For 90% of the playerbase, Hog is not the only playable tank because he’s the “only one that can live”. The reason you are dying is because you are making mistakes that gets you punished as you should be.
Hog is by design one of the easiest heroes to play like a drooling moron without getting punished for it because it takes multiple people to kill him, and if there’s no hard CC to stop his breather or anti nade on him at the right moments, you can basically walk away from anything.
Whenever you boast about your medals playing Hog, just know that your medals are coming at the expense of not robbing the rest of your teammates’ ability of doing anything. The other tank is stuck with a Hog who probably plays just for himself so they get bodied by the enemy tankline. The DPS has less space and opportunity to work with. The supports will likely be overheating trying to keep everyone alive due to having lower damage mitigation.
So I don’t want to argue, but there are some key points here we should recognize. What’s been described here is generally bad play/team play. As a unified group, Hog will make a difference in the team effectiveness by his frontline/flanking threat. The point to hog isn’t direct damage mitigation as much as it is space control/threat deterrent, as well as a good shot at a solid pick which can turn a 6v6 into a 6v5 very quickly.
If people are playing solo-minded, of course what you say holds perfect merit, but in the hands of a team that isn’t bad this becomes a different situation.
So what this is isn’t really about Hog being a crutch for bad tanks, it becomes him being a crutch for people who don’t play team-minded… and in that event it’s not really a crutch then, is it?
If the other tank is melting, and the support are struggling… that’s a situation that needs a cruch, not is one. Unless the opposite of what you’re trying to say here is true, in that Hog will carry…
So the mindset of this post is a bit ambiguous to discern your true opinion, other than drooling idiots can play hog.
It is because the people who play Hog like you mentioned play him well, that is how you get value out of Hog when played at higher levels, that’s his fundamental design flaw. He’s anti overwatch.
The problem with the people who aren’t top players is that they fail at actually getting that value because they don’t understand their timing, they don’t understand that they can actually continue to exist whenever their hook isn’t ready to go and that their weapon does do damage to things that haven’t been hooked.
People who don’t fundamentally understand how to play tank well will not get how to play Hog well.
Lol. Why? They have one less tank they have to keep up who they can now ignore.
You actually don’t need two tanks for damage sponging. A second tank is useful for peeling for the main tank or the back line sometimes but you don’t need one. Especially if hog is creating threat and getting fast picks. Sorry a hog disrupted your game but tanking just isn’t fun anymore and it’s not hog players’ fault.
Nah, I COULD play tank, and actually I got quite good at it when I put the effort in and changed my mindset. The issue is you need teamplay to capitalize on teamplay. Without coordination, you are often stuck as a martyr praying your team does something. Hog removes that element from tanking.
So yes, he is a crutch, but good tanks can take advantage of it just as much as bad tanks can. Much more reliably in fact. Bad Hogs are just deadweight anyways. And Hog is the only tank who comfortably plays into Hog which means you have the added benefit of drawing out an enemy Hog to hold them back.
-Drops my Rein shield from right behind a corner so I can try to peek and do a Fire Strike
-Gets stunned and blown up in under a second.
Oh, yes, I totally misplayed that. I definitely shouldn’t have tried to do anything other than hold up my shield or hide behind corners…
Hog isn’t even a hard tank to punish. People are picking him because his output isn’t as team reliant. As a reinhardt, you literally need a support sitting on you or else you’re useless. As hog, you have at least a sliver of independence.
because the 1 tank isn’t being supported by the other. It’s not like a Reinhardt who gets bubbles from a Zarya or DM from a D.va. He takes all of the damage and when that shield breaks, he’s gone.
The support comes from threat deterrent and hook and frontline/flank damage. It seperates focus and displaces the enemy. Tanking isn’t just about being a damage sponge with a shield.
If you are getting stunned from range you got hit by a sleep, if you know they have an Ana and don’t play accordingly then yes, that is your fault. When I play Ana I literally look for the fire strike animation because that’s the easiest time to hit a sleep on a Rein.
So, in theory, bad hogs never get focus fired, never get anti’d or slept, never get frozen, never miss their hook or blow their hook timing themselves, don’t give the enemy team too much ult charge, and don’t miss any shots.
By now I think we should all recognize that unless you are smurfing, with quite a rank disparity, it is unlikely any one pick or player will carry that hard due to simply the pick.
Except an enemy Rein can’t wail on your team’s tank without a 2 second zarya bubble for fear of getting hooked. And if hog is hooking enemies then Sigma, Zarya, D.va etc have to burn their abilities to save those enemy teammates which they can no longer use on their other tank, equalizing the playing field. Also your team’s supports can just give the main tank almost all the resources anyway since hog has his breather to fall back on.
So basically never play Reinhardt unless you have a whole coordinated team dedicated to you. Got it. If anything you should have made a post complaining about Ana since she is a bigger crutch than hog.
Again, this is how good Hogs will play it. This is not how 90% of Hogs play it. They have no sense of timing or presence. They do these things once the teamfight is already over.
They rarely do, as it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, the lower you go in ranks the less likely all of these things becoming, making a hard to punish hero, nearly impossible to punish.
Right, so the best play is to… literally never use fire strike as rein.
(also, it’s not like McCree’s stun isn’t ranged… Or even Hog’s stun. Or Sigma’s.)
You can say “Just wait out the sleep dart!” But if Ana can keep you from EVER lowering your shield with sleep dart, you’re basically saying “don’t play the game until she uses 1 cd.”
So your problem isn’t with Hog, it’s with poor players. News flash: bad players play badly. With any hero. A bad support or dps is just as bad as a bad Hog.