Thanks to how contentious my first post was concerning “Main Supports vs Off-Supports” I thought it’d be fun to ruffle the feathers even further with a tank post of similar nature.
If you’re interested in who’s what and why concerning the support lineup, here’s the link:
Without further ado, here’s a breakdown of what tank is what:
Main Tanks
Reinhardt
Winston
Ball
Hog
Off Tanks
Zarya
D.Va
Orisa
Hybrids
Sigma
Now alot of you started screaming when you saw Hog as a main tank and Orisa as an off.
However, what is most important here is understanding what the role of a main tank is, vs the role of an off-tank.
The role of a main tank is to create and/or hold space for their team. The role of an off-tank is to enable their main tank and various other allies.
When examining Orisa, her inability to create space and demand space is quite detrimental to her classification. While she was most definitely within the Main Tanks classification upon release, I’d argue over the past year and a half or so she has moved into the role of an Off-Tank as she is entirely incapable of creating space. Her kit primarily serves to enable allies and a true main tank versus creating and demanding space.
With her out of the way, let’s talk about how Hog functions as a main tank. While his ability to hold space is less drastic than Reinhardt’s or Sigma’s, Hog’s cooldowns and highly potent damage demands that enemies must respect the space he occupies or die. Hog does little to nothing to enable allies or other tanks, yet he can create and demand space through his damage. This is why Hog should rightfully be classified as a Main Tank vs. Orisa who cannot consistently or efficiently do either.
Further driving home why these heroes are classified as such is in regards to how they influence team compositions. This is highly relative to how supports should be defined as well, but certain tanks demand and enable certain Support and DPS heroes.
The most straightforward example at play here is the same which I used for Supports, Winston.
If Winston is present on a team composition, maximizing his value will include specific heroes to play alongside him. Ana is a virtual lock in Winston comps, while the “Off Tank” should play Zarya or D.Va, tanks that highly enable him but struggle to create and demand space themselves. DPS will likely play at least one hero that can engage the space Winston demands (Tracer, Genji, Echo, etc) as well as heroes who can defend their backline (Cree, etc.).
Now while this example is fairly non-contentious, the same applies to these other more debatable examples I have provided. The presence of Hog in a team comp enables support players to play more utility based heroes and comps such as Zen+Mercy or Zen+Brig, which traditionally would be quite bad for tanks, yet Hog’s independence and self sustain allows for more aggressive hero picks and playstyles, the same way Rein and Monkey do.
Another fantastic non-contentious example is the presence of Mei in Reinhardt comps vs any other comp. Her pickrate skyrockets in Rush metas due to how she enables him and he her. What I am ultimately driving at here is that Hog enables supports and DPS to play more aggressive heroes as he in theory requires less resources from the team.
Orisa however, does not dictate or necessitate the same level of hero chemistry as the aforementioned Main Tanks. What Orisa needs is the correct tank to play around her so she can appropriately enable them. While there are isolated “unicorn comps” in which she may be forced to function as a main tank, she should not be classified as such.
Again, what she was upon release and what she is today in addition to what the responsibility of main tank is does not line up with the hero in the present.
So does any of this matter? Like I said in my *Main Support vs Off-Support" post, if you care about the competitive team based aspect of this game, this knowledge can be impactful when applied to one’s playing experience. Understanding how heroes function and what their “job” is in a match is incredibly important if you want to get better.
Those who beg differ because they do not care about the competitive aspect of the game are entitled to their opinion, yet for those who do care about these aspects, will likely view them as a poor teammate as they create imbalanced team comps and essentially throw matches with their picks.
Some more salt for y’all to lick.