Intro
I’ve been thinking about the post of 3-2-1 (3 DPS, 2 Support, 1 Tank) heavily since I read it. Blizzard save your game! go 1/3/2. You should read it before diving in this because everything here is based on it.
The thing is, what’s a way to not break characters like Zarya or Hog. Yeah, that’s right I’m talking about off tanks. If 3-2-1 becomes a thing and Hog goes to DPS with some nerf then what about Zarya? Is she going to be a DPS? Ewww… that doesn’t sound right (Warning this is just my opinion because I like the character how she is). What about a format that doesn’t destroy off tanks and somehow bring DPS queue time down following kinda like in the same format as 3-2-1 but not 3-2-1 at the same time. What if 3-2-1 is restricting tank player to only play main tank, off tank becomes an ancient art of the pass? Imagine a world where, a big spongie DPS on 2 legs becomes instinct. It’s kinda erasing a lot of potential in the game even though it might be the best thing for it right now. You can’t just have a game with 31 characters and a few of them is viable.
2-2-2? More like Thank god you are there now!
The introduction of 2-2-2 was incredible! It’s amazing how a game of just pure chaos of like 4 people in your team takes what ever they want and the others are like “F this I’m out these guys are throwing” became what it is today. The game is way more consistent in roles because it enforces of having 2 teams that has the same ratio of role fight in a blood bath instead of a circus with 12 people secretly playing another character because they can’t play their main.
My thought on the 3-2-1? 
I love the idea of 3-2-1. It’s spicy, it’s fresh, it’s different, it’s new, but I think the game needs to have restrictions and more flexibility at the same time without some huge change to off tank heroes. What about making a bridge between 2-2-2 and 3-2-1? Can we do something with that? Is it worth?
Well this is how my idea would be:
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You queue as a Tank. This role would be restricted to 1 player (kinda). You are able to pick all the heroes in the current tank class. So you could go off tank/main tank.
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You queue as a support. This role would be restricted to 2 players. You are able to pick all the heroes in support.
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Finally, You queue as a DPS. This role is restricted to 3 players. You are able to pick all the heroes in DPS or pick an off tank of your choosing.
What if 3 players are off tanks? that’s not balance
Well not really. The off tank role would be limited to 1 DPS players and 1 Tank player since off tank is still a tank. The DPS player that picked off tank can also change back to DPS if they wanted. Like I said flexibility is the key!
So for example:
I queue DPS and boom I’m in a game. I pick Zarya. Zarya doesn’t work out for me against my enemies. So I switch back to DPS. One of my fellow teammates notice that he can’t really survive with for example Reaper. So since in that scenario nobody is off tank because I switched well there’s a place for him. So he’s allowed to switch to hog.
For me personally I see off tank as a dps that is spongier/more flexible since your kit is based more on defending or supporting your team. I think it’s worth sharing this idea since it can contribute to the game development or help people understanding why 3-2-1 would be amazing and 2-2-2 is amazing too, but there’s some way to bridge them both. Anyway, That’s just an idea. I hope this will help the community and the devs/staff to have fun with it and that there’s a lot of potential in being more flexible with role queue because at the end of the day you can be 1 tank - 2 support - 3 DPS but you’ll lose a ton of synergy if you restrict too much a class or all of them, and extend the limit of the other one. Note that the same thing could be done with support since Baptiste, Zennyatta and Brigitte does a lot of damage, and they have a kit that do DPS/support and for Brigitte I mean she’s a bit more tanky and she has a bit more survivability in harsh situations compare to most of the supports.