Everyone who isn’t absolutely new to the game should be able to memorize that the white robot lady is a Tank fairly easy.
Inara from paladins want to say hi!
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Oorr people can play the tanks that exist now too.
I love playing zarya, d.va and sometimes some sigma too, and i’m actually a healer main.
And i don’t think it really has to do with echo, because the whole point of being a tank is protecting your team and giving space. And that can become quite boring to some people.
They need to do something about the rank role to feel more rewarding and fun
I’m sorry,but that’s the dumbest thing I read this week 
Tanks have to be big to be identified??? Excuse me?! I can’t right now …
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Echo makes me not want to play tank.
I don’t need additional Rein who can build Shatter in two swings joining my Rein duel.
It’s called a duel for a reason Blizzard. Duel, as in two people! She can also shred both me and the barrier too which doesn’t help.
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Echo looks nothing like a tank. She’s as skinny as Sym, who also cannot be a tank for the same reason.
Tanks are designed to be big for a reason, why would they just stop.
HI
But seriously OW and paladins design their heroes differently.
Zarya’s not all that large and some DPS like Doom or Bastion aren’t far off from being tank sized. Baby D.Va is also a thing.
But really, considering they were considering moving Hog of all heroes to damage, I’m not so sure the devs care about role visuals as much as they once perhaps did.
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Being big only applies to tanks, DPS can be any size they want. Even still Zarya is still large in her own right.
Source?
It would be a nice change to have a Tank who isn’t that generic fat guy or a giant killer robot.
Also you still didn’t tell us why exactly Heroes who don’t look like Tanks can’t be Tanks and I am honestly not getting it 
DPS and Supports are usually about the same size too and it is absolutely not a problem.
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Uh, why is that? Do DPS not need to be relatively small due to their health? And why do only tanks need to be recognizable right away as their role?
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I’ve already stated that tanks are designed big so they can easily be identified as a tank, for new players and current players.
Almost every tank class in a game is big for that reason. Also look at every tank in the game, they are large. Thus this is their clear direction for designing tanks.
It is mostly for consistency and ease of learning. They also do this to help players with low graphics settings. So they can recognize a tank just by their silhouette. Almost like a squint test.
Also for Roadhog, it looks like they tried it out and it did not work. As of now, their design philosophy for tanks is to make them large and big. If Roadhog become a DPS, I would imagine they might change that.
Roadhog as a DPS was a failed experiment. Even if they considered it, they saw it as a bad idea in end. They also considered Sym with a healing beam and deemed that a failure too. However that does not mean healing beams are a good idea.
“Considered” is not the same as “lets do it”.
Which makes absolutely no sense.
If you know that Echo is a Tank she doesn’t need to be big to be identified as one.
If you (for whatever reason) don’t know in which category a Hero is, just push TAB
Zarya is about the same size as Doomfist/Bastion, so there are obviously exceptions.
New players will not know who is who off the bat. We must consider them as well.
Bastion while tall is also very gappy and thin. This is why he seems smaller than most other tanks.
Doomfist while also large is not the same size Zarya and is often hunched. Making him seem smaller than he already is.
Zarya walks straight and broad shouldered, making her seem bigger.
Funny thing is that Junkrat is actually the 4th tallest hero in the game. Though he seems very small due to him being hunched.
While these heroes are bigger and small than most, they often appear larger or bigger due to their posture.
See, I get your and Blizzard’s reasoning with Tanks (though, I personally think strictly adhering to it is a mistake and holds the role back), but I’m still confused why you said it doesn’t need to apply to DPS?
Isn’t it just as important for new players to know what heroes can blow their head off? Also, isn’t is then a problem that several DPS could be mistook for off-tanks?
As for Road, I certainly can’t ever imagine him being viable as DPS with that huge hit-box myself, but the concern in the post seemed to be about taking him away from tank players and Jeff said nothing about his size being an issue. So eh, considering how recent that was, I think it’s fair to think they may well be willing to be more flexible with size in the future.
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Yea I did not explain that very well. I will try to explain it better.
It is ok for DPS to be big because it is easy to make something big seem small. Doom and Junkrat do this by being hunched. Bastion does this by being gappy and thin.
However it is very hard to make something small seem big. Generally this why tanks are designed big from the get go instead. Though they did make some small tank seem bigger then they are. Sigma floats, making him seem taller. Zarya walks straight and broad shouldered.
I do agree DPS Roadhog would not workout very well. They might be willing to disregard size in their tank design. However as of now, I am not too sure.
I believe if they would go throw with Roadhog as a tank, they would probably edit his animations to make him seem smaller. Though I am not too sure.
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When one of them is a tank buster.
I mean… What the hell were they thinking?
Ahh, I gotcha. Thanks for the explanation.
For me, though I’ll freely admit I’m just ditzier than most and my eyes aren’t best, I found the bruiser-like DPS builds pretty confusing when I was a newbie. I legit thought Mei with her build and tank-like abilities was an off-tank for the first few days.
To me, silhouettes get overrated. At first everything is confusing regardless, after a bit, you learn em all by heart anyway.
That’s not to say I believe they should abandon those guidelines entirely - hit-boxes should be pretty proportional to hp. But I believe there’s room for some lower hp and therefore more delicate tanks as well.
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To me, Echo makes the most sense as a support. But I would have rather had an Echo tank than a DPS.
I could see her as a tank who focused around deflecting shots, or maybe generating shields for nearby allies like a mobile Sym ult of old.
Maybe she could be physically weak by have a lot of energy projection that allowed her to act as a protector. Sorta like how Zen has very few actual hitpoints, but a lot of shields.
Honestly, DPS is the absolute worst choice for her.
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Nah, if she was a tank, she would have already gotten 3 nerfs by now.
Lol that happened to me too actually.
Indeed it is confusing at times, when I first played the game I thought Sombra was a support. Some of the silhouettes are not perfect.
Agree, I would be ok with this.
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