The tanks in OW1 could hold a frontline fully, with a main tank holding main, an off tank supporting it or holding a side lane, and the main tank could tap out briefly when his health or shields were too low. The off tank could also clean out the backline of divers while the main tank held front.
Tanks had synergies that made the game deep and interesting, fascinating even. They had an incredible depth in placement, team protection, side tank support/helping your main, they had to each be learned, then be re-learned depending on the tank besides you, and they had to be learned on every map. I only played a few hundreds of hours, but there were maps where I never knew how or where to place myself correctly.
Tanks were not about the HP pool or the shields, they were about the ability to decide on the battle area, and to protect their teammates with all sorts of abilities.
Tanks in Overwatch 2 have lost pretty much everything I just cited.
Of course the tank synergy is gone with one tank, but the rest is too, and that is the cause of the majority of the game’s problems.
The one tank system forces the solo tank to choose between one of two options:
- Duel the other tank
- Let the other tank run free
and that’s it.
The absence of a second tank means that if the solo tank stops defending main, he essentially cedes ground. It also means that the concepts of frontline and backline are pretty much crushed. Any DPS can stroll down the side lane and start hacking at the backline without worry. Reapers, Genjis and Sombras just need to walk in and start immediately attacking the supports.
It means that instead of an interesting team-based mechanic of being the main and trusting your off to support you, push them away, or hold the backline, and trying to play with them, you are left all on your own fighting another tank and his supports/DPS and eating all the damage by yourself.
It means that all the tactical aspects of OW1 about main and side, flanking and shield avoiding, have gone from being 50% of victory or defeat to being less than 10% of it.
It means that since Tanks don’t really hold a frontline anymore and have little to no tactical aspect, they are meant to just duel the other tank or chase squishies.
Which in turn means of course, that the “best tank” isn’t about the map, the counter, the objective, or the synergy, but about eliminating the enemy as fast as possible, which brings us to the Rise of Zarya, as this meta should be known.
The only qualifier for a “good tank” now is that he kills fast. So naturally, the “tank” with the biggest DPS of them all is the one that took over everything.
Technically OWL goes for Winston because dive comps, but it’s for the same reasons.
The removal of one tank has entirely taken away all the tactics, depth, and value of the tank role. I’d suggest at this point renaming them to “Big DPS” because for all intents and purposes, that is what they are.