Flanker is the hardest role to be effective at in the game similar to jungler in mobas. You have to play around your team with very little instent support knowing when to push and fall back.
Im not saying other roles are stupid easy just flaker is the hardest to learn and be consistently good at.
It definitely isn’t. just going behind and shooting people when they are busy targeting your team.
DPS is the hardest role in general, in my opinion. All I manage to do is trash damage and get made fun of by my team. I carry on Brig or Lucio, though. Doesn’t help that I can’t aim at all.
Flanking in OW2 is basically frowned upon, you’re supposed to just charge in head first with the rest of your teamates.
Surprisingly I agree with OP. I get killed far more by hitscan or long range dps than I do flankers as support.
Flankers have become weak sauce mostly. Mad respect those who master dps flankers.
Ofc you do if you are playing sombra.
pretty much ya takes the same amount of posisitioning skills, awareness, and aiming as other dps.
Just you also have the best mobility, stall, and sustain tools in the game. Just with slight restrictions on the primary fires that make it a tad difficult to do max damage with them.
It is the hardest role cause it goes against FPS fundamentals by using moba powers.
So for example as a ranged hero you keep rotating back or to other side or forward depending on the push made by enemy tank.
This is how most heroes interact.
The thing with flankers though is they have the mobility to close distance fast and cut the rotation and get a elimination.
so your always going to be working against many players, unlike ranged hero duels were your fights are more organised and its mostly about who shoots who as you both have established positions.
But a flanker has to cut the rotation then establish a position or secure kill but atleast in teams with awareness you will be working against a team as no one wants rotations cut.
So once you reach ranks were people are aware isolating them to cut rotations will get tougher, but you will also get teammates who can enable you to do that flanking like another dive hero or a zarya bubble or zen orb etc.
All that said the flankers in overwatch have some of the best abilities in any game ever to aid in flank.
I mean tracer can literally blink 3 times and has a reset, sombra is practically invisible.
Echo can fly anywhere.
Genji has wall climb dash and double jump to take positions.
So the flanking part itself is not actually tough even though it should be apart from maybe genji and reaper.
The real issue is stealthiness of the flank to not raise awareness which is practically impossible most of the time in ranks with awarenesss.
So it boils down to can you steal that kill during that engage.
This provides opening for your team to push as they should, this again only works in team with awareness and in higher ranks.
So the reality is flankers are not as oppressive as nonmobile heroes think, the actual issue is they see them easily cutting the rotation with abilities, but the actual duel once thats done is a lot more balanced.
At the same time, while flanking is harder than other nice roles, it doesnt mean they are rewarded properly for it, its a high risk reward role,
Otherwise why would you play a blinking 150 hp tracer over a thicc Cree.
I really wish people can have indepth discsussions on these topics rather than flinging bags at each other based on their hero or role bias.
I don’t really agree. Their main targets are heroes who they’re built to just beat in duels by design and all have get out of jail free abilities.
They’re not easy, but they’re certainly not harder than anyone else really.
And i agree i would talk more but im at work maybe when i get off but i agree with alot not all but alot of what you said.
I hate this term their is no free get out of jail abilities all need to be used poperly and effectivly. Yes do flanker has kits to get in and get out well yes because thats the role they play if they didnt have that they wouldn’t be a flanker it like if support just did damage that not a support that just a hero doing damage yes does it help the team by killing heros of course but its not a support hero
It doesn’t really matter if you hate the term, it’s true. Recall, translocator, half of genji’s kit, even wraith, are all get out of jail free abilities.
Do they need them to function by design? Yes. Do they lower the skill floor of playing them significantly? Beyond any shadow of a doubt. It really makes it borderline impossible for them to be punished for poor positioning as long as they have them up.
If they didn’t have those abilities, they probably would be undisputably the hardest class to play. But they have them.
Actually flanker-type heroes require a much better sense of positioning and game sense compared to heroes who operate at range.
There is a reason why they have the most deaths among dps heroes, despite their mobility.
Tracer/Genji vs other dps
Doom vs other tanks
Translocate and Wraith are definitiely get out of jail free cards, recall is a very strong defensive cooldown and so is deflect. Tracers get out of jail comes from good blink management and Genji has defensive utility in deflect and movement but Genji does not have a get out of jail free. While hes dashing his hitbox extends the full 15m of the dash, deflect can be shot through via beams, splash cds like bionade or if someone turns around just shoot him in the back.
It’s definitely hard to be a good flanker. But the concept of flanking is pretty easy. Get kills in the backline. Tank is still harder than flanking.
No they arnt just calling somthing that doesnt make it true. Thats like saying ga fade wall ride purple lamp suzu are all get out of jail free as well when they aren’t. Or when people call supports healers when they arnt.
No it does not.
And they can also cause bad positioning and what is bad positioning
And if the didnt have those abilities they wount be flankers how owuld they get in and out rhey couldnt they would just be front or midl ine poke classes tracer would be just smj girl x2 genji would be worse cassady sombra smg girl x1 echo would just suck and reaper owuld fall back on being a tank buster. Flankers need ways in and out its what makes them flankers in the first place
On paper ya just like jungler in a moba on paper seems easy but in practice is very much the opposite
If flankers can escape “poor” positioning, they were never poorly positioned in the first place. It’s because the heroes have their ability up that the players know they can take risky positioning.
Your view is a common misconception as you think positioning of flankers and other heroes are the same.
God I really hate the term “get out of a jail free cards” like stop making excuses for why these characters were able to escape and why you didn’t output enough dps for the kill. They have abilities that are used to get out because Their gameplay requires them the engage so close to the enemy.
With exception to widow, who does very much get to play at her own ranges. Every other none flanker has to be very careful of their positioning, as they don’t have the tools to escape or immediately undo enemy dives.
A cassidy/ashe/zen/ana/sym and plenty more that gets rushed down/dived on is a dead hero. At least if they don’t immediately outperform the threat in question. Doubly so if you have a comp build around that sort of thing.
Like pushing up with your team and falling in range of a flank, is a tracer pulse bomb waiting to happen.
As once their in the heat of it, their is usually no return till the fights over. Flankers? ya they can dip out get a pack and be back before your 8 sec survival tool cooldown comes back online.
They are to varying degrees, but compared to abilities like translocator, recall + blink, or deflect + dash + double jump + climb, they don’t compare.
Kiriko is the only hero with bigger get out of jail free abilities than flankers.
That’s literally what I was saying, thanks for agreeing I guess?
My point was that positioning on them is far more forgiving. As long as you have your abilities up you essentially don’t have to think about dying.
He certainly does. Deflect combined with the rest of his mobility provides him a bigger get out of jail free card than every non flanker in the game barring Kiriko.
Meh depends on the situation, if you have some one behind a wall sure. If your all grouped up in a team fight and get flanked, their really isn’t anywhere to go. In those situations, it’s at best a free self-cleanse.