While I think thereâs a substantial amount of truth to what you say here, I have a few concerns/points of response.
Firstly, concern, yes, many damage players have indicated that they donât feel like they have impact. Many tank and support players have voiced the same frustration. Why do damage players, in this instance, get priority? Is it as simple as there are more of them?
But, if there are more of them and fewer Tanks/Supports, but we remain with a system where Tanks & Supports will bottleneck queues, wouldnât it make sense to focus in hard on Tanks & Supports feeling content with the degree of impact they have on the match? I feel thatâs especially important in light of one of the biggest ongoing complaints being queue times, and while I know nothing is final yet, the direction Blizzard has talked about for OW2 hasnât exactly been met with roaring approval from the Tank & Support communities, which threatens any good that the shift to 5v5 was supposedly going to bring. If Supports & Tanks are leaving or switching to DPS or just hanging out in PvE because they donât like how the playstyle change or feel that they donât bring enough to the PvP table, then that wholly undermines one of the primary reasons for 5v5.
On top of that, just as food for thought, I wanna address these two points in combination:
While⌠I do think there is some truth to what youâre saying here, I think itâs also overlooking some key points.
On their faces, Tank & Support are pretty simple, too. Tanks are a shield. Supports are healing. While theyâre not as on-the-nose as Damage (though that even started as Offense/Defense), I donât think people are overly confused by those titles to the basic function of those roles in a match. Most people understand that.
Now, understanding the full impact of those roles and how they factor into a match beyond the most basic function does require a more-abstract appreciation for how they enable the team⌠but the same is also true of DPS. An early Widow pick on the enemy Tracer means heroes like Ana & Zenyatta can play much more safely from the backline. Effective harassment from a Genji/Tracer/Doomfist means theyâre pulling attention off the rest of your team, relieving some of the stress on your Tanks & Supports. The list can go on. The reality is that everything you say of Tanks/Supports is true of DPS, too, but for whatever reason, we donât recognize that DPS do play a very impactful role in the game that exists beyond âpew pew pew.â
Now, because Overwatch is objective based and because every hero can deal damage, I do think that DPS are less consequential on the negative end (i.e. a bad DPS wonât sink your team as fast as a bad Tank), but they nonetheless can be immensely consequential on the positive end, which I think goes unrecognized. If Tanks & Supports are expected to see beyond the basic âshield shield shieldâ and âheal heal heal,â why not hold DPS to the same standard and elevate the expectation of impact from âkill kill killâ to âwho I kill, when I kill, how I kill can drastically alter the opportunities available for my team and enable them to do things they may not be able to do otherwise?â
I agree with your (seeming) idea here that optics matter and this is why we have the issue with feelings about certain rolesâ level of impact right now, but Iâm not sure that argument is actually being applied as fully as it should be. Based on what weâve seen so far and heard so far, I certainly donât think so.
Finally, I wanna bring up one last thing:
Refer to YOURFRIENDâs comment here. Optics matter, like I said above, though in a different context this time. Iâm assuming Blizzard has been putting more of an effort to keep a finger on the pulse of the community and their concerns. It certainly seems youâre aware that there is a lot of concern about Tanks & Supports, and this concern has existed for a while now. That in mind, and keeping in mind the potential ramifications for queue times if Blizzard bungles the Support & Tanks roles, then why hasnât Blizzard been more readily focused on addressing & alleviating those concerns?
While there has been a little more in the way of Tank talk than Support & DPS talk, itâs not that much more, and a pretty non-negligible portion of Tank players arenât exactly thrilled with the information weâve received. Support players are basically eating scraps, and nearly all of those scraps are negative. One major, MAJOR shortcoming of Blizzard for years now has been messaging. They botched the Diablo messaging, they botched the Hearthfire messaging, and theyâve been botching and are continued to botch Overwatch messaging. If I could offer a bit of advice (wanted or not 
), Blizzard needs to focus in hard on the Tank/Support messaging soon, especially Support, and they need to be very focused on how those changes are going to benefit the player experience in those roles, because as Iâm sure youâve already seen, thereâs a lot of worry that Tank & Support players are not going to be enjoying Overwatch 2 very much.