As a tank/support flex player, I can already see how the changes are going to drastically alter all roles’ playstyle.
Let me start on the Tank role and how much it will change:
From the two livestreams we’ve received of gameplay, one thing is clear: the team with their tank still alive after the first engagement wins. Tanks who are passive (i.e. AFK) and just wait until the enemy tank is dead and then pressure the enemy see far more success than those who try and create space themselves and hard engage. Rein and Winston have consistently looked terrible. This is undoubtedly due to the lack of an off-tank to support the space making endeavor, as well as tighter maps and more mobile DPS who more easily secure off angles that cannot be contested by the non-existent off-tank.
Ultimately what this means is tanks are no longer responsible for creating space. Instead, we’ll see tanks turn into AFK babysitters for their backline.
This brings us to DPS.
It will now become the “job” of DPS to make space for their tanks and supports. After all, the DPS class has the most mobility in the game, as well as the most firepower. Flanking and playing aggressive angles will allow for the tank and supports to then engage enemies as they alter their defenses to deal with DPS. DPS with higher mobility and survivability will perform significantly better than those without. More than likely, one support player will aid this endeavor (likely Mercy/Lucio) to help create space and pressure.
This brings us to the final role, and the one I believe will be in for the rudest awakening of all- Supports.
With less players to peel and protect them, supports who have made their living healbotting will soon “go the way of the dodo”. Healing isn’t necessary, and the higher your rank now, the more you understand this now.
But the average Joe Schmoes who just healbot away are going to be crippling to their teammates when the other team has two supports blasting at your team. TTK is fully expected to decrease in OW2, and with universal healing nerfs, there is little reason to believe healbotting will be an effective strategy. So from the support lineup, players must now lean more on DPSish playstyles than healbotting. In addition to this general change, with one less tank to peel and protect them, Support players must also be capable duelists, able to defend themselves and outplay flankers and win 1v1s or else get farmed. In all honesty, it’s asking too much from a single role, much as tank does now, one of the many reasons people don’t like playing it. “Oh I have to manage my cooldowns, protect my teammates, control our positioning, do damage, carry the objective, and take just the right amount of damage without dying?”
^See, tanking asks too much from players, as Support will in OW2.
Instead, what we will see is pacified tank play where they are fully dependent on DPS to make space by flanking or securing “the pick” that then greenlights engagements for the rest of the team. Remember, nothing we’ve seen suggests losing your one and only tank is a winning strategy. Quite the opposite. While one support provides frontline aid and pressure with the DPS, the other plays the backline with the AFK tank babysitter. Tanks who have better abilities for babysitting while enabling the frontline will be significantly better than those who lack it. It’s why I fully expect Zarya, D.Va and Sigma to hard carry the role, while Winston, Rein and Ball become virtually non-existent.
There will be a steep learning curve to this, but ultimately what it does is puts more power in the hands of DPS. They dictate the engagements. They dictate the pace. They dictate the objective. And this is exactly what Blizzard wants- their most popular role to create a suckfest for everyone else while DPS players get to run the game.
As of now, good tanks with competent supports control the game and DPS are the least impactful. When tanks and supports are bad on the enemy team, your DPS carry. By castrating supports and eliminating a tank, there is more potential than ever for DPS to just carry any game regardless of how good their tanks or supports are.