I am awful at tanking. Sure I can beat lethal ai bots , but those aren’t players. I don’t know what to do. I keep getting stomped in RQ so I pop over to open Queue hoping to get in a game where there’s another tank player to take some of the pressure off me while I try to figure out how not to overextend or be cart b$$@. I mainly play Ana/Zen/Mercy so I’m never up front.
But then the other tank switches off, or there’s just DPS. So I go back to RQ and…back to being flamed and “tank diff” in match chat
I miss 6v6 where you least had a tank buddy to help.
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Just wait until this upcoming Tuesday where Tank matchmaking should be dramatically better
Tank is the role that benefits most from coaching. You can get to gold just from someone telling you where to stand. It’s actually amazing. Get coaching from fiverr, from Reddit (Overwatch University), maybe even from here 
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Which tank(s) do you like playing? Or maybe I should say, which do you want to like playing?
I’ve been tanking since 2016 and I don’t know how to answer this question
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I like playing Reinhardt and Ramattra. Sigma’s not bad either.
play oq and i will be your rock, or ball rather
i like rq but like, playing certain tanks just doesnt work if your team isnt good enough to coordinate with you
5v5 tanking is harder not just because of -1 tank, but because of -1 teammate and +10 coordination to be able to make plays on less people with less people
most of the rq matches that i lose were because my teammates die before me when im tanking rather than after, and its a bad positioning / bad team play issue. in 6v6 you just shoot whoever one of the tanks is shooting, but in 5v5 there is less tank peel and more effort is required from damage and support heroes
if you have a really bad kdr on tank you need to make sure you are visible to supports, and not over extend, because the deeper you go, the harder it is to escape. play around cover and use the strengths or weaknesses of your tank to bait abilities / cooldowns and be a meat shield for teammates. dont chase elims if they put you in a bad place where you will also die, just apply pressure and get back into the zone youre controlling
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Mind if I add you then?
In one of the matches I won on Reinhardt I had 4 kills to 2 deaths, my torb had 14 kills and bastion had 13, the d.va on my team had 8 and moira had 8. It was attack on Numbani and the other team had a bastion on defense so I was shield juggling. I know my deaths were from overextending like a dummy. I couldn’t do that much cause I needed to cover against Ashe/Bob and other team’s bastion. I had the most deaths on my team, then D.va died once and nobody else got sent back to spawn.
The attack team their hog had 1 kill to 3 deaths, ramattra 2 kills 3 deaths, bastion 2 kills 5 deaths (fire strike go brr) ashe had 2 kills 4 deaths, and kiriko had 1 kill 3 deaths
if you wanna see my gameplay you can watch this replay ETDYD1
i had one of OQ but its gone after the patches
i mostly play hog and ball (if it wasnt evident through my hero levels / playtime) but i do not play comp / ranked so if u want a comp duo, i cant join, but otherwise i can def help you figure out tanking, although sometimes its just up to whether or not your teammates will do the same
watching your hog I think playing him may help learn how to not over extend since his breathilizer is a bit of a bandaid to recover from it
not really. he is easy to punish for over extending. if he anything he does the opposite to the enemy team, as anyone in view is eligible for a good hooking
i dont think any tank really can survive over extension aside from maybe wrecking ball, you just have to stay close to the zone and guard your teammates, and if they wander off into the nether realm just let them die, because its not worth it. also just make sure to be aware of everything before rushing in blindly and you should be good. who knows if as soon as you go through the door you will be slept by ana and bursted by an ult
map knowledge is great also. playing around health packs helps you support yourself. save large hp packs for yourself and small for teammates
TLDR, You shouldn’t be taking in all the aggro.
Use the map to get into close range of the enemy via LOS break, flanks, and highground. So you can save tools like barrier / DM / fortify to eat the big cooldowns, and to reposition safely if need be.
Learn how to kill things quickly and cleanly. A lot of tanks have damage combo’s, and just in general use your tools offensively. The game state doesn’t change till you kill things, and you need to be getting your owns kills and settup kills for your team.
it’s also ideal to kill attack the DPS/support heroes whenever possible. As they will die a lot faster, and those deaths have just as equal influence over the game as killing the tank. It will also force out the enemy support tools like suzu/nade/lamp a lot faster meaning they won’t be in play if your team ults.
if your having issues with specific match up between tanks or on specific heroes. Then just look it up, some top 500 one trick will happily show you to smack , bomb , and punch anything the game can throw at you.
if you have any questions let me know.
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this is also very strong, but sometimes the kill is not worth the trouble and it may be better to hold your ground than to be punished
i love watching tanks get deleted because they chased down a sprinting soldier, or get backcapped by the enemy
My gameplay loop as a tank is:
A create space for team to do their role
B go from cover to cover
C pressure squishies
D rinse and repeat
Sometimes it works, and sometimes it just doesn’t 
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Honestly, the best way is Luck.
If you get lucky, you can be matched in a game with 2 skilled healers. That way, you have better survivability and can be a better Tank in battle.
As general advice, always monitor your health when attacking so if you get too low, say in the 100’s, retreat to a healer to help you. 
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This is kind of bad advice as people would stall out, and not have the resource or health to push in on different targets.
Sometimes you need to wait a cooldown out such as with fortify via trading a bit of barrier health or simply cycling out of the fight to come back when lamp times out.
But it’s a bad idea just to “Hold your ground” if you don’t have a game plan as to why your burning those resources.
This true tho, you shouldn’t be chasing targets solo and prioritizing targets around our team.
Be a little more aggressive than you think is actually safe and use natural cover. You have to trust your team will take the pressure off you when you make a move otherwise you will always be paralyzed.
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when i play with randoms and blow the tank to 0 hp with my roadhog ult i get smoked by the enemy team every time 
i have to play with at least one support in group to prevent that from happening