So the devs finally admitted tank hardcounters are a problem (but I promise you 30 bots will flock to this thread to say it’s not) they are looking to address, so now the questions are:
What tanks have problematic hardcounters
What buffs should be made to soften those counters (or potentially nerfs to the counter)
What compensation nerfs are needed to keep the tank fair to play against without having the counter
Keep in mind that one of the biggest problems with the counterswap crisis is that the tanks that have hardcounters need to be overbuffed to insane proportions to make up for how impossible it is to play against their hardcounter, but in effect all this does is make it miserable to play against for anyone not running a hardcounter (see all the threads raging about d.va right now over a buff that d.va mains didn’t even want)
So one example I think stuns/hack/hindered are clearly too effective against wrecking ball. A potential fix to this would be to make him stay in ball form while stunned similar to how stuns don’t take bastion out of turret form. To compensate they should nerf adaptive shields and his max hp to lower his survivability elsewhere. This would make it that stuns are still strong against wrecking ball but not devastating, while also making it more realistic to kill him without stuns. I’m not entirely attached to this idea, but it’s all I could think of without reworking him again (I remember hearing someone suggest turning adaptive shields into a parry ability and thought that was an interesting concept)
If all 5 enemies are playing a beam hero, then what does defense matrix, the most powerful ability in your kit, accomplish exactly? Seems like a hard counter to me
Give Reinhardt damage and boop resistance while he is holding his shield up (perhaps only when his shield is over half HP). It’s relatively obvious. As it stands, you wouldn’t even need a lot of it either. Just a touch and you could easily play him into his hard counters while still retaining his counterplay for other tanks.
Rework them likebthey did Orisa. You dont get to keep the design where you counter the entire roster but now have your counters effectiveness reduced. If this is the format they want to stick with, they need to stop being lazy about it and actually homogenise the tank roster.
The tank heroes were created on counter and be countered philosophy. You take out the be countered part then take our the counter psrt as well. Otherwise pray for 6v6
Revert dvas matrix change and give her a Zarya like bubble with a short duration (only protective and not empowering) and bind it to the reload button. This will strengthen her against beams without making them completely useless against her. Active value instead of passive value.
(Of course going back to 6v6 is preferable to further making tanks broken)
For hog, significantly nerf self healing and buff up damage resistance. He will basically be a blocking ram in vape form.
Meanwhile make pig pen necessary for his one shot again. Also make the cd similar to pylon cd so he can’t just place a new pen as soon as you destroy previous one
I think the first thing I’d do is revert most of the character specific tank changes from the s11.5 patch. There’s some stuff that can stay. For example, I don’t think anyone cares about Winston’s snipe feeling a bit better to use.
Then I’d try out D.Va’s DM having a secondary block mechanic a la Ram, Doom; while DM is active, she takes X% less damage from the front. Folks can fight amongst themselves as to what the value of X should be.
I’d also lower Rein and Winston’s barrier HP a bit. For Rein, I’d compensate him with extra movement speed. Again, folks can fight amongst themselves as to what form that should take exactly. Should it be a baseline movement speed? Lower or outright removed self-snare on holding up barrier? Something fancier like the joke mode stuff where Rein gets a speed boost if his barrier breaks or whatever it was? I’m not fussy. I’m simply looking to make it less tedious when I’m playing tank and my DPS aren’t in the mood to help with barrier break, but giving Reins something in return. I know that Ram getting extra movement speed in Nemesis was a great way to make him synergise with Lucio without being dependant on the frog. Synergy is good, dependancy is bad.
This is a problem because DVa matrix is too broken against anything but beams. Reducing it to 3s will do little to change that. And then giving her buffs against beams will just make her more broken with zero counters.
Matrix should be changed to reduce damage and not eat it completely, or the time reduced to 2.5s or recharge slowed.
Easy, nerf Tanks so they don’t excel at any one thing, thus necessitating counter-picking.
Them nerf general anti-fun crap, like CC, debuffs and especially Discord and Anti-Heal. Just give each Tank like 10%-80% resistance or something, with it balanced individually.
rework matrix: it doesnt block projectiles, it mitigates a huge percent of all incoming damage (like a block). it can still be used to protext teammates.
Well I’ll just say for doom specifically… CC resistance or straight up remove the CC they added to the game when they literally said they weren’t going to add any CC to the game and keep it in the tank role.