Tanks are in a horrific state right now, arguably have been since the original barrier patch, and I believe it’s down to poor balance philosophy at this point. In 2-2-2 the roles don’t have to be equal. The devs have been breaking their backs trying to keep the balance between the power levels of the roles when it simply isn’t as necessary anymore. There won’t be another goats, there is no point worrying about dps getting pushed out anymore - there will always be two.
In fact, if all tanks were made strong, but equal within their own roles would balance out support and dps quite nicely, as certain ones would be viable in conjunction with their different tanks.
This isn’t to say tanks should just steamroll everything, but they should be tanky and threatening do the game actually functions with how the maps and classes are designed
Tanks are the frontline, tanks make space, tanks should not be non-threatening ultimate batteries
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Personally not a big fan…
Even if you’re right I still think a player should carry in every role.
I personally think the best way is to just make sure every role does different things rather than trying to make every tank a fat dps.
2-2-2 was really made as a lazy solution for goats. But it doesn’t mean we should embrace that lack of balance and continue just because every role is forced to exist…
Just my philosophy of course but I believe that:
- Tanks should be responsible for protection and space
- Dps should be responsible for high damage and kill securing
- Support should be responsible for consistent healing and team utility
That way you can still carry with every role but no role is too strong because no role can do everything.
You can’t really expect a high hp dps with protection to be balanced just because it is slightly bigger…
I know some fps players wouldn’t love it but I really don’t see a reason to split heroes into different roles if at the end of the day they either do the same thing or one role is invading the other ones job.
I think it’s a matter of degrees. I don’t at all buy into tanks just being fat DPS, but more along the lines of “able to do threatening damage with more limitations than DPS, with a side of protection.” Then of course, each individual tank will come in different combinations of DPS and damage mitigation. Hog leaning most towards DPS, Orisa leaning most towards damage mitigation.
Personally, I think the reason why the playerbase thinks tanks intrude on the Damage role is because we have quite a few short range DPS heroes that have to operate in a tank’s effective range. The balancing factor should be that DPS in general outrange tanks, so tanks have to use their mitigation to close said distance and then apply their damage, which should an essence stay strong enough to win a 1v1 when HP pools get factored in. So in short, tanks win close, DPS win far. But if a tank can contest you at 20m and your effective range starts to drop off after 10m as a DPS, you’re going to get bullied.
tl;dr devs should double down on range as a clear distinction between the damage class and Tanks instead of DPS, since tanks having damage output is what makes them fun to play in an FPS.
They still are. Tanks can reliably one versus one most tank busters. It is just that they are so much weaker than when they were overpowered that now people act like they are useless.
The real problem remains to be CC. And as long as clowns keep pretending that damage is higher now despite it being at its lowest… The problem will never get addressed.
To me it still looks like a pretty small difference if we’re talking range alone…
I agree not all tanks are fat dps. But Hog can secure kills very easily with a very respectable range of 15meters.
Even with range changes, you just make longer range dps heroes better because they have more chance to counter tanks… Especially with Orisa being a thing.
I’m not claiming everyone should love my philosophy but in my opinion a balanced tank in term of design should be focused around having some sort of tool to make space for it’s team, and use its damage to scare enemies away and only kill them if they insist on coming closer.
Winston is a pretty good example tbh.
He uses his shield to stop damage, combined with his leap he claims the space he puts the bubble on, and only able to kill enemies if they stay for more than 3.33333 seconds. So tanks use their survive ability to stall and their damage to scare.
Not saying 3.3333 is overall a good time but between 2-3 seconds should be good.
While dps should either get kills pretty easily with a combo like Mei’s freeze+headshot,mccree’s flash bang+fan the hammer combo or Widow’s one shot snipe or do much more damage than any other hero like how Bastion has tons of range and can do up to 450 damage per second (not including reload) or how Symmetra is capeable of doing 300 damage per second with everything in her kit fully charged.
But again, other splits work as well. But it’s important there will be a real difference that relies on the name of the role.
Tanks are impactful, if you lose your main tank you are often in a bad spot. However the issue with tanks is that they rely too much on their team.
They are only non-threating when in a small group, otherwise they can easily force you back.
What we can try doing is making tanks better at compensating missing teammates.