My skill tier on Tank fell to low Gold, haven’t been playing much.
Felt like I got 4 games in a row with DPS that appeared to be literally trying to derank.
Like 3 kills as Gold for the first 15 minutes, and not a single shot fired at the enemy tanks.
And you know what, there’s really not much you can do about it besides “oh well, guess we lose”.
Just had one good game, so there’s that.
But wow is that a soul crushing experience.
Honestly, just never solo queue again. That’s the price you pay for getting faster games: you play with (and against) morons, and hope you get the better morons.
What makes taking miserable is when every tank besides Rein gets hit with the nerf hammer. Not saying it wasn’t necessary, but something needs to be done about it.
There are problems that you’re probably not seeing, like that Ana who prefers big targets like the tanks and neglects everyone else; It’s a problem if the DPS are in the back ‘doing nothing’ but also a problem if they are flanking too? What are you really expecting from them?
Yuuuup. Honestly, I’d prefer that they just revert the past 8 months of balance to a point where tanks were actually strong and tank diversity outside of GM/Master’s was actually good and had viable alternatives to Reinhardt for a change, then just alternate bans of Orisa and Sigma in Comp to resolve the Double Barrier issue until they can find some mechanic to restrain it without utterly crapping on these heroes.
Well, got another round of two DPS that couldn’t get more than 2 kills in the first 10 minutes.
And a suspiciously good Widow that was mid-Diamond in previous seasons in what is basically a high Silver game.
Good times
You know I supported those nerfs. I was one of the biggest banner-wavers for the killing of power creep in the game. I even acknowledged (well before they started to happen) that tank and healer nerfs needed to happen first. Can’t really risk another meta where nothing ever dies.
But DPS nerfs never came. Instead we got DPS buffs. Which is insane to me. YES, tanks and supports have a much harder to quantify power creep in this game due to the power that more character (and therefor more synergy) options provide. It’s why GOATs was always the inevitable power comp of open queue, and why DPS got so power crept during that era.
But now that era is over and the DPS power creep remains, and is in fact being leaned into. It’s a real and serious problem.
Tanks nerfs were good. They just needed to be followed up with corresponding DPS nerfs. And they weren’t. So we’re effed I guess.
I’m leaning more in the direction that tanks need more firepower.
And to be clear, I do not mind tank nerfs. But honestly I think they went too far.
For example, Orisa’s barrier is 600 hp on a 10 second cooldown. It gets melted in less than a second or two. I know barrier watch needed a toning down but its at the point where it barely provides ANY protection anymore.
They have done DPS nerfs. They’ve nerfed Mei, Hanzo and Widow, and Doom got a small slap on his gauntleted hand. But it doesn’t help when the overshadowed DPS such as Ashe and 76 get corresponding buffs to make them viable. And good lord they needed it.
Either this or more protection. I’m tired of playing Orisa and needing to be babysat the whole match.
I’m talking less patch to patch nerfs and buffs and more the general power level where DPS are at over the lifespan of the game. You look at it from that perspective, and the power creep in DPS becomes more obvious and egregious (especially if you remove statistical outliers like launch McCree, who was clearly OP but quickly got nerfed into oblivion).
I mean look at Tracer. For the longest time our cover girl didn’t get touched, and for almost as much time she dominated the meta in that form. Now she’s had her effective range buffed significantly just to make her relevant again. It’s a straight buff, impossible to argue.
There has been many an argument that Tracer was always OP, and it’s pretty compelling evidence that she was considering that Brigitte, her desperately needed built from the ground up counter, was game-breakingly OP. Yet modern day Tracer is straight buffed from that state just to be relevant among the modern DPS cast.
To me, the evidence is pretty clear that the DPS category has some serious power creep.
Higher lethality in the game isn’t necessarily a problem.
Shooting stuff is kinda the core fundamental of the game.
Rein Zarya being in almost literally every game is a miserable experience, I can say that with certainty
It’s not even really an issue of tank variety.
It’s more to do with not being able to do much as a barrier tank if your team is lacking firepower.
Just kind of a “well, guess we lose” with zero capability to do much about it.
Granted I’ll probably just carry this out with Roadhog, but wow this sucks.
The REAL suffer with tanking is knowing you’d probably get way more value for way less effort by standing on the payload as Rein while shielding and waiting until you win
The tank and healer nerfs should increase the lethality of the game. Overwatch can be tricky sometimes, because you can’t always look at one aspect.
A lot of people accuse Widow of being overpowered because she can one shot. That is great lethality, and she’s always had it. What people forget was that her cooldowns used to be insanely long. Lethality isn’t the issue her, it’s the balance of the ease of bringing that lethality to bear vs the sustainability of the healers and tanks to prevent lethal results.
If Soldier’s sprint were to increase in speed, a lot of people would dismiss it as a quality of life buff. But it isn’t. It’s a straight power buff.
Tank and healer sustainability has been nerfed. You don’t have to nerf potential damage to nerf DPS.
I’m thinking more along the lines of nerfing main tank selfpeel/sustain, and make it so they are basically just a strong barrier, some hp, and some decent firepower. Like 30-50% more firepower.
Alternatively maybe the answer is just to disallow duo-quo DPS in Comp.
So you can’t have two chuckleheads hard throwing as easily.
Wut?
Are you trying to make tanking even worse?
Here’s a quick tip. Generally speaking if someone is the sort of person who wants to tank, they’re going all in on the Power Fantasy of being that big tough guy/gal who’s leading the charge and taking lumps that would cripple or kill their squishier teammates and coming out the other side still kicking. They aren’t out there to bonk heads. Making them even less able to do that if their team doesn’t support them will make those people the opposite of happy.
Seriously, prior to her rework I found Brigitte of all people one of the most pleasant to solo tank with in QP. Why? She had self healing and self peeling for days. Even if my team decided they were gonna run 5 DPS I was fine with that because of just how self sufficient Brig was. Thing is though that Brigitte hits about as hard as a wet noodle unless you’re comboing somebody, but I didn’t care because that’s not why I was picking her.
I’m saying the make Barrier Tanking less boring.
Ok, but the thing I quoted specifically mentioned nerfing Main Tank’s self peel and self sustain.
That’s the part I strongly object to. Tanks shouldn’t suddenly become unable to do their jobs if their supports don’t stuff healing into them 24/7.
I’d argue it’s more in line with the differences between mainheal and offheal.
Generally offtanks should have the Peel and Utility.
And Main Tanks should have the barrier, and cability to get the enemy to back up and move away.