5v5 was a good idea, but it always should have been 2 tanks, 1 dps and 2 supports.
because supports and tanks are the most powerful role in the game, they cancel eachother out. i mean look at the current dmg stats of the meta support heros, they can more than make up for the lack of a second dps.
you cant remove an entire tank from the game without therefore nerfing supports because it crazily tips the scales of balance.
- supports now have more opportunity to use abilities offensively as there isnt a second tank to babysit
- supports’s offensive abilities such as nade, discord etc have double the chance of being effective and bringing value than they did in ow1
- supports’s damage has double the chance of being effective and bringing value than they did in ow1
- supports defensive abilities such as lamp, suzu etc have double the chance of being effective and bringing value than they did in ow1
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Support creep is because Blizzard doesn’t want to end up in the same position it was which forced it to remove a second tank.
If you don’t constantly balance the game so the roles keep similar queue times, they will degrade and get worse and worse.
Since the balance is determining how many people are coming to and leaving from a role.
Blizzard refused to balance for this in OW1, leading to 20 minute DPS queue times, and ultimately them having to drop a tank, since the role was so deserted of players, and the queue times for DPS were so bad, they were losing DPS players anyway.
They don’t want to go down this path again.
So you have it right, in that the supports being like this has SOMETHING to do with us losing a tank, but not why the supports are balanced like they are now.
Unless you can find another way to get and keep support (and tank) players, you will find Support and Tank will be always stronger than DPS.
Look at it from Blizzard point of view, and the reasons they balance the way they do become clear.
3 Likes
the way is to remove a dps hero. having this current 1-2-2 figuration promotes a high burst, ranged damage meta. think zen, bap, ana, kiri, widow, sojourn, hanzo, sigma, illari.
having a 2-1-2 figuration promotes a low burst, melee damage meta. think rein, zarya, dva, winston, hog, lucio, moira, sym, reaper, sombra, brig, jq.
notice how majority of the tanks suit the second meta?
unfortunately, majority of the playerbase and blizzard included prefer the fps style of game over the moba style game, which means hitscan metas will almost always come out on top.
a big reason tank role is so deserted is because almost all the metas make it so unfun to play tank. tanks arent designed to withstand an fps playstyle in ow2.
And instantly cause the DPS queue times to surge massively?
Why would you do this?
You literally had to drop a tank because there wasn’t enough tank players. You don’t have this issue with DPS players.
2 Likes
You now have twice as many DPS players as you need for games.
of COURSE they will surge.
And on top of that you have gone back to 1/2 as much tank players as you need, you will push the DPS queue times to WAY more than OW1 ever saw.
2 Likes
well if you had read my post you would understand that the game has never catered towards making tank a fun role because of the emphasis players and blizzard place over fps style hitscan gameplay.
make tank and support more appealing, remove a dps slot and i dont see many problems. a lot of dps players are starting to play support now that supports can do almost as much damage and heal themselves 
I noted we had enough tank players when tanks were balanced to be raid boses. Blizzard is moving back towards that, you know, to get and keep the tank players.
Do you know how CRAZY CRAZY op you would have to make tanks / supports to get enough players of them to make up needing twice as many of each of them to the DPS players?
And you complain about supports now?
are they? maugas design, roadhogs rework… they dont seem to be designing tanks that can withstand consistent ranged damage, considering the lack of a shield or ranged attack
Yes, they are. Raid boss doesn’t mean “able to soak everything” it means strong enough that we get to keep the tank players.
Blizzard will be buffing the tanks soon, for the reasons I put above, they are waiting to see where they land when you have Mauga + new Hog.
But asking for 1 DPS / 2 Tank / 2 Support is a level of crazy I didn’t think I would see on the forums today.
I think this format (2-1-2) would’ve been more fun and balanced too than 1-2-2. But sadly the reality is, we need to accommodate for role popularity. If not enough people wants to play tank, it’s just not realistic to force a format that’s going to cause long queue time.
That’s not to say that 1-2-2 will never work though. But clearly given how long OW2 has been out for, it looks like it’s going to take a really long time for the game to be optimised around 1-2-2. I still think half of the tank roster aren’t properly designed to solotank.
Tanks like doomfist, sigma, junker queen, and ramattra does feel well equipped to work in 5v5. But then there’s the second issue of tank match-ups always favoring one over another due to there only being 1 tank on each team.
2 Likes
I mean, you would also have to make both tank and support literally twice as popular as it is now compared to DPS.
You would have to utterly dumpster DPS and drive off the DPS players to even come close to that.
It would be VERY bad.
were we playing the same hero? mauga wasnt strong at all.
of course they will, but the fact they first produced a design like THAT proves that blizzard doesnt understand the real problem
The fact you blame the support strength on the tanks, and then suggest a format which would make you need to make support THAT MUCH STRONGER, means you don’t understand the problem.
this is a really simple concept and i think you dont understand that for a while now, supports and tanks have transcended dps. supports and tanks just provide SO much more value, and people know that. all those posts about supports being completely op?
once upon a time, dps werent outshadowed by the other two roles, and i think people just have muscle memory or nostalgia with the dps role. but i assure you, if the game balance continues the way it is currently going, people are going to rapidly move away from dps and into support
So, your plan is to then change the game format so you would have to make them CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY stronger than they are now?
And they couldn’t keep the tank and supports players playing in equal number to DPS.
Now you want to try to make it so you need TWICE AS MANY tanks and supports as DPS players?
fact
but you dont. you need to keep the supports exactly as they are now. exactly how bap is, how kiri is and how illari is. sure they are op, but i conclude that to be because of the lack of a second tank. now if you introduce that second tank, to help absorb damage or negate abilities, the overall power of support is reduced.
You don’t have enough tank players.
More importantly, DPS queue times are now though the roof because you dropped a DPS from the format.
How the hell are you going to balance for that?
Hint, you would have to nerf the DPS or buff Tanks / Supports until 1/2 your DPS players left in disgust,
That seems VERY VERY VERY bad.
You have changed the format so you now need 1/2 as many people queuing for DPS as you have now… have you ANY idea how utterly unbalanced Tank and Support would have to be to get that?
WE had to 1/2 the amount of tanks because of a lack of tank players. We do NOT have a lack of DPS players.
Any of this sinking in?
ok i really cannot explain this any more clearly
- tanks are bad right now, because there is too much ranged, burst damage, and more than half of the tanks arent designed to deal with this by themselves.
- supports are good right now, because they have a lot of ranged, burst damage, and defensive abilities such as suzu and lamp, and more than half of the tanks arent designed to deal with this by themselves
now, lets introduce a second tank.
- tanks are good now because with the help of a second one, they can negate ranged burst damage as there is double the opportunity for a shield, or a defense matrix, or a succ, or a fortify.
- supports are bad now because with the help of a second tank, they can negate ranged burst damage AND defensive abilities such as suzu or lamp as there is double the opportunity for a shield, or a defense matrix, or a succ, or a fortify
this is assuming that all heros stay balanced the way they currently are.
TO BE EVEN MORE CLEAR.
there are 3 powers in this game
- damage
- mitigation
- reparation
currently, the imbalance is favouring damage. now, if you add a little power to mitigation, it starts to balance out with damage.
You instantly find that queue times jump up massively, since you have a complete lack of tank players.
if you ALSO drop a DPS player, then the DPS queues will jump up again massively.
And you think this is a good idea?
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