i like you thread opener… let’s brainstorm a bit…
move hog to dps, shrink his hitbox.
other than that, remove discord from the game as well as neutral sombra hack and cass grenade. replace it with something. revert brig changes. let immortality be a damage reduction instead of immo. remove the aoe of kiriko cleanse or make it way smaller.
revert the dps passive to 15% and shrink tank healthpools by a little bit…
but honestly, I still think 6v6 is better
It is not a feasible solution; however, I would enjoy tanking so much more if you could not swap heroes while queued as tank and each tank had its own separate MMR. I would genuinely prefer 5v5 over 6v6 if the tank had to commit to their choice and the matchmaking was tighter as a result of it. It would also improve queue times. It just solves so many of my concerns and the only cost is that people who are used to counterswapping are going to finally taste their own medicine. 
Give Tanks a role-wide passive resistance to debuffs
Aka Discord orb and anti-heal are only 50% effective against them. Now you can balance tanks easier without certain ones getting mega screwed over by stuff like anti/discord/DPS passive
Give multiple tanks reworks to be more dynamic and overall more similar, such as giving Orisa more mobility and making her less of a static anchor (make Javelin spin move further/faster and potentially even allow vertical movement with it, for example)
Then we see what 5v5 plays like with a more homogenized and hopefully fun feeling tank role
Spilo on Youtube has a lot of great videos on balance and how to make the game better
The biggest “problem” for 5v5, and lets be real: tanks, IMO, is the sheer number of disables an enemy team can and often will dump into the tank.
You want to “fix” 5v5 / tanking? Thats what needs addressed id argue.
My radical proposition would be to change it so CC from non-tanks, has a secondary / reduced effect on tanks, predominantly in the forms of some kind of alternative debuff. Have these debuffs slow them, reduce their damage, maybe the next ability they use has an increased cooldown if used during a debuff window.
You will quite often go against 4~ enemies who will be spamming disables into the tank left and right. Thats a huge part of what makes tanking miserable to me.
If any tank suddenly becomes unstoppable because of a lack of disables against them outside the tank role (Again, keep tank CC the same against tanks), adjust their health accordingly. Dropping health is a phenomenally powerful way to tune the vulnerability of a tank.
You shouldnt have to spam disables into an enemy to kill them. It just means the tank is probably too strong when you dont have a plethora of these heroes on the field, which feels bad for the players going against that tank- and then tanks fill miserable when going against these heroes themselves, which is what happens a lot, and i feel strongly in believing this is a huge part of why players dont want to play tank.
Fix 5x5? Simple! Delete ov2 and bring back ov1.
Profit.
Counteroffer
Reopen the old OW 1 servers so that people who want 6v6 can have it and 5v5 still have OW 2
Also transfer new heroes to OW 1 as well
Don’t bother, let’s just skip ahead and let the game die already and be done with it.
That way we can all move on.
But anyway, on a serious note…
Basically what grey mentioned plus this:
Examples: sombra’s invisibility could be camouflage and more heroes with more intel based abilities. Venture dig could move slower and have more audio cues, depending could shift more towards DoT than burst damage. Tracer recall not returning hp or removing it while adding 1-2 more blinks with somewhat bigger cooldowns like 1-3sec. Sigma’s barrier not allowing his spheres to go through it. Lucio rate of fire and/or damage decrease. Genji deflect hitbox area reduced duration increased by 1 or 2 sec. Brig barrier size increase to cover her silluete better and due then increase in size add 50 more hp due being easier to hit.
Overall CC Decrease, create mechannic like “crushing blows” by reducing 60-70% of targets max hp in 0.5-1 sec can cancel certain abilities or channeling ability. CC only tied to Support(limited to 1 ability) and tank ults(aoe abilities). Making all roles to have tools to deal against channeling and not relying on knockbacks/stuns/Knockdowns
Tweak hp/armor ratios if needed. Also make overhealth being consumed after hp/armor pool gets to 1 or 10. Meaning that would sustain heroes on the brink of death but not reliably keep foes alive due armor reductions. Making heroes vulnerable if they rely too much on overhealth. Increase tank passive against hs to 30% or even 35%.
At any point is someone allowed to point out just how many previously unthinkable changes have been made in the past two years, yet we’re still out here brainstorming how to make 5v5 work?
global hp buff
global hitscan size increase
global projectile size increase
healing debuff on all dps dmg that started at 20%, then dropped 15%, but now back to 20% because why not.
You can’t “adjust” the game in small or drastic nudges in such a way that would make tanking fun. You have a single person eating CC and debuffs that would be otherwise distributed between two, so to compensate for a fundamental aspect of the composition, we see tanks absolutely jacked to the gills in power - yet no one is having fun. Its a vicious cycle. Because the tanks are so strong, in order to kill them you have to commit a lot of cds in a coordinated effort and the tank player is subsequently eating the bulk of the cc.
I don’t understand why people have a hard time seeing the most basic observations anyone could make about the game after a few months of play.
What I also don’t understand are the users who aren’t having fun but still want to die on the 5v5 hill like their 401k depends on it.
If some of the ideas in this thread actually got implemented it would be enough to justify calling the game OW3, given how little was done to justify 2.
lol no that’s the worst solution possible
the entire POINT of the Devs moving to 5v5 was to make queue times better for everyone because no one likes queueing tank in any game the role exists in. They said this multiple times before OW2 and have said it multiple times since.
“Re-opening” OW1 servers just splits the playerbase and makes queues horrendously bad for both games
And they made a game where tanking is far worse now than in the previous game.
This is what I just can’t wrap my mind around - why people refuse to see the deeply flawed reasoning here.
Walk me like a dog here, how does making a role no one is having fun with help with people clicking on that role when selecting for a qeueue?
I’m serious. In an exceedingly rare move, Aaron even said on a stream about how bad (paraphrasing) the tanking experience is and that they’re looking on how to address it.
In your opinion, sure, yet queues are objectively better and no one liked Tanking in OW1 either so…? We either get long queues for everyone with bad tanking in OW1 or good queues for everyone with bad tanking in OW2. I know which I pick!
Also tanking feeling unfun right now can be solved with changes that have nothing to do with going back to 6v6. Make tanks have a 50% resistance to anti-heal and discord and other debuffs. Rework tanks like Orisa to be more fun with more mobility. etc.
Tank was almost tied with my most played role in ow1. I absolutely loved it and so did my discord group.
I have very little hours on tank in ow2.
Consider that the people who actually liked tanking in ow1 probably haven’t stuck around.
edit: and yes, having a second tank alleviates pressure points that would otherwise all be pointed at a single player. How many more nudges in tank power is it going to take? Re-read what you’re saying, more resistance to anti heal and other debuffs… you’re opening the gate for tanks to be even more powerful, like didn’t just have an epidemic of people crying about how good orisa was.
Problem 1: Queue times
Solution: Open queue
Problem 2: Less team play
Solution: 6v6
Problem 3: Stomp simulator
Solution: 6v6
Problem 4: Toxicity against tank role
Solution: 6v6
Problem 5: Pressure on tank role
Solution: 6v6
Congrats! Unfortunately, you and your discord server don’t represent the rest of the playerbase and tank was by far the most unpopular and least queued for role for the entirety of OW1, even before role queue was added no one played it. The devs (who have the actual data) have said this multiple times and it was a main reason they moved to 5v5 as tanks were bottle necking queues for everyone.
Slippery slope fallacy. Giving tanks resistance to debuffs makes the game much easier to balance as you don’t have different tanks being wildly differently effected by them (tanks like Hog and Mauga for example get shafted by anti way more than others) and also it lets those utility debuffs stay strong against squishies.
The last time i tried queueing for comp in this game w/ a friend was the longest we’ve ever waited. We’re playing different games is the best I can conclude.
and yes, having a second tank alleviates pressure points that would otherwise all be pointed at a single player. How many more nudges in tank power is it going to take? Re-read what you’re saying, more resistance to anti heal and other debuffs… you’re opening the gate for tanks to be even more powerful, like didn’t just have an epidemic of people crying about how good orisa was.
then you have dps complaining that tanks are too strong and they start throwing a hissy fit, which comes with the benefit of putting alot of pressure on the solo tank now that everyone is hard focusing on killing the tank to win the game, leading to cc chain etc, just another negative feedback loop
Not entirely. Some tanks left tanking and gone to damage and support hurting the queue time, others simply left the game entirely. If they put ow1 servers on, they could only enable folks who actually bought it to play what they want. That way these players could choose what to play, while newcomers would require to buy the ow1 like previously. That or simply put on the list of modes, bringing visibility to all mode variants and then, the most popular mode become a main mode for the game.
Their monetization wouldn’t be that aggressive due 2 revenues streams, but folks wouldn’t be able to purchase newer ow2 skins that costs gold coin on ow1 coins. If they enable version select.
That the player numbers would increase and lead towards more player retention. Are 2 different crowds that right now they’re sabotaging most forms of gameplay towards to one not properly ready anyways.
Giving folks choice would lead them to change the format to please more folks. Folks still do deathmatch, total mayhem and mystery heroes. They should change the focus where their major audience is, for that they need to put more stuff in the game and see what mode actually is the most popular and go from there to be the main mode.
When will forum users realize there are millions of players in this game and their anecdotal experience is not representative of the wider playerbase 
And also required tanks to be individually weaker and more reliant on a good tank duo to be valuable. Wanna play Reinheart? Better hope you get a Zarya and not a Hog or Hammond as your second tank. Solo tank lets the Devs balance and rework tanks to be viable on an individual level.
Sure, Rein Zarya tank duo felt amazing when it happened…one out of every 20 games.
Also the matchmaker only having to find 2 tanks per match instead of 4 = much easier time creating quick and balanced matches.
All this says is you have 0 understanding of how queues and consolidating playerbases work and why splitting them is a horrible idea. Luckily the Devs won’t do this because they know how bad of an idea this is.