Let's talk - tanks

Given Jeff’s recent reply to a post, I thought we should do as he asked.

So: Here I go. Please join in. I’m going to break this down tank by tank. These are my thoughts and feelings. Please disagree as you see fit.

  • Zarya
    She is my go to tank, but recently she’s been feeling a little lacking. I think the grav nerf may have been a bit too much. Adding an extra meter back to the radius may help - but I am not a good Zarya. I am willing to accept I need to adapt.

  • Winston
    I think he’s doing “fine”. Torbs rework will allow armour to be easily countered, so one of his core weaknesses will have a new workaround. Good stuff. No changes required.

  • Roadhog.
    This is a big one. The dude’s been suffering even before brig became a thing. Anti-armour comps may help a bit, but he’s going to need buffing. Tightening spread and increasing reload speed may help. (Perhaps even let his shots ignore armour, though that really should be reaper’s thing.) Other options are knocking a second off his hook cooldown, but more CC isn’t always the answer.

  • D.Va
    Fine as is, TBH. Probably the most well balanced tank.

  • Orisa
    I think her buff on PTR will help her immensely - but if not, perhaps lowering fortify’s cooldown or upping her move speed while firing may improve her niche. She is fighting with Rein for the main tank spot, after all.

  • Wrecking Ball.
    He’s certainly struggling in the goats meta. CC resistance will not work here, and risks removing counterplay. Increasing clip size and/or lowering reload speed may be worth looking at. We’ve all been there with WB when you just need two more shots to finish the enemy.

  • Rein
    Honestly, the only tank I don’t even play once in a while. I don’t feel “qualified” to be talking about him. - What do you guys think?

So - Thoughts, opinions? Please join in, and stay civil, after all:

3 Likes

The Tiger II was too heavy to be practical in any scenario. The arms race was getting ridiculous, to the point where they were just bolting armor onto things until it could just barely move. At the same time, anti-armor munitions were rapidly developing, effectively nullifying any benefit that the additional armor plating offered and just made the tank a slow, expensive target.

11 Likes

I know right! Modern fish tanks are getting excessive. Why do you need a massive one? A bowl with a little diver is fine.

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I think the tanks are actually pretty reasonably balanced.

I think they should give Reinhardt the same knockback resistance that Dva and Orisa have while shooting but for Reinhardt it would be while blocking.

I’m aware they mentioned once this was a bug but just make it a feature, we’ve all adapted anyways.

Roadhog needs more ammo. 8 rounds should do it. Perhaps a change to spread like Torb got.

Honestly feel like everything else is pretty ok.

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I’m a big fan of Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts. I wouldn’t change a thing.

2 Likes

Here’s my feelings.

Tanks that don’t require changes

  • Reinhardt
  • Winston
  • Zarya
  • D.Va

Tanks that need Buffs

  • Orisa - just something minor like being able to deploy shield while reloading. I wouldn’t mind a fortify cooldown buff either.
  • Wrecking Ball - Just give him 100 ammo.
  • Roadhog - He’s in the worst spot for the tanks. But Jeff said changes are coming for him. So, that is good news.

That said, my biggest concern for tanks right now is the new Torb rework. Overload is particularly good against tanks. His new shotgun is great against tanks (especially D.Va). And his ultimate specifically eats armor which several of the tanks really rely on. And it will make pushing as an anchor tank really hard.

So, I think the actual balance of tanks only requires small changes, but I am a bit nervous about how the Torb changes will affect tanks. They sound really exciting for Torb players, but not so exciting for tank players.

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Yeah,I agree. It’s only really minor buffs here and there that are needed. (Outside of Hog). I’m quite happy to say that we don’t need a single rework for any tank. Just little tweaks.

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I don’t have any tank tops, no. I prefer to cover my arms.

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I agree, but I’m not sure that Hog really needs more than a minor buff. I feel like tightening his spread would probably be sufficient, but I am far from a Hog main so I’m not an expert.

I just think Hog can already be an absolute game changer with his hook and his insane survivability, so buffing him too much would probably be a mistake. The smallest possible balance change to make a hero viable will always be the best one, IMO. It’s why I’m glad Blizzard seems to be taking a more incremental approach to balance lately. It might take longer for a hero like Brigitte to finally reach a balanced state, but I’d rather have her be balanced than a useless dumpster fire who was over-nerfed.

In terms of her Meka yes, but as a pilot i really really wish they could add some minor abilities as well so she could survive better, like a smoke grenade and a sprint to cover her runaway, and also lock her another meka CD instead of need to shoot your way to another one like 10-15 sec before new mech deployment would do fine.

Agrees but Fortify need some more unique interactions with other abilities rather than a simple CD reduction, but wouldn`t mind that too.

I mean, it depends what you mean by “minor”.
I kinda see “minor” as a buff that isn’t intended to do much. In hog’s case, a tightened spread would do plenty, perhaps with something for whole hog as well? I forgot to mention that.

Do you have anything in mind?

Yes from my another post…

Even though i think fortify is already usefull as it is considering how much CC you have to deal with lately, i still think there should be one special type of lore friendly behavior tied to DF abilities.

It will simply goes like this: if you activate fortify a 1sec before you get hit by one of DF abilities Orisa will automaticly perform a counter strike that resolves into a complete deny of incoming damage.
If you about to get hit by RP she will quickly grabs him by the gauntlet and toss him right back with the same velocity and distance according to the level of wich RP was charged, if he hits a wall after that the effect also would be exactly like from a normal RP.

If he uses uppercut right next to you she will grab him the legs and smacks back into the ground causing a stun and the same amount of damage he normaly does with uppercut.

If he tries to slam you she will answer with uppercut denying the damage and effect from landing and locks him in the air for a second.

So fortify will become more skill depending ability requiring well calculated timing if you want to get the most benefit from it.

1 Like

That seems kinda, ungraceful?
It doesn’t seem right to make an exception to an ability that only applies to the one character. Perhaps the counter option should be streamlined to one counter (like the toss idea) and then applied to any CC melee attack.

Orisa’s issue to me is that she is not exceptionally well suited for dealing with lots of enemy units close up which is ironic because tanks are your point characters usually.

Reinhardt does well since he can swing away at people, large aoe ult, and large shield. Orisa just has shield, but can only attack one target and ult is poor to use against multiple enemies.

Winston can do well enough since with his bulk, ability to get out to reset, and aoe damage with a round bubble and ult for sustain he does well against multiple sources of fire.

Dva can as well with ult for remech, dm for multiple fire sources, but she can’t really attack many people, but she’s not a main tank type character.

Roadhog can only just attack one unit at a time. Offtank. Same as Zarya. So these three are fine to me.

Hammond is a weird and highly vulnerable tank, but he can deal with multiple people easily through escapes, aoe damage, shields, and ult.

Orisa is just a whacky tank. She gets a ton of sustain with shield and fortify and 200 armor, but she still gets very easily overwhelmed by a few characters. its like her only viable composition is when you have a ton of spam behind you to make it hard for people to get close to Orisa.

2 Likes

I also thought that Brigitte should knock her self down with the same condition and perhaps maybe charging Rein, but other CC abilities just dosent work as melee based so dont have a solid idea what to do with them : I

I mean, presently there are 5 characters with proper melee CC abilities. (I’m not counting hook as it wouldn’t really work here.)
Rein - Charge
Brig - Bash
D.Va - Boosters
Wrecking ball - Piledriver and just spinning around
Doomfist - Doomfist.

There’s enough there for one character not to be singled out, I suppose.

1 Like

Maybe Orisa’s issue is just that she cannot pivot usually. Winston can pivot at times by just living and swatting away a key target. Say swat away the enemy reinhardt shield or keep s76 busy or genji.

Reinhardt can pivot with earthshatter and charge kos on the right target. Roadhog can sort of pivot by knockback with ultimate and hook KOs. Dva cannot really pivot well at all, but Zarya can by getting a good ultimate on a couple of targets.

I guess overall Orisa is just not threatening to anyone. Hammond’s just a big nuisance.

1 Like

Nuisances do make space though.

I never though about Orisa’s lack of ability to pivot, an upped move speed while firing would aid that, I suppose.

Well from all that list i think that i litterally the least dangerous one, and if D.va will be constatly shuts down by bumping into fortified Orisa i think D.va mains will hate me and i kinda don`t want that : D

Only if she has no support for backup, wich is exactly why i want those changes with DF abilities im just tired of hearing him charging behind my back and the second i turn And Zenny or lucio is dead, even shooting him afterwards aint that satisfiying cuz the overall teamfight might be lost because of that.

Now that is where i will say DOUBT. cuz with new spread i was able to outsnipe widow, melt down Pharah in midair and even won a 1 v 1 against new torby who indeed now have a noticebly smaller head.

I was just making a list of all of the CC melee abilities to see what would be affected. I think doing it to D.va would be too far, but exceptions on top of exceptions doesn’t lend itself to good game design.

1 Like