It feels like the only way to get value on Tanks is get on the enemy, the problem is when you do that you die. And if you don’t do that, you never get space and die anyways, albeit slightly slower. Can any Tank players help out?
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In my experience Tank and Support players go hand in hand.
Tanks require supports to play more aggressively, and Supports rely on protection from tanks
Tanks can only take and claim space when there is a distraction being caused and chaos erupting, not even a 600HP target is safe from 6 sources of focus fire, things need to be done to split the attention.
I typically go Roadhog when I need to start splitting attention if my team won’t do it well, since getting the initial pick puts a lot of pressure on the enemy. It’s all about knowing when to press W. The more kills your team has, the more you move forward and the more space you claim.
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Always watch you positioning and the enemies’. Try to keep your healers where they can get to you. Wait for your team to get in position rather than go shorthanded.
Track enemy cooldowns. When they’ve used them is the best time to advance. If you’ve used yours, don’t go in until you’ve got them back.
Learn to stage. You don’t have to push all the way to the objective at once. It’s perfectly fine to move to a better position and then stop to regather cooldowns.
You may have a shield depending on tank, but never forget walls are the best shields in the game.
Don’t play to pop off, play to survive. You’ll naturally get the most value simply by staying alive. Don’t be afraid to disengage if things go bad; knowing when to go back as well as forward is a great skill to learn.
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Damage is the most meaningful thing any character can do. Tanks just do it with less range than most DPS.
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stay alive and go for safe plays long enough for your healers to build ult. It’s far easier for them to pump heals into a low health tank and gain ult charge than it is them focus healing your dps the whole time. Taking damage is good as a tank and is necessary to build support ult charge which will enable you. Just don’t get killed through dumb plays and figure out the best time to go aggressively.
Dva for example can and should both defend her team and go killing enemies. Determining what should be done in any given scenario is what’s most important. Will you get value? Is it going to change the fight to your benefit?
Sometimes you will just get killed from full health and there’s nothing you can do. Expect that to happen and know it’s not necessarily your fault. If it happens constantly, it’s time to reconsider what exactly it is you’re doing to cause that.
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Stop treating tank like a tank and treat it like fat DPS.
Run around the map. Hide. Shoot. Flank. Run away. Ambush the backline. Stop bodying enemy tanks and focus on killing their supports and DPS.
Stop playing like an actual tank. Become a 600HP flanker. Blizzard has mostly crippled tanks from tanking.
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Check your DPS teammates and know in advance where they want to go for their max value.
For a tank, you can earn value just by blocking damage, especially so if you can cover your team mates. While it’ll vary from tank to tank, if you’re having trouble initiating, you can’t really go wrong with using a ranged ability or movement as all Tanks have something here that can be useful.
Reinhardt; Firestrike
D.va: Boosters or Missiles,
Orisa: Basic fire or assisting with Halt. Even deploying barriers towards allies in front can be useful
Zarya: RMB or alternative fire has fairly substantial range and damage when charged up.
Roadhog: Hook is a hard initiator, but good positioning here is more required.
Sigma: Accretion or basic fire.
Winston: Jump Pack (combined with barrier) works fairly well for hard initiating. Be aware that this can be risky and know what you’re jumping into. With OW2, Winston will have some safer options.
Typically tanks need to be the distraction for the Damage-role heroes to make their moves. Tanks can’t really go all-out offensively and need to be able to judge when they need to break off the defenses and make a strong offensive push. Taking an aggressive defense usually means being pro-active and not sitting in chokes or narrow corridors or hallways.
Quoted for emphasis.
Not exactly true. You want to avoid doing damage for the sake of it, (or put it another way, heal-able) and make sure your damage contributes to a kill, or even makes the kill. Suppressive fire isn’t quite doing damage, but more of a strategy of threatening space and forcing enemy targets into certain situations.
This is false and poor advice.
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Another tip I have been saying to not only tanks but to everyone, in general, is to use the natural coverage and map to your advantage. As someone said, support and tanks go hand to hand.
Typically tanks set the pace of the game, but also you have to make sure that your team is reciprocating the same tone/ pace because if you play aggressively and your support is not supporting that aggressive pace, then it just ends up you dying and feeding the enemy team.
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If you are inting, it is really just because your team is not following up. So, contrary to how the game is properly played, you need to slow it down. And watch in amazement as they still do absolutely nothing.
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My team inting with me=me on Rein all match.
My team running away and just watching me die=immediate swap to Hog/Ball. You don’t want a Rein, you want a shield.
It’s sad when you can tell in the first team fight if your team is capable of playing around your hero.
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If you’re in QP, just go YOLO and then dial it back down to where you’re not dying so much. You’ll find a point where the supports are just barely keeping you alive. Every time you play, find ways to extend the amount you can go aggro without dying.
Don’t worry about keeping your health at 100%. Split the damage between your health and your shield. Think of the shield as a way for your healers to catch up with their heals rather than for preventing damage.
If you’re in comp, start slow and gauge your teams ability to follow you before ramping up the aggression. I’ve been constantly called too aggressive whenever i tried playing comp.
Just because i play Orisa doesn’t mean i have to stay in the back.
The thing is tho, even tho i play aggro, i never actually initiate a push. I take my cue from the rest of the team and just try to get ahead of them when they do. When the Genji and McCree ran ahead of me… “okay, we’re all in then”.
When your team is aggressive, the last thing you want is to slow them down.
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what is “inting” and what do people mean when they say it
Claiming space aggressively is key
Have you ever had your team afraid to push in, just poking at the choke?
And then your Winston suddenly spams voicelines and leaps past entire choke, onto enemies and you feel that sudden urge to run in and help him? That’s what tanks should do
Intentionally feeding, like a rein charging over and over into enemy team alone, hoping to randomly pin someone but keeps getting instakilled
Never had that happen to me.
Inting = feeding? So it’s just a new term that means the same thing as feeding?
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Oh. I thought it meant “initiating”, like starting a push or getting in the enemies’ faces or something. But your definition sounds like the right one. 
In modern overwatch, you practically require either a team dive or an initial dps pick. If your dps are trash then gg.
Be smart about it attack but always have a way out if things get bad.
Reinhart can use walls to escape or give healers time to heal you back up.
Tanks like dva or Winston most manage their cool downs very well if things get bad kind like doomfist players use their punch to escape.
Continue inting, but pay attention to when and how it goes bad and pull it back. Just how far past the corner could you get? Can you go in aggro, tank a bit, and back off for heals? Did you die but get a 5v3 advantage in the process? Some of playing tank is ultimately tactical feeding and you just have to find the limits. Much better than playing passively.
It’s from other communities. Same way you see people use heroes/toons/characters/champions for the things you play when officially in Overwatch it’s heroes