I know there is a lot of you - what would it take to get you back playing tank/support?
For me, Tank Mei, or Support Sombra, and I am there.
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Getting paired with higher SR DPS, who are less likely to abandon the Tanks/Healers, or not Peel for them.
I got an 83% winrate with Mei this season over 22 games, but I can barely break even on winrate with tanks, and the majority of my hours are on Tanks.
If your DPS mentally check-out, there’s not much a Tank can do to carry a game.
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I’m a DPS main who branched out to Supports and Tanks a little bit but who has since mostly just gone back to DPS (except for playing Baptiste).
For tanks, revert the barrier PTR, do a few small DVa buffs, and tone down Reaper, Hanzo, and Mei. Long term, introduce mechanics to counteract double barrier, especially on the tank side–for example, introduce a tank who can drain or otherwise utilize enemy barriers to empower himself (making Double Barrier an absolute feast for him).
As it stands, the tank class has shifted too hard toward tanks just being fat DPS who use their bulk to pull enemy attention for my liking. If that’s what I wanted to play, I’ll play Roadhog or Zarya. I played Reinhardt, Orisa, Sigma, and Winston specifically because they weren’t designed in that way. I understand that Double Barrier’s an issue, so obviously there are fixes that would have to be made (hence weakening some of the motivators for Double Barrier as well as introducing counterplay), but the PTR didn’t really solve Double Barrier anyway, soooooo… yeah.
Supports… Need a lot of work. Lucio is okay, Zen is okay, Baptiste is okay, Ana is okay. Mercy, Brigitte, and Moira all need revisiting–they’ve unfortunately been reworked or rebalanced into hamstrung shadows of their former selves, and at least for the latter two, I sincerely enjoyed the playstyle that they originally promised but no longer do. I like to play aggressively, but unfortunately balancing decisions have made it such that for many supports, even at your most aggressive, you wind up playing pretty passively compared to what DPS and Tanks do. Personally, I’d like to rework Mercy and Brigitte (Brigitte I’d almost want reworked into a tank… which would definitely get me playing that role more), and do some rebalancing on Moira if not rework her. The other supports are fine and would become more tolerable as tanks’ team protection was rebuffed.
Basically, the core aspects of why I enjoyed trying out Tank and Support have been mutilated over time, to the point that I have a hard time pushing myself to play them. In the instances that I do, I play tanks like Hog or supports like Baptiste/Lucio.
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Nice! The Sym of Tanks.
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Essentially, yeah. Imagine a tank who essentially could emit an electromagnetic field to destabilize barriers, and depending on the collective health of barriers he destabilized, he would gain some kind of personal benefit–temporary barriers, or in my preference, damage/CC capabilities, making him into a sort of off-tank.
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Change Mercy; I cant go into it here but if you are interested in reading a long boring drawn out post on what i propose you can look at it here (though you and everyone else won’t or won’t read the whole thing, that i can guarantee)
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/yet-another-mercy-thread/355676
I was a flex player, which meant I played all roles. So the only thing that may convince me to return, and thus getting my team some tank now and then, would be either removal of role queue, or adding a flex option to queue, possibly as a reward for keeping all three SR close enough to each other.
Although I miss Sym 2.0, and still think Blizzard should re-embrace “support do not mean healer” and move Sombra and Symmetra back to support.
I’ve read the whole thing, and I agreed with it.
The issue is Mercy SHOULD be balanced in abilities like Tracer is, Super fast fluid gameplay.
She should have a super weak ult (like, say, single target rez), and put ALL of the power into her day to day kit, with maybe a low cooldown ability on ‘e’.
Moving Rez entirely IS an option, but, unlikely to fly since the Dev’s have already said “no dice” on it.
Ideally I think they should remove resurrect entirely but that also doesnt seem like something they want to do. I just dont think they can shift the power of her kit like that if she has resurrect in any way as a cooldown, even if the cooldown is longer than what it takes for her to get valkyrie.
Which is why I think Valk needs to burn.
Rez as a single target ult is a pretty weak ult (even if it was instant)
That would free a LOT of power to put in her kit.
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I’m usually a Tank in QP that pretty much stopped tanking after 2-2-2. I didn’t stop playing QPRQ tho, my hero pool is mostly tankbusters. So what better place to play them than on 2-2-2 where i’ve got two tanks guaranteed every game.
I do still tank/support, but only in Quickplay Classic.
On certain maps i’d rather heal, on most of the others i’d rather tank. The ability to see what map i’m on and choose whether to tank or heal (or just go DPS if we need to blow through shields) is what’s keeping me from using them in QPRQ.
Essentially, I’m primarily an Orisa main, and she’s pretty much guaranteed for Defense, but have tankbusters to switch to (usually on attack) if we’re up against stubborn tanks. I can no longer do that in QPRQ.
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I am not a tank main, but have reached career peak on tank.
And I would have to say tanking is ok right now…until a wild REAPER and/or MEI appears.
That is when Fun dies.
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Maybe if my favorite tank that I spent countless hours on was actually fun to play as and could actually do something instead of being useless then I would play tank again.
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I’m an Ex Tank / Support who left the game instead of started DPSing but… eh, close enough.
Supports: Mercy and Brigitte both got reworks that radically altered their play styles, introduced numerous deep seated design flaws in their kits, and made them completely distasteful to me. I am never coming back unless they take steps to address that.
Tanks: Now I’ve not played at all since well before the barrier nerf so I can’t comment on that. However… one thing that I keep running into in other class based shooters is that most of the tanks or tanky characters have loadout options that let them self heal. Honestly that makes sense. Tanks are supposed to be in the front, bearing the brunt of the enemy’s assault. Giving them options to let them undo the damage they take is great for making them self sufficient.
Compare that to Overwatch where most tanks have no self healing at all. That inability for tanks to self heal in any way, shape, or form makes them waaaaaay too dependent on their supports for survival. That was honestly so bad that when I would play in QP I would run pre rework Brigitte as a solo tank over any actual tank because she can heal herself.
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Which one is that. (The fact I have to ask is a bad sign, but I guess D’va / Winston)
I hear you on Mercy for sure. The changes stopped me being a Mercy player as well.
I think new Brig lacks identity, which is a problem.
A support based around repair pack is good, played from the back, mostly about prebuffing.
A support based around getting in and inspiring with melee / shield is ALSO good.
But, currently, she is some of one and some of the other, and that is just weird.
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Make D.Va playable again and I will go back to tanking.
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When Wrecking Ball and Roadhog become something decent and barrier Tanks become non mandatory.
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Exactly.
Pre rework, Brigitte was a defensive powerhouse, both for herself and her team. If you wanted a hero who could intervene into a bad situation and save a teammate, Brigitte was who you picked.
After her rework, she got the vast majority of her saving ability either severely nerfed or removed and in return she got more healing… but there were already several heroes who did and still do the big heals thing better than her.
I get that pre rework Brig’s heals weren’t quite consistent enough for 2-2-2… but… just make it so Inspire is just always on for like 5 HPs and jumps up to the old 16.67 HPs when she slaps someone. There… fixed.
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I’d split her into 2 heroes.
One based around a repair pack ability, and once which is all about inspire / shield / bash.
We need more supports anyway, and different players like the different styles.
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