Reminder that Defense used to be a thing

General Discussion
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The whole “There is more a lot more DPS than other roles” thing is kinda disingenuous, since it doesn’t take into account that two years into the lifetime of the game, there was a BIG change to the role philosophy, and the Offense and Defense categories were merged to form the Damage category.

You can’t just pretend the “overabundance” of DPS has been a problem since the inception of the game. If the 4 roles had remained, we would have something like this:

Offense: Tracer, Genji, Doomfist, Echo, McCree, Soldier 76, Reaper, Pharah and Sombra, at 9.

Defense: Widomaker, Hanzo, Ashe, Symmetra, Bastion, Tjorbjorn, Junkrat and Mei, at 8

Tank: D-va, Reinhardt, Roadhog, Sigma, Wreckingball, Orisa, Zarya and Winston at 8

Support: Mercy, Moira, Zenyatta, Ana, Lucio, Baptiste, and Brigitte at 7.

(Educated guess, but as respectively a sniper and a builder, Sym and Ashe would most likely have been Defense, while Echo fits as a Offense Hero.)

The reason that the DPS category is so varied is that it is LITERALLY made out of two category stuck together. Expecting for Support and Tanks to easily and readily attain that level of character variation is simply unreasonable. Had the merger not happened, all four roles would have been pretty much on equal footing, by now.

Now, one thing that could have been done to alleviate the current roster issue would have been to move some of the Defense roster to either Tank or support role. Sadly, this wasn’t going to happen, and probably won’t happen anytime soon.

Doing so would GREATLY alter the identity of the characters. I always see people complain about Symetra not being Symettra anymore, and I just don’t agree. Ramping up beam, charged balls, sentries, Teleport, and a shield based ability. Every iteration of Sym has been a variation on that theme. Different but the same, she always felt like Sym to me.

But pushing a character like Mei to Tank, taking a popular opinion as an example, is completely different. Mei would have to be HEAVILY touched up to become a tank. Beyond the fact that she simply doesn’t have the stature for the job, she’d have to lose some her survivalist identity to fit as tank.
Either focus on her wall ability to protect the team, or on her self sustain, and whatever the choice, her area denial would have to be tuned down significantly in favor of one of these aspects.

And it’s ever worse when considering switching a hero to support. Symettra has proved it: a non-healing support is not an option. Supports must bring utility to the table while having a mean to heal their teammates. There isn’t a SINGLE Damage hero that wouldn’t have to be mangled to fit into the Support role.

In closing, and to shorten things: Yeah, the current situation is not ideal. Situation that weren’t supposed to happen rarely are. The defense category had become extraneous, and was more problematic than anything, so it had to go, sadly. It did create the current roster problem, however:

Acting as if the rosters discrepancies was an intended choice, and not a result of how the game evolved around the players, is simply disingenuous.

It was a byproduct of the evolution of the game and of the players, and despite claims to the contrary, and should be treated as such.

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Those numbers still tell me that Offense got a ninth hero before support got an eighth lol.

You are right though. The problem is Defense was never treated as inherently seperated. They were just throw pick DPS for the majority of their existence, and almost none of them had much playtime until they got buffs and changes once merged with Damage. Bastion is still garbage.

Those roles could have been better applied if the PVP numbers were 4v4 or 8v8. 1 Offense, 1 Defense, 1 Tank, 1 Support, or 2 of each. (In modern roles, always have twice as many DPS as supports and tanks per team). Obviously 8v8 games are out of the question, but I’ve been wondering if 4v4 would be so bad. Ironically, Uprising was a PVE event with that proposed 1-1-1-1 balance role-wise. And having more DPS per game would level out the queue times. Hmmm…

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Well said,OP :+1:

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Maybe a 5v5 format would’ve worked better for the game,who knows. It usually works in MOBAs. And usually,only 1 tank and 1 support are required,but they’re more powerful in what they bring to the team.

Also,kinda unrelated,but I somewhat hope 1-3-2 will become a mode in the Arcade in the future. It would be kinda nice to have

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So they fused two categories.

Does it change anything to the fact that 1/3 of your team comp can select more than 1/2 of the roster while the 2/3 can select only 1/4 of the roster each?

Does it change the fact that dps Q times (which are already awful) will skyrocket even more?

No, so the argument is still 100% valid

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They could’ve went in different directions for some defensive DPS heroes though, like Bastion and Sym. They didn’t have to necessarily be DPS.

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The roles were merged because the distinction was meaningless. Defense heroes weren’t necessarily better at defense and were still played as damage dealers. It also doesn’t change the current state of the game that when you queue for DPS you get to choose from all 16 heroes while queuing for tank or support you only get to choose from 8 and 7.

It is unreasonable to think tanks and supports are ever going to have as many options. With the difference in roster size that would be an impossible task. But it isn’t unreasonable to ask for a few more.

37 Likes
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we knew back then just as much that we need more tanks and supports. dmg is dmg even if you separate them in offensive dmg and defensive dmg. i could easily separate the healers also, saying there are only 3 main healers and 4 off healers. or there are only 4 main tanks and 4 off tanks. tanks and healers have had such a small pool at the beginning of the game, it didn‘t even matter separating them be it „off and main“ healer/tank
see where im going?

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ah yes! i totally forgot that dps grouped of heroes were divided into those categories! i remember symmetra used to be support and was heavily criticized to be a support hero since she can’t heal and was requested to move to be into a defensive hero instead. yea, those were the days

i guess a 4 roles queue may also slice the queue time in half as an option, but it has been years away from OW that i couldn’t remember how different it has changed since. well, it gives more clarity to each dps type, even if it was pretty pointless to define it, it might help decrease queue time if it was reintroduced now.

but with the ever growing restlessness of tank and support mains either feeling defeated and discouraged to play, many would rather switch to join either offense/defense over the same scenario of being struck down and see how other categorized heroes outperform their usefulness or if their efforts were ever displayed or recognized.

personally medals won is pretty pointless at this stage because there isn’t any more meaning since no single effort is pointless in match but a newly playing tank/support/dps can earn their medals and it gave no meaning since their team mates may already exceed those ranking many moons ago. it fuels more ego/toxic in players which is downright unhealthy

1 Like
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I do wish Defense was still it’s own category, the heroes from it are my favorites. Sure, they did damage but how that damage is applied is so different from how the offense heroes use it that it really is its own role. They should have renamed the category to something less of a misnomer, like Zoning or Control. I wonder how development of role queue would have been affected if it had still been around at the time.

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I like the sound of “Control”

I kinda miss the Defense role sometimes,but sadly,it suffered the same fate Specialists did in Heroes of the Storm :’)

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I don’t subscribe to the “we NEED more tanks and healers / dps have way more” idea

But I also think this argument doesn’t hold much water…sure they were split but nobody REALLY cared about the distinction or treated the heroes that way

The game has always had more “dps” than tanks/supports and it’s never been a problem before

It’s a problem now because of role queue…nothing more…

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I’m sorry, but they absolutely did. Picking ANY defense heroes on some maps would immediately have people brand you as a thrower. The number of time people were upset because I played Mei or Junkrat on attack was kinda nuts. The fact that these heroes were classified as Defense absolutely conditioned how people saw them.

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so what do you propose?
because there was 2 different roles to dps before, should these roles get 2 characters each in the new role lock?

and how would that work when there’s only 6 slots available?
are we just gonna expand it to 8 slots to accomodate 2 extra dps slots?

so instead of 2-2-2 we get 2-4-2 just to accomodate the bigger roster for dps?
or do we shrink the other 2 roles that are unpopular to make the game 1-4-1 to keep the 6 slot teams?

what’s the solution?

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Well we had different experiences cause I certainly don’t remember any of this…

Doesn’t change my larger point…this has never been an issue before…it’s a problem NOW…people are pointing fingers at the wrong thing

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My point wasn’t abotu balance, but perception. People are talking about the roster problem as if it was innate to OW, which it wasn’t.

But personally, this is how I’d make the game better. Remove Role Queue AND Role. People underestimate how categories condition how you view and use characters. If every heroes were just heroes, and people had to decide on their kit alone, and not their given role, Overwatch would have been a better game for it.

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i agree, i’m more in the mindset of dota, there’s “roles” but there’s no objective character that is anything specific, they can be played as certain “roles” but they don’t necessarily have to be.

i had no issues with goat being what it was, the only problem i had with goats was that it was so strong.

but people were so into roles for some reason to guide their experience that they decided for role lock, now i don’t mind role lock either if they atleast make the necessary changes for it to work well.

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Kind of a pointless argument by now in a role lock environment, because what ultimately matters is your choices on the hero select screen, and players in the dps role have over twice as many than players in the other two roles.

I mean yeah, but slowly working toward it a step at time is reasonable, no? Say, by cooling it a bit with new DPS heroes and throwing a double tank release into the mix like with Moira+Brig? Instead of making the last hero for a year+ another DPS?

Reworking existing heroes could be interesting, but takes time the devs probably don’t have.

1 Like
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This game would highly benefit from the use of a stat graph that shows what your hero picks add up to. People wouldn’t have misunderstood what a defense hero was capable of or at the least, been FAR MORE clear on what each hero is meant to play like. Each hero does have an optimal way to play and each pick does require others to contribute more or less to the team and tactics. Like if both your DPS are diving their butts off, that means that they are expecting the rest of the team to take down the enemy frontline without them helping directly. If you have a tank like Hog or Ball on the team, they offer no protective service to the team and will require the team to play differently than they would if they had a Zar. Etc.

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Do you really think this? I think right now Mei is a perfectly balanced Tank

And keep beign problematic. Only the name is gone

I think that Sombra fits the Defense category more than the damage especially her first iterations