In a recent developer interview on Spillo channels, the devs said that one of the issues with 6v6 is that flanking is less possible compared to 5v5.
But why does it feel completely the opposite to me ?
In 6v6, you know that even if you decide to flank, a tank can’t dive you and win the duel 100% of the time. You can put enough pressure to force the tank to think twice before chasing you. This gives you the freedom to take risky positions and still be kinda safe if you play well. Tanks can’t just dive you without consequence and win every time.
I recently went back to play 5v5 to see how it felt, and this was the biggest difference i noticed. In 5v5, I almost never flank because if a tank dives me, I’m dead and it feels like i’m throwing
In 6v6 you have far fewer heroes who are decent flankers… and so does the enemy. Which means that even if you do go Genji and walk around the moon to get to the enemy’s backline, you’re not going to find the enemy supports left basically unattended the way they are in 5v5. You’re gonna run up against a Mercy… and a Mei, a McCree and a Roadhog all peeling with the hardest CC you’ve ever seen.
That’s not to say that flanking was weak in 6v6. It just wasn’t the uncontested meta like it is in 5v5.
And if, in 5v5, you’re getting dove by the only tank while you’re flanking… that sounds like you’re probably not timing your engagements right. The tank should have far better things to do than chase a Venture around the map.
The devs will say anything to justify the switch to 5v5, even something nonquantifiable like ‘flanking’. I take anything they say about this game with a grain of salt.
5v5 inherently giga-buffed all of the flankers in a way that cannot be compensated for through nerfs, as well as Widow.
I don’t think I need to explain why granting a significant advantage to Widow and Sombra is a bad thing.
I’d say it’s more so a different style of flanking rather than actually happening less but I can see what they mean. Although, in both cases, it’s been pretty meta/season based.
It’s mostly been easier to actually get kills from solo flanks in 5v5 since 6v6 does generally have a fair bit more peel going on. Still flankers can also benefit a lot from that peel themselves and there’s also more opportunity to split the team and do duo flanks in 6v6.
Yeah, unless you left your Supports completely unattended and ignored them 100%, it was actually pretty rare to have your backline attacked. The enemy usually will go for a flank attempt if they feel their team is neglecting to watch out for their team mates in the backline, because otherwise it would never work.
With 5v5, everyone usually focuses on what’s in front of them due to having one less team mate. So a confident flanker will take advantage of this and wipe out (or try to) your backline.
Let’s just be honest with ourselves, anyone above Diamond doesn’t even bother because players are typically more aware of their backline. Where even Plats will seemingly mute their Supports who are screaming about a Tracer destroying them and need some help.
As an FYI, the development team was speaking in relation to the 2/2/2 composition of 6v6, not the Open Queue.
In that situation, flanking became incredibly difficult because any Damage-role hero that would attempt this would be alone, and would have to carry an insane amount of risk for little reward for it.
Once the two tank, two damage, two support system was in place flanking became a lot harder, and lot less rewarding to do, because the Tanks controlled or defended too much space. Something that the old Defense-role responsibility was, that was co-opted by the Tank-role.
5v5 means fewer Tanks, means less space controlled, or more openings for flank attempts.
Let’s pretend for a second that what they said is 100% true… why should we care? It happens less. Unless it stops happening at all I am willing to lose a little flanking for more stable OW what about you guys
lol every day you prove you don’t understand Overwatch more and more
5v5 means no off tank focusing on peeling for their backline which means more free space for flankers. If there’s no Dva or Zarya in the backline dedicating their Cooldowns to peeling for their Ana and Mercy while the Rein/Winston is in the frontline, there’s more space for flankers to harass those supports. It’s not that hard to understand.
Wait thats like exactly how hog / tracer where designed for backline flanking both with a self heal so if they got overwhelmed they could each heal themselves and move back to the rest of the team.
It should be obvious to you just on a theoretical level. If you have two tanks then that’s two big bodies to anchor two points in space, instead of just one point.
In 2-2-2, you can just wait a little bit longer into the fight to flank. You just can’t flank all by yourself out of sink with your team (can’t really do that either in 5v5 without getting punished).
i saw the summary of the interview and once again the developers proof they are stupid and dont even play their own game, aaron keller said 5vs5 is better because there is time to breath .EXCUSE ME? the swety format with tanks that never die and one mistake can cost you the match