Looking at things more generally, regardless what solution method devs end up going with.
Since it looks like devs are going to be doing “something” soonish to BarrierTanks.
sigma’s release made me and a few of my friends rip there souls queue for tank for a big while. Sigma was a fun and dynamic barrier tank who felt satisfying to play. He just got nerfed so much that we all went back to dps and support. All barrier tanks should feel fun but not required…
Main tanks need to be more fun but not required and off-tanks need to feel more viable imo
Yeah, but I’m wondering if what that boils down to is “capable of making an impact on the outcome of the match due to your own solo-plays, not just what you enable your team to do, with a couple ultimates thrown in”
Which usually just means “Can kill stuff, without relying on teammates to enable those kills”
Or even simpler, “Dueling Capability”
I think it needs to be a power shift.
People don’t like feeling powerless, regardless of the impact. Tanks are currently living and dying by the supports. Very few tanks have their own true sustain. Its why people like Hog. Damage, and self sustain. How many times have you seen a tank flame the healer then switch Hog?
Tanks need to stand more on their own. More self survival abilities. Like Hog breather. DM. Grasp. BUT supports Will need to be nerfed in exchange. This will let them feel like if they die, its their fault and not how many main healers are jammed behind them.
I think they just need more abilities. I like sigma, but he’s got two abilities. (barrier doesn’t count, it’s just a set it and forget it) make him have an ant-gravity aoe for team mobility or something cool so he can contribute in more ways to his team other than barrier & occasionally getting his rocks off.
I have a very unpopular suggestion, but here it goes. I think Sigma could be made into a really strong tank, buffing several parts of his kit.
The main thing I would do to balance him out, would be to make his barrier a channeled ability, so he would not be able to fire his main weapon while his barrier is active. Lets rephrase it… If Sigma shoots, his barrier would be recalled.
But does “sturdy but not getting much kills, unless your teammates set them up for you with heavy coordination”
Equal Fun?
It sounds like they’re going to try to make barriers a very secondary thing and focus on the main tanks’ faceblocking skills. That can actually be pretty beneficial to the tank role in the future.
I don’t think people would like that. because then he’s just another reinhardt who carries a big blue rectangle for the whole match.
Would be interesting if Tanks didn’t feed Ult charge at all. Or they changed Ult charge from damage, to only come from kills.
Would certainly help with the whole “feeder tanks” issue.
Although I wonder if that would cause a lot of issues with “Ult banking”.
Maybe they could apply a Mario Kart mechanic, where passive Ult charge is faster for the enemy team, if the first team has a lot of Ults on board.
They need to be able to have some self preservation and their own impact.
Rein makes space but his space is made from unblockable abilities that charge a deadly ult.
Zarya and Hog have less team protection, but they make that room with damage and key ability use. Same with D.va.
I think its less about the kills and just feeling more involved in the fight. Right now? Tanking feels like being a battering ram. Ill say the impact they have now is fine, its the living via the supports that is the fault.
No one wants to die because the supports weren’t pocketing them. Paladins has tank base balance down to an art. There isn’t a tank I dont like. Thats because even when I’m not killing, I know that my space and health/sustain is largely in my hands too.
Yeah, but does that mean more Firepower or Kill potential?
Rein is powerful with a lot of impact and kill potential, but I still don’t find him fun.
He’s very one note, and relies heavily on his team to bail him out of bad situations that the other tanks could retreat from using tools in their own kits. And when you die when you know you could have lived if you used your tools better, dying feels more deserving.
But is that mostly because his kill potential is mostly tied to your entire team engaging with you, probably a speed boost, and sometimes his Ult, and you get yelled at it try to go aggro otherwise?
Having one barrier tank per game is not a problem.
The current problem is how we are able to stack double-barrier which end up wrecking 2 heroes, and how barrier feels necessary as you tend to die way faster without the barrier protection.
They need to tackle the double-barrier stacking first, and only then each barriers can then be tuned to be roughly equal with one another - not Orisa+Sigma vs Rein.
Rein makes perfect sense to be upgraded with a Shield Bash.
That’s my opinion, and i’m sticking with it.
would rein be getting brig’s shield bash? because that’d be good for stunning a deathblossom or the like.
but he’s the most viable tank, so if he gets that he should probably get a compensation nerf to prevent power creep
If he did get an additional melee attack, I’d prefer it didn’t stun. We have almost too much stuns as is.
Why doesn’t barrier count?
yeah, i was just about to say that more cc would NOT be fun.
That’s actually the main reason I brought up this thread.
Is it inherently bad that BarrierTanks overall have more influence on the outcome of the match?
If so, why?
The usual “bad because it’s bad” doesn’t help much.