Thing is: What does the playerbase want?
Do they want no barrier? Solo barrier?
If they want a solo barrier at least in the game, that’s because they want someone to front-line, that’s the easiest strat to work with on an uncoordinated environment like solo queue.
I mean obviously there would be balance changes for this. And there are a ton of ways around reinhardt’s barrier.
That’s a fair point, I just think that there are a ton of other fun tank play styles they could incorporate for front line play instead of just shields. Would make playing tanks more fun instead of just shields shields shields.
Well, but shields block most stuff.
Having at least one that can block the angle with the biggest threat sounds good, the rest is dealing with flanker moves.
Other stuff than barriers will not block most types of damage and will leave more vulnerabilities, I guess it won’t be competitive with barriers.
Ouch! I came here to make a snarky reply along the same lines, but yours is so much more succinct than what I could come up with.
I’ll admit, I could never boycott tanking. Been a sole tank main since early 2019, and I’ve got no intentions of swapping roles anytime soon. I love tanking. I don’t think there’s a better role for me than tanking!
But I won’t sit here and act like I don’t get why people don’t like tanking. It’s completely understandable, and I could never fault anyone for not enjoying the role. I just… couldn’t tell you how to fix the problem. And sometimes, I wish I could. Because I would love to share the joy that I get off of playing tanks with other people, too.
I hate seeing people say everyone hates tanking but… they’re not wrong 
I couldn’t play Tank in OW. I don’t know how anyone can.
They are made of different stuff than I am. Hell, I won’t support in soloQ any more, and I will play support in any other game which has supports.
How about no?, if you want to play the game just play the role you want, there is no need of silly things like that.
Are you dumb? AFTER the new nerfs to orisa & sig you think all these tanks are going to be viable? It’s going to be Rein/Zarya 90% of matches and the other 10% will end up swapping to rein/zarya when they realize they can’t win on sig anymore.
There are 8 tanks, but only 4 of them are ‘playable’:
In main tanks, we have Rein, who is now never a bad pick, or the much more niche pick of Winston, who only works if your team can figure out this concept called Dive (results may vary).
In off tanks, we have Sigma, who makes all other off tanks bar one obsolete, created a terrible meta around him, and caused the obliteration of other characters around him, while he is still relatively unharmed and still playable. The only other choice, is Zarya, who has good synergy with both Rein and Winston as of time of writing, more than any other tank, and it’s only this synergy that lets her compete with Sigma.
And you think this isn’t a terrible state for tanks?
that’s just the game without sigma
This would just come down to balance changes in the end if they ever choose to go down this route of redesigning abilities. They can certainly make new things more powerful than barriers. It’s whatever though, this won’t happen anyways.
Thats what I’m gonna do, I still like Sigma and if anyone asks me to play rein ill say you can blame the patch notes 
Sigma just got nerfed.
If hes still meta theyll nerf him again.
I want him obliterated as much as the next guy, but they literally just nerfed him.
…and you’re boycotting?
Except Sigma is fine playing alongside Rein…
I like supports in general. In games long past, I tended towards characters that maybe had less direct focus on damage, but more about helping allies (actually a good example: Diablo 2. I tended to Amazon with that one avatar you could summon so my friend who tanks, had a second tank to back him up. Funny that).
And same friend wants to eventually run a D & D campaign. I’m pretty sure I want to play a Bard. I just find support stuff more interesting and engaging rather than raw damage.
That is true here, too. My main is Zen. He feels right for a support. I like Ana too, and just being able to enable a team. Supporting feels decent in this game.
But…I’m also interested in a well-balanced game. This dev trend of, “We’re turning this into a PvE game, where the DPS are the P, and everyone else gets the honor and privilege of being the E they fight against” is getting tiresome. I’m in an OW chat group on Steam and I all but announced my intention to just leave the game at this point. I’m really considering it. This game has such immense potential, but every dev patch moves it further away from the game I initially purchased and enjoyed.
It’s just so frustrating.
correct. but who else goes well with orisa?
is roadhog gonna feed through the enemy team’s ults?
Winston zarya is a great comp, of course rein zarya is going to be good, but assuming you’re above 3500, you will see a surprising amount of winston, hog, and still a little bit of orisa sig, orisa pull and health got nerfed, its not like she got obliterated
I was ‘boycotting’ long before this change happened. I just hate zero reward gameplay.
She is a main tank…
Tanks that have barriers to escort and push a frontline, either being Rein + any-other or Sigma + Orisa, are always the best strat in the game, when it’s not, it’s just the next best strat then.
The possibility to have compositions who struggle to push a frontline or to offer a better than frontline engagement is what brings inconsistency for the tank roster in terms of viable team compositions and that is generating stress on players (competitive ones at least).