So I have heard that the main argument for players not wanting to play tank is that its unfun. However I have noticed that a lot of players do say they enjoy playing tank, and I will admit that I do find them fun too.
Though one trend I did notice is that many players have said that tank is very stressful. Citing that a bad tank can get your team killed quickly, and they simply do not want to be with that pressure.
This got me wondering, do players not want to play tank due to the stressfulness of the role?
What do you think?
I personally think tank can be stressful but not enough to scare players away, though I could be wrong.
i have plenty of fun playing D.VA Winston and Sigma. D.VA was my main hero before they rework her with the missiles and nerf her a million time but i still enjoy playing her a lot.
The thing with tank is that they rely a lot on the quality of their support since you are constantly on the front line.
I guess that’s the reason people find it stressfull. (and CC…)
Ok, do you wanna bet? When I typed my message I was thinking about Dva and you’re right she’s in a bad position right now but I’m pretty sure you can make her work below diamond, anything works below diamond.
I don’t feel stress when playing a tank. So, IMO, it is definitely about being unfun.
Boops. EVERYTHING can bounce you around like a feather, a boi with a loudspeaker, small rocket, a mine, a strike. You don’t have any weight.
Stuns. A ton of them. And tanks are just as vulnerable as others, but are easier to hit.
Damage. Tanks take as much damage as others, only have larger health pool. No resistances, armor feels like a joke after it’s nerfs. Tanks without shields act like ult batteries.
Limited hero pool, that is even more limited by meta.
Because of all this, they are HIGHLY dependant on healers.
Shields are too powerful, meaning your main role often comes to just hold and maintain the shield. Not fun.
I personally don’t like being the lil DMG absorbing sponge and space creator for my team. I don’t like taking too much DMG.
I am a healer main, Mercy, Ana and Moira. You could call me a main healer main. (Double main? Wait whaaat)
I love to play those characters because you CAN kick booteys if needed but you are there to help your team, you can defend yourself (Mercy and Moira) with your mobility and even when someone is on you, you can either run away(Mercy) or try and kick their… booteys(Moira, Ana, Mercy).
The role just makes me feel like I am actually helping my team by being more passive then other roles and the best thing that can happen is, if then someone is really nice and thanks you for a good save or the good heals
A bit of both. If you have healers that don’t know what they’re doing, you’re scrwed just because of your size alone, and since my aim is like an African child with an AK-47, the only reason I’m able to survive a 1 on 1 as a tank is because of my large health pool, and even then I only manage to win by the skin of my teeth.
The most fun I have in this game comes from flanking. Reaper, Sombra, Tracer, so on, being able to just scoot right up behind them in a place they’re most vulnerable and dumping your ammo into their bum is hilarious. Death Blossom or Pulse Bomb while everyone is behind a Sigma - Orisa shield combo makes my heart happy.
People don’t play tanks because as said, you’re at the mercy of your team. You have low damage and pretty boring skills. People complained about Rein and Orisa being boring and wanted a new shield tank. So when they finally add a strong tank that can actually do stuff other than place barriers all game, people whine and they get nerfed. Tank players want to feel useful and engaging too. But having tanks actually be able to make plays or bring other utility bar shields there is just whining, and then they get nerfed. Why would anyone want to play a role that is basically just a shieldbot?
Honestly, it’s a combo of all of the above. Not only is it the most team reliant role, it’s the hardest role to play correctly (a lot of tank players don’t even know what they should be doing), and many tanks are not even viable options right now. Know a lot of Dva and Winston mains who are pretty sad right now, and the only 2 viable tanks are boring as hell to play.
But honestly, it’s better if people who don’t know how to play tanks right stay out of the tank queue in comp at least, because like I said, it’s the hardest role to play correctly and on top of that is very stressful to play. I say this as a frequent Rein player: there’s a lot of issues going on with Tanks right now, and not much reason to play them. Orisa and Sigma are boring to play and boring to fight, and any other tank is nowhere near as good sadly. Hope that PTR patch can turn things around.
I want to add some thoughts to this discussion as well:
Before Sigma and 222 there were the Triple Tank and Triple Support meta and we can get some lessons out of it:
Tanks are way more reliant on synergism (or on teamwork as people would say in other words) and what role provide the most synergism to tanks? Supports! Not only tanks like D.Va and Zarya were nerfed before 222, plus the global armor nerf, but also some of supports as well. A lot of counterplay against tanks were buffed in the DPS category too.
Now the only few durable tanks that were left and the addition of Sigma (also viable) and his great synergism with Orisa changed the meta.
The Tank role always felt like more rigid when it comes at synergising in different duos. There were the pre-made concepts of duos like: Rein/Zarya, Winston/D.Va and Hog/Orisa.
D.Va was the most flexible at synergising with others, so that’s why she became the the third tank for the Rein/Zarya duo to form Triple Tank and Triple Support meta, but she got nerfed too.
I feel like choosing tanks with bad synergism in higher ranks don’t work that much and provide low value and since the tank role is the most limited at it maybe that’s why people play less this role too.
And while Blizzard tries to increase the number of synergism of combinations of duo Tanks, they allow even more different double barrier comps to be viable as well (but they should also keep up the No Barrier Tanks to be able to compete too for more less double barriers combinations).
Since all roles can deal damage, but DPS are way more damage dedicated, Tanks and Supports have some limitations that make them way more reliant on the synergism they offer each other, DPS are there to take advantage of this utility they are offering, but won’t offer much if not damage and kills. So the relationship Tank + Support is stronger than DPS + any other role, well before 222 some Tanks and Supports (T&S) got nerfed and DPS buffed, so only few T&S were left viable after 222 and options became limited to combine good duos.
I love tanking in gold and up. Where more people have gamesense and stay on comms.
I have a drunk acc sub500 and tanking is a misery. Nobody follows up on your play, nobody is communicating, the healers dont know what to do.
Playing tank brings more responsibility than the other roles. Communication is key, shotcalling, and you need good healers if you are gonna play aggresive.
The DPS players who don’t know how to play either tank or supports taking them to comp is also a big issue. I mean, can’t really blame them when DPS queues can be like 20 minutes, but at the same time it DRASTICALLY lowers game quality, and is one of the reasons the DPS queue times are so unhealthy for the game.
Like I said, they wanna play the game too, but a DPS main on Ana or Reinhardt is not a good thing if they only played DPS before. They have no idea how to position these characters, how to synergize with the team, or even what they’re supposed to be doing. You get Lucios who leave healing on all game, or Anas who just DPS, or the infamous DPS Moiras.
Tanks have it even worse, as they’re HARDER to play. There’s no in between- sometimes you have Reinhardts who either always charge in headfirst without the team or Reins that hold shield up in the backlines all game-not knowing what they’re supposed to be doing. The DPS mentality is really, really bad for the game.
Tl;dr, DPS players, while they just wanna play too, are creating really unhealthy environments in Comp, playing characters they have no idea how to properly use, and overall unintentionally (or intentionally) throwing. Not every DPS player is like this, but a lot of people only play DPS, and don’t know how to play other roles right.
