You really shouldn’t be shooting tanks in 5v5. As they not only give you reduced ult charge, be it they’re also the easiest place for the enemy supports to dump their healing and utility resources into.
Keep in mind they can only really defend against one target or hold one section of the map, in a game were theirs at least 2 to three lanes to engage the opposing team.
You can peel the tank if need be, or finish them off if their cut off from their team/anti-naded/mei-walled/frozen/insert new ability here.
But you should be doing whatever you can to shoot the dps/supports. As it means that resources are being split between the enemy team, and not just all being pumped into the enemy tank that will make space for their dps to shoot at you.
The moment DPS get pressured they need to fall back, and force their support away from their tanks / doing damage.
Supports are the same and will burn their best cooldowns to save themselves.
And will lead to their team falling apart. If not make a swift 5v4 in your favor.
If you’re pumping your resources into attacking the enemy tank. Then your just doing exactly what they want your to do, and making their job easier. As your feeding the enemy supports ult, and giving the enemy dps room to do their own damage/get their own ults.
Their are exceptions, but for the most part you should be shooting the squishies whenever you can. Even as mei, or a pocket. As they will die significantly faster than the tank and will cause a lot more chaos and confusion in the enemy team. Especially in ranks were communication isn’t a thing.
Yesterday I begged my dps to help me take out their supports.
Hanzo was like “are you gonna shoot the tank at any point?”
Literally almost lost the game because hanzo was hard focusing (and powering up) the zarya only, not a single kill had. First round at least. He yelled at me that I’m stupid when I said “STOP SHOOTING THE TANK, SHOOT THE SOFT TARGETS. ZARYA WILL NOT DIE IF YOU FOCUS HER INSTEAD OF HER HEALS! THIS IS WHY WE’RE LOSING”
We tied because we had zero kills first round and all the kills second when the echo absolutely focused the squishies with me.
You can’t really contest pockets though. You don’t want to try to fight them, and pressuring the tank on an angle the DPS can’t contest you is genuinely a great way to force the Mercy to save the tank or lose the fight.
oh yes yes you can. You shoot the support. Or ping them over and over again to get multiple people to engage them. Or simply position yourself around them so they can’t shoot you, while you engage a different part of the team.
I mean that is the entire playstyle of orisa in a nut shell. As well as rien, and any other tank with a tool to absorb damage or get into the enemy face. They litterially are designed to be the center of attention.
The issue is that they don’t really position in a way that lets you do this. You can’t target the Mercy since she’s behind cover and you have to go through her pocket. The enemy support is generally in a LoS that gets covered by the same DPS who’s pocketed, and if it’s a Kiriko, Ana, or Baptiste(like it is most of the time with a Mercy), you can’t burst them unless they waste their key abilities… Which they won’t use unless you pressure someone else.
The only other option is the other, not pocketed DPS, but again, they’re normally playing in LoS of the pocketed DPS or are playing a self sufficient DPS like Tracer or Sombra.
Pressuring the tank is the easiest and most reliable way to force mistakes in the case of a losing game against a Mercy pocket.
Dude there is a lane that either is completely walled off from their LOS, or takes your right next to them.
Were not in no mans land. Their are several ways to engage or work around them depending on your pick.
Like you can litterially fly, or be invisible, throw AOE explosions, dive, deflect in coming damage, mobility tools to chase and dip around cover. If you can’t figure out a position to ignore them or way get at the support specifically. That is on you not the game.
Yeah not going to happen.
This game is too good at teaching bad habits, with Overwatch 2 it’s even more common to have 6 people in a single game learn or apply bad habbits…
Like you know, Tanks just expecting to be juiced to the moon and their corresponding Supports just doing everything in their ability to fulfill those desires.
Supports lost their sense of independence faster than they learned it in Overwatch 1.
It’s just live for the Tank, die for the Tank.
So you can, if they burn their tools like nade/suzu/lamp. Guess what they can’t use to protect the tank, or another hero in a different duel.
Like you can poke and pressure then disengage, and focus something else if need be.
eh not exactly no, that depends on where your team is. If they are pushing a cart attacking the cart. trying to get around a choke.
Like keep in mind if their pocketing a hero, that’s two heroes not interacting or supporting the other 3.
So your team can pressure one hero with multiple heroes.
Their is give or take in these situations. For example I can isolate a ana via a winston barrier, and the soldier/mercy combo can’t exactly burn that down by the time I can get a kill on that ana.
Even then you can engage the combo with your own combo to. Or punish them via an ult. Or tools that pierce/oneshot/or do AOE damage.
Like you have tools to deal with such M8. Your not 1v5 now.
You would be surprised what a good ping would do if you playing with mobile heroes.
Even then these are habits that die down the higher the rank you go. And can really boost lower rank players for simply breaking what is the standard practise.
Their are tanks that can avoid this, the entire poke/dive comp for example is basically made to avoid or out pace said tools.
Like a bastion can be waited out via a corner, same goes for discord followed by a sigma barrier to break LOS or a Winston dive.
More or less their are game states where the tank is open season, be it by default you should be pressuring the squishies and not just be poking the tank all game. As you get more value and momentum out of the former instead of the latter.
Depends on the situation, but if you can kill the tank, it’s a great idea to do so. As they are the most important hero on the team, followed by their supports.
Some heroes really thrive on shooting the tank tbh… and by that I mostly mean Bastion and maybe Reaper. But Reaper can at least backline pressure, so… actually just Bastion lol.