Please stop making offtanks and bruisers, and make more dedicated solo tanks

[Merle-1977]

@Xivilaikhys-1508

But their role is to allow their DPS to feel safe enough for them to deal damage. When tanks don’t do their job, enemies will go after their DPS because your tank gave them the confidence. The more you bully aggressive Illidans, Varians, Tracers, Genjis, and heroes set on killing your backline, the less they’ll dive. Garrosh is a good example of a bully. Once you get too close, he will throw you in his team and unless you have a really good escape or your team saves you, you’re done.

This is kinda funny. I feel most tanks have no problem countering the heroes you listed. Outside of Varian I’ve rarely seen any of the DPS you listed. Tanking is frustrating because most tanks are useless against ranged DPS.

When I tank I find my teammates play way too safe to the point they can’t follow up on me or too far up where saving them means I die. I think you don’t realize how squishy tanks really are. I mean every one of them (spare Johanna) can get melted with one CC.

@Xivilaikhys-1508

Tanks aren’t supposed to feel like they’re doing everything, even though some players are capable of doing so. They’re supposed to make their enemies regret stretching so far and peel for team mates getting focused.

I didn’t say they should do everything. I just think right now all they can do is bring some CC and that’s not very useful against ranged poke teams. You just end up spamming CC on the enemy front line if they have one. Giving tanks some macro like better wave clear or some strong sustain could help a lot.

@Xivilaikhys-1508

Tanks who chase, retreat too early, or just let their team die, are the worst tanks anyone could ask for. Chase if your team follows up, don’t chase if the enemy team can get between you and your allies or circle around. Let your bruisers chase, not the main tank. The main tank is responsible for keeping your team alive.

A tank is your engage. They lead the fight and help peel enemies off too. For team fight specialist they sure feel limited is all I’m saying.

@Karabars-2813

But if they don’t have enough or reliable CC ppl don’t use them as Tanks most the times.

From my experience if they don’t have reliable CC people just don’t play them. I wasn’t suggesting that new tanks have less CC. Mostly I was suggesting that tanks should have build options to give them more versatile play styles.

[Ocek-1343]

Nozdormu won’t be coming for a long time, shares way too many similarities with Chromie. Now Kalecgos, that would be interesting and has a good chance of happening.

As for supports, there’s plenty to add there. Ysera, Vol’jin, C’thun/Yogg-Saron, Kalecgos, Wrathion, Moira Thaurissian, Lady Liadrin, Queen Azshara, Lady Vashj, Lord Xavius, among many others.

[Xivilaikhys-1508]

@Merle-1977

Tanking is frustrating because most tanks are useless against ranged DPS.

I just try to eat their hits and dodging ground skill shots and rely on my healer to heal me back up. I retreat a bit to recover but I make sure I watch my DPS and keep them out of danger. If your team mates stand in KT’s skill shots, there’s nothing you can do.

@Merle-1977

When I tank I find my teammates play way too safe to the point they can’t follow up on me or too far up where saving them means I die. I think you don’t realize how squishy tanks really are. I mean every one of them (spare Johanna) can get melted with one CC.

That’s a big issue. It comes down to your allies knowing when to follow up or when to retreat. Usually if its an uneven fight, I retreat. If you outnumber them, I proceed but a little cautious that we don’t run into a trap. If both team are even I look at health bars. If I see that my team is low on health, I’ll be the last one out trying to keep the enemy at bay to make sure my team can get out safely.

CC is horrible to anyone who gets focused while CC’d. Honestly there’s not much you can do there unless you’re cleansed and have a good escape.

@Merle-1977

I didn’t say they should do everything. I just think right now all they can do is bring some CC and that’s not very useful against ranged poke teams. You just end up spamming CC on the enemy front line if they have one. Giving tanks some macro like better wave clear or some strong sustain could help a lot.

I know but players want to feel like they are supposed to do everything and that’s not how you play a tank. You protect your team and lead engages. They don’t want to do that so they either play a tank like an assassin or they just don’t pick a tank. Yeah honestly the best thing I think a tank can do is block the enemies shots so that if they were to hit your backline, they hit you instead. But you’re right. There’s not much a tank can do against super long ranged assassins like Li Ming. Just dodge and hope your backline dodges I guess.

@Merle-1977

A tank is your engage. They lead the fight and help peel enemies off too. For team fight specialist they sure feel limited is all I’m saying.

I’d agree but your main job is to keep your team safe and make sure you engage safely. Being too close to your team allows ambushes to affect not only you but your team too. Being too far means you’ll just die alone.

[Karabars-2813]

@Ocek-1343

Nozdormu won’t be coming for a long time

Probably true.

@Ocek-1343

Now Kalecgos, that would be interesting and has a good chance of happening.

I doubt any new dragon will come soon (but the Bronze flight is the most unlikely due to Chromie, yes).

@Ocek-1343

As for supports, there’s plenty to add there. Ysera, Vol’jin, C’thun/Yogg-Saron, Kalecgos, Wrathion, Moira Thaurissian, Lady Liadrin, Queen Azshara, Lady Vashj, Lord Xavius, among many others.

Vol’jin, Overmind (as the Core-Replacement Hero), Itherael, Lady Vashj are the Heroes I really want and want them as Supports.
Queen Azshara should be a R.Assassin imo.
Ysera is hard to make imo, because her WoW model has the same problem what Alex had (similar to Sylvanas), but Alex is already a “green” dragon with a distinguishable bodytype/silhouette from Sylvanas and the likes.

[Merle-1977]

@Xivilaikhys-1508

Yeah honestly the best thing I think a tank can do is block the enemies shots so that if they were to hit your backline, they hit you instead. But you’re right. There’s not much a tank can do against super long ranged assassins like Li Ming. Just dodge and hope your backline dodges I guess.

This is the problem tho: tanks can’t just sit there and soak damage or they can’t engage at all. This whole play style your talking about is awful. You just end up walking around in circles waiting for opportunities that will never really show up.

If you do manage to find an opening then you’re going in with sub optimal health and probably going to get punished. If you just sit back “defending” and you put the whole game on your assassins to out poke the enemy team. You’ll lose games doing that.

Tanks don’t feel very tanky in many situations. They bring CC but they themselves are just as punishable from it. Tanks are not as bulky as most seem to think. This leads to your mindset of how tanks should play that is actually not really effective or engaging to play. Buffing up tanks sustain options could be a solution to enable more active and fun tank play.

Another solution is to make tanks better at soaking damage or give them more options to win games with macro like wave clear and camps. I’m not saying they should be elite at wave/camp clear just that having option to tech into those abilities via talents or base line kits could help a lot.

@Karabars-2813

Vol’jin, Overmind (as the Core-Replacement Hero), Itherael, Lady Vashj are the Heroes I really want and want them as Supports.

Vol’jin is very high on my list of most wanted heroes and I think he could be really cool as a support. Something like Medivh that enables his team with utility but also had damage potential!

I would really like Cairne to be the next tank. At least from Warcraft anyway. We need a true Tauren and not just a meme of one in ETC. I could see a lot of interesting potential for a tank in his kit.

[Xivilaikhys-1508]

@Merle-1977

This is the problem tho: tanks can’t just sit there and soak damage or they can’t engage at all. This whole play style your talking about is awful. You just end up walking around in circles waiting for opportunities that will never really show up.

If you do manage to find an opening then you’re going in with sub optimal health and probably going to get punished. If you just sit back “defending” and you put the whole game on your assassins to out poke the enemy team you’ll lose. That play style is a recipe for disaster.

I was mainly talking about situations with ranged assassins but think about it. What do you think will happen if a tank tries to go in to get Li Ming? Either a really good engage or a really bad engage. Its more of a risk and doing that heavily relies on team followup.

[MacWeak-2328]

How do you want tanks to be impactful when diablo all in build gets fodderized and people wait for the slight moment to bring MG to his trash level?
This discussion shouldn’t even happen.

[MamBa-11547]

The tank role in any MOBA, mmorpg, in any game for that matter is the hardest role to balance and produce. give it some time and blizzard will come up with better ways to provide interesting game play mechanics for tanks. personally i would like to see range assassins have more “all in”, power spike combos that are super obvious to players but get less hp or have their escape abilities on a higher CD.

[Pyrogar-1919]

My choice tanks would be either Winston or Mannoroth. Both of whom are pure tanks in the games they’re from.

To me, even Reinhardt being a full-on is kinda debateable. One one hand, he has the biggest shield in OW made to protect his team and has a a large healthpool, but on the other hand, basically everything else he has is made to play agressive and deal damage.

His melee swings are some of the hardest hitting non-projectile attacks in the game, hitting for 70 per hit which is the same amount of damage as Mccree hitting body shots with his primary fire. He has his fire strike which deals 100 damage(I think) which is among the hardest hitting abilities in the game. He has his charge which is the single hardest hitting basic ability in the game hitting for a whopping 300 damage and is meant to 1-shot most of the cast. Them he has his Earthshatter which is a massive stun which opens enemies up to be taken down.

I mean, pretty much the only reason Reinhardt is even a tank in OW is basically because of his massive shield, without it, he’s totally a bruiser and could very easily end up being a bruiser in HoTs if translated.

Winston on the other hand is purely designed to be a tank, in OW. His incredibly low damage combined with loads of utility make him only able to be a tank and nothing else. Now sure, HoTs could easily give him the ability to spec as bruiser, but that doesn’t change the fact that Winston is purely made to be a tank. Additionally, Winston is easily the closest thing OW has to a main character, it’s actually quite a miracle that he hasn’t been translated to HoTs yet, especially with how much attention he gets in OW’s lore and how popular he is in the competitive scene of OW.

In short; I think Winston should be added to the HoTs roster before Reinhardt.

As for Mannoroth, the Pitlord is one of the few WC3 hero units who was designed to be a pure tank alongside Crypt Lord and Mountain King, and is the only one that has yet to join the HoTs roster. Now sure, the Pitlord did have quite aoe damaging abilities, but I think the ability that stands out most is Howl of Terror, which reduced the damage of enemies by a set amount. I think this would be a great design foundation for hero; a tank who mitigates damage by weakening their openents.

The closest thing HoTs has to that currently is through level 20 talents from Garrosh and Varian.(Demoralizing shout and Deadly Calm respectively) But I think that there is definitely room to design a hero around this mechanic, and I think Mannoroth should be that hero.
Mannoroth is a terrifying figure in the lore and his race is described to be a living war machines, known for their prowess and ruthlessness in combat. So in that sense I feel he should be similar to muradin or Arthas in that the capability for bruising is there, but first and foremost he is a tank.

[Ocek-1343]

I think we can agree that Vol’jin would probably be the best support hero they could add. He would likely focus around wards and voodoo (Sentry Ward for Vision, Serpent Ward), use Spiritual Link, and probably have Healing Ward as an ultimate to prevent him from becoming a straight up healer.

[MacWeak-2328]

Also, why do people want solo tanks?
So that people try to squeeze in additionnal ranged in their comp and not feel guilty? Screw that those comps are not played properly enough.

[Karabars-2813]

@Ocek-1343

I think we can agree that Vol’jin would probably be the best support hero they could add.

Yup

[Vindicare-1638]

The problem is that it’s difficult to design a tank character because a tank character needs so many tools to be competitive.

They need tools to: engage escape, survive, peel for allies, and some form of CC to set up for allies.

If they don’t have all of these tools then they can’t compete with the dedicated tanks that do, or they’ll be relegated into a super niche roll like Tyrael, and Blizz doesn’t want to make anymore super niche tanks because they won’t be popular.

There’s only so many ways they can take all those neccesities and come up with something different while still being thematic to match a character’s lore.

Take Blaze as an example. They had to completely rework his kit to make him an actual tank, and even when they did he’s still a niche pick because he lacks a reliable way to disengage. And in the process of doing that, they put a big nerf on one of his big selling points which was his wave clear. He can still wave clear sure, but nowhere near like what he could before.

It’s much easier to make damage dealers, because the only thing they need to be viable is a way to kill someone. That’s the only thing a damage dealer needs to be competitive everything else is just flavor.

[aleksandor-1289]

@Karabars-2813

But the thing is with Tanks, that most ppl don’t want their Heroes to be Tanks (for example, the Garrosh-case…).

Honestly, for Warcraft, there’s TONS of heroes that don’t make sense as bruisers instead of tanks-- that’s the one series where its the opposite IMO.
We need some heroes that 100% reflect the tanking specs rather than being bruisers; I’m still not happy that the representation of a prot warrior for wow feels watered down because they poured so much of varian’s focus into his Bruiser and assassin tree.

Heck, They need to bring in a D2 bear druid as a tank too IMO: One of the most iconic things about druids was how incredibly powerful their shockwave ability was for stunning foes and how much HP they had. They’d make a GREAT dedicated tank character.

[Karabars-2813]

UH! I want a WoW bear druid Tank!

[Vindicare-1638]

A shapeshifting Druid has been something I’ve wanted in HoTS for a while. We have Greymane which is nice, but there’s plenty of other characters we can pull from to be a second shapeshifter. Or third I should say because Technically Deathwing has two forms he shifts in and out of.

[Karabars-2813]

Broll Bearmantle!

[Footmanfree-1380]

Yes broll. Feral druid please!!!

[Stahlhardt-1408]

I didn’t know that Yrel was supposed to be a tank.

I remember on the showmatch for alterac valley she was teamed up with a Muradin.
I would love her being a main tank though.

[aleksandor-1289]

What’s kind of weird is that there’s plenty of characters with kits that WOULD be great as solo tanks if they only tweaked their stats for more durability and less damage or made their talents revolve around it. For example, If Xul was tankier and had less damage, he’d be a pretty solid solo tank, and Butchers base abilities (a stun and a slow) would have made him a decent tank if he was a characters less about killing enemies.