I’ve played mostly tanks and supports since OW1 in 2017 and frankly, I don’t think the game has ever felt so good to play in a macro sense. The S9 health changes, HP regen passive, the respawn syncing, all of these have been massive wins in my book. But the biggest, for me, ended up being the change to solo tanking
I absolutely love how tank feels in the current context of the game. I love drawing aggro, blocking off ults, feeling like a crazy necessary threat to deal with. I love the puzzle solving feeling of learning to play around counters, frankly I don’t even swap when countered over half the time because I actually put in the effort to play my role, and not just the misguided rock-paper-scissors approach so many tanks have
If I lose my HP, my self healing, my ability to control my fights, my agency… I’m done. I can’t go back. Even tank synergy wouldn’t feel worth it, because I’d forever feel like my hero just isn’t as strong as they should be. The worst thing that could be done to the tank role is making them feel individually weaker and forcing them to rely on their co-tank to exist, because that’s antithetical to what new OW2 players learned about the game more than OW1 players who had games ranging from 0-3 tanks all the time
I don’t think the game would recover from telling their entire tank playerbase to just suck it up and be less powerful, forever, in exchange for a co-tank when most of the time nobody even DOES synergy on purpose below diamond. And unless you want tanks to be giga-er than they are, 1-3-2 is a completely nonviable option. “Limit 1, max 3” still leaves a solo tank way weaker than they would be in 5v5, I still don’t like or want that. Really hoping this experiment doesn’t end up permanently ruining the game for me
If I’m winning because I’m outplaying a “counter” how am I doing it wrong? Like, I’m not just gonna swap off DVa because a Zarya who doesn’t actually main her appeared. If I’m better, I’m staying on my hero and laughing as they swap 4 times to figure out what to even do about me. It happens on Ball, DVa, Sigma, Rein, Zarya, Mauga… the point I’m making is, counterpicking can be effective but if you think picking a hero with advantage just means you win against them, that’s not exactly correct
Think Pokémon, water beats fire but if fire sets up sun it can kill water with solar beam
Or you be a chad and continue to play the hero you like and dominate the enemy tank even with their counter. After the counter does not work they panic and its a free win.
2-2-2 with an Orisa, Doomfist, Roadhog, and Hazard rework so they can protect their allies would make the tank experience better. The problem with those 4 Tanks I listed is that they cannot share their Tankiness with their other Tank in 2-2-2, because all they currently do is block damage for their-self only.
I see this as a big plus. Tank synergies are kind of opressive and make the game very one dimensional as they have in the past. To have both teams play with tanks as TANKS and not as synergistic pieces, is the best experience.
Sigma Dva against Winston Rein is kind of refreshing.
Counterpicking happens regardless of the map. If you have a hog/dva, but the enemy team has a Rein/Zarya, you are fighting a pretty large up hill battle. Both go through dva and zarya can bubble whoever gets grabbed.
On tank its either swap or lose. Literally the example above. If your other tank doesn’t swap. its going to feel bad.
“Tank gets all the pressure.” You don’t need another tank to relieve the pressure. You have 2 supports and 2 DPS that can do it. We don’t need another tank relieve anything. DPS and supports need to step it up.
Having said that, I feel the game is still much better under 5v5 for nuances I don’t wanna list right now, but I’m willing to put up with losses of 6v6 for the stuff I prefer with 5v5.
I think for 6v6 to work, they would need to cut down synergies to open the playing field. No idea how, but while current tanking sucks, being dependent on a teammate to play the correct tank with you, was completely out of your control.
That’s the other thing to me as well. Having double tanks can let you cycle abilities to have a very high amount of sustain period with the right tank set-up while in other situations it feels like there is next to no sustain.
A JQ / Hammond team will let in so much trash damage if you were to play against a Rama/Dva team. However, in either situation the amount of damage from 6 total players will ALWAYS be high, but the amount of sustain will be highly variable.
Meanwhile, in 5v5, the amount of damage will vary like with 2 tanks, but the extremes of sustain can at best turn into like 1 shield. But, the amount of damage is dramatically reduced.
On the flip side, what about the reverse scenario? Rein and Sigma can block tons of damage, but how do they work together to stop a Doomfist, Hammond, Genji and Echo from dismantling their backline on repeat from several angles? Just… all in double shield, or bunker brawl with Moira Bap and Brig? The thing we… went to OW2 5v5 to avoid?
I get how you feel OP. I wouldn’t necessarily quit. It would depend on how they handled it. I also prefer 5v5, but my hill to die on (so to speak) is role queue. If 6v6 meant no role queue, that might make me leave. Also if tanks somehow ended up weaker than they were in Overwatch 1, that would also make me quit.
I totally get it and felt the same way prior to Overwatch Classic. Overwatch Classic taught me that apparently I am a much better player when you take away all of my toys. Seriously, I gap every Reinhardt I run into on Classic. I am developing an ego. If I can dominate with 75 hammer swings, one fire strike, no charge cancel and none of the passives against those busted kill confirms… What can’t I do?
Give me 50 hammer swings, no Firestrike, no charge, and a passive where I take increased damage and I am still going to be better than most Overwatch players. I am sorry, it’s true.
