Opinion: I need to play less tank to save my sanity

General Discussion
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I’m a tank main. I’ve played more tank in OW and OW2 than any other role. Winston is by far my favorite hero, but I also have a lot of affection for Reinhardt, Wrecking Ball, Sigma and Doomfist. I even play tank for a recreational OW team of friends, where we scrim and play small private fun tournaments against other teams. I’m pretty dedicated to the tank role, but as S10 started, something hit me: I need to play tank WAY less.

I was getting very frustrated. For one, because there are so few tank players, I’m getting put in a very wildly varying lobbies SR wise. So, I’m either in a lobby where my team is relentlessly feeding (no exaggeration, I’m quadrupling their kd) or I’m in a lobby where I’m in over my head and just getting hammered into spawn every single time I poke my head out.

The other reason is, I’m quite a aware how impactful tank is. I’m not one of those people who do not believe tank is unimpactful. I know I can be the one who wins or loses games more often than my individual teammates. The problem is that can be absolutely soul crushing pressure, especially in the face of teammates relentlessly flaming me. (I’ve permanently left all team voice and text. I only join match chat now).

The last reason is, I don’t mind that there are some heroes that my chosen heroes are not great against, but it is immensely frustrating to just not be able to play the game at all and forced onto a different hero, because the enemy team, usually the dps, have chosen a hard counter to my hero. Blizz, you talk a big game about giving people the agency over their play, where is my agency to be able to play my favorite tank heroes?

In short, I’m playing tank a lot less. and I think this is sad for more people than just me. it means my friends on my team are getting a less practiced tank player. it means that I’m one less person in queue for tank and dps and support queue times are longer. but I gotta stop and slow down on the tank queues, because its just driving me insane.

I don’t want to go back to the beta where tank was hunting supports like dead by daylight, but I think there’s a place in the middle where tank isn’t just a piñata. And I urge team 4 to take a hard look at their game and improve this experience, because it is really miserable.

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We had Seagull come back this week and because the wide group thing was ****ed, we ended up finding a nice sweet spot narrow group and he had to play tank for us. He played three games of tank, and I’m not joking, on game three he, like, you could hear it in his voice how upset he was. Like, he was legitimately upset. He was like “Guys, I can’t, I can’t do this. I’m gonna get off, I’m literally gonna stop stream. I’m not playing anymore. I’ll play support, I’ll play anything else, please.” And we’re like “ok”. It’s not like Seagull doesn’t play Tank, he played D.Va in Overwatch League. He knows what he’s doing, it’s just, he was so mentally falling apart, he just couldn’t do it anymore.

-Flats, describing Seagull’s brief return to Tank.

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I’ve also had to largely quit tank. I used to basically solo queue one trick wrecking ball up to Masters all the way up to the early seasons of Overwatch 2. Then people learned the just counter the tank at literally every second of the game. Now playing wrecking ball literally makes me want to die. I would have happily queueu’d tank consistently for the rest of the game’s life if it meant I could have a pleasant time off tanking with my favorite hamster, but now I rue touching the role. Getting countered instantly and constantly and feeling like I’m literally unable to play the game even when I’m winning the match is just misery. I don’t know why anybody on earth plays tank. And if you lose, be prepared for your entire team to throw slurs your way. I’m here to play a video game, not have the insane pressure to preform lest the entire gd team blame you.

I genuinely think sooner or later that the swap to 5v5 will have had no meaningful impact on queues” once all the tanks stop playing the miserable role.

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For all of OW1 I was a flex player. Tank role has always had its problems but come OW2 they’ve been magnified tenfold. Solo tanking is not fun, counterswapping is rampant, and every balance patch introduces several new problems for the role. The only reason queue times aren’t absurd is because we only need one tank per team. They’ve killed the role and they know it.

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I’ve been a tank main since 2018, I used to play daily. Now I log in maybe once/week and usually end up swapping off tank to support or dps after one game. Tank just isn’t a fun experience.

It’s crazy how they’ve completely given up on even trying to fix the role. They just keep making brainless tanks like Orisa, Hog or Mauga meta and pretending tanks don’t exist after that.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if I found out the OW dev team didn’t have a single tank player ranked higher than plat working for them

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I can’t play Damage role because I’m not great at duels and terrible aim, and I don’t enjoy support role either.

So now what am I stuck with? Just tanking. And it’s already kind of burning me out after a 2 seasons hiatus.

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I’m tired of the babymode tank dominance

Where are all the tanks that actually take brainpower to play

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Watching both yours and the enemy team’s tank counter swapping for days like they’re playing Mystery Heroes is exhausting and boring.

Tanks can’t just play what they want (the tank(s) they prefer anymore and I’m sure that’s what’s really making it unfun. At least in OW1 you had two tanks to cover each other’s weaknesses but now it’s all the responsibility on the one.

I don’t know what Blizzard thinks they’ve accomplished with OW2, but it’s not very much of anything. They made the game significantly less fun and more frustrating. And every time they make changes it only gets worse.