I’m pretty neutral on the 5v5 vs 6v6 debate, I see upsides to both directions, but if 6v6 role queue did come back, these would be my top gameplay concerns
- Ult economy
I think the general pacing and impact of ults is vastly improved in 5v5, and adding an extra tank could really throw a wrench in that. In 6v6 ults build faster and each team has one additional ult to work with, and I just in general think the game is worse off for that. While I’m mostly against role passives, the tank ult reduction is the only one I want them to keep
- Stalling
In 6v6 if you have the right heroes and the right respawn times you can basically form an infinite contest the point conga line that is breakable but very hard to do so. In 5v5 stalling like this is possible but it’s much easier to break. I’m a bit concerned now that a few additional powerful stalling abilities like swift step and cardiac overdrive are in the game. In addition CC was generally the best way to break a stall and CC is generally weaker now. The addition of wave respawning may help a bit at least (not sure if they ever added this to comp though)
- New tanks
Having tanks who were designed or reworked for solo tanking suddenly be put into a duo tank format is a little scary. I think Rammatra should be fine, but the tank buster trio of orisa, hog, mauga. Orisa concerns me the least, but I think the other 2 may need heavy changes to work in a 6v6 environment. That’s another concern, if you had to nerf some of these tanks to an all time low for 6v6, that could make them feel really bad to play as, but personally I think a lot of tank players think the role in general is too strong if anything. Then there’s reinhardt, he was always pretty decent in 6v6, so would he be OP with the finer charge turning, charge cancelling, and double firestrike charge? Because it’d be a shame to lose any of those
But what actually scares me the most are Junker Queen and Doomfist. The idea of running these tanks with a strong defensive partner is kinda terrifying. Like imagine tank doomfist getting zarya bubbles or having queen + rein run into you. I’m also concerned about new potential tank ult combos, cage fight and possibly annihilation seem like they have some potential for some powerful ones.
- Coordination
Fights in 5v5 naturally center around the team’s tanks. When there are 2 tanks per team, it gets much harder to coordinate with random players in a lobby, and feeding and staggering become much more common outside of high ranked play. The added complexity is part of the fun of 6v6, but I fear how this will play out when you’re with teammates who either never played the 6v6 format or are extremely rusty in it
- Push
I have a small concern that more tanks may slow down Push and kill some of the back and forth that makes the mode interesting. Honestly though I see an equal chance that 2 tanks actually improves Push by making it harder to reach unwinabble match territory in under 2 minutes of the game starting. Still though, with Push being one of the worst modes as is, anything with potential to make it worse is concerning
