his combo on your backline? Punish him for it. Did Johanna run into your team 1v5 and is trying to retreat after eating a lot of damage and blowing her cds? Punish her for that.

Being a tank isn’t all about engaging either, sometimes it is about peeling or zoning and it’s not always easy to tell what you need to do in the heat of the moment - sometimes you have to learn on the fly.

For example, maybe you decided to zone 4 people and let your teammates deal with Valeera 1v4 and it doesn’t work out. The next fight, change tactics and look for valeera to dive, then pounce on her instead.

Maybe you’re diving the enemy team and winning but then level 10 hits and suddenly Anub’arak cocoons you every time. Now you know to change your tactics and wait for Anub’arak to use his cocoon before you dive.

There’s an ebb and flow to team fighting as the tank and it’ll take time, practice, and experience to know what the right course of action is in a given situation.

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Just play Johana and get in the other teams way. She’s like an annoying, invincible statue that makes it difficult to get anything done against the other 4 members of her team.

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Dodge.You take too much damage.

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Try Johanna, Muradin and Arthas.

Johanna is an easy tank. I mean, it’s hard be bad at her, but also hard to be exceptionally good.

Muradin has an instant escape, sustain from level 13 and an oh s ult, so you can stay as long as you have to then jump away, let your trait heals you up and do it over and over again.

Arthas: Insane peel, kill setup and great sustain after level 10.

Personally I have the most issues with tank players because they don’t know what is their actual job.
Provide vision to your team! It’s a really important and underrated kind of help for your team. There are assassins with higher cast range than vision range and they can kill something if you give them vision of the target area or the target itself. Don’t forget to scout the bushes when you rotate together so you can cover your teammates when you are ambushed. Some higher ranked players cast skill shots into the bushes for you, so when they are clear you can go in there to further extend the safe area where you can move or sneak closer to the enemy ie. when you are about to ambush them on their camp or boss (if they are dumb enough to do it when you are alive)

Use body block! Clearly Arthas is the easiest tank to do it because of the permanent slow, but others can do it as well. Either block your opponent’s path or try to get between an enemy and its target.

Zone! Certain areas should be covered and as a cc tank the enemy takes high risk if they decide to walk into that area. Cover the (channelable) objective from a bush close to the objective, from the direction you expect the opponents coming. In this way you provide vision, you can figure out how are they planning to attack you and you can counter it. Imagine they are on their way to the objective and a mass root/stun comes out of the bush. Block skill shots when you can, so your teammates can get the objective without a fight.

Protect, setup! Obviously you do this 2 things in team figth and a general tank issue is rushing forth like a horse with blinders, ignoring everything. You don’t have to go further from your teammates than range 4. If you go forth you are vulnerable and open up a big space between you and your teammates and your opponents can either isolate you or killing your backline you left unprotected.

The range ~4 is important for several things. You shouldn’t take damage in vain. Whoever attack you should pay the price for it, and if you are close to your assassins they can punish them. When the opponent try to initiate a kill on your teammate, you just simply take a step back and use slow/root/stun/blind whatever you have and appropriate for the situation. It’s pretty bad experience for an enemy who can’t reach your backline but gets close enough to get ccd and die especially if your assassins trust you and immediately punish the caught opponents. When you initiate a kill they also have to be close to you. I guess everyone saw that type of ETC who used 5men mosh but so far from the team that no one could have attacked the opponents.

Do not chase opponents when your teammates are under attack unless you clearly know that they can deal with the situation without you and you can deal with your target without them.

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Playing tank is all about positioning and cooldown management. You want to use your cc when it’s the most meaningful. Most of cc tool of tank also are use to engage. So if you use them too early, you are of of cc/escape for 5-8 seconds…

It’s required a lot a game sense to play tank well, imo.

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