How to properly implement 3-2-1

Competitive Discussion
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Team A selects off tank, team B doesn’t. Team A wins easy, who to blame?

For me this is the last straw, i am quiting overwatch and will never play another blizzard game. They destroy every game, just because they only listen to sales people instead of game designers… Every decision they seem to take is to further destroy the game. I said before 2-2-2: game and players are not ready for it, it will create more problems then fix. And i was right.

Same counts for roles and this decision: Most tanks need support of their team to work(like all shield tanks). You now already have mostly 2 dps that ignore their team… Soon we will have 3. All none mobile tanks will become useless, because they get easily overrun, flanked or surrounded. They will be nothing more then shield bots standing on point waiting for the slaughter.
Playing rein with a good zarya is lots of fun. So rein can also use its hammer from time to time and go full aggressive. Even dva matrix etc did the same job.
A solo tank can not create/hold space. So tanks will be nothing more as a dps hero with a bit more health, just flanking around. Or a shield bot/someone who stand on point/car while the rest is flanking around.

The 1-3-2 change will only change into a sniper/flanker dive tank meta, with 1 poor bastard standing on the car. Or a hero like mei playing as 2nd tank.

The group based shooter i bought will become a solo frag game shooter just like cs:go.Another CS clone. Just with different heroes, but still no roles or much teamwork.

So this will be my last post.
I am going to wait for Camelot unchained.(niche game build for a small % of the players, and will not be influenced to what the masses want, so it becomes another clone of a game 1000 times cloned already ) Lets hope they will keep their promises and make a good game that will not be destroyed by salesman.
Maybe see you there.

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so what is the problem with 2-2-2 where you can only have one shield tank at a time?

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If they do all this crap I just hope they first implement this in qp for a long long time and then when everybody is fairly used to it, we can have it in competitive.
Maybe some of you don’t understand it, but shifting all the balance of the game to accommodate 321 will dramatically change the experience of an off tank. I see the misconception way too often here that the role of an off tank is to rush for kills on a fat tank a$$. No babies, the role of an off tank is to peel for backline and enforce the positioning of the main tank. Changing the entire hero pool to make this change effective will mean that in low rank main tanks will be almost unkillable and that all the DPS will stop playing rewarding heroes like genji or mc cree. I tell you what the meta would look like: Main tank just is the hero that can fcking push the enemy team like a train the most, one DPS will always be locked on Reaper/Mei to counter him and DVA/Zarya will be mandatory to deal with that DPS. And playing Dva and Zarya will not be fun as you hope, but just counter pick patrol, even worse than now, as DPS will have even a worse impact on the flow of the game, since you just need to focus the tank, kill him and then it’s just deatmatch for the rest of the fight.

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Its actually very good for the game you see it as only 1 tank but if they add 3 dps to the game it means they can move the off tanks to the dps role and you never know we might be getting a lot more utility heroes with overwatch 2.

the off tanks all work fine been changed with lower hp and more damage and its not like any of them see play now anyway why would anyone play dva/hog/zarya a dva and wrecking ball with both reduced hp and a little more damage would open up fun comps it would also make dive comp meta again seen as tho dva would be moved to the dps slot.

You can still play mei/zarya/reaper with a rein it would just be impossible to play double shield like we have every game now the big problem about 2-2-2 is 3 dps players can outplay rein/zarya but they cant outplay orisa/sigma because together with the pull they take so much space just from abilities nvm they can 1v1 any dps hero because they can shield and shoot at the same time.

Its the same for winston/dva 1 tank winston and 3 dps can beat 2 tank dive because sombra is in the game.

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Thats basically what this change is but we would also have the option to play 3 dps instead of an off tank with the main tank.

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Everyones just calling it 321

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yeah but we should have 3 dps its should be 2-2-2 1-3-2 that is dumb like hog is one of the best dps so no you wouldnt have 3dps you will always pretty much have hog and 2dps we havee 2-2-2 for a reason this community is not responsible enough to play 2-2-2 without it being forced on them. so why think from 1-3-2 they are going to think this time the community is going to be responsible.

literally you play dota or LoL compettively and people dont have to be forced into picking supports for top and bottom lane that is the community.

blizzard knows the community is going to not do what they are suppose to and continues to just make it more possible to flame each other. not sure how this makes them more money but i know it does and thats why they do everything they do. prob it promotes buying a bunch of alt accounts.

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Could just make dps slot a flex slot for 1,3,2. Then you get 3 team structures for 1 minor change:

  • 1 tank,3 dps, 2 supports
  • 2 tank,2 dps, 2 support
  • 1 tank,2 do, 3 support

Solves problem with leavers 2…assuming the game automatically reassigns flex to another dps if dps flex is a leaver.

And you have some role variability in a game that could be more focused on map geography…I hope :joy:

Android auto correct…is so bad.

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And what, radically reduce their health? At that point their fundamentally different characters, but I guess it could work.

Though I don’t want to play a 250 hp Zarya or Hog. That’s just sounds like a bad time.

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jeff said it would be 400hp hog and no damage reduction on the self heal ^

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Giving tanks even less options to counter something will just make the few tank mains left quit.

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yeah this is what I complained about it before when people said that 3 dps was valid, it was a true statement, but what they didn’t mention was that 3 dps was valid on attack but almost always throwing on defense. in general 2/2/2 is necessary or the tank’s decisions on defense become far more important than anything the dps are doing.

if they implement this system, I would expect wrecking ball, reinhardt and orisa to be valid on offense, but ball probably will be unfavored if you continue to play him on defense.

anyway I mentioned to blizzard that this was an option before role queue almost a year ago, but it seems like we are moving in this direction due to the lack of people wanting to play tank. But honestly this just makes me want to play tank less, so I would expect tank players to decrease under this system. However, with a 3:1 ratio to the tank I expect queue times will still improve drastically even if many people are not willing to play tank.

I expect that eventually they will have to use auto-fill to some extent like in league of legends. People just don’t want to play the roles that aren’t good at carrying. and low damage main tanks are probably the worst in the game at carrying unless you queue with a good player (off tank or dps) to function as your reliable damage. too much teamwork is required. But maybe I’m biased as I’m a player that played off tank 3 times as many hours as main tank because I felt that off tank was stronger as long as someone played main tank for you.

as off tank I can carry so hard. as a 3200 max tank, you can put me in a ranked game below 2600 and tape my W button down and I will still carry as zarya. With roadhog I grab so many targets (no one dodges even up till diamond. they don’t believe any hog can aim I guess) that even if my dps are killing nothing, they eventually run out of cooldowns to block my hook and we push. dva is a free win if the enemy isolate themselves or if a healer doesn’t respect my ability to dive them when they move to heal.

the main reason off tank carries better than main tank is that off tanks typically get 3 times (my guess based off of comparing reinhardt and zarya killing blows) as many kills as main tanks, and this carries games.

However, a team with a main tank is favored to win against a team without a main tank. why? It is because the damage to shield doesn’t contribute to ults.

the enemy team probably gets 3-4 less ults over the course of the game and this makes a huge difference. Another interesting effect of this is that this typically helps the team with a shield tank even more on 2cp and escort than on koth maps.

it especially helps the team on defense. But on offense if the main tank is getting only a couple kills here and there, it isn’t enough to make up for dps getting no kills outside of their ult.

Off tank can make up for that lack of dps. wrecking ball is probably the solo exception with the potential to get enough solo kills to carry even if your dps don’t hit anything. (I honestly think all main tanks should be brought up to this level of strength).

but basically the strength of shields makes main tanks difficult to balance. if you buff them then they are too strong at defending, but as they are they can’t contribute to offense enough. Don’t get me wrong I know they can get kills, but statistically they are getting far far fewer than the off tank role.

Tank balance is probably the current biggest issue in overwatch, which is why so few people want to play it. an absolutely necessary position that people want someone else to play. That is what main tank is.

Anyway I think this is a good idea probably. I think it was either this or force fill, but I think they will end up having to do both. We will see.

If you allow off tanks to stay balanced as they are and remain unchanged then 2/2/2 will completely destroy the ladder while stomping the 1/3/2 people.

However, I think blizz already knows that the off tanks have to either be moved to dps or tank. I think moving them to dps is easier, but that would require a total change. just dropping their hp to 200 would make them trash tier, so it would require a lot of reworks.

However, if they are moved to dps there won’t be many tanks, and then meta considerations will dictate very few tanks get played anyway. With only 1 person on the role having the correct tank will matter a huge amount

I’m kind of excited and curious about this change. Though I don’t think I will play tank much in the new system except to see how the off tanks have changed. But maybe the occasional game as wrecking ball at least. If wrecking ball is top tier then I will probably queue only tank, but otherwise I would find most of the other characters to spend too little time actually aiming to have much fun.

fast skilled movement can also be fun, but in my opinion this is also something only wrecking ball has.

In terms of fun,
wrecking ball >> zarya/roadhog/sigma > dva >>>>> orisa/winston > reinhardt.

though I feel a little bad for rating winston so low, he’s pretty much something I only want to play when I am eating/relaxing and don’t want to focus and practically play one handed. no mechanics required, basic game sense and you get value, but very easily countered.

I still think main tanks need major buffs that aren’t related to their shield strength (in particular winston needs more damage, reinhardt needs to be able to fire strike and get kills more often. I recommend dropping the ult charge rate of fire strike and then dropping its cooldown to every 4 sec. orisa could use another projectile speed increase if there is no longer an option for double shield.

wrecking ball is probably fine… what a great character. damage + mobility + disruption = fun

1 Like
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400 HP hog with self healing ability and hook on DPS slot just sounds like a fatter reaper.

He’ll play exactly the same except there’ll just be less tanks in the game.

Meanwhile, I assume Zarya is getting her health cut, right?

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If you do a 121+2flex you’re basically accepting 141 in the ‘most selfish’ scenario (+2dps), but could adjust matchmaking pbsr for solo tank or healer.

If you do a 121+2fill, you can probably leave every hero as-is, or minimize the amount of ‘reclassification’ rework.

The 2 fill slots would have access to roadhog and zarya if those are considered offtanks. But they also get stuff like Mei and Brig which are ‘tank-like’. They might have ‘main’ types greyed out, like heavy tanks, carry damage, or main heals. And you could always revise the choices per season or per map if you’re seeing unwanted results.

Note the tryhards will still converge on a narrow band of metas just like always. In all likelihood that will resemble 132 on attack and 222 on defense, although 123 and 321 never come off the table entirely - you just restrict which versions because of the fill requirements.

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Anyone suggesting that whichever iteration of the numbers “3-2-1” is incorrect because of the order of the numbers… grow up you toddlers. It’s entirely obvious what is being discussed and you look like a foolish child. Hate the importance than unintelligent people place on unimportant things.

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I’ll also point out, Jeff Kaplan himself referred to it as 3-2-1

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Exactly what I had in mind. Good post. However what about 2-3-2 (2 tanks, 3 dps and 2 supports) and boost healings all around board let’s say 5-10%.

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I made a thread about that idea days ago, there were many intelligent reasons it would not work. It was also brought up with Jeff and he said the game engine is designed for 12 players per match not 14.

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Can you show me the ideas or link?

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