So let me preface this,
Do not spam this in the forums.
I don’t care if you spam it somewhere else but I don’t want another #Deletebrig running about on the forums.
Moving on…
Tanking is one of the three roles of overwatch and is by far the least popular, easily being outnumbered by both dps and support. I’ve created multiple threads trying to identify why tanking feels so bad and why people dont enjoy it.
So here’s what I’ve gathered from the community.
(some of these have been chopped down a bit)
All of these provide plenty of reason that tanks aren’t fun to play/aren’t popular.
I’m going to sum it up for anyone who didn’t want to read all that
Tanks aren’t fun.
Tanks are too reliant on other heros.
Tanks feel very limited.
So lets asses each of these problems bit by bit here.
1. Tanks Don’t Feel Fun to Play.
The role of tanking can be an absolute blast or a total nightmare, it can be great or terrible, and thats the problem. The fun that comes out of tanking is decided partially by the enemies team comp and how many stuns they have. The biggest issues with tanks is that they have huge hitboxes, meaning chain stunning them is easy, and happens all to often. Another large issue is being booped around, or "beach balled", tanks are also easy to hit with stuns can it can give them the feeling of being unable to control their hero.
so lets think about a way to solve this issue. I think one thing that could help with chain stunning would be to give every tank, or the entire role a unique passive, steadfast (yes now its not only for reinhardt). What this passive would do is basically what it does for rein but with a few small additions. All booping affects are reduced by 35%, and there is a stun resistance timer that is equal to 30% of the length of the original stun (a one second stun would give a .3 second stun immunity).
I feel this change would help the entire role feel much more fun to play and give them more of a chance against heros with multiple stuns or chainable stuns. This would definently help D.va and Winston the most, giving them extra time to run away or back up after being stunned the first time.
As just pointed out by Drowsckab, Tank nerfs from the GOATS meta need to be reverted, especially the armor nerfs. Those changes had a huge effect on tanks, especially reinhardt and Lucio and should be reverted soon. Maybe not all of them need to go but they certainly dont help tanks. I think D.va is a huge example here, who was brought down from considered balanced for the most part to a really weak hero.
2. Tanks Are Too Reliant on Other Heros.
Tanking often times can feel like RNG, or spinning a wheel. The whole role feels very reliant of supports and even dps to help them. Tanks as a whole need someone, or multiple people, to back them up in a push. Along with that tanks feel very reliant on their team to do their jobs, as often times a tank is stuck holding a shield or trying to stay alive instead of activly participating in a fight, relying of their DPS to get the first pick.
I think making a change here is very tricky, as one wrong step could bring the whole role overboard, so I think a good way to start would be to help them with one of their biggest issues, Reaper. Reaper as of now is a tank buster, and pretty much exists for that reason. Reaper as a whole is made to counter tanks which seems really questionable especially now, being limited to only 2 tanks. I think Reaper as a whole needs a rework to add him to the flanker (genji/tracer) style hero, instead of a “I’ll kill you before you can do anything” kind of hero. I think one change that could help this would be to buff his shadowstep and nerf his self healing. I really think that his self healing should work relative to an enemies health, meaning he heals based on percent of enemies health taken off. This is hard to explain so I’ll do my best here, If a reaper hits a 200 health hero for 100 damage he’d heal for 40 health, but if he hit a 400 health tank for 100 damage he’d only heal 20 health, this being because he gets healing based of an enemies health and not base damage done. A better way of thinking about it would be like this, every hero has 100% health, if you hit a Zarya for 50% of her health it does more damage than hitting a Genji for 50% of his health, meaning that you’d heal more from hitting the Zarya than the genji. However hitting A genji for 100 damage (50%) is not the same as hitting a zarya for 100 damage (25%). also this would of course be with a buff or two to reaper.
I think this change could be a huge helper in both making tanks more enjoyable and able to fend off themselves against one of their biggest issues, and help Reaper move to a healthier place in the game.
3. Tanks Feel Very Limited.
The entire tank role is very small, only being 8 heros, or just 25% of the hero pool. It also surely doesn't help that many tanks feel or play similarly, all being close range brawlers. Along with this tanks are very hard for counter picking enemies, a good example would be pharah, who no tank can effectivly counter (D.va does well but its really not even close to a hitscan). Another good example would be a Doomfist, who you can pretty much only pick hog into (Orisa will save yourself, it wont save teammates), Hog is a good choice, but hes also very difficult to use to counter a doomfist consistantly. You definently will get a good hook here and there but they definently aren't easy to do and often times aren't even a concern to the doomfist in the first place (300-ish health).
I think there’s really only one solution to this, more tanks in general, or reworking the ones we currently have. The thing about this is that you cant just make a tank counter a dps, you have to make new ones, however I do have an idea of what could be done to help. One change I’ve thought that could help against pharah for a long time would be a grounding ability on a tank, maybe piledriver (grounding as in brought to ground). I do not want Pharah to be garbage but at the same time it feels sub-par to play against her as rein for example. Alternativly we could always add a tank who has some kind of weak but consistant poke for a pharah. Orisa almost does this well but its just not there. I’d love to see for a accurate but weak hitscan weapon on a tank, maybe doing 70ish dps if all shots are hit, and 140 with headshots, just enough to get a pharah to back off without compleatly trashing her.
I think you have to be careful when adding tanks to counter other heros, so maybe it’d be best to take a more niche approach when adding them.
Another huge issue with tanks is their astetic, as a brusier.
I really, really, want a tank that focuses more on supporting their own team by non healing means, than killing the enemies. I feel like one way you could do this is by re-adding Symmetra 2.0. Hear me out for a second here… A tank with a short range non retractable sheild, only slowing turrets, and a Sheild generator. You could even remove the noodle beam to please the people who really like aim. I mean hey, who doesn’t like Sanjay?
I want this to be for a reason so I’ll state the goals of this strike,
1. Tanking QOL, or changes to stuns and CC
2. Tanking individuality, or changes to heros that specifically harm tanks.
3. Tanking heros, adding more or making them more flexible.
If even just one of these happens I think we could all take that as a huge win! But I highly doubt that blizzard will care. Either way I think its important to send a message here, a cry of help if you would.
Okay so now that you’ve read all that… I’d like to propose a 24 hour long peaceful strike on the tank role, from 12 AM (American Central) to 11:59 PM September 28, or this Friday.
If people would even like they could stop playing supports as well, (but more in the effort of helping tanks) during that time.
And if you have time, or want to at all, go and que for DPS to add onto the que times. I totally understand if you don’t have the time to que for however long it may take, or just dont want to, but even then it would really help to just not tank at all during that time.
To restate, 12 AM to 11:59 PM, American Central Time, Saturday September 28.
Thank you for anyone who has even read this or would like to take the time to participate.
Just remember, this is a peaceful strike, lets not make this another stain on the carpet of this game.
Spread this to whoever you can (do not spam it though) and get the word out if you have the time too. I think this is really important to the games health and keeping it fun to play for everyone.
