Tanks feels like raid bosses, all game is about killing the tank, tank not feeling tanky is definately not issue, how are they so clueless.
In qp when you are just vibing and not tryharding too much it feels so bad when tank goes for you when you are dmg or support, you shouldnt be free kill without team support; you should be able to outskill tank in 1v1 anyway
The average dps wants to kill bot- this is fine.
The average support wants to healbot- this is fine.
The average tank wants to… what? Tank bot? What is that? Take damage and continue living forever until you screw up egregiously? For that to be balanced your kit would have to be super ineffective at doing anything else- but tank players also say they hate being a punching bag so…
What IS tank botting? What is the core aspect of tanking that every tank should do that balances the game positively and is fun for the player? What is the tank equivalent of damage/heal?
Once blizzard (… and the whiney community…) figure that out maybe tank could be fixed and be fun.
Until then, the only thing that makes sense is that “tanks protect the team or attract attention”, with a big fat nasty and neglected OR in there because there is 1 tank instead of 2 and teams can no longer have both a protection tank AND attention attracting tank, and tank players themselves are torn on what tanking is supposed to be because there is no possible way to balance 30 hero’s for two separate games at the same time.
The dps/support you play needs to be balanced around whether or not they have a protection tank (on their side and/or the opponents) or an attention attracting tank (call this an off tank if you want, JQ, doom, ball, dva etc)
So again what IS a tank? You can’t just say “they take space”, you don’t play tank by mindlessly walking into the enemy team. Also, dps and even sometimes supports can take and control space. And dps HAVE to do this. Taking space is not a tank exclusive function, and it’s not even soemthing we ever see the game balanced around.
I’ll end the rant early… with this. Tank can’t be fixed if nobody even has a vision for what it’s supposed to be. But I will say Reinhardt is my own opinion on what a tank should be, IF said tank is solo, and sigma is another great example of a good tank design. They function with or without 6v6, and that really says something
You can, this is a total skill issue.
I main JQ and the amount of people who can burn me down is insane, even in a 1v1.
It depends somewhat on the Tank (some are disproportionately tanky), but it is often true it can feel that way with the DPS passive now. Instant blown up or totally unkillable, there’s not a lot of in-between for Tank at the moment. Ofc, blindly buffing Tank sustain isn’t the way but the feeling is pretty valid.
You can’t really have this balance in 5v5. We have one hero having to take up the job of two now and Tanks are already largely miserable as it is, making them easily soloable would completely kill the role.
Imagine if we had an event that kept the game exactly as is- but only these tanks were available…
Rein
Sigma
Ram
Dva
Nerf dvas TTK slightly and remove rams punches piercing barriers
You’d have an extremely balanced set of tanks that did not counter each other and facilitated different play styles WHILE providing protection for the team WHILE attracting attention often
Dva loses TTK because she’s the sole dive tank, ram loses punch piercing because it’s too tank countery and him and dva shouldn’t be capable of freely deleting squishies.
Now you’ll notice as well the supreme lack of CC minus large telegraphed ones that have universal counterplay (rein pin is hardly problematic and sig rock is barrier blocked with ease and dva can dodge)
With this new tank set, almost every dps and support (and tank!) will perform relatively consistently regardless of the teams or enemy teams tank pick
Which… is extremely vital to being able to make the game feel consistently good and also balanced.
It is so painfully obvious that doom/JQ are DPS HEROS with tank health and that literally can’t exist without absurd options in the game being tuned enough to stop them, like CC, and that’s how you get abused by tanks like Orisa and hog
Two tanks who literally shouldn’t exist because they tank by bullying the other tank or instantly deleting an enemy- which isn’t what ranking should be! It doesn’t work! It’s not fun. Nobody likes it except the tank playing them. They sink all their resources into them from the team and because of that feel like they never die- or they are tuned to be killable even with double support and then become useless. Meanwhile, you hate having them because they mean you don’t get any protection or support because it’s all for the tank. And then you lose if they fail to bully the enemy tank into submission. And if you do win? It wasn’t even fun.
I’d throw JQ in there. Imo she’s the most fair tank to fight against.
you cant kill dva in pure 1v1, you just die, JQ maybe yes
I’d say make her a dps. Reduce her hotbox massively and adjust her numbers and make her a team utility/brawly close range dps.
She has the mechanical requirements to be considered a healthy dps and can have her numbers adjusted/reverse engineered for it.
Off the top of my head, 300 Hp smaller hit box and nerfing shout to be 75/100 overhealth, 25 for her team only (or remove it?) and nerf knife against enemy tanks (or don’t?) and she’s already mostly there if not completely.
Maybe even change shout to last 6 seconds, speed boost for her team like lucio and remove the overhealth function entirely and replace it with personal life steal (or overhealth generation) for the duration when dealing wounds.
It’s kinda like they’re finally figuring out that single tank was a dumb idea.
I think they were narrowly defining it as
“The Tank death-rate went up between Season 9 and Season 10”.
I.e. Just shifted who the tankbusting DPS are.
I think the actual definition is that they are meant to take space AND be equipped to do so
Cause you’re right….dps can take space…they’re just not really equipped to do so
The problem lies in that people think that means they should be able to walk up to a spot and do so and that’s not what that means
You are the best option to do so…they give you the most hp….they give you defensive abilities…they give you armor…etc etc so that you can go in there and be the most effective at claiming that space….that doesn’t mean you can’t get lit up…or that you can’t be prevented from doing so
Remember the other team is trying to do the same and they have a tank of their own
And you need not look for more evidence that all they want is to be unkillable than the 2 tank thing….cause what is the 2 tank thing really? I want to be able to do my thing and then have someone protect me when I can no longer do it
People would be absolutely fine with 1 tank if they felt that 1 tank was unkillable…where that line is of course up for debate though cause I’m pretty sure many players would tell you we’ve passed that point already
And then there’s the countering thing, which while true, is a part of the game and has always been there to some degree
A few points I don’t agree with:
But is the true issue here dive tanks having too much kill potential/not enough self sustain? Maybe…
you say dps aren’t really equipped to take space but I disagree. Ashe/widow holding down a sight line is deadly and usually only the enemy tank can fight them for that space unless someone flanks them, which these days means tracer or sombra only most of the time. Then there are dps like tracer who constantly take off angles, forcing the enemy tank and supports to react (becaus elect unattended almost any hero in the game is losing 1v1 to her). Mei and sym specifically lock areas down and control space, whether they are good at it or not is up for debate. In general hitscan control a ton of space though. And tanks spend their time exhausting their resources against hitscan more often than not.
I don’t think tank players want to be unkillable so much as they don’t want to be a; easily hard countered, b; dealing with hitscans easily taking their space from them and controlling their tempo if they don’t have a barrier, c; get flamed constantly by their own team, d; would enjoy having the more realistic expectation of either attracting attention OR protecting their ally, and not being flamed when they can’t do both (and by the way 99% of dps and support EXPECT both, and how can you blame them? Ow as a game, it’s maps, it’s hero’s and it’s gameplay loops we’re all designed for that originally…!)
The difference is that Tanks are expected to take space and HOLD IT. The DPS you mentioned almost universally have to bail if pressured in those positions
Purpose of “tanking” is very simple. It is enabling the rest of your team by any available means. For example, if your soldier 76 can’t poke his head out, you fly your mech up to sniper’s perch and make it so that teammate of yours joins the fight. Walking though chokes is also difficult for many characters, so someone in tanking role should divide attention of enemies and let the team through mostly intact etc.
If a single DPS could kill a tank in a 1v1 then what makes the tank a tank? The tank would not be able to do anything in 5v5 as 1 DPS can kill it. How can it go out there and make space?
Tanks busters trade range for busting - reaper, mei, etc. The hero that breaks this rule is hanzo and his storm arrows are broken against tanks as he can use them from any range with no fall-off. This is broken against large tanks.
Making the Tanks “tankier” and harder to kill is only going to make counter swapping an even worse issue 
ONLY if pressured by the tank, and even then if you have a support and it’s a good matchup against the tank, you can deny them.
Dps absolutely threaten and hold space. They just don’t do it by sustaining themselves or their Ally’s. But threatening to kill if your space is invaded is absolutely holding space.
And again I’m not saying dps are as good at it as tanks or that they do it the same. But they are absolutely very effective at it and perhaps that’s part of why tank feels bad. Dps can seriously threaten them if they aren’t very careful. Which is fine imo- with 2 tanks.
With 1 tank? I don’t really know how you’re supposed to make JQ for example “capable of taking space” in a wide open area against hitscans without brutally buffing her in a way that destroys everything that’s not hitscan just to contend with hitscan.
Headshot reduction was a big help… but apparently not enough.
That’s a fair assessment, if I’m honest. I wasn’t so much trying to say that you were wrong, only that there’s significant nuance that was missing from your initial comment, but you covered that in your response. I do agree.
imo no, tank should be able to deny you space but also not outright kill you in like one second
also shouldnt die in a 1v1 cuz theyre a tank
winton is pretty good at that for example. some of the others are just badly balanced for solo tanking
THIS, counterswapping is why tanks are horrible, its three times worse then support or dmg role, tank being weak was never the issue, not even 5 buffs ago lol, ow is crazy now