As a tank player, i love the new PTR changes

General Discussion
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Im seeing alot of tank players complain about this patch but imo theyre being narrow minded.

Shields have been nerfed yes but almost every other aspect has been buffed for orisa, sigma and rein which further enables zarya, dva and even hammond to be more useful imo. This patch is mainly about changing playstyles and adapting.

My opinions below

~ Orisas fortify and mobility are now her main selling points. She can reliably pop it more often during shield downtime and CC. She can also use her added mobility to be more aggressive whilst shooting which makes her better for pushing forward and less effective for bunker gameplay. I like it personally

~ Zarya gets small buffs but is indirectly buffed alot due to having much more synergy with Orisa now.

~ Small DVA matrix buff will hopefully help with nullifying damage that barriers cant stop.

~ Rein changes are massive and rightly so imo. He can now walk forward faster with shield up AND has more cc resistance. This allows him to be more aggressive and be much less frustrating against doomfist, Lucio etc.

~ Sigmas kinetic grasp on a lower cooldown AND gives more HP is a great buff for survivability outside of shield.

~ Hammond may struggle with the CC resistance from Orisa and Rein but will benefit alot from less shields and less dependence on shields. Will be interesting to see as a hammond player

  • All in all with the armour buffs & all the other buffs outside of shield nerfs im quite excited. The game has been stale for a while due to bunker/double shield so now this hopefully enables more options across the role to be viable. No doubt, playstyles are gonna have to change drastically for main tanks (& even off tanks) but im personally excited to adapt to more fast paced & engaging gameplay.
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same here, i love it!

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THIS.

Playing Tank is fun and actually engaging.

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They’re trying to make barrier tanks not just shield bots. It’s great.

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As a flex player who has hated playing these static shield tanks, I LOVE these changes as well. I enjoy the more tactical active playstyle of balancing your other cooldowns in between barrier management, though I am worried that Orisa’s barrier might need a lower cooldown to compensate now. Now we just need nerfs to snipers and Doomfist and we’ll be in business.

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I really hate it. It’s going to be all Rein all the time and I freaking loathe Rein.

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Let’s see how you think about it when you get killed every 4 seconds because moira is trash and shields are bad. How many Hanzo or Widow shots can you take… 2 or maybe 3?

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mobility is rein’s thing

Why’d we buff her

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Fixed.

I dno maybe cus she needed it and its unhealthy for a character to only be viable with 1 hero since release (rein)

  • Positioning is key
  • armour, dva matrix, kinetic grasp, zarya bubbles, fortify and genral mobility will help against damage during shield downtime
  • moira will probably still be decent if u use healing orb more often
  • dive widow with ball, winston, dva since its now more likely she wont have her escape off cooldown. Diving hanzo aint too hard either. Will only be hard to kill them both in GM+ imo and require more coordinated attacks
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If Orisa remains viable after barrier nerf (I think 600 HP on 10 seconds is too low, even after fortify buff), I will welcome this combination.

I love supercharger-graviton combo. It is a understimated combat finisher.

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Is. They literally just buffed his mobility.

Zarya is borderline OP when she’s viable due to how much damage she can already pump out combined with how strong grav is.

And no. Zarya was the original dive off-tank. She runs perfectly fine with Winston, especially now that lucio’s speed is back.

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… and they also buffed hers :joy:

Now they are BOTH mobile in different ways

  • Orisa more mobile while shooting
  • Rein more mobile with shield up

Zarya Winston is trash in most ranks lol. Lucios speed enables her to be more effective with Rein (and now orisa), thats it.

Also shes only extremly good during goats due to very high sustain and easy charge gain. In 222 she has never been close to OP, especially since grav has ALOT of counterplay compared to a couple years ago

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Can’t wait for all the tanks to be dead in 3 seconds

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Only bad tank players will struggle imo

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15

Well you wont be having Mercy or Moira since there’s not going to be a long enough period of downtime for them to heal/ recharge resource, and they’re going to lacking because of the DPS powercreep

So you better hope that you Ana/ Baptiste can aim well enough to heal you

They’re taking away damage blocking and trying to put more damage mitigation, but that can’t work in OW because of how low the TTK is when people aren’t behind barriers. Mercy is pretty much done, Moira is a joke compared to Ana/ Baptiste.

You’re cutting down both support and tank rosters by 2 heroes each

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Like we need even LESS people wanting to play tank my dude

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After playing several hours on PTR, I agree with the OP. For some it will suck because this change will really separate the good tanks from the bad. Had a blast playing on PTR. Even Orisa. Took a bit getting used to. It’s a shift in play style for sure.

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Well lots of bad tanks are probably headed to DPS same with supports who can no longer use Moira I have a feeling DPS queues are going to be going up and Rein is a must pick as the only useful barrier left every other tank is kinda bad at well tanking or mitigating damage

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Less people wanted to play due to double shield. Now pretty much every tank is viable and the gameplay is more engaging and probably more exciting :thinking:

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It will make some want to play more as the role is more engaging. It isn’t just “main tank” and “off tank” now. It’s more dynamic.

The “bad tanks” that quit will be the ones who refuse to change and rage quit.

Overall better for the game as a whole.

I also thought the worst at first, but having tried the changes, I’m liking the patch.

4 Likes