Well here’s a concept.
Balance 2-2-2 so that the roles are equally popular.
(Or more equal than it is now)
Which would mean it’s fine if that means tanks are much more influential in the outcome of a match.
But then throw in a 2Tank max on OpenQueue so it doesn’t have to deal with SuperGOATs.
The simple fact that it would speed the game up would probably have that impact on spam and long range heroes.
You can’t balance to make each role equally popular. Tanks were still unpopular in Goats when they were so strong.
OQ doesn’t need a limitation, it’s not OQ then. Goats is usually dealt with by Pharmercy anyway. And now we have Echo as well to melt them.
True, but you can head on that direction.
Also the reason for the lack of popularity is a lack of solo-impact beyond what your random teammates provide for you.
And GOATs was kind of the opposite of not being reliant on your teammates.
Firstly, other players influencing your picks is unfun. Same with locking barrier tanks for one tank player if other player chose one. Also, RQ’s benefit aside killing goats is separating sr for different roles which is very cool and I don’t think they will ever turn away from RQ completely.
I appreciate the effort on this post. But I’ve probably been the #1 hype-man for RoleQueue for over a year 
To the point of nearly matching the design a month and a half before it came out.
✅ [2-2-2] Putting RoleQ into Quickplay
I also made a 3000 view forum post, with related reddit posts on February 2019, then about a week or two later, Jeff is interviewing about RoleQueue.
✅ [Role Select] Finalizing this concept
I also may have pushed public opinion on RoleQueue in the last half of OWL season 2.
if you want to play other tanks, drop to a rank more tanks are viable in
Rein being the most played and most popular tank among tank mains for like 3 years is clearly irrelevant then I see…
Didn’t put any. Anyway, I don’t like the idea of being denied of certain hero selections by teammates. My opinion is make all tanks more or less into bruisers. That will get more people into the tank queue and solve a problem with excessive damage mitigation.
Honestly I think very few tanks need changes.
I think orisa needs to be solid in fortify (blocking explosions and maybe breaking hooks, earthshatter, etc)
And Winston needs more armor, damage reduction while leaping, something. Because Rein has a better barrier, knockback resistance, more armor, more damage. Kinda ridiculous
And if he was adjusted to be on the same level as sigma / orisa- would we then have 3 “viable” tanks?
Or worst case just for hypothetical reasons- he was removed.
Would sigma / orisa be “not viable” tanks?
The issue is you have to climb to OWL levels where that happens.
honestly any hero in the game is viable up to masters, past that you need meta to climb out
It has already been done with hero pools. And yeas, the pickrate of almost all aother tanks were much less unbalanced with Orisa, Hog and Zarya falling a bit behind others.
Yes, If we were to nerf/remove Rein then Sigma and Orisa would both become “viable”.
The thing to consider is if you take Rein down to that level then how many more people will stop playing tanks, Whether that is because of their best/favourite hero getting nerfed, or the reduced effectiveness of Tanks as a class.
What would it do to the queue times for Damage and Support if a quarter of the people playing Rein right now (~43%) left the role because they felt they could no longer protect the team/play their favourite hero?
Even if Orisa and Sigma are strong enough people aren’t going to be happy if their ability to affect the game seems to be nerfed.
Queue times will get so much worse if Rein is nerfed even nearly as hard as double barrier was.
To all this I’d ask:
Is it possible more players would play tank because orisa, sigma, and the others are more viable?
Are there players who want to play their tanks but don’t because rein is what everyone demands they play? Or they just feel they couldn’t play the tanks they wanted even without the pressure of team mates because of how much of an advantage rein has over pretty much everyone else
At a minimum I strongly doubt 1/4 of rein players would up and leave because he was adjusted to their level- and find that highly, highly speculative. I also doubt doing so would have much if any impact on other queue times.
So far under 2-2-2 (added 13 August 2019) every tank change has made the queue times worse and worse.
Nerfed Sigma + Zarya 17/9
Buffed D.va + Roadhog 15/10
Changed Winston 15/10
Nerfed Sigma + Orisa 15/10
Breaking Barriers Sigma + Orisa + Rein 10/12
Buff D.va + Zarya 10/12
Nerf Orisa 16/1
Buff D.va 16/1
Nerf Orisa + Sigma 28/1
Nerf Ball 12/2
1-2-3 experimental 25/2
Nerf D.va 12/3
Buff Orisa + Sigma 12/3
Nerf Rein 6/4
Nerf Rein 29/4
Change Sigma 29/4
D.va, Zarya and Roadhog have all come out ahead and Winston roughly breaks even. These are the tanks that “everyone” wants to play, everyone else has come out worse than before. As a class tanks have been nerfed and the queue times show that.
If we just add another nerf onto the pile more people will just stop playing the role. Even though overpowered tanks aren’t the best thing for the game nerfing things down from what they had will always make people leave, fairly or not.
And if only 5 percent of Tank players (half of my hypothetical) left/changed to other roles it would still make times worse, adding 1 minute on average to the 20 minute queue players claim happen. At 10% you get an extra minute on a 10 minute queue. Reducing tank player base will always hurt queues.
If I may add my anecdotal evidence: I am a tank main and play Rein about 50% of my playtime in ranked. During the hero bans where Rein was gone I just played 50% less tank simple as. + My comp partner who often plays tank with me played 0 minutes as tank in that time because we mostly want to play together in a role.
I just one trick Sigma. Works for me.
Any tank that is not Rein gets nerfed, and nobody steps in to shout down the people demanding nerfs.
People applauded destroying D.Va after her… eighth major rework because Blizzard can’t stop catering to trolls and falling for astroturf balance demands.